Comments
For one thing, huge fluctuations in indexes aren’t always immediately a concern. For example, that day the market fell a thousand points equalled something like over a trillion dollar loss in the value of American business. Now, if that were actually the case, wouldn’t we have felt an immediate effect? Businesses would have been collapsing every hour, people would have been jumping out windows. But they didn’t, because these indicators aren’t as concrete and representative as one would believe.
The trade one doesn’t necessarily strike me as all doom and gloom, since if shipping costs go up, international trade prices go up, and suddenly domestic goods become more competitive. GM would have no problem with Toyotas suddenly costing more, nor would their millions of employees facing layoffs.
Shipping costs have bottomed out, though, not gone up. They’re barely operating at cost.
That graph shows that its been plummetting for the past quarter and a half, following a huge drop and a spike all within a year. If this were that huge, people would be going crazy in the newsroom right behind me, but they’re not.
Also, the level it has plummetted to is where it had held steady for at least 3 years before 2003, and its not as if theres been alot of inflation since then.
It looks more to me like that since 2004 the index has been rising sharply, albeit with extreme volatility. The caption on the graph says the market has collapsed by 98%, but its just as likely that it had bubbled and is now correcting. Not that its a good thing, but its by no means the end of the world.
And seriously, a line like
>I’m no expert on shipping, but I bet that the cost of fuel, insurance, maintenance, and crew salaries on a ship that large is about $5,600 a day.
Doesn’t inspire confidence. Thats like me saying “I’m no expert on nuclear physics, but I’m pretty sure a nuclear reactor puts out about a billion watts.”