DOW Breaks 9000

So how did that happen?

While we weren’t paying attention, the markets have righted themselves and have moved grindingly upwards. Heck, even the investment houses, which mere months ago were threatening to throw us all into a massive depression, are now back to giving themselves massive bonuses for their executives.

I won’t say these folk were shouting wolf, but I will note that there are a lot of lupine-costumes piled up in the corporate closet for when they need them the next time.

Meantime, the rest of the country is still in the grips of the Great Recession – unemployment continues to pulse upwards, local governments can’t cover the bills, bankruptcies and foreclosures continue at a brisk pace, gas is still a Busharian levels and things are tight. But, there seems to be discussions now of whether this will be a “V” shaped recession (quick recovery) or a “”U” shaped recession (slow bottoming out, then climbing).

I tend to think that most of us are looking at a “L” shape - sharp drop and things stay here for a good while as the upper classes retrench and figure out where the next bubble in going to be.

The rest of us? Well, good luck on all this, and the L might just turn into a check-mark.

More later,

Update Heh. I had forgotten this. When the market was bottoming out, the conservative wing of the pundocracy was quick to pin it on the New Guy in the White House. Now that things have improved slightly, they are denying they ever did so. Stay classy, guys.