Reading Ritholtz

Barry Ritholtz posted a couple of items today that are consistent with certain lines mentioned in recent Guambat droppings and round out some of those themes in ways Guambat admires.

In the theme of "as good as it gets", he relates the WSJ's Marketbeat column with the catchy story line, "Goldilocks gets eaten".


He also reports on the conspiracy theory that continues to cycle in the market more regularly than the business cycle, to the effect that the market is being manipulated by the government for its own political or other devious ends, as mentioned in Guambat's Political spin and other conspiracies. In his post Conspiracy Theories?, Barry concludes:

Quite frankly, while I detest the intereference in the political process, I must admit to admiring the ingenuity and audacity of Goldman Sachs. As far as I can tell, either it was a brilliant ploy to impact the energy markets two months before elections, or the index is run by a bunch of naive, ham-fisted idiots, blissfully unaware of what they wrought so close to mid-term elections. So my own answer about energy manipulation turns on the question whether Goldman Sachs is a sharp collection of rocket scientists/traders, or a bunch-o-morons.

Adding fuel if not light to the debate, Daniel Gross points to remarks from the White House extolling the virtuous Dow Jones markets:
Republicans say the stock market is at a record high. Eh, not really.

Dow 12,000 quickly became a Republican talking point. On Oct. 19, Dick Cheney boasted that "we've got all-time record highs on the Dow Jones Industrials again today." Earlier this week, White House flack Tony Fratto noted that "we're seeing record highs in some of the markets, and that tells us, and we think it tells Americans, that there is a great deal of confidence in our economic future."

So far, Republican candidates don't seem to be benefiting from the Dow record, which is less surprising than it seems.

To round out a hat trick of dandy posts, Barry also puts his "Blog Spotlight" on yet another economics professor's blog that reports on the similarity of the economics commentary that tends to cycle right along with the business cycle.

Similar thoughts are related by Economitor: "Not one of the "Blue Chip" 50 economic forecasters saw the coming of the 2001 recession in the fall of 2000... Forecasters do not make independent assessments. They try to make sure that their foecasts are consistent with the rest of the forecasts."