Minus 513

That’s how far the Dow fell yesterday.  Worst drop since 2008.  So, that “debt deal” – the one that was supposed to re-instill confidence that America’s financial house is in order, cause the markets to take off again, open the hiring floodgates again, choirs of angels to sing......

Or maybe the 11^th hour “debt deal” wasn’t really supposed to do any of that stuff.

I won’t pretend to understand market dynamics and predict where the market is going from this point, but I’m going to do a little Friday-morning quarterbacking.  And I see a lot of dark clouds.

The Dow is in the dumper because consumer spending, which is about three-quarters of the U.S. economy, dropped last month for the first time in a couple years.  Business people are sitting on piles of cash, enjoying bolstered earnings (due in large part to far smaller payrolls), “uncertain of the future” (who is?), and they are NOT hiring.

That debt deal stinks to high heaven.  It stunk on ice when they were wrangling about it last week, and it stinks like a load of dead fish now.  It’s disappointing on so many levels.

First, it’s disappointing to me because President Obama caved again to the Republicans and Tea Partiers who held steadfast against ANY tax increases to ANYONE or ANYTHING.  (Excuse me, but my patience has expired with President Obama.)

Second, it’s disappointing because of the obsession so many politicians claim to have with “cutting spending” while they allow two or three useless, aimless foreign wars to continue sucking the life out of this country while flushing billions after billions down the drain.

Third, it’s disappointing to me because it seems to be exactly the wrong prescription for the time.  Pardon me, but I still believe that what we need MORE targeted government SPENDING, like the program Rush and his followers call “the failed stimulus”.  Yes, priming the pump.   Again.

Makes me want to call it “the job-killing and double-dip recession inducing debt deal”.  But please, don’t single out Barack Obama for the blame.  The blame belongs squarely on the shoulders of EVERY member of Congress.  They just don’t get it.