Dow-mancy. Using the Dow, or day to day numbers of the stock market in general, as a barometer of whether something is good or bad, right or wrong. Look out for "The Dow went up, so X must be good" or "The Dow took a hit, so X must be a bad idea." Can be considered one of the economic bottlenecks.
* "Stocks soared Monday on bets that a war with Iraq is imminent and will end quickly", from back in 2003 (1)
Since President Trump's election, the Dow has spiked more than 4,600 points, or about 25%. The S&P 500 has added $2 trillion in value.
That's all great news if you're investing in corporate stocks, or if your 401(k) is heavy on equities. Over the past three years, the value of families' portfolios has risen "dramatically" to an average of $344,500, according to a September Federal Reserve report.
Yet the spoils of the stock market run are slanted heavily in favor of the wealthy. (2)
The riotous market swings that have whipped up frothy peaks of anxiety over the last week — bringing the major indexes down more than 10 percent from their high — have virtually no impact on the income or wealth of most families. The reason: They own little or no stock.
A whopping 84 percent of all stocks owned by Americans belong to the wealthiest 10 percent of households. And that includes everyone’s stakes in pension plans, 401(k)’s and individual retirement accounts, as well as trust funds, mutual funds and college savings programs like 529 plans.
“For the vast majority of Americans, fluctuations in the stock market have relatively little effect on their wealth, or well-being, for that matter,” said Edward N. Wolff, an economist at New York University who recently published new research on the topic. (3)
We "embrace ideas, facts, or in this case, market performance, that agree with our own point of view. After all, who doesn’t want the market to rise? So the Dow crossing 20,000 must be a meaningful event, right?... When you take a breath and think about it rationally, you realize that milestones of this type offer little or no proof of another milestone approaching — or not approaching. It just feels that way because we tend to overestimate the recent past, as well as things we agree with. Couple those two together, and you have a powerful psychological pull towards assigning meaning to things that are, rationally speaking, meaningless." (4)
(1) - http://money.cnn.com/2003/03/17/markets/markets_newyork/
(2) - http://money.cnn.com/2017/10/20/investing/trump-stock-market-americans
(3) - https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/08/business/economy/stocks-economy.html
Special Categories: Hyper-Materialism (Elites, Sniffers, Structures)
Categories: Delusions of Divination, Irrationality in Action, Theocratic Plutocracy