New York – The Dow Jones Industrial Average soared above 10,000 again Tuesday, chiefly on the strength of a report that Wall Street executives can do “basically anything they fucking want, whenever they fucking want.”
The report, released Tuesday by a consortium of financial experts studying the causes of the financial crisis, said that executives at Wall Street’s biggest companies, and especially those in the financial sector, have an extremely advantageous relationship with the U.S. government and other bodies that could potentially regulate their behavior.
“They are in a unique position,” the report states, “unlike virtually any other group of professionals in the United States. They not only can nearly bankrupt the entire world, but they can then give out lavish bonuses to the very people most responsible for it. This is due to a long-held give-and-take, leverage-based relationship with members of the U.S. Congress and the administrations of presidents dating back several decades. We find no reason to believe the executives will change their behavior any time in the near future, as there are apparently no ramifications for not doing so.”
But the report goes on to say that while the crisis may have all but passed for many of the most successful companies on Wall Street, the same is not true for the greater part of the country.
“For example, unemployment levels are far too high to allow a broader recovery that would reach a majority of Americans. However, since most of Wall Street operates in a separate reality than the rest of the country, this is unlikely to affect its gains.”
Eric Hemmill, a trader with Bennington Holdings, said the gains came from the validation of assumptions that many on Wall Street have already made.
“We knew this already, basically,” Hemmill said. “But now we have this official report, from a respected entity that says, ‘Yeah, they can do whatever they want. It’s true.’ So we have that backing and that confidence, and you see that reflected in the gains today.”
The Dow gained 113.70 points to end at 10,061.87. The Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index and the Nasdaq composite index also posted gains.
“When we see gains like this, and hit a big, important number like this, it takes the careful, safe approach out, gets the bulls back in control of the market,” said John Eckington, an analyst with Goldman Sachs. “Now, some may see this as a bad thing, because it was risky behavior that got us into this crisis in the first place. But we don’t feel that way. No one I know does. We’re feeling healthy enough to start taking the kinds of risks with other people’s money that we’re accustomed to taking.”
