After Big Drop, Stock Market Wraps Up Best Month In Nearly A Decade

Monday, October 31, 2011 After Big Drop, Stock Market Wraps Up Best Month In Nearly A Decade NEW YORK -- October is somewhat cursed for the stock market – the Crash of 1929, Black Monday in 1987, a slow-motion meltdown in 2008. This time, the demons made a last gasp, but Wall Street still managed to break the jinx. GOING MAINSTREAM: Poll: Most Americans Say Income Inequality Is A Big Problem Andrew Madoff: I'll Never Speak To My Father Again [WATCH] UPDATES: Protesters Face Winter Weather In East, Arrests In West Markets Appeared Fearful On Bankruptcy Of Securities Firm Reagan Economist Dismisses Idea That Deregulation Leads To Jobs BLOG POSTS Mohamed A. El-Erian: Could America Turn Out Worse Than Japan? American policymakers, together with their European counterparts, are realizing something that Japan has been experiencing for a while: It is very difficult to manage well an economy hobbled by structural impediments and balance sheet excesses. Dean Baker: Supercommittee of the One Percent Won't Even Think of Taxing Wall Street The supercommittee doesn't want to think about a proposal that would impose serious costs on Wall Street. It is more interested in taking away Social Security and Medicare benefits from the old and disabled. Robert Kuttner: Abolish Credit Default Swaps It's time to abolish credit default swaps and similar exotic, impenetrable, essentially unregulated securities. They add nothing to economic efficiency, they line bankers' pockets, and they add massively to global financial risks. Swaps were only invented in the 1990s. Before swaps, investors were perfectly capable of evaluating risks -- and there was less systemic risk to evaluate. The entire banking system is overdue for a drastic simplification that puts banks back in their legitimate business of evaluating risks and then holding onto them, rather than passing the hot potato to someone else. This will require a revolutionary power shift, and it is one the Occupy Wall Street protests are already promoting. David Frum: What if Europe Had a Revolution and Called it a Debt Crisis? What Europe must do to save the euro is very similar to what Alexander Hamilton did in the United States in the 1790s to create the dollar. But the new American super-government was elected. The new European supergovernment won't be. Wendell Potter: Insurers Pressuring Obama to Defy Law So They Can Continue Keeping You in the Dark If you have no idea what you're paying good money for when you enroll in a health insurance plan, there's a good reason for that: insurers profit from your ignorance. And they're waging an intense behind-the-scenes campaign to keep you in the dark.

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