The whole scenario speaks to the growing disconnect between the financial elite and the rest of us. At one time, their welfare and ours were intimately intetwined. That's no longer the case- their welfare depends largely on the ability to show a profit at the international level, the average American's depends on the ability to make a living at the local or regional level.
The current surge in the market reflects a growing profit margin achieved at the expense of American workers, rather than one achieved with their participation. Unemployment remains high, unlike past recoveries, and the growing number of underemployed partially masks that phenomenon. Health care coverage has fallen, while worker copays have increased, and Economy growth sectors offer lower average wages than losing sectors, too.
Large tax cuts on the upper echelons also increase market activity, if not actually adding any real value to the shares being traded. As we've seen with Lucent, WorldCom, Enron and others, stock price is more an issue of perception and manipulation than of real value... When the money supply of the stock trading segment of the population is increased, as it has been with the taxcuts, it's only natural that prices will rise...
Talk to me about the improving economy when there are some significant increases in employment, when wages and health care coverages are increasing and personal bankruptcies showing significant decreases. Otherwise, you're just pumping sunshine up our skirts...
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