The Sun Is Setting On Our Rigged Markets.
The author may or may not be a contrarian as advertised in the column heading (I’ve never read the guy before), so perhaps it’s usual for him to characterize the markets as “rigged,” but I was a bit surprised to see that sort of ZeroHedge-style phrase popping up in a mainstream business publication.
Note that he’s attributing the global/US selloff to the realization that the implied market backstop by governments is no longer a sure thing; quite the contrary, in fact.
Which, although he doesn’t actually state the name, is due to what? The Tea Party. Damn terrorists.
It’s completely the Tea party’s fault. The unsustainable spending would have gone on forever except for that pesky little boy standing there saying, “The emperor is naked!”
If calling peaceful dissenters “terrorist” doesn’t get the First Amendment suspended for the Right Wing Wackos (sorry Ragin’ Dave), maybe they can be gotten through psychoanalysis like the Soviet Dissidents.
Hopefully, more and more people will realize that the way stock equities and commodities were traded for the first 450 years it was done, is superior. There were NO derivatives, and if you invested that way (the only other investments were physical, such as land, ships, etc), you assumed the RISK of investing.
Then, along came stock options (puts and calls), which copied the bookmaker’s way of “laying off” odds (risk). Then came other risk-avoidance schemes, such as Credit Default Swaps, etc. Now we have ETFs, and derivatives on those.
Investing is inherently risky, and no amount of “laying off” can dissolve that risk.