I wish that more winners paid attention to the losers, the minutiae.

A shot at “winners”….in what context? Should stockholders give away their gains to “the losers”?

Maybe that’s what makes me a bleeding-heart liberal. I think it is a biggie and want to deal with it. I don’t think there’s someone to blame, of course, but rather that we should pay attention to the system and see what we can do to alleviate problems. You give some good examples that I’ve considered before.

A defense company that makes military weapons? I quit working for such a company fifteen years ago, and this was one of my reasons.

A clear road ahead due to an accident? Accidents happen to everyone, and while no one is glad an accident has happened, I think we’d be sorrier if accidents mainly happened to a set of people who are least able to deal with the consequences.

In other words, I think I understand how the market works, and that there are winners and losers. I wish that more winners paid attention to the losers, the minutiae.

Thus the slow rise in interest rates.

It’s simply a fact of life that when certain segments come in with good or bad numbers, a portion of the market will react positively. There’s nothing nefarious about it. Just as when there’s an accident on the interstate & you (or I) are able to merge on 1/2 ahead of the accident during rush hour and enjoy the near-empty freeway, one needn’t assume that there is joy or celebration over someone’s misery. That only occurs when someone well off meets an unhappy situation (admit it, everyone likes it when the wealthy “get their comeuppance” in some fasion. Leona Helmsley, Ken Lay and now Mel Gibson).

If someone owns stock in a company that makes microchips for, say, military equipment, that doesn’t mean that they celebrate when that equipment kills people - they’re only happy when their stock rises. They’re only cheering the market, not the minutia.

7% growth in the GDP would cause someone to think “wow, the economy is better than ever!” but it would cause the market to think “wow, we’re about to have some heavy-duty inlfation”. It’s simply the market at work.

No biggie.

I’m not advocating anything like class warfare, but when a serious newspaper writes about investors “cheering” because of an economic trend that’s based on people not being able to find jobs, I think that shows there is a divide. When I hear about someone I know losing a job, that’s not reason for celebration. If my investments are such that I profit when this happens, I think I should change my investments.

If there are two Americas, I would suggest that the dividing line comes near the point where a person has enough disposable income that they can make a useful profit on their investments over a relatively short-term (not just in retirement, that is). The people in America #1 can work (or whatever) and build on their gains with little fear of economic catastrophe. The people in America #2 are Sisyphians - pushing the boulder up the hill every day, knowing their fate is to push it up again the next day - unless catastrophe does strike and they are faced with bankrupcy or worse.

On a personal note, my family hovers somewhere between the two. We are among those rare skilled workers who make enough that, with discipline, we could bootstrap ourselves into America#1. So far, we haven’t done so.

And if there are two economic America’s, how do you think it splits up?

50-50? 80-20?