2162 Bear Bull

Sometimes I look at Wall Street and say this is what's wrong with America today. Sometimes I say this is what is great. That whole bull and bear thing.

It's the bull shtick that worries me.

A couple of news stories to explain: First, all the concern about the government bailing out General Motors seems to have been misplaced. My spin on the whole deal was that it was no different than local, state, or federal governments kicking in tax incentives for companies to build giant football arenas. Or Boeing to build airplanes.

Sometimes big business needs some even bigger pockets to bum a grubstake off to see them through.

Thanks to record highs on Wall Street, when the U.S. sells its remaining stock in General Motors it will make a net profit of $10 billion on the $421.6 billion bailout of the financial and auto industries. Plus, the auto industry added 300,000 jobs. Not only did they help business, in this case the government actually made some money, so how cool is that?

Then there's the weirder side of Wall Street. Recently, Google posted a 17% profit for the last quarter and Amazon reported a 20% increase in revenue. But, get this, they were both being, as the news articles put it, "punished by Wall Street."

Their stocks were actually going down after posting astonishing profits. Why? Because they were "below expectations." Their stock price had nothing to do with their actual great performance. For Google to make 17% profits in such a moribund economy is incredible. And a 20% revenue jump? Amazon is amazing. 

But passive-aggressive Wall Street is like, no... you're not living up to my ridiculously high expectations so nyah, I'm going to pout.

Does a bear shtick in the woods?

America, ya gotta love it.