{"id":390,"date":"2008-09-21T15:55:41","date_gmt":"2008-09-21T20:55:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/election08.cusjc.ca\/?p=390"},"modified":"2008-09-21T15:55:41","modified_gmt":"2008-09-21T20:55:41","slug":"fear-greed-and-other-economic-fundamentals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cusjc.ca\/?p=390","title":{"rendered":"Fear, greed and other economic fundamentals"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Karim H. Karim<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><!--StartFragment--><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN-CA\">\u201cThe market is never wrong,\u201d a student insisted in one of my classes several years ago. His statement came to mind frequently during the course of the last week\u2019s roller coaster ride in the stock exchanges.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN-CA\">It exemplified the almost unquestioned faith that some have in the workings of the markets.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN-CA\">Industrial societies have made them integral to our economies. Traders\u2019 daily choices determine the monetary value of the materials that are vital to our well-being.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN-CA\">Whether it is speculation about the price of petroleum or about financial stocks, we seem to leave it to a relatively small percentage of the population to decide what turns and twists our collective fortunes will take. The best we can hope is that the traders\u2019 decisions are guided by rationality.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN-CA\">But CBC TV\u2019s morning show business reporter, Marivel Taruc, appeared to think otherwise. She commented that bear markets are driven by fear and bull markets by greed.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN-CA\">Are the stock exchanges, and by extension the economy, primarily driven by raw emotions? It would seem that we are leaving too much to how a few unelected individuals may feel on a particular day.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN-CA\">So far in the election campaign, none of the political parties has presented much of an economic strategy responding to the current financial upheaval. They appear to act as if we are going to be sheltered from the havoc taking place south of the border.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN-CA\">The parallel drops and rises in the New York and Toronto exchanges last week were clear indications that we are not immune to the financial blowouts in our largest trading partner.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN-CA\">It may be too much to ask if anyone is thinking about how to protect the economy from the whims of stock traders, but does anyone at least have a made-in-Canada plan to minimize the ill-effects of the widely-expected downturn?<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN-CA\">Perhaps the idea is to react with rescue packages worth billions of dollars after the damage has already occurred, just like Washington is doing now.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN-CA\">Add sloth to the list of economic fundamentals.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><!--StartFragment--><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><em><span lang=\"EN-CA\">Karim H. Karim is the director of the School of Journalism and Communication at Carleton University. He formerly was a Canadian correspondent for Compass News Features (Luxembourg) and Inter Press Service (Rome).<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n<p><!--EndFragment--><\/p>\n<p><!--EndFragment--><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Karim H. Karim \u201cThe market is never wrong,\u201d a student insisted in one of my classes several years ago. His statement came to mind frequently during the course of the last week\u2019s roller coaster ride in the stock exchanges. It exemplified the almost unquestioned faith that some have in the workings of the markets. Industrial [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-390","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-election2008","category-election-2008-campaign-strategy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cusjc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/390","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cusjc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cusjc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cusjc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cusjc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=390"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.cusjc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/390\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":392,"href":"https:\/\/www.cusjc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/390\/revisions\/392"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cusjc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=390"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cusjc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=390"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cusjc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=390"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}