Just to keep everything in perspective, the Dow shed 586 points today. Dropping from 16,457 to 15,871 or 3.56%. On Black Monday – 1986 the Dow dropped from 508 points; from 2,247 to 1,739 or 22.6%.
My recollections from that day and the gathering storm I saw in August 2007.
So what happened today? The “plunge protection” operations were possibly busy. Otherwise, it’s likely that it was nothing more than the numbers on the crash in China being absorbed and run through all the Wall St. computer financial models. You, know those super-duper complex mathematical models behind the world derivatives markets. Not nearly as irrationally exuberant as they were before the 2008 crash, but rational enough?
In the short term, probably.
In the mid and long terms? Nobody knows. A downturn in China impacts Germany more quickly than the US because more of its economy is dependent on exports to China. Can it control contain that impact along with the mess it has facilitated in Greece? How vulnerable are other countries to a downturn in China? If one possessed that massive amount of date, are the computer models sufficiently dynamic to project all the fallout throughout the world?
After years of questions and concerns, it’s beginning to dawn on the west that China’s ghost cities malls, etc. are evidence of poor capital and resource allocation.* Structurally or fundamentally not all that different from Greece’s major investment in the 2004 Olympics. With the exception, and it’s an important one, China didn’t build this currently useless crap with loans from western banksters. Thus, instead of “austerity” to pay the bills, China’s workers and residents will have to wait longer for the good times to trickle down to them.
Still. Not seeing any acknowledgement that China played a role in limiting and containing the 2008 western crashes. And if were honest with ourselves, there haven’t been any needed changes to the financial and economic fundmentals in the US. But cheap gas should keep us dumb and happy for a while longer.
* But are brand spanking new ghost towns any worse than troubled billion dollar fighters?