It Has Not Really Hit Home....Yet

 I went out to dinner last night with a couple of friends.  The restaurant was packed to the gills with working people.  Nothing fancy - just some cheap Mexican food on Margarita night.  

The markets got slaughtered that day (and rightfully so).  All of the indexes were down, Target got gang raped, Walmart took a hit, etc.  Nearly everyone I know participates in the stock market via their 401k accounts or a brokerage account.  I've long held a suspicion that the indexes get artificially juiced up just prior to a payroll date (like the 15th, end of the month, etc.) even as the major players know that the markets will tank in the days afterward.  Fleecing the sheep and getting them to employ the "buy high and sell low" strategy. 

A trader for Goldman Sachs once famously referred to his clients as "Muppets".  He would purposely advise them into trades that he knew were crap and surreptitiously take the short side of the trade knowing that his bet for the firm would win and he'd collect a handsome commission.  "It's a big club and you ain't in it" is a George Carlin phrase that is the best way to think of it.

My retort to that sentiment is from Groucho Marx

It's always so satisfying to tell cliques and "exclusive groups" to go fuck themselves.