Down goes the Dow

I think you are right. Its one reason why I'm not a big believer in the stock market right now. Because if and when the market softens and corporate lobbyists ask for more handouts financed by SS, they may be surprised that politicians suddenly say no.But its setting up for an epic showdown. As you say, there is great support across party lines to maintain SS and Medicare. But there is also powerful interests across party lines to cut into entitlements. Some Americans, particularly younger one are buying into the B.S. propaganda that we can't afford entitlements. Also, powerful interests are very good at making it become a self fulfilling prophecy that entitlements have to be cut. OR, just cutting them without most of the American public even knowing. That has already happened a couple times by government simply changing the way inflation is calculated for SS benefits. Remember, Obama actually put cutting SS on the negotiating table during budget negotiations a couple years ago. If a popular democrat president will do that than I'm not at all comfortable that entitlements will avoid cuts in the coming years.

Be happy wrote:

Don't worry, SS and Medicare aren't going anywhere. There would be a revolution, if Congress tried to do away with them, or even make major cuts.

U.S. stock futures on Friday traded tepidly lower, jeopardizing the Dow industrials's attempt at piercing through a closely watched milestone of 20,000 ahead of a holiday weekend.

But the blue-chip gauge still has a shot at logging its seventh weekly gain in a row, which would match its longest stretch of weekly returns since the period between Oct. 4, 2014 and the first week of December 2014, according to FactSet data.

After slight gains early Friday, futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average shed 16 points, or 0.1%, at 19,857.00, and S&P 500 futures were off 1.70 points, or 0.1%, at 2,257.00. Futures for the Nasdaq-100 slipped 5.25 points, or 0.1%, to 4,931.25.

For the week, the S&P 500 index and the Nasdaq Composite Index are on track for gains of 0.2% and 0.1%, respectively. The Dow industrials are on track for a weekly rise of 0.4%.

However, trading volume is expected to be light Friday as investors prepare for their Christmas celebrations this weekend. Markets are closed on Monday.

But bank stocks (KBE) on Friday could be relatively active after the U.S. Justice Department reached separate settlements with German lender Deutsche Bank (DBK.XE) (DBK.XE) and Swiss lender Credit Suisse (CSGN.EB)(CSGN.EB) related to the sale the mortgage-backed securities. Deutsche Bank's settlement of $7.2 billion was less than the $14 billion authorities has initially sought.

The settlements "should allow a line to be drawn under stateside crisis-era legal issues, although note a rather more stubborn Barclays [is] refusing to settle for anything more than $1 billion to $2 billion," said Accendo Markets analysts Mike van Dulken and Henry Croft in a Friday note.

U.S. stocks on Thursday ended lower in thin volume ahead of the December holidays. The S&P 500 shed 4.22 points, or 0.2%, 2,260.96. But that is just 11 points below its all-time high set last week. The Nasdaq Composite declined 24.01 points, or 0.4%, at 5,447.42, but it is still near its record level set on Tuesday.

The Dow ended 23.08 points, or 0.1%, lower at 19,918.88, pushing further away from psychologically significant 20,000 level.

"Financial markets were exhausted on Thursday, with most stocks drifting lower as investors offloaded positions ahead of the Christmas break," wrote Lukman Otunuga, research analyst at FXTM Research. "Although Wall Street succumbed to the bears on Thursday, the heightened expectations of a Santa rally elevating the Dow Jones to the golden 20,000 mark could re-attract risk-hungry investors."

Ghost of Igloi wrote:

Faker,

It doesn't matter. He is representative of the purveyor of your God. The convenient, explanation of what should be. Of course none of it is based in fact.

That is why you and Bob Pisani are fakes. Bros with a purpose. Not serious people. The ultimate insult.

Igy

Is this yet another sign of what to expect in Trump's America? Instead of rational discussion, people resort to insults and innuendo. And the religious intolerance is just despicable.

We cannot allow this. Please stand up to these hot air bullies. Demand that they be accountable for their insensitivities. We are better than this.

Email your concerns about these posters to

. Stopping the hate starts right here.

May 2014...grantham...

long piece and he pretty much predicts everything from giant bull market to utter collapse. But the gist of what he says is: rally until 2016 then a 50% fall.

He said his extreme target for teh Sp500 was 2250, and a crash would follow. We are at 2260 right now.

he thought a chinese crash might be the catalyst to a crash here. Could be happening - their currency is falling...in poor countries that is often an early warning signal.

http://www.barrons.com/news/articles/SB50001424053111903843804579535623951017670

gundlach, summer 2016, says "sell everything except buy gold"

he was dead on with treasuries - he said sell and that would have been a good time to sell.

but very wrong on stocks and gold. Stocks have soared and gold is down 20% or so.

So mixed call, but his bearish tone was clearly wrong.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-funds-doubleline-gundlach-idUSKCN1092BO

Summer 2014

Harry Dent says market would fall to Dow 6000 in 2-3 years.

No. we are at dow 20,000 after 2-3 years.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/dow-6-000--next-wild-prediction-or-worthwhile-caution-201540720.html

Daaaaa Bears

We are the world wrote:

Ghost of Igloi wrote:

Faker,

It doesn't matter. He is representative of the purveyor of your God. The convenient, explanation of what should be. Of course none of it is based in fact.

That is why you and Bob Pisani are fakes. Bros with a purpose. Not serious people. The ultimate insult.

Igy

Is this yet another sign of what to expect in Trump's America? Instead of rational discussion, people resort to insults and innuendo. And the religious intolerance is just despicable.

We cannot allow this. Please stand up to these hot air bullies. Demand that they be accountable for their insensitivities. We are better than this.

Email your concerns about these posters to

letsrun@letsrun.com

. Stopping the hate starts right here.

Funny post coming from you.

Igy

Ryan--so-called "entitlements" have to be put into context with other gov't spending. You can't isolate any single expenditure and claim that it is either affordable or unaffordable, because it is just one part of a larger package.

Instead you have to look at how the money is spent, and what you get for it. Gov't is notoriously inefficient, and that applies to all expenditures from military to medicare. I haven't seen any evidence that SS or medicare are any less efficient than any other expenditures.

Problems arise when monies are considered available in the general fund, and when there is a lack of means testing.

Even where there is a type of means (or eligibility) testing, such as in SS disability, the gov't can't manage to run things efficiently. So much of SS disability is fraudulent that it would make your head spin. This is not an argument for increased scrutiny, but for privatization instead, because gov't can never do anything efficiently, and actually does things increasingly less efficiently and less effectively.

Privatization isn't going to happen, so the only option is to put more filters in place, filters that will exclude some people notwithstanding fraud. Think about the goal of SS, and then think about WHY benefits increase with increasing contributions, WHY there is a minimum working period required to be eligible, and WHY there is no means-testing and progressive system.

It makes no sense to me. There should be a guaranteed old-age income, which base is the same for everybody above a certain age, and amounts should be subtracted therefrom based on means testing. The monies should be used to purchase productive assets, and proceeds should be 100% dedicated to the cause, and not put into the general fund.

The clamor to raid SS does have some value, as it might at least shed some light on the problems with SS, and Medicare as well. And those problems are huge, and structural.

And that brings up an issue I have with Trump, his "infrastructure" spending plan. Not only is gov't inefficient, there are credible studies that show that each dollar of infrastructure spending returns less than a dollar of economic benefit.

Of course that is predicated on the way that infrastructure spending has historically been achieved. The question is will Trump be able to change the way in which it is achieved? Will he be able to elevate social need above political need? I haven't heard how he proposes to do this.

He will have to work with a bloated, lazy bureaucracy that has only a certain capacity to do anything. That capacity can either be directed to a few projects with a ton of regulation (narrow and deep), or many projects with little regulation (wide and shallow). It seems that he wants to go the wide and shallow route, but the bottom line is that he will still have to work with existing systems.

IF any of this were to have an actual hope of working, Trump would need to do 2 things: 1) establish that government employment is a privilege and not a right once it is achieved, and 2) eliminate the ability of the public sector to collectively bargain. These things can be achieved by legislation, and by executive order. They are the only ways to deal with a tyrannical monopoly at the federal level, and the only way to have public infrastructure projects even approach the level of private infrastructure projects, which is the level to which Trump is accustomed.

As it stands, he's a stranger in a strange land, and he has much to learn.

So I guess the bottom line is that we cannot afford ANY current gov't spending in the manner in which it is being done, including SS and Medicare. Everything needs to be overhauled, including SS and Medicare. It is a good sign that he's going after defense contracts, and we will see what happens to "entitlements". What I don't want to have happen is that he diverts money from an inefficient defense program to an equally inefficient entitlements program; IMO all gov't spending programs need to be rationalized to the same extent.

Two new cycle highs - or close to it - in econ today:

New home sales jumped 5.2 percent in November to a 592,000 annualized rate that is the second strongest of the recovery.

Consumer sentiment ends December at 98.2, up 2 tenths from mid-month for a new cycle high

We are the world wrote:

Ghost of Igloi wrote:

Faker,

It doesn't matter. He is representative of the purveyor of your God. The convenient, explanation of what should be. Of course none of it is based in fact.

That is why you and Bob Pisani are fakes. Bros with a purpose. Not serious people. The ultimate insult.

Igy

Is this yet another sign of what to expect in Trump's America? Instead of rational discussion, people resort to insults and innuendo. And the religious intolerance is just despicable.

We cannot allow this. Please stand up to these hot air bullies. Demand that they be accountable for their insensitivities. We are better than this.

Email your concerns about these posters to

letsrun@letsrun.com

. Stopping the hate starts right here.

Look, he's not a nice person. We all know that. He's thin-skinned and petty. Add in that he's been wrong about the market since he first posted and you've got a bad combination.

Just ignore him.

agip, Maserati, Ryan, POTO and the other band of DGTD characters,

Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukka, Happy Kwanza or just plain old Happy Holidays. Snowing here. Calling it a day.

Best,

Igy

Thanks Igy, same to you.

Have a good holiday and stay safe. And enjoy the snow removal cross-training!

agip wrote:

Summer 2014

Harry Dent says market would fall to Dow 6000 in 2-3 years.

No. we are at dow 20,000 after 2-3 years.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/dow-6-000--next-wild-prediction-or-worthwhile-caution-201540720.html

I have no opinion on his prediction, but to be fair, it goes out to Summer 2017. Anything can happen between now and then.

Anything except DJIA 6k, that is :)

Ghost of Igloi wrote:

agip, Maserati, Ryan, POTO and the other band of DGTD characters,

Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukka, Happy Kwanza or just plain old Happy Holidays. Snowing here. Calling it a day.

Best,

Igy

Same back to everyone and their families - I hope the holiday season is a good one for you and your loved ones.

Ryan--so-called "entitlements" have to be put into context with other gov't spending. You can't isolate any single expenditure and claim that it is either affordable or unaffordable, because it is just one part of a larger package.

Regular people and even governments do this all the time.

You're right, of course...you can claim anything you want.

But I know that you understand what I was trying to say. If you don't, I can spell it out for those of you who are, uh, "challenged".

Hey agip, have a good holiday! Serious question for you: does your running fitness correlate with market levels?

lol you should be PR'ing about now. I suggest you get in some races soon!

Challenged? Are you GOI or just embracing his insult response strategy. At least I know I'm right since you were forced to take the low road.

Maserati,

SS for the elderly isn't "inefficient". The beauty of it is how simple it is. Albeit the formulas for how benefits are paid out are hard to understand. But the bottom line is that it is just govt providing money to elderly. Its not government micromanaging. The cost of administering SS is minuscule compared to the overall cost..

"Privatization" of government is a con job. The very words betray it. Its just government selling out. Thankfully, I think there is some broad agreement that the decisions should be about either having government and making the best of it, or just cutting government spending. But not privatizing it.

Of course you can reform and or cut entitlements. But lets get a couple of things straight:

1. The government can afford SS and Medicare if it wants to. We can pay for it like everything else. By taxes, government debt and then printing money if need be. It concerns me how nobody asks how we can pay for an aircraft carrier or to maintain thousands of nuclear warheads. But when entitlement spending comes up suddenly everybody gets self righteous about fiscal discipline. .

2. If you are going to cut SS and Medicare to finance tax cuts than FICA taxes is what should be cut. The money doesn't belong to highly wealthy people.

3. FICA taxes aren't "wasted" in unproductive assets. The fact is its been all too productive financing trickle down economics. One of Reagan's major tax INCREASES was around 1981 when he signed into law a big tax rate increase on FICA taxes.

That said, here some ideas to cut or reform entitements:

- I already said this. Just don't have inflation. This is another con job Wall Street tries to put over on the American public. They advocate income tax cuts and corporate handouts to grow and stimulate the economy and easy monetary policy. Inflation goes up. SS benefits are fixed to inflation so it goes up. Then when we run into budget troubles, everybody looks at the increased costs of SS. Its just Wall Street using SS as the fall guy. SS is left holding the bag while Wall Street flees in the getaway car.

- Eliminate SS benefits for millionaires. There are a lot of millionaires in this country today. Even a lot of middle class workers who have had a 401K since the the 1970s are now millionaires. Today, younger generations are inheriting those IRAs and they are growing ever larger. They became millionaires through the U.S. govt giving corporations the right to use cheap communist labor who don't pay FICA taxes and reaping windfall profits. Even though many millionaires paid FICA taxes throughout their working life, I think its very fair that they could forego SS benefits given the huge benefit U.S. policy gave them though their retirement plans.

- Reform how we finance SS and Medicare. I would argue the big disaster in this economy is FICA taxes. Its the worst tax ever conceived. Its a regressive tax on hard, honest work starting at dollar one. Virtually any other tax would be better. I like the idea of having some kind of national consumption tax. (Sales tax or VAT) to replace FICA taxes.

- Go to a single payer health care system but finance it in part by cannibalizing other entitlement programs life SS disabllity.