Good point. In part, that's why I believe that next year could be the best single year in the US stock market in decades. 40% up or more. The market can go up in the face of bad earnings, bad news, bad job reports, bad everything. Bull markets climb a wall of worry. By January or February the market may have already factored bad news in to prices and may be waiting to see if Obama's economic plan is going to work. At this point, the only way the S&P is going to go lower than 700 is if the market (the market, NOT ET'ers--LOL) has decided that Obama's plan is NOT going to work to save this dangerously deflationary economy from slipping into a depression (the market has already priced in a severe recession). By June, the market will have made that decision. If Obama's plan appears to be working, then 2009 will be one of those rare 40% or more up years, like 1933 (1933 was up more than 50%) If the plan does not work or it seems that it will not work, then it will seem like 1930. And our grandchildren will be reading about this depression in their history classes.
It will "work" to a degree and for a while, as would any "throw money at it" plan. Some unemployed people will be in entirely new lines of work... like holding signs at a road repair site.... and they will have income rather than being unemployed. But that's all just moving money from one hand to the other... we'll just have to see how long and to what degree the markets celebrate this. (And rather than spending $5T in Iraq, I'd much rather Bush had spent our money this way... )
================ Interesting/thoughtful read,Maverick74; as a 200 day moving average is, as a 50 week moving average is. Part of his reasons noted was [personal] stress on short only fund for 12 years; especially since he had no such restrictions years before. Mr Fleckenstein is so right , on excellant reasons not to gov bail out GM & its bad managers.As his '' Meddlers in the Marketplace'' column notes, if rust belt steel companys had gotten gov bailouts, sunbelt states would NOT have gotten more efficient steel mills. Mr. Fleckenstein is already starting to be vindicated on GM[Senator Dodd is calling for firing the GM CEO......] No telling what kind of hatemail he got from the GM bulls, if any???But he may have wanted to buy a Saturn, also made by GM. Perhaps now he can buy a steel mill,Saturn or Honda/hybrid, if he wants to.