Stock Market Is Having its Worst Second Quarter Since the Great Depression

It is still early in the month of April, but the second quarter of 2018 is off to a near record bad start even as Republicans are hoping and praying a strong economy will save their asses in November. What/who's to blame for the near record stock market drop?  Der Trumpenführer, of course.  Between fears of a trade war that will harm the U.S. economy, a record budget deficit thanks to the $1.5 trillion give away to the wealthiest Americans and large corporations, not "entitlements as claimed by the always lying Paul Ryan, and Trump's attacks on Amazon, the market took a major dive today.  In the process, many investors and average Americans with money in retirement and/or pension funds took a financial hit.  Fortune looks at today's ugly market drop.  Here are highlights:

U.S. stocks are on track to have their worst April start since 1929, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The S&P 500 index slumped 2.4 percent as of 1:10 p.m. in New York, a rout exceeded only by its 2.5 percent decline 89 years ago, a prelude to the devastating crash later that year that brought on the Great Depression. (Back then, the index only comprised 90 stocks.)

China’s retaliatory trade tariffs combined with President Donald Trump’s criticism of Amazon.com Inc. to send equities into a tailspin Monday. Shares in the online retailer tumbled, encouraging a sell-off in consumer discretionary and technology stocks. The S&P 500 broke through its 200-day moving average — a key technical support — sending volatility higher.

The stock slide also looks pretty bad when compared to the beginning of other quarters. Equities are on pace to lose more than on any other quarterly first day since October 2011, when stocks plummeted 2.8 percent, Bloomberg data show.

This from the New York Times should make investors and Republicans worried:

Even after a fast start to 2018, stock markets finished the first quarter down for the year — the first quarterly decline since 2015. It suggested that a period of calm and steadily rising markets had given way to a turbulent new era with a bearish bent.

The plunge continued Monday, with the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index sinking 2.2 percent. Investors jettisoned shares of financial, technology and many other businesses, spooked at least in part by a tweet from Mr. Trump aimed at one of the country’s biggest companies: Amazon.

Monday’s decline left stocks down more than 4 percent so far in 2018. They are now down more than 10 percent from their peak in late January.

[S]ince February, a toxic stew of factors — many but certainly not all of them emanating from Washington — has polluted what had been the market’s placidly rising waters. And there’s little prospect of the messes dissipating anytime soon.

Monday’s dose of unnerving news was a presidential tweet aimed at Amazon, which Mr. Trump accused of hurting the United States Postal Service. Mr. Trump’s feud with the company has been going on sporadically since before he became president, but the onslaught has accelerated lately.

One thing is clear: The days of calm markets marching steadily higher, shattering one record after another, are gone for now. That carries risks for Mr. Trump, who spent the first year of his presidency as a stock-market cheerleader but in recent months has been mostly silent about the market’s gyrations.

It also could be a danger for the United States economy. Academic research suggests that long-term market declines can rub off on consumers, leading them to feel less affluent and therefore spend less money. That is bad news for an economy that hinges largely on zesty consumer spending.

The market’s decline over the past two months has been broad based. . . . .The tech sector has been the epicenter the stock market pain in recent weeks, hurt by concerns about trade friction with China — a key market and supplier for tech firms — and fears of tighter government regulation. Even before Monday’s fall, some $457 billion had been wiped off the sector’s total market value.

Even the shares of financial institutions — the companies that would most likely benefit from a looser regulatory environment favored by Republicans — have been battered. The sector dropped 2.1 percent Monday, with investors worried about an unfavorable lending environment. 

Republicans, of course, could end this easily: joint with Democrats in removing Trump from office.  He is unfit and a clear and present danger to the nation. 

Jeb Bush Invested Florida Pension Fund Money In Porn Purveyor

The Christofascists truly do not like Jeb Bush and it is beyond entertaining to watch them dredge up whatever dirty they can find to damage Bush - even as sane and rational people worry instead about Jebbie's use of his idiot brother, George W. Bush, as his top Middle East adviser.  Jebbie's knuckle dragging opponents are agog about the Bush Florida administration's investment if state pension funds in a film distributor, Movie Gallery, a small portion of whose inventory included  X-rated titles.  The International Business Times looks at the investment history while Jebbie was governor of Florida.  The irony, of course, is that evangelical Christians in the Bible Belt have the highest use of Internet porn and, back in the era of Jebbie's term as governor of Florida, these same folks were likely making high use of Movie Gallery's x-rated products.  Here are excerpts:

Conservatives in Florida were aghast: State documents said that Gov. Jeb Bush and other overseers of Florida's pension system had shifted retirees' money into a company called Movie Gallery, one of the largest film rental firms in America. Most of the titles were standard comedy and action fare, but a fraction were X-rated titles. 

In short, the state of Florida was investing taxpayer money in pornography. 

Bush recently released 280,000 emails from his two terms as governor, and buried in the trove are exchanges about the Movie Gallery investment that highlight the tension between Bush’s stance as a firm social conservative and his readiness to align himself with the Republican Party’s pro-businesses sensibilities -- even at the cost of right-wing ideals.

“Have you people lost your minds?” one outraged voter wrote in an email to Bush and the State Board of Administration (SBA), which made the investment. Another angry voter emailed that pornography was “enslaving men and women to its addiction.”

The Bush administration would not let political ideology shape pension decisions, the director explained, saying the state’s pension trustees were “required to act solely in the best interest of the [pension] beneficiaries.”

With right-wing heroes like Mike Huckabee, Ted Cruz and Rick Santorum moving to enter the 2016 presidential race, Bush's backers are working to present the former Florida governor as a reliable conservative. They note that he publicly opposed same-sex marriage, funded crisis pregnancy centers and backed proposals to fund vouchers for private and religious schools.

In a mass email, AFA founder Donald Wildmon touted his group’s new website www.stopmoviegalleryporn.com, and urged the AFA’s 200,000 members to sign a petition and express their anger at Bush for moving $1.3 million of state money into the company.

“Movie Gallery shades hundreds of its stores with ‘back rooms,’ filled with thousands of videos and magazines exhibiting morbid depictions of sex,” Wildmon wrote. “By investing in Movie Gallery stock, the state of Florida is giving its stamp of approval on hard-core porn. Tell the Florida Board of Administration to get out of the porn business by divesting itself of Movie Gallery stock.”

 Also picking up on the story are The Drudge Report and The Hill.