Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: US Consumer Confidence index surges

[Jim Devine <jdevine@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Barkley wrote:
> One of the reasons we had the stock market bubble was because profits
> generally went up during the 1980s and 1990s, at least in the US, although
> I stand to be corrected by that notorious Yale-educated snob if I am
> wrong.  Much of that reflected well-known attacks against the working
> class that succeeded.  One reason the bubble has been coming down has been
> that indeed, profits have been declining again recently. But that is
> hardly the same thing as a general, secular tendency to decline.

why did the "Market" soar until last year?

(1) the rise in profit rates until 1998 or so, with relatively minor
declines (as far as I can tell) since then.

(2) a shift in the distribution of income toward those parts of the
population most likely to speculate on the market, i.e., the upper classes.

(3) a kind of "new economy" triumphalism, in conjunction with faith in Alan
Greenspan, which encouraged the normal bubbly tendencies of speculative
markets.

Jim Devine jdevine@xxxxxxx &  http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine