Beauty is Imperfection

(Originally posted Wednesday, December 03, 2008 )

In the past three months, the stock market has endured wild fluctuations in value as market data and analysis give confusing and contradictory signals about U.S. economic health. Here is a time line of some of the most critical events:

Sept. 19, 2008: The Dow Jones Industrial Average drops 10 points after the U.S. government hands out smallpox infected blankets to investment bankers at Lehman Brothers.

Sept. 28: U.S. automakers have to write-off a billion dollars after announcing the failure of their experimental new product: cars without wheels, a setback that causes the S&P to nosedive 10%.

Sept. 30: The Dow gets a 10% boost that market economists attribute directly to faith in Jesus Christ.

Oct. 2: The Dow falls 7% when Guy Ritchie makes his comment about his divorce from Madonna being like the Cold War, which, along with the Russian invasion of Georgia, sparks fears of another Cold War

Oct. 10: The Merrill Lynch headquarters, when visited by reporters, is found to be full to the rafters with nothing but a large gelatinous blob of something resembling rich creamy pudding. The Dow plunges 20%.

Oct. 15: The Dow rises 10 points but then falls 17 points as analysts cannot really determine whether Justin Timberlake has really brought sexy back or whether sexy has just suffered a little “dead cat bounce” before lying terminally dormant.

Oct. 18: The Dow rises 5%, as Americans show enthusiasm for the latest slang phrase, “Booty grazing.”

Oct. 19: … and the popular British slang for “say cheese”: “Show me yer tits.”

Oct. 20: The Dow falls 21% when vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin promises to lay waste to Canada.

Oct. 25: The Dow makes an anticipated surge of 20%, then a decline of 20% and then another rise of 20% when Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson reminds Americans that money is just a symbol not tied to any metal or commensurate product, and is actually just something we have all agreed means something when it actually doesn’t. Americans go wild with confusion and animal fear.

Oct. 30: The Dow slips 5% when Microsoft announces it has divested itself of all its computer assets and is now pretty much just selling t-shirts with its logo on it and hoarding goverment bonds.

Nov. 1: Lawmakers agree to a large bailout of America’s largest financial institutions by giving them $700 billion that they will do absolutely nothing with. The stock market does nothing.

Nov. 8: Barack Obama is elected president. The Dow Jones has already anticipated that he is going to raise taxes, which caused a plunge, so now it goes back up as if it doesn’t care that Barack Obama is president. Which makes the Dow Jones pretty passive-aggressive if you ask me.

Nov. 15: The Dow falls 40% as global economists and Oscar Wilde comment that Americans know the price of everything and the value of nothing.

Nov. 28: The Dow rises 10% as economists note that Americans are still so willing to purchase durable goods that they will even trample people to death to do it and get the economy back on track.