WALL STREET, NEVADA
BY JULIANNE MALVEAUX
The business and economic news of the week, without questions, is the stock market stumble that caused the Dow Jones Industrial Average to drop by four percent on Monday, March 12. No matter what happens the rest of the week, Monday’s market set a tone. So, too, have the repeated announcements that corporate earnings aren’t what people said they might be. When the Fed meets on March 20, their marching orders are set – either interest rates fall or they take the fall for pandemonium. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, stock pickers are still looking for bargains and day traders are looking for a ticket to ride.
It is beginning
to sound like Wall Street, Nevada, with traders looking for long shots in the
middle of an economic adjustment. The
tone would not be so frightening were it not for the news bias toward
stock-entertainment television. Much
like the shock of talk’s Jerry Springer, the stock talk is shocking because an
array of prognosticators proffer predictions as if they are edicts. This is going up, that is going down, and it
is nonsense all around. Few are
considering the fundamental issues of value that ought to drive investment.
The bias is
greater because the media is determined to treat the stock market as if it is
the only indicator of our nation’s economic reality. About half of all Americans are invested in the stock market,
most indirectly through mutual or pension funds. Half of us are not in the stock market, but who speaks for those
who are trying to make ends meet? The
24/7 stock news analysis ignores this population, and there is no media outlet
that has embraced the concerns of the least and the left out.
The numbers of those at the bottom may be growing, though. As the stock market sputters, our nation’s net worth shrinks by billions of dollars, $900 billion to be exact. The sputtering is partly the result of a weakening economy, but also partly the result of increased reliance on the stock market. People who ought to have their assets tied up into relatively safe investments have been seduced by the siren’s lure of a market that rose by 20 percent a year for 4 years. They figured they had jumped into a sure thing. But markets oscillate, and the investors-come-lately are being hard hit. Even those who came early are finding themselves forced to reassess their expectations. Pessimistic stock-pickers have been bearish for a year or so, reminding people that what goes up must come down.
Different strokes for different
folks. While those with robust
portfolios and high incomes can afford stock stumbles, others worry that a
stalling stock market has short-term consequences for them. In the wake of the Bush tax cut proposal,
there has been much talk of “what’s wealthy” and of the number of us who earn
more than $100,000 a year. For the
record, of the our nation’s 130 million or so wage earners, just 5 million, or
3.8 percent earn $100,000 or more. Of
that 5 million, nearly 3.8 million are white male, about 675,000 are white
female, 141, 000 are black men, and a scant 62,000 are African American women. About 130,000 Hispanics, who can identify
themselves as either African American or white, earned more than $100,000. The pundits who talk about income and wealth
behave as if most earners pass the $100,000 hurdle, but data from the Census
suggests that there are only handfuls that earn six-figure incomes. This data is important because it provides
perspective on the way that most people live in our country.
I’ve heard dozens
of pundits offer the examples of an urban teacher and her firefighter husband
whose combined $100,000 earnings should not be unfairly taxed. There is another family portrait to be
painted, that of the $25,000 secretary and her $35,000 bus driver husband who,
too, can stand a little tax relief. And
if relief is being passed out, what about the oft-evoked Bush waitress whose
$25,000 will get her kibbles and bits according to the tax plan that the
President proposes.
Somehow our
obsession with the stock market swallows these concerns. While we track the minute ups and downs of
thousands of stocks, empowering dozens of entertainers to tell us of their
every blip, we fail to track the ways the stock market is affection millions of
lives. Gamblers deserve the fall out from their wagers, but this market is
hurting those who haven’t gambled, but have served those companies who can’t
decide whether they are Wall Street or Las Vegas.