Up until 45 B.C., there were only ten months in the Roman calendar, and October had been the eighth month. After the assassination of Julius Caesar by his ally and colleague, Brutus, the months of July and August had been added to the Roman calendar, in honour of Julius (July) Caesar and his successor, Augustus "Octavius" (August) Caesar.
There are other more relatively recent times that come into sharp focus when tracing the history of the days of October:
October 24, 1929
October 19, 1987
October 5, 2008
1929 vs 2011
"The economy had been growing robustly for most of the so-called Roaring Twenties. It was a technological golden age as innovations such as radio, automobiles, aviation, telephone and the power grid were deployed and adopted. Companies that had pioneered these advances, like Radio Corporation of America (RCA) and General Motors, saw their stocks soar. Financial corporations also did well as Wall Street bankers floated mutual fund companies (then known as investment trusts) like the Goldman Sachs Trading Corporation. Investors were infatuated with the returns available in the stock market especially with the use of leverage through margin debt."
"The Roaring Twenties, the decade that led up to the Crash was a time of wealth and excess. Despite caution of the dangers of speculation, many believed that the market could sustain high price levels. Shortly before the crash, economist Irving Fisher famously proclaimed, "Stock prices have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau." However, the optimism and financial gains of the great bull market were shattered on "Black Thursday", October 24, 1929, when share prices on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) collapsed. Stock prices plummeted on that day, and continued to fall at an unprecedented rate for a full month. The October 1929 crash came during a period of declining real estate values in the United States (which peaked in 1925) near the beginning of a chain of events that led to the Great Depression, a period of economic decline in the industrialized nations."
(source: Wikipedia, events leading up to the stock market crash of 1929)
"On March 25, 1929, the stock market suffered a mini-crash. It was a prelude of what was to come. As prices began to drop, panic struck across the country as margin calls were issued. When banker Charles Mitchell made an announcement that his bank would keep lending, his reassurance stopped the panic. Although Mitchell and others tried the tactic of reassurance again in October, it did not stop the big crash. By the spring of 1929, there were additional signs that the economy might be headed for a serious setback. Steel production went down; house construction slowed; and car sales waned. At this time, there were also a few reputable people warning of an impending, major crash; however, as month after month went by without one, those that advised caution were labeled pessimists and ignored."
(source: http://history1900s.about.com/od/1920s/a/stockcrash1929.htm)
In 2011, perhaps the styles of dress had changed, but the ideologies that existed in the 1920s remained firmly intact. It was a technological golden age as innovations such as the internet, electric cars, space shuttles, mobile/ smart phones, and solar power were deployed and adopted. Companies that had pioneered these advances, such as Apple, Microsoft, Google and Tesla, saw their stocks soar.
Women were liberated from the archetype of the sterile housewife from the 1950s, similar to that of the advent of flappers from the 1920s who were casting off the 19th century era of female sexual repression. Vestiges of the old economic era, Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan Chase were still around, but this time, with strong ties in government. People were still buying stocks on margin; banks and lenders were utilising leverage to gauge their positions.
What is different about 1929 from 2011 is that instead of radio telecasts spreading mass panic about the stock market, influencing people's choices in what to invest, and manipulating the market through popular discourse; we have added to these methods, ratings agencies who work with investment banks to spread inaccurate information to manipulate the market in their favour.
Who are these ratings agencies, and why are they a threat to global economy?
Never had a tripartite of agencies, S&P, Moody's and Fitch, had such collective power as to sway the global market. Being integral to the housing collapse in 2008 and the stock market crash, they have singularly worked to manipulate investors into buying toxic CDOs and other such junk investments for their own personal gain. They even have the power to threaten governments if their legislation is not up to their personal satisfaction. When S&P leaked that they would downgrade US credit last Thursday, US companies in the stock market collectively lost 2 trillion dollars of their value in a period of three days. Similarly the Asian markets also followed suit and the Nikkei was down 3.5% at open.
On August 4, 2011, we suffered a mini-crash. It will be a prelude to what is to come if we continue to allow ratings agencies to manipulate the global market and make demands on the government to change legislation to suit their personal interests.
What happens this coming October is still unclear. Will we enter a second Depression? Will there be another stock market crash? One thing seems to be clear, if we don't strip ratings agencies of their power, these Bruti will most certainly create panic situations in which they will profit from betting against the US economy.
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