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U.S. stocks fell Wednesday on worries about global economic growth.
Stock markets in Asia fell after a survey showed manufacturing slowing in China, the world's second-largest economy. That came a day after the U.S. government lowered its estimate of third-quarter economic growth in the world's biggest economy.
Before U.S. markets opened Wednesday, the government released a mixed batch of economic reports.
The Labor Department said initial unemployment claims rose to 393,000 last week, slightly more than economists expected.
Consumer spending increased 0.1 percent last month, below expectations and the weakest gain in four months. Incomes, however, were up 0.4 percent, which was slightly better than expected.
Orders for long-lasting manufactured products fell for a second straight month. The Commerce Department said durable goods orders fell 0.7 percent, led by a drop in spending for commercial aircraft.
Stock futures cut some of their losses after the data came out.
In corporate news, Deere & Co. said strong sales of its farm equipment helped boost the company's fourth quarter profit by 46 percent, beating Wall Street expectations. Deere shares rose almost 6 percent in premarket dealings.
In Europe, Germany failed to raise as much money as planned in an auction of 10-year bonds. Investors placed bids for only 60 percent of the 6 billion euros ($8.1 billion) up for sale. Part of the problem was the low interest rate, 1.98 percent, the lowest yield for 10-year bonds in the country's history.
The U.S. government's revision to third quarter economic growth helped knock stocks lower on Tuesday. Higher borrowing costs for Spain's government also renewed worries about Europe's debt crisis.
Through Tuesday's close, the S&P 500 is down 2.2 percent for the week and 5.2 percent for November. The Dow has lost 2.6 percent this week and 3.9 this month.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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Memo to Wall Street. You can't expect to have record profits when you have already sucked the life out of people just getting by. Only the mega rich are making money.
As a senior citizen whos paid taxes all his life (on SS) and contributed his part, food production, quality control, I'm proud to be one of the many members of OWS. This is what Thanksgiving is truly for. I'm thankful many can be out protesting Wall Street and the government here. I'm also thankful I'm in my own home but how long that will last before the government and doctors take it away from me remains to be seen heh heh. Have a nice Thanksgiving all
canoworms,
While I'm not sure about OWS in general, I'm glad to hear you pointing out what I think the root problem is - government.
Have a great Thanksgiving!
WHAT GLOBAL GROWTH ????????????
The entire world economy is going belly up . You can not put people back to work while the top 1 % ers of the world are sucking the world dry . All to soon their party will be over . All their money will be useless . Nothing to buy , no one to work for them . As for the rest of us we will just go back to what we use to do . Raise and grow our own food use the barder system . Would still like to see the 1 % ers get their hands blistered and dirty .
Tax the rich give to the poor...or so goes the legend of Robin Hood.
History is replete with examples of governments, both democratic, monarchy and dictatorships, that the common people rise up against those governments that ignor the plight of the people. A prime example is the French Revolution of 1789 in which the French Monarchy was overthrown.
What our government in the US recognizes is that the people will not care about goverment, as long as they have a roof over their head, food to eat, clothes to wear, and the money in which to purchase those basic necessities.
Just like during the French Revolution in which the common population was starving and the Monarchy was living well, PLUS the french common person heard about and saw the living conditions and wealth of other countries like the Dutch, The English, The Spannish and even the Germans, they the French people as well as some of the French aristocracy, revolted against the French Monarchy.
Today, in the US, the people have opportunities for work. Maybe not the work the people believed they should have because of their "college degree", but there is work available.
Herein lies the problem. People who took out loans for college degrees, believing that said college degree guarantees them a well paying job, only to find said expensive college degree guarantees them nothing. Not only that, what opportunities are available don't pay enough for them to pay off the loans they took out getting their college degrees.
Couple that with private businesses sending their jobs to other countries whos labor costs are far cheaper, to stay in business, what opportunities are there for college grads?
Not much...
How is the goverment going to fix the problem when the problem is, it's to expensive to make goods in the US because the cost of materials, the cost of labor, are 2 to 3 times higher because the cost of living in the US, is 3 to 10 times higher than in other countries in the world?
The only jobs for college grads to make the money they think they should make are unionized jobs in the public sector.
The problem with that, unionized public sector jobs, is that those jobs are paid by taxes and/or borrowing money.
Raise taxes upon the rich to pay for them is the mantra for the day. In raising taxes upon the rich, the rich simply will go somewhere else that they aren't taxed. Thus those jobs that supposedly were to be funded by taxes upon the rich, won't have the tax revenue to pay for them, thus government must borrow the money.
The only solution, which no one wants to admit to, is to allow the entire system to collapse, thus depressing costs, wages, salaries to more affordable and economically sustainable levels.
PMSlsd, slip,slide, dip, down, up, fall, rise, etc. You guys are brilliant.
A recent survey by Poll Position, a nonpartisan online polling firm launched by former CNN News chief Eason Jordan, asked Americans which news network does the best job. The hands-down winner: Fox News, with 36.1 percent, followed not so closely by CNN with 27.8. MSNBC was on Life Support with just 16.6 percent.
I find it funny whenever there is news that is bad for democrats, its on all the other news websites. You won't see the story on msnbc.
"Investors", that nebulous term everyone seems to use to but no one can point to, simply do not have a market or industry, in which they can artifically inflate the stock value on, to dupe the common person to invest their money, in the hopes of creating wealth, only for "investors" to sell their stock. leaving the common person holding worthless stock. The same as what happened to the stock market in 1929, during the dot com boom and bust and again in 2008 with the mortgage backed securies.
The age old "buy low sell high" formula is what the "investors" are looking for and they, "the investors", can manipulate the stock market .
Here's the Dow Jones Industrial averages:
October 14, 1996 6,010.00 13 years before the 2008 stock market crash Buy low!
October 9, 2007 14,164.53 Just before the 2008 stock market crash. Sell High!
March 6, 2009 6,626.94 low right after the 2008 stock market crash. Buy Low!!
November 18, 2011 11,796.16 Sell High!
and we can see how the market fluctuates with the "Investors" using whatever excuse that is plausible in which to "Sell High" converting paper wealth into tangible wealth [actual dollars] forcing the stock market low, only to "Buy Low" and then again inflate the market to "Sell High".
What investors are lacking is an industry they can artifically inflate, like the housing industry, or the tech industry [dot com], for a sustained period of time, to dupe common people to put their money in the stock market, so that those investors can profit from and the common people lose a substaintial amount of "paper value" in the stocks they buy and even lose the principle amount they invested.
Hmmm? Thought that "industry" was called commodities - from oil to gold?
yeah but it's not sustained, like during the dot com era or the housing era in which the market climbs steadily for 5 or 6 years, basically making the common person take their money and invest it hoping to "get rich" only to lose that "wealth" when "investors" convert their paper wealth to tangible wealth [dollars] leaving the common person holding somewhat worthless paper[stocks].
Commodities markets are not long term.... except maybe for gold, but gold is inflated for a number of reasons that are not directly related to speculation. On of which is the value of the gold held in Ft. Knox, is thus increased in value, even though the US is no longer on the gold standard.
I am not sure there are many "small investors" left? At least, not enough to influence market volatility.
Think I'd argue that the concentration of wealth (approximately equal to what it was in 1929) leads a faster and larger economic "ripple effect" than would exist with a greater dispersion. The herd instinct, in following the leader, is pretty well known in the markets. If there are fewer members of the herd, it doesn't eliminate those features, but only gets the herd over the cliff faster.
I see it all in terms similar to fluid dynamics...the economic infrastructure is the "pipe." Capital consists of the fluid flowing through the pipe. Depending upon the size of the pipe (the infrastructure and the opportunities available), capital will flow through efficiently, or inefficiently. If wealth becomes too concentrated, the amount of capital exceeds the available opportunities. Normally, that would engender inflation.
Instead, derivatives and future speculation allows investors to basically "park capital" in the future. Until additional "working capital" investment opportunities can be created, low growth rates will continue.
The "concept" that the stock market was a place for companies to raise "capital" by selling a "stake" in said company in the form of stocks, is what "investors" want the common person to believe in. Otherwise, the common person simply would hord their "cash" which is really not a bad idea at the moment.
While I won't post all the history of stock market manipulation going as far back as the English land specualtion of 1790s that resulted in America's first recession....as a soverign country, Stocks [a stake] of a company have been used to dupe investors out of their money for a long long time.
Parking wealth is always a risky business. Throughout history, the wealthy, including kings, create locations [usually deep in the Castle] to park their wealth, and used the military to protect their castle and wealth. The US today has Ft. Knox where the gold is "parked" and protected by the military, even though the US does not value it's currency based upon the price of gold.
The common person in the US has really only one place in which to "park" their wealth and protect it. That's federal government insured accounts. And that, federally insured bank accounts didn't happen until the 1930s as a means in which to convince the common person that banks are safe, when just a few years before, said banks took all their money and lost it.
Now there's only one way in which to entice the common person to take their wealth out of their castle [federally insured accounts]. That is to make the common person believe they can increase their wealth and do so without risk of losing their wealth. Sustained increases in stock market values for an extended period of time.
I think your argument may have once had merit. Today, the "common man" doesn't possess enough wealth to be of interest to thieves. I suspect we've evolved to a point wherein various groups of wealthy thieves are battling it out to see who gets the other's stash...and the 99ers have very, very little to do with it.
Come to think of it...I also suspect that's the primary reason they're in the streets.
well, I would say yes, that today's common man doesn't possess enough wealth to be of interest to thieves, if today were in the early 1980s, when one's house was the vast majority of the common person's wealth and 401K retirement accounts were just being introduced in the private sector, rather than the traditional pyramid pension plan.
With the introduction of the 401K retirement plan, to remove pension plan obligations upon businesses [ which is mutual funds in the stock market], today post 1980s common person has no where else in which to put their money. They can't take it out of 401Ks without penalty and stash it in a federally insured bank account as cash. "Investors" all say leave it in for the long haul, because it's available for them to use as "Other People's Money" in investing and reaping fees.
But I do agree with you in that the wealthy thieves are battling it out. But many of those wealthy thieves are not individuals, large pension funds, or private investiment banks that got bailed out, but goverments.
Much of that it has to do with how expensive it is to make products in one's own country, vs how cheap it is to make products anyplace else. That creates a problem for governments in keeping the people placated when businesses which employ people can't do so and remain in business.
Be careful of the job loss argument. First of all, it was inevitable with our "victory" over communism. Secondly, we are still a powerful manufacturing country; we just don't make the things found on Wal-Mart shelves. In exports, China is now the world's largest, with Germany in second place, and the USA in third. Western exports tend to be big ticket, capital goods items...specialized heavy construction equipment, commercial aircraft, advanced medical devices, and automobiles (USA, Europe, Japan and South Korea).
In a global capitalist system, the Eastern emerging economies MUST build and export SOMETHING to obtain the Western currencies with which to purchase western goods, with which to build infrastructure. Western "greed" (or, more nicely phrased as "advanced capitalism") for Eastern consumer products simply outstripped the emerging economies demand for Western exports.
The imbalance had to be made up somewhere and those surplus trade dollars have driven up the price of oil and purchased much of the sub-prime securitized mortgages (also, both he USSR and China were heavy investors in Freddie and Fannie).
Want to know why Obama is busy apologizing? Because U.S. banks largely scammed the rest of the world in an attempt to absord all of those surplus trade deficit dollars from abroad.
Point is that most of the global uncertainty is not about U.S. taxes or regulations; it is over the question: Where does the global economy go from here? A subject sorely neglected by BOTH political parties.
P.S. I know a lot of people who saw their 401K money disappear in the dot.com crash and turned to real estate as the "sure investment."
Where the global economy goes from here is that emerging economies of China, India, Indonesia, and South American countries must increase the standard of living for their people, thus give their people money to buy products and services that typically those countries do not have or provide enough money for their people to have them.
When those countries start to increase their people's standard of living, then the wage/price disparity shrinks in America and Western European countries without having to resort to currency devaluation. Today's "global recession"is in fact, a method to force those countries to provide a market for their goods rather than the US.
This allows the US and Western Europe to then compete and sell products and services to those markets as "cheap goods". The roles switch from what they are now....
Side bar: Real Estate: Real Estate will never be what it was from 2002 through 2008. Real Estate will go back to what it once was with appreciation rates about what the economic activity rate is. If the people were smart, they would view real estate as a home to purchase to live in, when paid for, a place to retiree without having to worry about that large monthly mortgage payment. Not some assest like a stock certificate that has no value until sold.
Over spending by governments including our own has put us in this mess. Time to rein government greed in.
The United States is in line to get our country foreclosed upon, just like what’s happening to the European countries.
I think most people have figured out that Wall Street is one of the most corrupt and ethically deprived institutions on our planet. I think most people also know the media is bought and sold just like most politicians. We also know that Wall Street is one of many tools of the elite but not the main tool. What is very clear is that our financial system has an architect and carefully designed plan that is playing itself out in Europe.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is very brazen in its fear mongering that we have lost a decade economically. Especially since the IMF has been one of the biggest contributors to perpetuating the instability of the European crisis. The dominoes are beginning to fall in what is an orchestrated attempt by the banksters to consolidate Europe and eventually the rest of the world’s economies under one umbrella that is to be controlled by those that have always controlled currency and money. The most egregious aspect of this contrived extortion is that they are blaming the people who are the backbone of any economy instead of their greedy corrupt political and business leaders.
George Papandreou was pressured to quit because he lapsed into a morally and ethical responsible position by trying to give the people of Greece a say in their economic future through a referendum. This vote would have given the Greek people the choice to stay in the Euro zone and allow their country to be foreclosed upon by the banksters or leave the Euro regain their sovereignty and coin their own currency once again. The IMF bullied the smallest country as a litmus test for what is going to be a much more challenging foreclosure process when it comes to the larger economies. Italy is now in the cross hairs. This dilemma you are watching unfold goes to the core of the rotten apple that is the world’s financial system.
Folks, you are witnessing the death throes of a corrupt financial system where the stock markets and the fractional reserve banking system are at its core. The volatility in the stock markets are a microcosm of the greed, theft and corruption that has perpetrated all aspects of our and other countries economic systems. In the United States, It doesn’t matter who’s in office. Our political system has turned into a two headed one party system with both parties serving their masters, Wall Street and the banksters/Federal Reserve. The stock market is just another ponzi scheme whose intent is to fleece the gullible at the bottom of the pyramid. The stock market is a rogue element of a financial system that is meant to funnel the wealth to the elite/banksters who soicopathically control our financial lives. It is reaching a point where there is nothing to take anymore from the 99% of the world. The banksters would separate you from your rainy day fund if they could gain access to your shoe box or secret compartment in your purse or wallet. The stock market isn’t the main problem; it’s the fractional reserve banking system that has set the foundation for outright theft. We are experiencing the biggest bank and investment robbery in history and the banks and financial institutions are doing the robbing. When you blame one political party or another they have you right where they want you, in fear, divided and distracted to the theft that is going on right in front of your eyes each and every second of the day.
When you have people on Wall Street day trading and speculating making half a million dollars a year in their twenties betting on people being foreclosed on, you need to ask yourself what is the true purpose of our banking system? At the moment it is largely a theft on the American public. MF Global CEO, ex Goldman Sachs CEO Jim Corzine knows this and knows that nobody with his connections have served any time for stealing the investor’s money (1.2 billion at last count). The financial system’s main mission should be to allocate capital to areas of greatest growth in the real world economy. Yet they allow all kinds of broker speculation and financial gimmicks such as the derivative markets which are based on non-realistic side bets which are now in the quadrillions. The derivatives market was illegal for most of the 20th century.
The European banking crisis is a prime example of what is going to happen to all economies associated with stock market fraud and the Federal Reserve banking system. The financial strife in Greece is the model that will befall most countries. Greece is but a symptom of a cancer that has attached itself to the world’s economies. The Federal Reserve (which is neither federal nor a reserve) has been creating money (monopoly money) out of thin air and charging interest on it insuring a debtor economy for anyone who chooses or is forced to get involved with the Federal Reserve and their fractional reserve banking system. That is why this whole European or any countries current debt crisis will never be resolved and will be preyed upon by the stock market vultures. The Federal Reserve System is designed to cause economies to fail.
If someone loans you two dollars to run your economy and expects three back for the loan and interest how are you going to pay the third back? You can’t unless you borrow more dollars which puts you in perpetual debt and in a constant borrowing cycle to pay off the debt. This is designed not accidental.
Here’s the kicker, once the Federal Reserve/banksters have you struggling to pay off your interest, they send in their loan sharks the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The IMF will loan you money to cover your ever burdening interest payments but they attach a provision that if you default, you will have to give them your assets in what they call privatization (foreclosure).
Since the interest is exponential, you will default and the banksters will come in and try to foreclose on your country, like Greece. They are being told to sell off their own country to pay back the people who caused the mess to begin with. This allows the elite to steal your intrinsic valuable assets because they gave you paper (loans/debt) and the interest on the debt that is systematically impossible to pay back. This also allows the parasitic stock speculators to profit from this designed theft. They not only know the outcome of an economy, they can gamble on the economic bubbles at the investor’s expense. This cancer goes all the way down the food chain.
In the United States case, it doesn’t have to be that way. In our constitution, in Article 1, Section 8, it stipulates that we can “coin money” as a nation and avoid the Federal Reserve’s interest (fee charged on loans) black hole.
So don’t be fooled that the Europeans have come to grips with their financial debt, it’s impossible, it’s a virus that has spread around the globe. Hopefully the Greek people will get their referendum so the Peter Principal will kick in for the Federal Reserve. The stock market vultures will continue to contrive “financial instruments” (credit default swaps/credit derivatives) to defraud the people of the world.
Banks, Central banks, World Bank, IMF = Federal Reserve = Debtor economies, Debtor Nations (economic slaves) and carrion for the stock market derivative heist.
The fractional banking system and Federal Reserve has worked pretty well. If anything, the future lies in additional global banking cooperation and uniform regulation. A major factor in the economic crisis was in a loosening of bank leverage restrictions in Basel II.
So...not sure with what would you replace fractional banking and central banks? It would seem to me that, if regulated properly, the system accelerates growth. Perhaps, it is the nation-state system that needs to "catch-up" with a global economy, rather than cutting back global growth to the confines of antiquated nation-states? And, no, I am not suggesting we give up national sovereignty in favor of global government...but it does seem to me that the fastest way to give-up sovereignty is through indebtedness to non-U.S. citizens...whether its a sovereign wealth fund or Asian savers.
The point of my diatribe is that the Federal Reserve System is designed to enslave you and the entire planet's population. If you would like to do the research may I suggest looking up the treaty of 1783, the Act of 1871, the Federal Reserve act of 1913. You will find that we are still a British colony, that the District of Colombia is a corporation which serves corporations not the American people and that the Federal Reserve Act allows foreign bankers with the Rothchilds at its head to create money and charge interest on it around the globe. It's not a system designed to help people, it's a system designed to take over the resources of the world. As
As Mayer Amschel Rothschild was quoted as saying:
"Give me control of a nation's money
and I care not who makes the laws."
True, Rothschilds were the only family to remain virtually unscathed during the French Revolution of 1789, the Napoleian Wars and through WWI and WWII.
But their wealth was removed from the traditional hord hidden in the bowls of a Castle, thus not readily available to angry mobs and greedy kings who traditionally just laid seige to said Castle get their hands on the hord of wealth.
YAWN!
Good. Continued growth is impossible on a planet of limited resources anyway.
China manufacturing in continued slow down mode.
When there are no jobs and no more government help we are all doomed. 1930's German austerity gave rise to Adolf Hitler.
The banks cut all credit in 2008, nothing will change until they go back to giving people and small businesses credit again-period.
The Republicans need to buy a clue - 10 year tax cuts for the wealthy - hows that working for you?
The stock market is such a joke. Here are next weeks headlines: Monday: Stocks up as investors watch all the little people piss their $$ away on Black Friday. Tuesday: Stocks down as the market realizes they have to wait another year for the next Black Friday. Wednesday: Stocks up as Bill Gates tweets he will bail out the European countries in financial crisis. Thursday: Stocks down as Bill Gates tweets he was joking. Friday: Stocks up as oil spikes due to glitch in the matrix...
Stock markets and investment banks... the BEST Ponzi schemes EVER! Buy up that common stock, you're sure to get rich! <<sarcasm on>>
Never ceases to amaze me how the writers of such articles can come up with such definitive reasons for the movements that occur within a "random" market. These writers can say anything they want as a reason for the market going up or down, and there's nothing definitive about any of these reasons. What I love best, which often is the case on this site, is when the market is tanking at some point in the day - and they throw out a reason for it, and then the market turns all the way around and goes up - and for some reason, the reason given for the morning tanking somehow gets magically erased, and they've somehow magically come up with a reason that has supposed caused the market to rise, that overrides the morning reason that supposedly caused the tanking in the morning. Do these people, or anybody else, give any credibility to such articles?? I sure hope not.
Well reasons tend to be excuses and for the volitility of the stock market.
Those characters running the stock market up and down are simply chumming the waters to entice greed in others with buy low.
The sell high aspect is the tricky part anyways when most do not listen to their common sense and want that little bit more, that little longer "wealth creations" that all to often results in wealth loss.