Not Good …
Posted: November 6, 2008 Filed under: A My Pet Goat Moment, Equity Markets, president teleprompter jesus | Tags: No confidence in Obama, Russians Challenge Obama, Stock Markets Plunge 15 CommentsThere were two news items that caught my eye yesterday as the media coverage continued its fluffing for Obama. Expectations for this guy are sure way above anything he’s even actually accomplished in the past. We continue to be more caught up in the so-called symbolism of our election results rather than the truth behind what we did: elect a virtual cipher with an ability to deliver speeches with teleprompters well. Meanwhile, over in the real world there were two huge votes of NO CONFIDENCE.
First this:
Stocks Plunge as Investors Ponder Obama Presidency
NEW YORK (AP) — A case of post-election nerves has sent stocks plunging as investors, again anxious about a recession, are wondering what impact a Barack Obama presidency will have on business and the overall economy. Volatility has returned on Wall Street, with the Dow Jones industrials falling 486 points to the 9,139 level, and all the major indexes tumbling more than 5 percent.
The market was expected to give back some gains after a six-day runup that lifted the Standard & Poor’s 500 index more than 18 percent. But investors lost some of their confidence about the economy and began dumping stocks again; light volume helped exaggerate the price swings, and there was more late-day selling by hedge funds.
Analysts said the market is also growing anxious about whom Obama selects as the next Treasury Secretary, as well as whom he picks for other Cabinet positions.
You’ll remember that I said that I was detecting some momentum shifts in the market when polls were released prior to election day. Averages went up when McCain was up and down when Obama went up. This puts one more piece of evidence into my eyeball economics. There have been a few post-election day drops, but they have been far outnumbered by post-election day rallies. The drop yesterday was the most extreme (nearly 500 points) and was preceded by US stock futures trading way down in Europe in Asia. Usually, the market will rally after an election day because the level of uncertainty has gone done among investors. This plunge signals just the opposite. This is a complete vote of no confidence by the folks that would be most responsible for a ‘normal path to recovery’ saying we don’t think he’s up to it, but let’s hope he points some good proxies. This is also an international signal. Not good.
Then, later in the evening, this popped up from the foreign desks.
Russia to deploy short-range missiles near Poland
MOSCOW – Russia will deploy short-range missiles near Poland to counter U.S. military plans in Eastern Europe, President Dmitry Medvedev warned Wednesday, setting a combative tone that clashed with global goodwill over Barack Obama’s election.
In his first state of the nation speech, Medvedev blamed Washington for the war in Georgia and the world financial crisis and suggested it was up to Washington to mend badly damaged ties.
This was a blatant shot-across-the-bow. Mother Russia has been exercising her muscle ever since Putin took the helm. This was a direct question from Russia on the future direction of our foreign policy and of our position in NATO decision-making. It appears that VP Elect Biden was prescient on this one. Do we have a “Poland Missile Crisis” in the making? This is a direct test of the Obama doctrine of hopey-changey talk to every one and let’s all get along.
Obama needs to stop measuring drapes for the oval office and white house long enough to deal firmly with these things today. If not, I’ll consider this day to mark his first “The Pet Goat” moment. Soon, we will all know that its likely to be like another four years of a President and Commander in Chief in need of training wheels. We all learned how well that worked the last eight years, didn’t we?
peej
Carissa
bostonboomer
ecocatwoman
mablue2
peggysue22
quixote
skydancingguestblogger
Mona (aka Wonk the Vote)
Sky Dancing 
Good for Russia – like the proverbial schoolyard bully, the only thing that the American government understands when dealing with foreign countries is a bloody nose.
well, in a schoolyard fight with TWO bullies, I tend to back the one that protects me …
dakinikat,
I think that Medvedev has thrown Obama a slowpitch Obama has stated that he would shelve missle defence shield funding. Frankly, it is a very costly and ineffective means of dealing with the problems associated with a potential missle strike.
I thini it is a slowpitch because it allows Obama foreign policy credibility by diffusing a “crisis.” Getting America to backdown on the MDS will give Medvdev foreign policy prestige back home. Because Medvdev suggested solving this problem will encourage more friendly and robust relations, Obama will also gain kudos at hyome and in Europe. Finally, both leaders will get a thumbs up for reducing both military tensions and arms creation and deployment.
What do you think?
Yours,
Steven
Steven: I think he’s waiting for a response to size him up and he could play it a bunch of ways. There are probably several Nash Equilibriums in this game. That is posibly one of them. However, we don’t always get NEs do we? I’m sure there’s a few subgames. The deal is are there any subgame perfects? And at what odds? He probably has Albrecht looking at all that right now.
Good thoughts. It would be fun to know more about each player’s starting position.
other thing is I’m not a scholar on diplomacy so while I know the analysis, i have no idea of knowing the odds or the subgames. i could do a better job with this when he starts renegotiating the trade deals … that’s more up my road, but I only have outsider information on the diplomatic game so I can an only observe it as we go from level to level and deduce the sidegames.
I’m in a similar circumstance, apart from where my research interests provide a policy heads up. Imperfect knowledge or not, it’s fun to conject!
On the other hand, and with regard to your post, I get little glee from watching the market continue to crumble.
Kat, what in the world have the Russian (or Iranian, ad infinitum, since we seem to have an endless enemies list now) ever done to you?
Ben: ever hear of the warsaw pact? ever visited hungary, czech republic, poland, east gernmany/east berlin … any of those countries? ever read gulag archipelago? anything remotely like that? You think we torture folks, sheesh, just wait … until you get a load of that book …
i’m a first class history buff and that’s what I majored in college (minor in econ and poli sci), I studied russian history, the soviet system of poltiics and economics, and the russian language … ever hear what happened to Russian Jews?
you’ve got a lot of marvelous reading ahead of you if you haven’t read in this area … boy, do I have a reading list for you …
I’m familiar with that, and fail to see the relevance. (Surely, as a history buff, you’re aware of the complicity of the US and UK in much of what happened in Eastern Europe at the end of and after WW2.) The American govt has more than enough innocent blood on its hands, and a good part of that was spilled in actions that brought everyone from Pol Pot to the Ayatollah to power. Don’t be foolish enough to pretend that one particular bully is the “good bully” because it wasn’t quite as bad, or only backed “authoritarian” (better than totalitarian!) regimes. That’s ridiculous and blind to the facts.
Mark Twain wrote “The War Prayer” for a reason, and it’s not because the people in DC are kind-hearted humanitarians.
And can’t you see how absolutely insane antagonism of Russia is? This isn’t Stalin redivivus. It’s a somewhat authoritarian state. Establishing military bases on their borders and backing crackpot mini-tyrants with hair-triggers and lots of cool Western weapon systems is absolutely, utterly, completely INSANE, unless you happen to be a politician with a lot to gain from a) keeping people afraid, b) getting more sales contracts for weapons makers, and c) getting off on the exercise of raw, naked power for no particular purpose.
In other words, for anyone who isn’t a sociopath, peace is the best outcome, and having a single, hegemonic world power IS NOT in the interests of peace.
I think this much is clear: Obama is going to be far less bad than McCain on issues of executive power and civil liberties.
In that regard, and insofar as McCain was just crazy enough to use nuclear weapons, we, and every single human being alive on the face of the earth have won. Peace MATTERS – technical quibbles about who is the better speechmaker or who has better-elaborated policy positions do not matter in comparison to the chance that hundreds of thousands, or even millions of your fellow human beings may die in horrible ways.
Put another way, for those who can’t see the forest for the trees, if another war happens, I will have to walk past more men in their 20s in the supermarket with titanium arms and legs, and there will be more people who get to watch war veterans drink themselves to death. If the stock market drops, neither of those things will happen.
One of these outcomes matters, and one, in comparison, does not matter.
If you (general you, not you-you) can’t see which one it is, then you really need to do some soul searching.
And I’m done for the evening. :-p
Ben: if so why did Obama vote for Wireless Wiretapping and turn down public financing–going instead to raise money in the very corporations benefitting the things your talking about (GE,etc) … he also has called for a national youth service … I wouldn’t put it past him to reinstate the draft as per Rangel’s desires … so I’d actually be a bit nervous if I were you.. he also has shown a distinct liking of blackwater, something McCain used to yell at Rumsfeld about
Obama’s also called for escalation of the war in afghanistan and has said he’s willing to cross the pakistan (or other borders of nations) without notifying them WITH military to get who he wants …
that doesn’t sound much different than BUSH to me .. and much more militaristic than Mccain…
just remember, nothing like a good war to take one’s mind of the LACK of ability to do something over a REALLY bad economy …
mark my words, this guy is an enigma… we have NO idea what he might do
http://plagiarist.com/poetry/4375/
http://plagiarist.com/poetry/4540/
Robinson Jeffer’s “Meditation on Saviors”
http://plagiarist.com/poetry/4375/
and “The Stars Go Over the Lonely Ocean”
http://plagiarist.com/poetry/4540/