commissioner.org
| Source | Robert Naiman |
| Date | 07/02/28/09:08 |
| Institute for Public Accuracy
915 National Press Building, Washington, D.C. 20045 www.accuracy.org ___________________________________________________ Wednesday, February 28, 2007 Stock Market Drop DEAN BAKER, www.cepr.net Co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, Baker said today: "A lower stock market is good for a lot of people. If corn prices fell 30 percent, that would be bad for you if you're a corn farmer, but good for you if you weren't and ate a lot of corn. Stock ownership is highly concentrated; 75 percent of the population holds little or no stock (including retirement accounts), so if stocks go down and you don't own any, you're better off. "When stocks plunge in value, it's similar to a situation where there are trillions of dollars in counterfeit currency, held by a small group of people, and the police seize and burn it. This is good news for the rest of us because the trillions of dollars of counterfeit money will not be bidding up the prices of things like houses and cars. Any honest economist would have to concede this point -- it's elementary economics, but many economists tend to cheer the stock market, in effect favoring the wealthy at everyone else's expense." Baker's most recent book is "Conservative Nanny State: How the Wealthy Use the Government to Stay Rich and Get Richer." www.ConservativeNannyState.org |
Copyright (c) 1998, Joongpil Cho