“The difference between playing the stock market and the horses is that one of the horses must win.” This was the lament of a BlueWaters lunch last week. Some of the most humorous things I’ve ever heard were about money. Perhaps it is because, as Voltaire said, “when it comes to money, everybody is of the same religion.” Perhaps it is because sometimes all a man can do is laugh. The stock market, as “the experts” tell us, is still trying to find a bottom. Meanwhile, the government announced last week that it would sell $55 billion in bonds next week as part of the massive borrowing plan to pay for its financial rescue packages. Some say that figure might have to expand to over $300 billion by the first quarter of 2009. And that does not include any possible life preserver thrown to the US auto industry. Clearly the bottom has not yet been reached.
I’ve given my opinion several times over the past year about the possible dangers of other countries buying our bonds as part of their Sovereign Wealth Funds, and using the influence that investment provides as political leverage in the future. I’d feel a little bit better about the proposed sale of stocks if the US government released some sort of statement that might indicate that they are at least aware of the possibility of such a conflict of interests in the future. I haven’t heard a word about it. And maybe that is to be expected. A drowning man doesn’t much care who is throwing him a rope. I (still) would like to think that someone at the upper levels of government has their eye on this sort of thing, and a contingency plan for the future exists should the United States suddenly find itself leveraged into decisions it would not otherwise make.
I admit to being snowed under by all the negative economic news on the heels of the exhaustive (and exhausting) presidential campaign. I look back nostalgically to the pre-crisis and pre-election days when Janet Jackson’s exposed breast might be the most compelling story of the day. Today she could run naked through the stock market and all anyone would want to know was what she was buying or selling.
By Myron Gushlak
