The US economic numbers this morning sucked out loud.
After the bell Netflix missed its numbers and its stock was being monkey hammered.
Amex and eBay and Las Vegas Sands missed the top lines but hit earnings.
As I noted last week, it is easier to gin up profits with accounting, but topline revenue is a bit more problematic, unless you are a revenue recognizing sandbagger like a few tech companies that we might know.
As the markets melted down this morning, with a reported 179 flash crashes in the first 15 minutes according to Nanex, the talking heads were in fire drill mode, trying to figure out some way to restore confidence on Main Street, short of saying, "buy our stocks. Please!"
One of the themes the spokesmodels struck, believe it or not, was that a fear of ebola is dampening economic activity because they are afraid to go out and spend money.
Blame it on Ebolanomics.
Ebolanomics. Yes I would imagine that is the reason that Netflix missed its numbers from last quarter. People are afraid they can catch a disease by watching crappy movies on television.
Most people are not spending more because they do not have any money, and they are reluctant to borrow and slip more deeply into debt.
They are afraid because they believe, based on what they are seeing, that the financial system is dominated by quasi-criminal cartels, and their political leaders are lying, craven, hand-waving nincompoops.
For the most, their real wages are lower since The Recovery™, and the one percent's wealth hoarding zillionaires do not buy the kinds of things that stimulate the economy through increased aggregate demand.
Yeesh. What is it going to take?
No matter how much money the Fed prints and hands over to Wall Street, the money has to reach the public to do any good. You can see an existence proof of this phenomenon in every Third World oligarchy that is an American ally in the fight for the corporate brand of democracy around the world.
Have a pleasant evening.
Modern Crisis Leadership
