"People are scared to be negative" (ya think?)

Meredith Whitney, the analyst who prompted a $369 billion (£177 billion) plunge in the value of US shares on Thursday by issuing a negative note on Citigroup, hit out at Wall Street’s culture of intimidation yesterday after receiving several death threats from investors in the bank.

Ms Whitney, a CIBC analyst who is married to the former World Wrestling Entertainment champion Death Mask, prompted a near 7 per cent drop in Citigroup’s shares on Thursday, after suggesting that the bank needed to raise more than $30 billion to restore its capital cushion.

She also downgraded her recommendation on Citigroup’s shares to “market underperform” in the note that set off America’s biggest stock market decline since August.

Ms Whitney, Forbes’s second-highest ranked stock picker for 2007, told The Times: “People are scared to be negative, especially when a company has such a wide holding. Clients are not pleased with my call and I have had several death threats.


http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/markets/article2796774.ece

and malfeasance of corporate anti-america, wall street and their corrupt private equity hedge funds.

... are going to look like economic prophets in a couple years.

...that isn't propped up by LIES?

Our current economy must be a mirage. We think we know what we see...but we really don't know

Bush distorts the inflation rates by keeping food and gas out of the equation, when factoring the CPI.
Excuse me, but I've actually been in a grocery store--unlike the neocons--who have hired hands go to
the store for their brie and brandy. Prices are completely outrageous...a jump in 20 percent for most
things, I would say.

The unemployment rate is distorted, because Bush re-defined what "manufacturing jobs" are--and probably
a plethora of other employment definitions.

Our economy is currently being flooded with US Treasury money. Without it, what would happen?

The dollar is falling like a hot rock.

Consumers are drowning in debt. Much of the spending we see is people buying things that they cannot
afford. Credit cards are giving the illusion that this economy is healthier than it is.

The jig is up on the housing market---but the housing boom certainly made the economy seem healthy--with
all of those people buying huge houses that they couldn't afford. Furthermore, so many people took out
home-equity loans and borrowed against their home as it was an ATM machine. That's not healthy spending.

Now, we find out that analysts are pressured into giving companies positive ratings. Unbelievable.
How much of our stock market is an illusion? If most analysts give positive ratings, to avoid the
death threats---then how many more companies are unhealthy--with unwitting stockholders propping
up these companies and investing dollars that could disintegrate?

Do we really know how healthy this economy is? My vote is that we know what they want us to know.