First Door on the Left

Keating Economics: John McCain and the Making of a Financial Crisis

“The fact is, it was the wrong thing to do, and it will be on my tombstone and deservedly so.” — John McCain, December 12, 1999.

Dow finishes below 10,000 for first time since ‘04

NEW YORK (AP) – Wall Street joined in a worldwide cascade of despair Monday over the financial crisis, driving the Dow Jones industrials to their biggest loss ever during a trading day. Even a big afternoon rally failed to keep the Dow from its first close below 10,000 since 2004.

The sell-off came despite the $700 billion U.S. government bailout package, which was signed into law Friday after two weeks in which traders had appeared to count on the rescue as their only hope to avoid a market meltdown.

At its worst point, the Dow was down more than 800 points, an intraday record. The stock market rallied during the final 90 minutes of the trading day, and the Dow finished down about 370 points at 9,955.50.

Speculation among traders late in the session that the market’s pullback had been severe enough to force the Federal Reserve into taking other steps to soothe the markets helped stocks rebound from their lows.

“If you can’t say that we’re oversold now I don’t know what you say. You’re at least due for a bounce if nothing else,” said Bill Stone, chief investment strategist for PNC Wealth Management.

The global plunge in stocks was under way well before Wall Street ever woke up. In Japan, the Nikkei average lost more than 4 percent. And then the losses spread across Europe – nearly 6 percent for the FTSE-100 in Britain, 7 percent for the German DAX and more than 9 percent for France’s CAC-40.[..]

Broader indexes also plunged. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index shed 42.34, or 3.85 percent, to 1,056.89; and the Nasdaq composite index fell 84.43, or 4.34 percent, to 1,862.96. The Russell 2000 index of smaller companies dropped 23.49, or 3.79 percent, to 595.91.

John McCain does not want to talk about the economy. He’d rather lie about some fictional relationship between Barack Obama and some guy named Ayers. (And send his chirpy gal Sarah out to do the same.)

Why do you think that is?

UPDATE: CNN Truth Squad on Keating Economics…

Tags: 2008, economy, John McCain, Keating, presidential election, Republicans