Is the Stock Market Itself "Too Big to Fail"?

Is the stock market itself, the last bastion of unfettered capitalism- - now turned into just another institution that is “too big to fail”?   It would seem so.  We can’t allow bear markets to occur any more.  We had a bear market from the year 2000 to 2003, or some three years.  Could you imagine something like that happening today?  It used to be that bear markets would commonly last maybe a year and a half and we just accepted that as a reality and risk of investing.   But the 2008 bear market was much shorter than that.  People had less tolerance then for failing stock yields.  Too many important people were invested in the market then.  And now we have the ultimate act of impatience and instant gratification.  The stock market takes a dip for three or four days and we are pronouncing the bear market “over”.  What have these commentators been smoking?  Do they have no sense of economic history?  If you look at this bull market on any chart it’s impressive beyond beliefs.  Six and a half year bill markets are pretty rare- - and markets that last any longer than what we’ve already experienced- - just don’t exist.  So if this bear market turns out to be just a hick-up in the overall “bull market” you know the market has indeed become “too big to fail”.  Such a situation can’t last of course because if word gets out the market really is “stop lossed” or fixed so that it can’t go down- - everybody will jump on the boat and of course when that happens, not even the Fed would be able to fix the situation and we would see that long awaited Crash that people like Glen Beck and Thom Hartman have been predicting for years and years.  Personally- I wouldn’t be part of it.

Conservatives say a lot of things that aren’t necessarily so.  Scott Walker has tried to say that President “created a climate over the past six years where more cops nationwide are being shot dead.  This is false.  Under Reagan’s first six years the figure was 1300 or something and under George W the figure was 1084 and under President Obama it was just over 800.   Whites seem to have inherently racist thinking patterns- even someone like Bill Carol, who normally seems like a pretty mellow guy not given to outbursts.  He attributes the rise in crime in California the past couple of years to “Letting all the gang leaders out of prison who then went back to their old line of work”.   How does Bill Carol know it was gang leaders let out by Brown?  Because “everybody knows” they can’t get convictions on gang leaders for being crime king pins so they get them on non violent drug charges and these are the very people whom the governor let loose.  First of all the Courts made the ruling, not the governor.  But if this is true in California how come the national rise in crime is also elevated.  Bill has a new explanation.  “Well it’s all this climate of fear which the media created and the cops are afraid to do their jobs”.  Once again it’s a cop’s job to make arrest and not to insure there is no crime to begin with.  It seems like the cops are doing their jobs.  But the question arises how the crime rate could be rising over the past few years- - when this “climate of fear” only began after the government’s report on Ferguson, Mo was released last December, which revealed the pandemic corruption in that city.  Bill would have you believe all the cops have suddenly become cowards and the criminals pick up on this and know they can get away with crimes and therefore commit more of them.  But not enough time has elapsed.  In other news- - Hillary democrats got upset because Joe Biden praised Bernie Sanders referring to him as a “successful populist”.   Are the Hillary democrats really THAT afraid that even slight praise of an opponent throws them into a panic?   Some commentators say that they don’t want Biden in the race at all “Because up till now Hillary has only ran against herself with no real opponent”.   In other words, according to this reporter, Bernie Sanders is NOT a viable opponent.   Conservatives can infiltrate NPR, or “National Petroleum Radio” stations.  When Cory Gardener running in Colorado was making extreme statements about a zygote- - a cluster of cells that begin dividing but remaining the same size as the original fertilized egg- - - that this zygote has all the constitutional rights as you or I do, then a reporter of NPR spread the story that Cory Gardner’s position on birth control really wasn’t much different from planned parenthood.  You will remember that Mo Udall ran on an equal rights for women platform.  This NPR reporter also is a “contributor” to FOX news.  So basically you have members of the media throwing a major political race.  (Selah)

I watched the John Kerry speech from just before three to 3:35.  In the first part of the speech he contrasted what the world would be like with and without the treaty and used dramatic illustration after dramatic illustration.  Kerry even resorted to quoting Netanyahu showing that famous test tube that's almost full and "Iran is going to have the Bomb any minute now".  Of course Israel has been saying the same thing for the past twenty years and it hasn't happened yet so why suppose now is any different.  The FACTS are (if John Kerry cares about facts) are that Iran gave up its nuclear ambitions around 2003 so that we have never been in any real danger then.  Kerry also misstated how close Iran was to enriching Uranium to weapons grade quality.  I'm told this is 90% enrichment of U 235.  Iran has gotten to twenty percent enrichment to U 235 so they have a long way to go!  But if that wasn't laying it on thick enough - then Kerry began talking about US solidarity with the nation of Israel in portions I don’t entirely agree with.  Kerry goes on about how he's been everywhere in Israel (just like Shawn Hannity has been everywhere- - period)  Kerry felt Israel's pain when the air raid sirens went off last summer.  Did he feel the "pain" of two thousand Palestinian deaths and all the death and starvation and loss of homes and relatives for those people.  "Hummm?"  Kerry laid it on even thicker talking about how the US gets about half of ALL US Military aid as it is and how we give then top notch weaponry- - - so they and Saudi Arabia can kill more innocent people with.  And the saddest part of all is that Republicans aren't buying this speech for a moment anyhow because they Want and Need to believe- - so badly - -that WAR is the ONLY sensible "next step" to take with Iran, and they'll say it every chance they get.  (Selah)  Norman Goldman in the second half of the hour talked about religious assholes in general. 

 I watched “Days of our Lives” and Justin is leaning on Raphael hard to charge Chad with a crime.  Stephano has extended the olive branch to Chad but Chad doesn’t know a good thing when he sees it.  I went out and had two glasses of iced tea from Emma in the courtyard.  I had the substitute for Shawn Hannity on, who was a friend of Scott Walker and former colleague with him in Wisconsin.  There was generally a lot of kissing the ass of law enforcement, along with the usual distortions of facts, which the Republicans are famous for.  Walker is at the bottom of my choices among the Republicans.  I went out for a smoke break.  Larry opened up a can of cat food and left it out.  Later on I saw that the cat had eaten a little of it but left most of it.  I watched Millionaire at three and they were generally easy questions to guess.  Then it was the first half of Jeopardy, and I actually entered the dining room early for once.  We had an enchilada for dinner.  It was a good one with onions but there was only one.  We had Spanish rice and mixed vegetables.  We had vanilla pudding for dessert.