If you think about it, a good diagnosis for Wall Street’s “disease” might be Schizophrenia.
Think about the Stock Market and see if the following Wikipedia description is a good match:
“Schizophrenia from the Greek roots skhizein (σχίζειν, “to split”) and phrēn, phren- (φρήν, φρεν-; “mind”) is a psychiatric diagnosis that describes a neuropsychiatric and mental disorder characterized by abnormalities in the perception or expression of reality. It most commonly manifests as auditory hallucinations, paranoid or bizarre delusions, or disorganized speech and thinking with significant social or occupational dysfunction.”
Here is one good example of a “split mind”:
– Wall Street loves layoffs done by most well-run companies. Ex: “Microsoft layoffs would be good for stock“
– But, Wall Street wants to see unemployment rate decrease. Ex: “Job creation is fundamentally important“
How do you (“Wall Street”) expect the economy to improve and stocks to go up, if you want companies to layoff employees to increase profits?
As soon as the current recession started, lots of companies immediately started huge layoffs to make the stock market happy. And now the stock market wants Jobs to be created magically so that stocks will increase !
On a related note, I was impressed when the Indian Govt (then-FM Chidambaram and PM Manmohan Singh) requested the large companies to “keep your market share, keep your loyal workers with you and take a price cut” and to a large extent major Indian companies did their best. I was surprised Obama never made such an appeal to the US companies to avoid layoffs and is only fighting in the Congress/Senate on a Jobs bill.
