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Ok. I thought I was done but apparently not. My own take on the dissonance between Wall Street snd Main Street.
Major indices only account for about 20% of employment in US. They accounted for close to 50% in 70s. Long downtrend.
Major indices only account for about 20% of employment in US. They accounted for close to 50% in 70s. Long downtrend.
Wall Street is long tech, which benefited from the crisis. Main Street or the economy is long discretionary services, and the low wage jobs that were decimated by the crisis. Wall Street benefits from consolidation and loss of competition in some sectors in the near term, not LT.
Many of the biz hurt hardest by crisis have seen stock prices hit. Some have also been able to stay afloat either through bailouts or cheap borrowing, which means they can hire on other side of crisis. The overhang of debt is worrisome, but upfront losses could have been worse.
The @federalreserve played a key role in stemming the blood letting and meltdown in credit markets in March. That would have left even more of our economy in tatters. It has also accelerating inequality and we need to deal w that w fiscal policy.
I know it is hard to see so many skate by unscathed and even benefitting from the crisis. The alternative the Fed faces was much worse for the whole economy. But, and this is important, the Fed has been begging Congress to abandon their partisanship from day 1 to do more.
Sadly, too many members of Congress and in our elected leadership do not know or care about the difference between stock avgs and the economy, and only act when financial markets are in disarray. That doesn’t mean the Fed should pull the plug on the patient and kill whole economy
It means that we need leaders who are willing to shelve their own biases and listen to all the voices screaming for more aid now. I know. It is easier when answers are not nuances but that is where the answers to our troubles exist.
