Funny how we all forget about Creative Destruction....... and what a powerful and changing force it is meant to be. good bye to all that.

The point is that noen of these corporations would have made it if not for the government bailout. They should have gone out of business and in fact should have gone out long ago.

The mega corporations are not healthy for the economy. Sure you can argue that stocks going back up is a good thing, but at what cost. Nothing has really changed. The greedy and corrupt are allowed to keep on working as if nothing happened. The total manipulation of the market continues.

Wells Fargo would not have been able to post a profit if not for government assistance. Stocks should not go up because of that. They should go down. All we have done is create a false positive for th emarket. Not surprising because the market has been trading based on BS for years.

If you take morality and ethics out of the equation and just focus on making money at all cost you end up with a morally corrupt country. That is why every one of these corrupt corporations should have failed. Fine the DOW goes to 4000 and we have a severe reccession for a few years. At least the garbage would be purged and a better economy and a better country would come out of it.

All we have done is create the next bubble that will burst in a year or so. Our economy cannot continue like this. We need real job creation and real wage growth. A mega corporation only exists for wage destruction.

Be happy your BS stocks are going up Jim. Go ahead and make money. All that has been done is as unethical as business can be. That doesn't matter though, you can make money. What a great society we are living in.

Jim, you disappoint me . . . BUT you have hit upon crux aspect of the problem confronting the recovery of the markets and our national economy. "Morality" is what it is all about NOW.

As a relatively average small time investor, I am only looking to invest in corporations that are based and operated on sound business principles. There are no "guarantees:; but at least I expect a business to be based on sound business and accounting principles. If I want Las Vegas style gambling, I'll go to Las Vegas.

On the otherhand, the markets / funds (and corporations) have become like players in a Las Vegas casino who have "doctored" their $10.00 chips to look like $1,000.00 chips, and there are no "chip inspectors" in this "market casino", and "the House" is looking the other way during all of the betting.

The morality is that corporations must use sound business and accounting practices to produce financial reports that have reasonable INTEGRITY. Otherwise, investors like myself are nothing more than suckers, who have finally realized what is going on, and will not invest in such manipulated and controlled markets.

Insiders like you and the other brokers and funds only see all of this as "widgets" to earn commissions and fees from buying and selling the widgets. These brokers couldn't care less about the real value of the stocks; they are only concerned about how they can manipulate the "apparent momentary values" for EITHER buying and selling stock . . . creating market activity that earns quick commissions, fees or profits. There is little integrity in all of this for the "common man" to play in this game.

Basically, the industry depends on the investments by the common people; but now they have scared them out of the market; and they will NOT return to a manipulated and controlled market with phony corporate stock values based on fraudulent financial reports.

Now they are talking about removing the mark-to-market valuations, which was the only thing that was holding down the perpetuation of the fraudulent evaluations. Will we return to something akin to "derivative" values? We need the Uptick rule to moderate the short selling which is pushing the market values down; and has become a tremendous negative factor in the markets.

A basic problem is that you see all of this from aninsiders point of view of a business of "hawking widgets" for the sake of earning money without regard to the REAL (sic. undisclosed) values of the corporations. You guys have hisotrically made fortunes whether the markets rise or fall . . . you make money from the economic activity.

People like myself . . . the common average people . . . are seeking to make long term investments, not to be "day traders".

Well, you guys managed to beat us up with your market shenanigans; and we simply do not care to be duped and taken advantage of any more. Perhaps when there is some reasonable integrity in the business practices, financial accounting, anc corporate financial reports, we might return to the markets . . . BUT until that occurs, don't expect me to invest a nickel in any of this sham.

The questionis: "Can "you guys" get along without our investments?" We don't need you; but the brokers, the funds, and the corporations certainly need our investments, don't they?

Moralizing the issues is what it all becomes . . .

Once you take all the morality out of "making money' why bother "making" it? Why not just steal yours, Cramer? Why not get a "James Gang" together and take out people like you. If all you want in life is money, rob a bank. Thanks to your fellow citizens and your crony filled Treasury Department that is still the place where the money is not just digits on a screen.

If morals had anything to do with it we wouldn't be in this problem in the first place. What we really seen is the super rich robbing the people that try to build a little something for their future.

As for the bail out , what people seem to forget is that it is being paid for by many people who have no investments in the market . So what you are really saying is that the bail outs are good for the rich and the greedy . The bail outs don't help the average people who are forced to suffer.

Morals? I think people forgot there is a Heaven and Hell , come judgement day those trillions of dollars are going to be of no use to them. Burn baby burn !!!

Just because you believe that the immoral will burn in hell doesn't give them the right to live the way they do today. It is called a contract wiht society.

There is no way of truly knowing if there is a hell. You can believe in it all you want. The only real justice we can be sure of is justice presided over by living people.

That is what is wrong wiht our society. The moral and ethical have allowed unethical behavior to run amok because of a belief that they will be punished later. That is very dangerous. The corrupt do not fear hell because they do not believe in it. If they do they believe that they can repent right before they die and all will be forgiven.

I would rather destroy the corrupt now and face judgement for that action rather than live in a corrupted society.

Over the past few months insurers have represented the best value in the market. No serious investor believed the feds were going to let big life insurers go down if they weren't willing to let big commercial banks go down.

The same people who happen to be upset over the insurers getting bailed out are the same people who tried to short AFL, HIG, PRU, MET and others out of existence.

Although I found the events of the past year or two interesting, I never wanted the wheels to come off the bus, like some. No uptick rule, illegal shorting, burning down big commercial banks, burning down life insurers, you may as well burn the flag while you're at it.

Buy, buy, buy

http://papergains.blogspot.com/2009/02/insurers.html

PaperGains

It seems to me that it's in everyone's best interests for the stock market to recover. If the market recovers, 401K's will recover their values, and people who are trying to reenter the job market will be able to remain in retirement. There will be fewer people competing for jobs, and the unemployment rate will drop.