Don't look now but Xerox is the next in a long line of companies that will now have to restate earnings.
Lets see if those wild and wonderful dip buyers were right yesterday, hang on, we may end up miles from here!
"The Decade of Fraud(s)..."
Gay Nineties was the period of the 1890's in United States history. Many Americans prospered during those years. But the period included a nationwide depression, much labor unrest, and the Spanish-American War (1898). Largely as a result of these events, few Americans in the 1890's ever regarded the period as gay or lively. The term Gay Nineties became widely used during the Great Depression, the worldwide business slump of the 1930's. At that time, people longed for a comfortable past and chose to remember only the prosperous years and heroic events of the 1890's. Many Americans preferred to recall the gleaming white buildings and the marvelous new Ferris wheel of the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893. Others remembered Lieutenant Colonel Theodore Roosevelt leading his Rough Rider Regiment against the Spaniards in Cuba three years before he became the nation's 26th president (see Roosevelt, Theodore [The Rough Riders]). Still others thought of the charming gas lights and lively vaudeville shows of the 1890's.
Life during the Gay Nineties
The privileges of wealth. In the 1890's about an eighth of the families in the United States controlled about seven-eighths of the nation's income. The wealthy included more than 4,000 millionaires, most of whom had gained their fortune in banking, mining, manufacturing, trade, or transportation.
Wealthy Americans traveled by ocean liner to many parts of the world. Some collected rare books or valuable art objects. The wealthy supported symphony orchestras and operas in Boston, Chicago, New York City, and other large cities. They sent their children to such exclusive colleges as Harvard and Vassar.
Wealthy families lived in elegant mansions or town houses, and many spent the summer in spacious cottages. They furnished their homes with heavily ornamented furniture of the Victorian style. These families often entertained with lavish dinners and parties. Fashionable young women of the 1890's dressed in the Gibson Girl style created by the American artist Charles Dana Gibson (see [picture]).
The rich often spent leisure time watching horse races, yachting, or playing golf and polo. College men competed in football, rowing, and track. Sports for college women included archery, croquet, and tennis.
Middle-class prosperity. The middle class in America during the 1890's included attorneys, physicians, and other professionals; small-business owners; and skilled workers. Most of them lived in their own homes. Others rented apartments. Like the wealthy, they furnished their homes with Victorian furniture. But they had a Persian rug or statuettes instead of expensive art objects.
Some middle-class children went to work after finishing elementary school. But most continued their education at a private or public high school. Only a small number of these children could afford to go to college.
Many people enjoyed plays given by touring theater groups. Leading performers included Maude Adams, John Drew, and Lillian Russell. Popular plays, such as The Count of Monte Cristo and Cyrano de Bergerac, thrilled audiences across the nation. Outdoor entertainment included professional baseball games, Sunday school picnics, and bicycle rides.
Most middle-class people read daily newspapers and such magazines as Cosmopolitan, McClure's, and Munsey's. Adults also enjoyed such novels as The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and The Red Badge of Courage. Parents encouraged their children to read Horatio Alger's stories, which stressed the virtues of hard work and honesty, as well as luck. Many children secretly read dime novels, adventure stories that cost 10 cents. Many homes had a piano or a phonograph. Popular music included "On the Banks of the Wabash," "Maple Leaf Rag," and marches by John Philip Sousa.
The despair of poverty. Most of the nation's urban poor of the 1890's were unskilled laborers. Many were immigrants who spoke little or no English and who worked about 60 hours a week for less than $10. Millions of unskilled workers lost their jobs during a depression that hit the nation in 1893 and lasted until about 1897. About a fifth of the country's industrial workers had no job during this period, and life became almost unbearable for many of them. Millions of the urban poor lived in crowded tenements that had poor lighting and ventilation. Fire and disease—especially tuberculosis—killed many people. Poor city children left school at an early age, and few attended high school.
Large numbers of rural poor lived in shacks that lacked running water. These people often suffered from disease and had monotonous diets. Rural workers earned only about half the pay that city workers received. Rural children attended one-room schools.
The life of the rural poor was eased by an occasional Saturday night in town and by an annual county fair. In the cities, people could go to a vaudeville show, a baseball game, or a boxing match. Such boxing champions as "Gentleman Jim" Corbett and John L. Sullivan became national heroes.
Economic and political developments
Industrial growth occurred rapidly during the 1890's, except in the depression years. Many large companies bought up smaller ones, and monopolies became common in oil refining and other important industries. The growing power of industrial firms led workers to increase their attempts to organize unions.
Several bloody labor disputes during the 1890's hurt the union movement. In 1892, a strike at the Carnegie Steel Company plant near Homestead, Pennsylvania, resulted in several deaths. In 1894, federal troops helped end violence during a strike by railroad workers against the Pullman Company in Chicago. In spite of these setbacks, labor unions gained strength in the prosperous years at the end of the decade.
New types of mechanized equipment enabled farmers to increase production greatly during the 1890's. But the farmers produced more crops than they could sell. Prices fell, and farmers could not earn enough money to pay for their new machines. Many of them gave up and moved to the cities. During the early 1890's, some dissatisfied farmers founded the Populist Party and demanded many economic and political reforms. Above all, the Populists called for unlimited coinage of silver. They believed the so-called free silver would raise farm prices by increasing the amount of money in circulation. In 1896, the Democratic presidential candidate, William Jennings Bryan, campaigned for free silver. He lost to Republican William McKinley.
In the mid-1890's, a number of members of Congress believed high import tariffs would help the slumping U.S. economy by reducing competition from products made abroad. In 1897, Congress passed the Dingley Act. It raised tariffs to record levels. People in business and farmers soon began to prosper again.
A growing world power. By 1890, all the chief frontier areas of the United States had been settled. But many Americans wanted the nation to expand further and become a world power. The nation largely accomplished this goal in the Spanish-American War. In February 1898, the battleship U.S.S. Maine blew up in the harbor of Havana, Cuba. The actual cause of the explosion was never learned. But most Americans blamed Spain, which ruled Cuba at the time. The United States declared war on Spain in April. American forces defeated the Spaniards in battles in Cuba and the Philippines, which Spain also ruled. Spain asked for peace in August. It granted independence to Cuba and gave Guam, the Philippines, and Puerto Rico to the United States.
Also in 1898, the United States annexed the Hawaiian Islands. In 1899, Filipinos revolted against American forces because the United States had no plan to grant immediate independence to the Philippines.
Rising prosperity and victory in the Spanish-American War unified America during the late 1890's. Most Americans looked forward to the new century with optimism. But many felt uneasy about the nation's growing involvement in foreign affairs.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Contributor:
• Ari Hoogenboom, Ph.D., Professor of History, City University of New York Brooklyn College.
How to cite this article. To cite this article in a footnote, Discovery School recommends the following format:
Ari Hoogenboom, "Gay Nineties," Discovery Channel School, original content provided by World Book Online,
http://www.discoveryschool.com/homeworkhelp/ worldbook/atozhistory/g/218990.html, Today's date here.
He believes the triggers may turn out to be [1] positive earnings numbers and [2] increased regulation. "If companies start meeting positive earnings estimates, that will make an impression on investors," Shiller said. "Government action could also have an effect. Things started turning around in the 1930s, after the creation of regulatory bodies like the Securities and Exchange Commission," he added. "Investors are pretty confident in the government's ability to enact effective regulations."Shiller believes that [1] Appearances are King. That posititivism and mere reported earnings numbers -- that estimates meet reported numbers -- are all that is needed, becuase only the "impression made" upon investors counts.
This is ridiculuous. There are many reasons we this is a ridiculous premise after a market fall and into a bear and post-bear slow "bottom of the cereal bowl" recovery. All those reasons summarize into a completely different pyshchology, set of expectations, set of reasons to invest.
Shiller can't get away from the old and gone psychology of a late bull market -- where appearances ARE King, and all that counts is mere impression.
We haven't reached bottom until hard, cash-on-the-barrelhead-reliably, pratical investement current yield is King.
* * * * *
Most troubling however, is Shiller's obvious rosy-socialist-cure-all outlook. That is [2], where he claims that everyone loves government regulation, that FDR's socialist polices, FDR's social-facsist SEC, and FDR's bureaucratism of regulation after regulation pulled us out of the Greay Depression during the 30's.
Well the Great Depression began as a market blowout after a loosey-gooosey bubble of charlatans and boosters, but FDR's policies locked that depression in, rather than allowing a natural free market recovery which might have had us out by '36 if not sooner. Instead, we -- in that generation -- NEVER came out of the Great Depression. Something interposed -- that phase of the continuance of the Great War, the phase known as WW II. and only a new generation born after or just before '29 enjoyed a differet economy.
Shiller is a dimwit, except for seeing the obivious and getting credit for being wise about telling us what is clear to any ninny. He not only a dimwit but a fool, and his advice is best ignored as any fools should be, allowing that one does give respect to dimwits for what wit they may show, but slight the fool's advice completely.
When paying off debt, first pay off the highest interest, working your way down. This will help free up more money - a little at first, but more later. Since this down turn will last a while, paying down debt will often provide a better return that you could get in the market.
For example, assume you have as 12% loan but can only make 4% in the market. Paying off the loan makes more sense because it will save you money in the long run.
It will also enable you to be in a better cash flow position to take advantage of a recovery. Just my .02