500 point rise on this selection?

Investors are herd animals, spooked and in the mood to stampede. Expect the DJIA to be down a few hundred points by COB Monday.

AnnieW

I don't know that it's possible to fix all that is broken, but I do know that we had to stop the direction the Bush economy was taking us. This is a small step.

It may be too soon to tell whether the damage inflicted on the US economy by the Bushites is permanent, but so far I'm not seeing any way for the US to recover from the coming depression.

This is particularly so because the last few years the real economy has been getting sold off; it kept up for a while by operating on an unsustainable debt model, now defunct. For an individual, the equivalent would amount to paying gambling debts by selling off the car that's needed to get to work and thereafter living off credit cards.

The good news is that the US will no longer be able to afford to spend more than the rest of the world combined on military imperialism. The neocons may have to give up their goal of world domination and it may finally be possible to bring the military-industrial complex under control.

It's also likely that the Swiss banking industry may have to be privatized in order to save it, since it's bigger than the Swiss economy and therefore too big to be rescued. This could mean no more secret accounts, which could mean the US may be able to recover some of the trillions that have been sucked out of it.

In the meantime I've decided the theme music for the US financial catastrophe should come from Abbey Road by the Beatles ("By George," said Paul, sitting on the John, "Where did my Ringo?"):

You never give me your money
You only give me your funny paper
And in the middle of negotiations
You break down...

All the money's gone, nowhere to go...

Boy, you're going to carry that weight
Carry that weight
For a long time...

I am very dubious about this as a reason. When the 1987 stock market crash happened in October, one of the major factors given was that an oil platform was bombed. C'mon, we drop a bomb or two on an isolated place and the net value of the stock market of the USA drops by 20 percent at least??

I really don't buy it. I believe that a select few leaders on Wall Street see the precursors of a drop or rise for the next day or during the day in language, behaviors, or comments of certain important officials and buy or short the stock. I think that they play the rise and fall like a child does when jumping a rope on the playground. They act on the precursor behavior and make money on either direction.

Dammit. Does that mean we get to hear Summers theorize that the reason the economy tanked is because women's inability to do math led them to spend too much of the butter-and-egg money hubby left them for the household groceries. :P

Perfect choice for the position! Tim was one of the very few who saw this mess coming and actually TRIED to do something about it. That he wasn't successful is not a negative reflection upon him, rather a negative on all the deregulationist, supply-sider, free-market-economy that have controlled the markets for the last thirty years.

We can only hope that this appointment will bring about real change, not just lip service and sops to the public that has lost so much. The top 1 or 5% don't mean squat, it's the small investors, the retired, the small business people that count. Let's make Mr Geithner not forget who he's working for.

Firstly, the DOW went 'wild' not because of President-elekt OBAMA's pick for the TREASURY POST. TIM GEITHNER is a former protege of Mrrrrrr. KISSengendured and has not 'held' a real job since his undergrad daze at DARTMOUTH - asides frum gimme jobz wid his friendky DEMBHOLEZ at da FED. Second, this particular day a FRIDAY wuz a 'triple-witching' options-day and the choice of OBAMA and his 'team' to announce the 'pyck' for TREASURY would have been greeted with a rise even if he had selected 'MICKEY-MOUSE' who cast his vote for the PREZ-ELEKT in certain precincts in OHIO and elsewheres. Thirdly, this presunt systurn believes in continuity - steadeeness - anticipated knowledge of supposed coming evunts - large firms/groups determine buying/sellin sprees for their own benefits. THIS DOWNTURN WAS E-ZILY PREDIKTED AND SHOULD BE OVUH BY THE FINAL QUARTER OF 2009 - if IF the 'giveaway' 'SHAR-DA-WEALTH' plans of President-OBAMA ta da suppressed masses + MARXZIST MORONIC MAMAS dunt cripple usuns furst???!!! But hell let's do it fur the chilluns!!! Ha.

It should reassure you that Obama is picking the same types of people Hillary Clinton would have picked had she been President, and the reaction here would be the same.

Relief.

Relief at getting rid of some of Bush's team that helped put the economy in the precarious position it is in today. The borrow and spend conservatives have really run up the tab.

I don't know that it's possible to fix all that is broken, but I do know that we had to stop the direction the Bush economy was taking us. This is a small step.

when you are standing 33 floors below ground level, a 400+ jump in the stock market is hardly a "sky rocket" jump.

Can you people talk about anything without the freakin' breathless hype, especially as it pertains to Obama - a guy who hasn't done shit yet except conduct employee interviews. Big whoop!

Everything I've heard points to Summers being named as Ben Bernanke's replacement in 2 years.

A young Army Col. who was taking a division? west, found poor, or no roads stretching across the country, and promised to do something about it. Circa 1920. When he was elected President in 1952 he signed the Federal Highway Act. Eisenhower was the President...

See the future, embrace the future.