Democrats and the Market

You can make a compelling case that the Democrats are intentionally tanking the stock market in an effort to get Obama elected. First, the stories abound on how Pelosi had the House Majority Whip sit on his hands last Monday during the House vote on the Paulson plan, which went down in flames. Second, there was the nasty pre-vote speech by Pelosi blaming Republicans for the market mess, thus enraging some of the very people that she wanted to vote to support the bill, even though the Democrats could have passed the bill all by themselves.

The market then dropped 777 points and the investing public lost over a trillion dollars in wealth.

Then comes this story, where Senate Majority leader personally torched the insurance sector this past week with a false rumor.

Insurance stocks, led by Hartford Financial, Principal Financial and MetLife, fell on Thursday, a day after a top lawmaker raised the question of whether a well-known insurer could be in financial trouble.

Wall Street is already worried insurers will be hurt by investment losses and exposure to recent corporate collapses, including American International Group Inc, Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc and Washington Mutual Inc as well as commercial and residential real estate debt.

U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat, said it was imperative that the $700 billion financial bailout plan get legislative approval, adding that a well-known insurer's solvency could be threatened if financial markets remained volatile.

As a result of these comments, the entire insurance sector lost approximately 50% in value, thus costing the investing public approximately $250 billion in wealth and lead to another nearly 400 point sell off in the market.

Reid later admitted that he had no idea what he was talking about and had nothing to back up his earlier statement.

Reid, speaking to reporters Wednesday, did not name the insurer. A spokesman said Thursday the comments were not directed at any particular company.

"His comments were meant to refer to the conditions in the financial sector generally. He regrets any confusion his comments may have caused," said spokesman Jim Manley.

I want Reid investigated and questioned under oath about his role in this. People lost a lot of money out of their 401K's this week because of Reid making this crap up and I'm starting to wonder if he is fronting for some short sellers. At the very least Reid showed his is incompetence. At the worst, it was criminal.

Pelosi and Reid have cost the investing public approximatley $1.250 trillion dollars in wealth in the past week. And they blame Bush for this market mess.