record highs on 3 US stock indexes

[Texas Contrarian]

@VitaMan:

You believe that my post challenging you to explain to us why you believe Biden should take a victory lap for the market's new highs was insulting? Seriously? Challenging, yes. (It's a debate, for crying out loud!) Insulting? No how, no way. That seems clear enough to others here.

And no one has "ignored the topic," or created new ones. Consider the interplay between the fiscal policy agenda of 2021-22, the consequent inflation spike, and the markets. Then put all this in political context with regards to whether Biden is "getting credit" for his policies. (Since his approval rating is so low, I submit that he is not. Well, not in any positive way, that is!)

In this thread and a few others you've started on the same topic, you continually insinuate that Biden must be a successful president, since the market made new all-time highs while he was sitting in the Oval Office.

By that line of reasoning, you must surely think Trump was a fine president as well, right?

And Nixon! Didn't the market make new all-time highs when he was prez? Then, by the line of reasoning you seem intent on maintaining through all your Biden/market threads, don't you consider Nixon a fine president as well?

Nixon, too, attempted to run an Okun-style "high-pressure" economy in 1971-72, as he exhorted congress to ramp up spending while pressuring Fed chair Burns to keep the money supply nicely juiced-up. Remember the "Nifty Fifty" big-cap stocks of the early '70s? One prevailing notion then was that you should just buy them and put them away, though by every metric most of them were pretty expensive at the time.

Then do you remember what happened in 1973-74? (The hangover after the attempt to continue pushing the "high-pressure" economy long past its sell-by date was rather painful.)

[golferguy55]

TC you have the patience of a Saint in trying to address this subject with VM. We all get it that VM wants to have his hero Biden take credit for the markets being up when most of us know that the president has very little control over this.

And VM thanks for confirming who you probably worked for. A Jamie Dimon disciple. Just a little background for me is that I have my degree in accounting and my MBA in Finance and my JD degree. I did the tax attorney thing for a numerous years then made my fortune in a completely different field. So you might say I have a pretty firm grasp on the market and such.

[VitaMan]

I also hold an MBA, in finance and economics, from an elite university. What university did you attend ?
And you manage to toss in another one of your assumptions....which is wrong again.



Still no answer to the only question posed in the original post. You all want to take it somewhere else.
Start your own thread if you want to debate all your questions.


Here are the demeaning comments from TC....for questions he posed, which have nothing to do with the thread and topic I began. He just continues to ramble on. And if they are not answered, of course the conclusion is the person asked doesn't understand them, and demeans them. So Trump like. So McCarthy like.



"If you understand this issue, that shouldn't be very difficult for you, should it? "

"Would you like to try to explain to us, in some semi-coherent fashion…."

"While you're at it…."

[golferguy55]

VM thanks for the education background and quite impressive. I actually attended UT in Austin on a golf scholarship consequently my user name. Did my undergraduate as well as MBA work their and then law school at UT.

My apologies if you thought my comments were insulting as not the intention nor do I think TC or Tiny had any ill will.I will also add that we have differing viewpoints which is fine and I learned a long time ago that it is sometimes best to agree to disagree.

[Lucas McCain]

Originally Posted by VitaMan

If the market was declining, who would get the blame.....the Biden administration.

This is the gist of this thread IMO...

I give no credit to Biden for the stock market. I neither blame him for the losses nor the gains when they occur. I also did not blame Bush for the 2008 crash because he was not responsible for corporate greed as the president. That is not in the POTUS job description. Some folks think the president is responsible for everything if it fits their narrative. He is not.

I think a couple of years ago some of the usual Biden hating crybabies were whining about when the market wasn't doing so well were blaming Biden. Well, now that it is, it has nothing to do with Biden. You blouses don't get it the one way that fits your narrative and get to dismiss the other way.

Anyway, that's my take on the main purpose of this thread. All of this other stuff you guys are going back and forth about; have fun with that bullshit with each other.

@ Tiny's post below: I'm not going to change shit. I took it as a rhetorical question about Trump's stupid ass. It is not like we don't know what that grifter will say. He'll simply take credit for it and Salty will agree with him. Haha

[Tiny]

Originally Posted by VitaMan

Still no answer to the only question posed in the original post. You all want to take it somewhere else.
Start your own thread if you want to debate all your questions.


Here are the demeaning comments from TC....for questions he posed, which have nothing to do with the thread and topic I began. He just continues to ramble on. And if they are not answered, of course the conclusion is the person asked doesn't understand them, and demeans them. So Trump like. So McCarthy like.

The question posed is, If this topic comes up during the Biden Trump debates, wonder what Trump will have to say.

The answer is.......drum roll please......Trump will say what TC said in this thread.

You nailed it on the head when you wrote that TC is Trump like!

Perhaps that's wishful thinking though, if you're a Trump supporter. Neither Trump nor Biden is anywhere close to Texas Contrarian's league when it comes to markets or economics.

If TC, Golfer Guy and I had prefaced our posts with "Trump should say," I guess you'd be OK with them.

Btw, you, Golfer Guy, and probably Texas Contrarian all have much, much better educational pedigrees to discuss this topic than I do.

Originally Posted by Lucas McCain

I give no credit to Biden for the stock market. I neither blame him for the losses nor the gains when they occur. I also did not blame Bush for the 2008 crash because he was not responsible for corporate greed as the president. That is not in the job description. Some folks think the president is responsible for everything if it fits their narrative. He is not.

I think a couple of years ago some of the usual Biden hating crybabies were whining about when the market wasn't doing so well were blaming Biden. Well, now that it is, it has nothing to do with Biden.

I agree 100% with what you're saying. However you need to modify it to stay on topic. The question is "If this topic comes up during the Biden Trump debates, wonder what Trump will have to say."

You could just change "I" to "Donald Trump" in the first sentence, so it reads "Donald Trump will give no credit to Biden for the stock market." And also in the second paragraph maybe say Trump is the Biden hating crybaby.

You've still got time to edit.

[golferguy55]

Tiny I agree that TC as well as VM definitely have the pedigree to discuss this but don't sell yourself short by any means. I also have the pedigree to discuss this but find my retirement time better spent on a $ game on the golf course or sitting on the river that runs thru my property here in the mountains of New Mexico trying to catch that elusive trout for dinner.

[VitaMan]

I will say this...I have never been able to get my golf handicap under 8. And it has not been for lack of trying.

[Texas Contrarian]

Originally Posted by golferguy55

My apologies if you thought my comments were insulting as not the intention nor do I think TC or Tiny had any ill will.I will also add that we have differing viewpoints which is fine and I learned a long time ago that it is sometimes best to agree to disagree.

Thanks, golferguy. My sentiments exactly, and I'll offer apologies as well if my comments were taken as condescending or demeaning in any way. For many years I've debated topics in a few finance forums with other fund managers. Sometimes we have spirited debates and throw a sharp elbow or two, but we're all friends and occasionally meet up for dinner or drinks if more than two or three of us are ever in the same city.

Originally Posted by VitaMan

I will say this...I have never been able to get my golf handicap under 8. And it has not been for lack of trying.

I'm with you there! I gave golf the old "college try" for a while back in the late 1980s/early '90s. Took a number of lessons, hit a ton of balls, and got it down to where I thought I had a nice, smooth swing. At best, I was about an 8-handicap. But if I didn't play for three or four weeks, my game fell completely apart!

As for the thread discussion, I simply think the previously mentioned points are all interconnected and the issue should be viewed holistically, since the market trajectory cannot be viewed as existing in a vacuum and not influenced by prevailing fiscal policy factors. If others disagree, fine. (That's what makes for a debate!)

[golferguy55]

Originally Posted by VitaMan

I will say this...I have never been able to get my golf handicap under 8. And it has not been for lack of trying.

Well VM I will say that an 8 handicap is not bad. I started at an early age as my father loved the game. Countless hours of range time and playing at least 36 holes a day when older. Golf has furnished me the opportunity to play some of the most iconic courses in the USA as well as others in other countries. Haha now I just go to the course and if someone suggests a $ game then it is game on.

And not to hijack your thread but TC put it very eloquently in his last post.

And TC it is definitely a game that you have to consistently play. I know that if I lay off for any length of time it takes me a little while for it to come around. And trust me I had my share of lessons while growing up and can tell you both that most average golfers would love to carry an 8 handicap.

[txdot-guy]

Originally Posted by VitaMan

Each of the major U.S. stock indexes closed Wednesday at record highs.


If this topic comes up during the Biden Trump debates, wonder what Trump will have
to say.

Something like this perhaps.

Trump: Under my administration we had the best stock market ever! Biggest ever, Most growth ever! Bigly. We all know that it’s true. Just wait for the lame stream media to be wrong and lie to the American people. They don’t want me to get the credit. They want to take away your vote. Don’t let them steal this election from me.

[ICU 812]

In my simpleton's understanding of economics, I may have this wrong, but . . .

it seems to me that the high money for stocks is not a genuine reflection of their increased value so much as it is a measure of how worthless our money actually has become.

Take a look at commodities with intrinsic value. I choose Gold because I am a simpleton. In the 1990ws and 2kws, I bought several really nice piece of jewelry for my wife. The spot price of Gold was between $300-$400 depending on just when. But whatever: At one point, I got her a nice twisted rope chain (18", 14Ct, ~1.5 Oz total) for $400. She has been wearing it frequently for years.

Last week, I realized that the price of Gold was at $2,350 (or so) per ounce. At price, that chain was now valued at several thousand dollars!.

I asked her to not wear it any more as a casual accent piecer.

My point here is that this is the same piece it was in 1999, but the money required to buy it today is worth 8 or 9 times less.

[Tiny]

Originally Posted by ICU 812

In my simpleton's understanding of economics, I may have this wrong, but . . .

it seems to me that the high money for stocks is not a genuine reflection of their increased value so much as it is a measure of how worthless our money actually has become.

Take a look at commodities with intrinsic value. I choose Gold because I am a simpleton. In the 1990ws and 2kws, I bought several really nice piece of jewelry for my wife. The spot price of Gold was between $300-$400 depending on just when. But whatever: At one point, I got her a nice twisted rope chain (18", 14Ct, ~1.5 Oz total) for $400. She has been wearing it frequently for years.

Last week, I realized that the price of Gold was at $2,350 (or so) per ounce. At price, that chain was now valued at several thousand dollars!.

I asked her to not wear it any more as a casual accent piecer.

My point here is that this is the same piece it was in 1999, but the money required to buy it today is worth 8 or 9 times less.

I was running on empty this evening and pulled into a DK convenience store to gas up. There was a big green sign on the gas hose: "Milk $5.99 for a gallon". That must be their way of getting pay-at-the-pump customers to walk into the store. They may lose money on the $5.99 milk, but they'll make it up on sales of chewing tobacco, lottery tickets and the like.

I Googled "milk historical price". In 2020, milk averaged $3.32 a gallon.

So, since Biden took office, the Dow Jones Industrial Average is up from 31,188 to 40,003. How impressive is that when the price of milk is up from $3.32 a gallon to $5.99 a gallon? When average apartment rent is up from $1190/month to $1469/month? The cost of gasoline has gone up from $2.40 to $3.59 a gallon?

What's going to be foremost on the workingman's mind when he walks in that booth to cast his ballot? The Dow Jones Industrial Average? Or the price of the necessities of life and how far his paycheck goes towards covering them, now versus when Trump was president?

That's how I'd answer Vitaman's question if I were Trump. I'd talk about milk.

And ICU, you're no simpleton, you're spot on. I tried to make the same point as you did in post #5 in this thread, but didn't do it as well.

Yeah, all else being equal, the share indices should go up along with inflation. If a company's sales volume, net profit margin, and Price/Earnings multiple doesn't change, then its share price would go up proportionately to the increase in the price of its products.

Cumulative inflation since Biden took office is about 20%. And the Dow Jones Industrial Average has increased by 28%. Yippee!!!

Edit: The St. Louis Fed's price series for milk just shows the price going from $3.47/gallon to $3.87/gallon since Biden took office. However, Trump is accustomed to playing fast and loose with the truth and getting away with it. So I stand firm on my advice to the ex-President. He should say the price of milk went up to $5.99. And his campaign should stand back and stand by with footage of the President exiting a convenience store with $5.99 milk, and carrying other items that show he identifies with every day Americans. Snuff, fried pies and malt liquor for example. He might even get Winn Dixie's vote with that!

[VitaMan]

Investment appreciation has nothing to do with currency value.

If you are buying milk and basic goods at convenience stores you are going to pay a lot more.

You can buy a gallon of milk at Walmart for $ 2.46.

Gasoline prices fluctuate due to a variety of global factors.

Trump will have a hard time explaining record stock markets after his statements about what was going to happen.

There are many economic concepts which could be discussed: Supply and demand curves, elasticity of demand, inflation, stagflation, yield curves, etc etc etc



The topic remains the same....how will Trump explain record stock markets during the debates.

[Lucas McCain]

Only in this forum can a thread be started about the stock market reaching its highest peak, and it turns into folks bitching about inflation and the price of fucking milk... damn some of you folks love to whine.

Is Biden responsible for all inflation around the globe? You want to save money on milk? Go buy a fucking Holstein and milk you shall have. LOL