(no subject)

[randomness]

From http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121625520953660253.html

"Some free markets are apparently freer than others: The price of oil is free to fall, while the stock price of a bank is free to rise.

"That is one takeaway from Washington's recent response to market turmoil. By singling out "speculators" who want to push bank stocks down and oil prices up, lawmakers and policy makers reinforce a message that the free market is a wonderful thing as long as it isn't going against you."

Comments

[mangosteen]

I thought it wasn't an outright prohibition on short-selling those 19 stocks. Rather, it as a restriction that the stock you want to short had to be there exclusively for you to borrow, before clearing the short sale.

This way 25 different brokers don't simultaneously look at the same 100 shares of Freddie Mac, and say "I'm going to short 100 shares of Freddie Mac. See? The shares are right there."

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

It's not an outright prohibition. It's not even bringing back the uptick rule.

But that's not what the linked commentary is about.

The commentary, as I read it, is about how some market price movements are okay, and others are not. That, and the hypocrisy of a political culture which spends most of its time going on about the virtues of free markets when they're going in a politically acceptable direction, but not when they reverse.

I'm "shocked, shocked" at how predictable that is.

To quote drbitch: "What's a free market?"

Precisely

[fin9901.livejournal.com]

Personally, I take it even further than that. To my mind, we don't need the government ordering us to conserve energy or invest in renewable resources or any of that-- the price of oil is doing that all on its own. Just look at the resale prices of SUVs; in 1994 a friend of mine in Oklahoma (namely Charlie_Tuna) could have sold his 1-year-old SUV for more than he paid for it, now SUV prices are in the toilet.