Tuesday, January 22, 2008

Do not panic, everything is perfectly fine

That's what major news outlets are saying today about the stock market. The Fed cut interest rates in an emergency effort to stave off recession. Just a few hours later these headlines:

ABC News: CNN:

Don't panic, don't sell -- save and network


Hm, since when do media outlets give such clear cut BUY or SELL advice? I'm sure they are just trying to help the average joe. Right?

Um, no, if they wanted to help us, they would do some fact checking on government lies, and we all know that they do no such thing. So that explanation is out. The next most obvious explanation goes like this: There's a lot of rich people with a lot of stock they wish to sell. They can't get a good price with a million average joes also trying sell. So they call up the heads of their media companies, and tell them to immediately print big headlines meant to keep us from doing anything. In fact, CNN actually suggests buying! If you run out of money later, they say, just borrow against your home equity. Brilliant advice. It will give the rich media company owners someone to buy their stocks before they tank! And if you decide to just hold, at least you will let the rich guys out the door first.

Ok, I don't claim to be able to predict stock markets, I have no idea whether there's going to be a recession, and if there is, when it's going to happen. But I do know that these headlines are a really bad sign. Just so you all know, I did sell some non-retirement stocks today. And not just a few bucks worth either. Yeah, it probably wasn't necessary for someone my age, but let's just say I sold just enough to feel ok no matter what happens.

If it turns out that these headlines were really run to make the rich richer, it sure was a pretty clumsy and obvious attempt. At least the readers' comments on the ABC story seem overwhelmingly skeptical of the article.

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