Apparently the Wall Street traders are all liberal traitors....

[rfranklin]

Because they aren't buying the Bush mantra about how great the economy is. They are selling with abandon.

[ComerPerro]

1. Its all part of a big-business plot to make Bush look bad

[genieroze]

4. Do they really have to try?

[ComerPerro]

6. Not very hard, that's for sure

[Sanity Claws]

2. Wow - 100 points down

Yesterday it was about 140 points down. So in two days, the market fell 240 points. That's quite a fall, steeper than *'s declining approval rates.

[elehhhhna]

3. WHat do they know that we don't?

[mdmc]

7. uh, nothing

I think we all would be selling if we could..

[LiviaOlivia]

5. Bush is bad for bidness

Just like Poppy was.

[shantipriya]

8. Wall St Traders

They are the ones who put Bush in the White House.I venture to say that a majority of the traders and bankers vote Repug.

[Jack from Charlotte]

9. Not so fast. I was a WS trader.....

I would say MOST of the guys who worked at The Street firms were Jewish. Now this was 25 years ago so perhaps there is change but I'd guess most were Dems.

It always cracked me up how WASP-like their TV ads were.....

[Squeech]

10. Actually

there are probably several factors all coming down at once-- a perfect storm of economic problems.

Commodity prices are spiking. Oil is one of the most visible, and everything involving real production (which is almost a lost art in America, but there are some holdouts) requires energy. Gold is real visible in these circles too, in fact all the metals.

Interest rates have been rising for a while, and they've now gotten to the point where conservative investors (in the sense of risk tolerance rather than political outlook) are persuaded that returns on bonds are good enough to get out of stocks-- and once this idea takes hold it feeds on itself. The fed rate is 5%, which is not real steep if you remember the last couple decades, but Bernanke has not shown any great inclination to stop raising.

Coincident with that, Americans are in debt to the eyebrows, and rising interest rates will force us to commit more of our money just to pay the freight, and less to consumption, which means business isn't so good any more, which means less money in circulation, possible layoffs and recession...