I have suspected for a long time and I openly told people in the fall of 2008 that certain entities were trying to harm the economy in order to ensure that Obama would get elected in the November elections. If you watched the stock markets in the months before the election of 2008, you saw these massive declines at the end of the day almost every day. These declines were by entities selling massive amounts of stock in what clearly looked like an attempt to sink the stock markets each day in time for the prime time news each night.

Now we have confirmation that there was a massive “run on the banks” by some unknown entity on September 18, 2008 in an effort to affect the election. Democratic Representative Paul Kanjorski (PA-11), Capital Market Subcommittee Chair in the US House of Representatives, describes this stealth bank panic in the video below (transcript follows).

I suspect there was an economic coup d’état in September of 2008 by extremely wealthy Liberals and Democrats and we simply were not smart enough to see it happen right in front of us. I also suspect that the plan succeeded in getting Obama elected but is now completely out of control.

Transcript

It’s because of the misconceptions out there that things were done that are misunderstood. We did not give the $700 billion dollars for the purpose of lending money. That was never in the program. It was misconstrued initially and put together with the suggestion by the Secretary of the Treasury that we would be buying what we called “dirty assets” — defective mortgages and securities that were held in these banks — that the government would find a way to create a market, buy them in, take them off the balance sheets of the banks so that the banks could continue to function normally…. I supported that, but also part of the bill, we gave the jurisdiction and authority to the Secretary of the Treasury to make investments in banks. He had very wide authority because quite frankly, we’re not the experts on the Hill as to how to solve this problem. And the problem is a multi-faceted problem, so we gave great flexibility to the Secretary of the Treasury to act….

I was there when the Secretary and the Chairman of the Federal Reserve came those days and talked with members of Congress about what was going on…. Here’s the facts, and we don’t even talk about these things. On Thursday [September 18] at about eleven o’clock in the morning, the Federal Reserve noticed a tremendous draw-down of money market accounts in the United States, to the tune of $550 billion dollars was being drawn out in the matter of an hour or two. The Treasury opened up its window to help. They pumped a hundred and five billion dollars in the system and quickly realized that they could not stem the tide. We were having an electronic run on the banks. They decided to close the operation, close down the money accounts and announce a guarantee of $250,000 per account so there wouldn’t be further panic out there, and that’s what actually happened.

If they had not done that, their estimation was that by 2 o’clock that afternoon, five-and-a-half trillion dollars would have been drawn out of the money market system of the United States, would have collapsed the entire economy of the United States, and within 24 hours the world economy would have collapsed. Now we talked at that time about what would happen if that happened. It would have been the end of our economic system and our political system as we know it.

And that’s why, when they made the point we’ve got to act and do things quickly we did. Now Secretary Paulson said, “Let’s buy out these sub-prime mortgages.” That’s when he came to Congress. But he said, “Give us latitude and large authority to do many things as we decide necessary. And give us seven hundred billion dollars to do that.”

Shortly after we enacted our bill with those very broad powers. The U.K. came out and said, “No, we don’t have enough money to buy toxic assets. Instead, we’re going to put our money into banks so that their equity grows and they’re not bankrupt.” And so the U.K. started that process and that’s true. It was much cheaper to put more money in banks as equity investment than to start buying their bad assets, because it became early determined that we’d probably have to spend three or four trillion dollars of taxpayer’s money to buy these bad assets. And we didn’t have… we only had seven hundred billion dollars. So Paulson made a complete switch, went in and started putting money in buying securities and reinvesting in the banks of the United States. Why? Because if you don’t have a banking system you don’t have an economy. And although we did that, it wasn’t enough money, and as fast as we did that, the economy has been falling, and the reason last week… We’re really no better off today than we were three months ago because we’v had a decrease in the equity positions of banks because other assets are going sour by the moment….

Related:

The New York Post — ALMOST ARMAGEDDON

By MICHAEL GRAY
September 21, 2008

The market was 500 trades away from Armageddon on Thursday, traders inside two large custodial banks tell The Post.

Had the Treasury and Fed not quickly stepped into the fray that morning with a quick $105 billion injection of liquidity, the Dow could have collapsed to the 8,300-level – a 22 percent decline! – while the clang of the opening bell was still echoing around the cavernous exchange floor.

According to traders, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, money market funds were inundated with $500 billion in sell orders prior to the opening. The total money-market capitalization was roughly $4 trillion that morning.

The panicked selling was directly linked to the seizing up of the credit markets – including a $52 billion constriction in commercial paper – and the rumors of additional money market funds “breaking the buck,” or dropping below $1 net asset value.

The Fed’s dramatic $105 billion liquidity injection on Thursday (pre-market) was just enough to keep key institutional accounts from following through on the sell orders and starting a stampede of cash that could have brought large tracts of the US economy to a halt….

When Congress declares a crisis and says a bill must be passed or the world will end, it’s time to make sure your wallet is still under your control.

According to the Treasury Department, the number $750B was picked out of the air — no data point of reference. When people like Barney Frank and Chris Dodd, two of the key people who caused the mess, are allowed to write the legislation to clean it up, said bill is a non-starter. Barney Frank, whose lover was made a Fannie Mae director (who eventually quit to pursue a career with Pottery Barn). Chris Dodd, who didn’t realize he got special treatment on his loan from Countrywide.

The government has no business nationalizing this debt and forcing us to pay for it. I submit that yesterday’s down market (big in points but not among the top 10 percentage wise) was more because of fear the bill would pass.

A bill in excess of 100 pages that contained provisions giving the Treasury Secretary unlimited power (not subject to review), allocating 20% of future gains to groups like ACORN, La Raza, et al and facilitating federal takeover of municipal pensions, are cause enough to fear what other provisions are buried to serve liberal self-interests at the expense of the taxpayer and the economy.

A solution that stimulates the free market would have been much more supportable and economically desirable. Such incentives as elimination of capital gains taxes, serious reduction in corporate taxes that would enable business to grow and employ here rather than Ireland and Georgia where tax rates are 12%, revocation of Mark to Market which is causing balance sheet distortions and freeing up our energy resources which would create taxable income. Repeal of the Community Reinvestment Act and the associated governmental extortion perpetrated on banks forcing them to make unsecured loans would not only help, it would keep people like Barack Obama from making hay suing banks for non-compliance and forcing their insolvency.

Government is not the solution — it is the problem. A famous person once said this.

Clearly, availability of cheap energy would not only substantially affect the market but would be tantamount to freeing up consumers from what amounts to a significant foreign tax on disposable income. Off-shore drilling would avail the states of significant royalty income which would easily mitigate the buyout dollars while creating jobs. Similarly, expansion of nuclear utilities would also unburden business, stimulate US-based expansion and jobs as well as free up more consumer disposable income.

Instead of raising the national debt and putting our children in hostage mode, government needs to downsize and dramatically cut spending. Prescription drug entitlement would be a good place to start. Looming in the future are the unfunded liabilities for Medicare and Social Security. The $750B simply defers doomsday for a brief period and sets the scenario for an unrecoverable crash through devaluation of the dollar.

We have many enemies out there against whom we had best have a thriving economy. What do you think would happen if China took advantage and seized Formosa? What if Venezuela, with Russian support, expanded its influence militarily in South America. And what happens when, not if, Iran attempts to destroy Israel?

And the liberals are concerned about national health care? I suppose the two or three rich people who are left standing will pay for it. I wonder if Franklin Raines and Jerry Johnson will be able to handle those taxes or if they’ve so cooked their personal books they qualify for food stamps too.

We can get out of this mess if we enable the free market. Most assuredly, we will collapse if we enable any further empowerment of government and expand the national debt to levels that erode our currency and national security.

The mainstream media outlets just cannot resist hyping the news. Following the failure of the financial bailout legislation in Congress, the stock market declined as expected — by 6.98%. Here are the comparison figures at the Monday close:

Last:   10,365.450
Net Change:   -777.680
Open:   11,139.620
High:   11,139.940
Low:   10,365.450
52-Week High:   14,198.100
52-Week Low:   10,459.440

It was not spectacular. In the context of history, it was not even in the top ten market downturns. For an excellent review of the top ten, see The Dow’s Worst Days, a slide presentation by Forbes.

The following information compiled by American Funds puts this in perspective, showing the frequency of declines in the Dow Jones Industrial Average since 1900. Clearly, they are regular cyclical occurrences. It is also obvious that, even without the bailout fiasco, we were way overdue for a 20% bear market just in the normal run of things.

A history of declines (1900–December 2007)

The operative verb here is DECLINED. Yes, the stock market DECLINED in “paper value.” There are just as many factories, homes, hospitals, oil refineries, roads and bridges, grocery stores, train stations, etc. in the United States now as there were this morning. And all these real assets have just as much real value to the American people as now as they did this morning — to manufacture our goods, shelter our families, provide our health care, produce our fuel, facilitate transportation, broker our food supply, and transport our products.

So how do the news outlets describe what happened?

The CNN Wire — “stocks SKIDDED”

Reuters — “stocks PLUMMET”

Bloomberg — “stocks PLUNGE”

CBS News — “stocks TANK”

Investor’s Business Daily — “stocks DIVE”

Associated Press — “stocks TUMBLE”

CNN Money — “stocks CRUSHED”

International Herald Tribune — “stocks FALL SHARPLY”

You have got to love this. Can’t you just see all the financial reporters frantically searching through their thesauruses for new and different ways to say DECLINE? Their challenge is to inject a gripping emotional narrative into the facts of the day, so as to compete for ratings with their competitor news outlets.

Unfortunately, they do not serve the public well in doing this. Thank goodness for Lou Dobbs! He got it exactly right on his television program Lou Dobbs Tonight this evening. He asked:

Do you believe today’s Congressional vote against the Wall Street bailout is a victory for the American people and a rejection of the attempted extortion by corporate and political elites?

At latest reading, over 80% of the American people see it that way. Lou went on to say that it would be better to lose money than to sacrifice our principles. But let’s put the losses in perspective. Today the market lost $1.2 Trillion dollars in “paper value.” The numbers went down, and eventually they will go back up, and the so-called “loss” will just be a statistic, a memory.

The alternative would have taken more than half that amount in real productivity — $700 Billion dollars — out of the pockets of ordinary Americans and given it to the power brokers, real value robbed from the people that they would never see again. And for what? To buy a bailout that nobody was sure would work, and that House Republican Minority Leader John Boehner described as a “mud sandwich.”

The $700 Billion bailout of the US financial markets — Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 — has just failed in the House of Representatives, with 133 Republicans and some intelligent Democrats holding the line against financial socialism. The bill needed a simple majority of the 435 members to pass — 218 votes. The final vote was 228 to 205 against passage, thirteen votes short.

The Dow Jones Industrial Index is dropping steadily, but it is not in free fall. It is experiencing a sell-off, but not a panic. There may be as much as a 20% drop, but then the market will correct itself, as investors holding a large cash allocation in their portfolios begin to see buying opportunities.

And that is the way that the free market system is supposed to work. Assets should be valued based on a market consensus of their utility to the American enterprise, and should not be artificially propped up by government interference. The misguided social engineering practiced by successive Democratic regimes with our tax money got us into this mess. Mercifully, enough of our congressmen decided that throwing another $700 Billion of our good money after the untold trillions of bad investments was not a solution.

The difference between the Great Depression and the present situation is the increased financial sophistication of the American public as a whole. In 1929 investment in the stock market was the province of the very wealthy. Today, almost every American has a stake, in their college savings and retirement accounts. While many do this investing through funds with companies like T. Rowe Price, Equitable, Fidelity, and Templeton, many also purchase stock in companies they like or buy municipal and corporate bonds. They understand that the market will fluctuate.

In comparing the present crisis to the Great Depression as a rationale for the proposed bailout, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke and United States Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson failed to take into account the difference in the collective financial intelligence of the citizenry between then and now. They only looked at mathematical models for asset pricing. But the free market is driven as much by ideas and expectations as it is by monetary data. That is its strength.

Most Americans understand this. The savvy electorate screamed in outrage at the prospect of being soaked another $700 Billion to pay for the past mistakes of Congress under the duress of a phoney manufactured crisis. And a majority of their congressmen, every single one of them facing elections in just five short weeks, did the sensible thing and defeated this outrageous scam.

UPDATE, 3:23 PM ET: One congressman verbalized the political principle at stake:

Thaddeus McCotter, R-Mich., said the bill posed a choice between the loss of prosperity in the short term or economic freedom in the long term. He said once the federal government enters the financial market place, it will not leave. “The choice is stark,” he said.

We recommend that everyone read this article by Gerald Celente, Founder/Director of The Trends Research Institute:

DC Heist – Wall Street Gang Hijacks Washington
Gerald Celente  |  9-23-8

On the evening of September 18th 2008, the American democratic system was replaced by a financial dictatorship.

What was billed as a “Federal Bailout” was nothing less than a bloodless coup. The Wall Street Gang had taken over the White House and control of Washington. Congress promised not to resist, and pledged to pass legislation as demanded.

Warning that America’s financial system was perilously close to collapse unless immediate action was taken, economic martial law was declared.

The American people were told that from this day forward, they would be responsible for paying off the bad debt from any failing private financial enterprise deemed “too big to fail.”

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, spearheading the coup, sought unrestricted authority to spend the nation’s money as he saw fit. The first order of business by the Economic Czar was to take trillions of dollars of bad debt from crumbling investment banks and insurance companies and transfer it to the backs of already debt-burdened citizens….

While the transfer of “toxic instruments” from private firms to the national debt will enrich those companies that once had owned them, the measures taken will do nothing to keep the sinking US economy from going under.

The biggest casualty, besides indentured American servants held responsible for paying off the debt, is the US dollar. The greenback’s getting slaughtered on the foreign exchanges and gold prices, the safe-haven commodity, are once again soaring….

In order to assess the credibility of Celente’s current article, you may consider two articles from the Winter Issue 2008 of his organization’s journal. The full articles are available by paid subscription only, so we offer the synopses.

Economic 9/11

Just as the Twin Towers collapsed from the top down, so too will the US economy from an Economic 9/11. When the high-stake speculators, banks, brokerages, and buyout firms that leveraged billions with millions get hit … everything underneath them will turn to rubble…..

and

The Panic of 08

Failing banks, busted brokerages, toppled corporate giants, bankrupt cities, states in default, foreign creditors cashing out of US securities … whatever the spark, the stage is set for panic in the streets. When the giant firms fall, they’ll crush the man on the street…..

For additional information, you should also read this commentary by Ron Paul, a United States Congressman and one of the most trusted libertarian/Republican spokespersons for the American public:

Commentary: Bailouts will lead to rough economic ride
By Ron Paul

(CNN) — Many Americans today are asking themselves how the economy got to be in such a bad spot.

For years they thought the economy was booming, growth was up, job numbers and productivity were increasing. Yet now we find ourselves in what is shaping up to be one of the most severe economic downturns since the Great Depression.

Unfortunately, the government’s preferred solution to the crisis is the very thing that got us into this mess in the first place: government intervention….

And Paul Weyrich, Chairman and CEO of the Free Congress Foundation, warns:

Instead of looking at a recession, we might very well be looking at a complete economic meltdown more global in nature rather than national, something that most of us never have seen.

The problems include a very weak American dollar; a trade deficit that will come to roughly $700 billion at year-end; the cost of foreign oil that has literally tripled over the past two years; possible trade wars with countries like China, which own sizable portions of our bond markets; a ballooning Federal budget that has gone from $2.1 trillion to $3.6 trillion in just eight years – a whopping growth of 75% (!); a national debt of $9.6 trillion, closing fast on $10 trillion with a debt ceiling placed at $10.6 trillion and which cost the American taxpayer $230 billion in interest alone last year; untold numbers of jobs that are being outsourced to foreign nations through Free Trade acts adding long-term pressure to unemployment; a nation which has maxed out on credit-card debt; millions of Americans losing their homes due to the subprime lending debacle; and last but not least tens of millions of baby-boomers now coming close to retirement, which will dry-up America’s tax base while adding huge amounts to Social Security and Medicare outlays….

George Bush has been in office for 7 1/2 years. The first six the economy was fine.

A little over one year ago:

1. Consumer confidence stood at a 2 1/2 year high;
2. Regular gasoline sold for $2.19 a gallon;
3. The unemployment rate was 4.5%;
4. The DOW JONES hit a record high — 14,000+;
5. American’s were buying new cars, taking cruises, and vacations overseas, living large!

But Americans wanted CHANGE! So, in 2006 they voted in a Democratic Congress & yep — we got CHANGE all right.

In the PAST YEAR:

1. Consumer confidence has plummeted;
2. Gasoline hovers near $4 a gallon;
3. Unemployment is up to 5% (a 10% increase);
4. Americans have seen their home equity drop by $12 TRILLION DOLLARS & prices are still dropping;
5. 1% of American homes are in foreclosure;
6. As I write, the DOW is playing around 11,500. $2.5 TRILLION DOLLARS HAS EVAPORATED FROM OUR STOCKS, BONDS & MUTUAL FUNDS INVESTMENT PORTFOLIOS!

Yes, in 2006 America voted for change. And we sure got it. Now Barack Obama, the Democratic candidate for president, claims he’s really going to give us change.

How much more CHANGE do you think we can stand?

The New York Times has an interesting piece about Fed Chariman Bernanke’s speech to a Virginia gathering regarding re-adjustment (again) of subprime lending practices.

I am not certain how I feel about most of what he said, but the following sentence stood out from all the rest, and sent a chill down my spine:

“…our efforts today are concentrated on helping the financial system return to more normal functioning…”

Did I miss something?  Was the financial system not functioning “normally” when the greedy, arrogant, short-sighted SOBs on Wall Street stole a couple of trillion dollars of other people’s equity and sent three of the largest economies in the world scrambling for the exits? Of course it was!  The same people have been doing things like this for years.

It was not a bunch of Disney characters who helped Enron cook its books.  In addition to Arthur Anderson, Enron was aided, abetted, and in at least one case instructed, by some of the largest financial houses in the country in avoiding regulations so that it could hide its losses and misstate its earnings.  There is a whole litany of such abuses both before and after Enron.  My point is that the financial system was functioning “normally” when all of that was going on, and the money changers were stealing us blind.

Now, I don’t want to rain on Mr. Bernanke’s parade, but might I be so bold as to suggest that the last thing we need is for the financial system to “return to more normal functioning”?  Besides, it’s too late.  There is just not that much left to steal.

The time was when only the wealthy had brokerage accounts. But nowadays, average folk participate in and profit from the expansion of the United States economy — a rising tide that lifts all their boats.

With this influx of middle income investors, the brokerage houses have been pressed to offer banking services — loans, money market (cash) accounts, checks, credit cards — such as average folk need, in order to remain competitive with traditional banks in this demographic.

With their brokerage account, for example, Morgan Stanley offered a “liquid asset” cash account that could be tapped like a checking account via both paper checks and e-checks, and a MasterCard. This account seemed the best of both the investment and the banking worlds. But banking, it turns out, is not Morgan Stanley’s long suit.

The credit cards are usually issued for two year terms that need renewal at predictable intervals. A typical MasterCard might run from January 2007 through January 2009, so the cardholder would be out blissfully shopping for the two-year interval without a care. He would be mindful of the fact that, in about a year, he would have to start watching his mail for the replacement card.

Ignoring the traditional wisdom that says, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it…” Morgan Stanley decided, without warning, to issue new credit cards this past October that would replace the current two-year cards. Out of the blue, they mailed these new (black, not platinum) cards to their account holders throughout the US. What they failed to mention AT ALL was that these were replacement cards smack in mid-period.

All over the country the account holders saved these as a back-up alternative filed away in a safe place, and continued to use their regular cards, which were CONTRACTED IN GOOD FAITH to be viable for another full year. A few days before Christmas, all these cards suddenly became invalid.

Fathers out shopping for Christmas present toys for their children found themselves unable to purchase. Businessmen treating their clients to lunch fouond themselves in the embarrassing position of having to ask their guests to pay. Ditto for those householders treating out-of-town Christmas guests to a night on the town.

In my own case, pressed with tasks from an on-going home remodeling project, I had let the larder run empty, secure in the knowledge that I could always go online and have pizza delivered from Papa John’s on my credit card. My cash reserves were depleted from tucking cash into the Christmas cards of the kind service folk who had been helping me all year.

Mouth watering, I logged on to the restaurant website, selected my three favorite pizzas — spinach alfredo deluxe, Hawaiian chicken barbeque, and all the meats. I had let this task go until the last possible moment, and I was starving. But when I tried to place my order, the computer told me that my credit was no good. I had oatmeal for Christmas. It was all that was left in the house.

When the holiday was over and the Morgan Stanley offices were once again open for business, I called to see what the problem was, and found out about the new black card. After a foray through my junk snail mail, I found the card and tried to authorize it by phone. I didn’t want to eat oatmeal for another day.

But lo, the authorization number presented a continuous busy signal. All day. I was competing for phone access with irate Morgan Stanley cardholders from the entire United States who were in the same predicament.

Fortunately, I have a Morgan Stanley account representative who, since I’ve been with him for over twenty years, is virtually a family friend, and he got my card authorized from the “inside.” I can eat. I will live. The next day the branch manager for the local office called and apologized for the inconvenience. I don’t think I have any problems with the local branch. They have always given good service.

However, I have serious concerns about the executives who created the mess. The Chairman and CEO is John J. Mack, and he bears the ultimate responsibility for what happens underneath him. That’s where the buck stops. He should step down.

Mack has a shady reputation:

Mack was accused by former SEC investigator Gary Aguirre of insider trading. Mack allegedly tipped off hedge fund Pequot Capital about a 2001 merger deal between GE Capital and Heller Financial. In the testimony by Aguirre at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing in June 2006, Aguirre said that Pequot had amassed a short position in General Electric shares in the weeks before the deal and a long position in Heller, and the $7 billion hedge fund earned some $18 million in profit once the deal was announced. Aguirre said that he was fired from the SEC on September 1, 2005 because he was aggressively pursuing the investigation and wanted to interview Mack about the findings. According to Aguirre, his efforts to talk to the politically well-connected Mack were blocked by senior SEC officials. This allowed Mack enough time to secure his position as CEO of Morgan Stanley. Had he been investigated in mid 2005 by the SEC, Mack would not have been a viable CEO candidate for Morgan Stanley.

The twelve member board includes a token black with a jazz background and two women. But the majority are privileged old white men whom, one suspects, have a life-style so different from the average person that they do not comprehend our needs, or care, except for what information they need to exploit us and use our savings.

Together, they presided over a massive functional failure that any savvy housewife could have predicted. And I have to ask myself, if they are that clueless, whether I trust them with my hard-earned money and my retirement account. I’m looking at alternatives.

Yesterday, within the first two hours after the market opened the Dow Jones industrial average spent some time above 12,000, briefly reaching a new all-time high of 12,049.51. And at day’s end, it posted a record close just under 12,000 at 11,992.68.

The detractors of Republican economic policy have been strangely silent as

• consumer prices fell
• (light sweet crude) oil has fallen from a record high of $78.40 per barrel to $57.65 per barrel
• the Commerce Department reported an increase of 5.9% in September housing starts, which had been projected to decline by 1.2%
• while many companies have not yet reported third-quarter earnings, those that have are positive
• it appears the economy is headed for a “soft landing” after more than two years of interest rate increases carefully orchestrated by the Federal Reserve Board

Like a rising tide, the soaring market lifts many boats.

• Japan’s Nikkei stock average closed up 0.3%
• Britain’s FTSE 100 closed up 0.7%
• Germany’s DAX index was up 1.1%
• France’s CAC-40 was up 1.1%

Dearer to our hearts is the benefit the expanding economy has for most American citizens. At an earlier time investment in the stock market was the province of the wealthy. Today most Americans benefit directly from the mechanics of capitalism. Even those who do not hold a portfolio of individual stocks are exposed to the market through retirement plans and mutual funds. And many more have market based savings or checking accounts.

The only folk who do not benefit are those who live hand to mouth, with no reserves at all. And except in the extreme case of the very poor and homeless, that is a lifestyle choice. There are segments of the population who would rather spend $100 for a pair of athlete-endorsed sneakers, squander big bucks for tickets to sporting events, or wear flashy gold jewelry than have any savings. There are individuals and families that pursue instant gratification, purchasing everything they want as fast as their credit limits will allow, rather than waiting until they have earned the money to pay for what they need and disciplining their wants.

All these folk who fail to take personal responsibility for their financial situations benefit from the sympathies of the Democrats, who would ameliorate their suffering by robbing the prudent citizens to make up for the shortfalls of the shortsighted ones. And that pinches the economy, and drives it down.

Fortunately, the years of Republican management of the American enterprise have stimulated growth and enabled us to recover from the burst of the dot-com bubble and the loss of investor confidence due to 9/11, which initiated the bear market that bottomed at 7286.27 on Oct. 9, 2002.

The draining of American resources by uneducated and uninsured illegal aliens does need to be addressed. And the outsourcing of American jobs to countries that can offer cheaper labor by not having to meet our requirements for worker safety, pollution control, and benefits unfairly penalizes the American worker.

The magic of the American market, a capitalistic economy embedded in democratic governance, is its ability to recover from disaster and prosper despite the handicaps placed on it by socialistic laws and the disincentives of government policy mistakes that are often made at local, state, and federal levels. And in general, the economy fares better under Republican fiscal policies. While the Democrats would have you believe that the Republicans intend to “favor big business,” the fact is that Republicans see stimulating the economy with tax relief as a way to lift all our boats.