The Wall Street Journal's sibling site, MarketWatch (both owned by Dow Jones Consumer Media Group), is formatted to provide lots of current financial data at a glance. With the convenience, however, comes big dollops of Ugly American economic, political and social dreck, splattered across most MarketWatch home pages.
I've noticed one phenomenon of late, though, that makes me think less of market data or politics, and more of an unfolding final chapter for Naomi Klein's contemporary classic, The Shock Doctrine.
Lately, the number of "The Stock Market's about to Crash!" articles linked on the MarketWatch home page has been remarkable. While there's no shortage of reasons to predict an imminent collapse in equities (for openers, the S&P 500 index has gone from about 800 when Obama took office to around 1970 today; a "correction" is WAY "overdue"), I don't believe I've ever seen so many prognosticators at once insisting that The End Is at Hand. And I've been reading the financial press pretty steadily for over 30 years, having (in my misguided youth) been a securities and commodities broker for two NYSE member firms.
Yes, well, wouldn't a collapse be convenient for those with the wealth and power to survive it?
The basic premise of Klein's Shock Doctrine is, of course, that political and financial predators create financial disasters -- often accompanied by war and other social catastrophes. Then into the smoking ruins they created storm their lawyers, accountants, bankers, political toadies, etc. all screaming in unison that in order to save the day, they -- "the experts" -- need to (1) take charge immediately; and (2) "suspend" various rights, protections, and safety nets.
If major equity markets tanked in a big way tomorrow, how long do you think it'd be before every right-wing dipshit (but I repeat myself) in the country goes Full Nugent in blaming the black guy? You know as well as I that it'd be quite a chorus. And there'd be NO shuttin' it up.
Paul Ryan's and Rand Paul's childishly ludicrous financial notions are generally recognized as such now, but how long after markets tank do you figure it would be before the .01-percenters are doing all they can to enshrine Ayn Ryan Paulian lethal imbecility high atop Reagan Mountain?
I hope world financial markets don't collapse tomorrow. I would not be one of the survivors -- nor would anyone I care much about. But the MarketWatch homepage of late reminds one that there's probably a whole lot of .01-percenters who really wouldn't mind at all -- who might, in fact, find it most congenial.