Monday, August 24, 2015

Stock Market's Ten-Minute Thousand-Point Plunge This Morning

Wall Street's Dow Jones Average shocked the news world this morning as it went into a ten-minute free fall, finally leveling at a thousand points lower and scaring the bejesus (or dickens...or choose your own epithet) out of everybody. This is after Friday's loss of 531 points and right on the heels of a massive selloff in the Chinese stock market.  The prices rose back up to around down a little more that 100 points...but over the course of the afternoon, the average has crept back downward...it's 350 points at this writing.  The White House laid much of the blame for this fall at the doors of Congress, which it claims is dragging its feet at passing important fiscal legislation.  But what seems to be powering it all to me is the bursting of China's financial bubble...and their government's reevaluation of their currency...

It is too early right now to see whether this drop in the stock market is only a temporary scare like those in 1987 and 2010...or the sign of a traumatic economic downturn, as in 2008.  But the market suddenly has MY attention...