On Sunday, the business headline in my local daily, the Philadelphia Inquirer, reported "DOw's Worst January Ever."
Today, markets plummetted all around the world. Over $120 billion of equity vanished into thin air in one day in England, $480 billion in Europe. Poof, gone!! And that doesn't include Additional markets in France, Germany, India, Asia all dropped about 7% the financial times reported. "The worst single day for global equity markets since the terrorist attacks of September 11 2001."
They don't add up the numbers, but it is likely that over a trillion dollars in equity , disappeared. Tomorrow, Tuesday, American investors will respond to this calamity.
It is likely that fear will rule and the bears will run amok. EXpect a very bad day.
Reuters reports "Dow Jones industrial average futures DJc1 dropped 546 points or 4.5 percent. Should the Dow close lower on Tuesday by the amount the futures suggest, it would rank as the fourth-largest point loss ever for the index."
This has been coming and it is just the first wave.
The USA's economy is caving in. The war in Iraq has pulled real money out of the US and now, we face, due to criminally bad leadership and decision making, days, months and years to come of hardship that have not been seen in decades.
Fear has been breeding in America and it could explode tomorrow.
Experts are talking about the need to convert stock holdings to commodoties-- particularly gold.
They're talking about taking money out of money market accounts. Don't be surprised to see lines at your bank tomorrow.
I hope I'm over-reacting.
Meanwhile, the democratic candidates are talking about simple tax cuts. It's not like I expect them to voice simple solutions. But they should be saying that the economy is in very big trouble. Within the first five minutes of the debate, Clinton, Edwards and Obama should have all brought up the international market crash that happened today. They didn't.
If they're going to win the elections, come November, they must grapple with this monster head on. They must put the light on it and tie it to the Iraq war and the hundreds of billions of dollars that have been siphoned out of the US economy.
The solution to the economic disaster we face is to stop the war immediately, get out, get our troops home and then pour even more than we were spending in Iraq to build America-- developing big projects, which hire millions of people.
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