Stock Market

By Michael Nystrom | November 7, 2007
Originally published at Bull! Not bull

[Editor's note - the title of this piece comes from Chapter VII of John Kenneth Galbraith's excellent account of the 1929 Crash titled The Great Crash, a book well worth reviewing at this critical market juncture.]

Judging from recent market action - oil approaching $100, gold nearing its all time high of $850, and the dollar setting new all-time lows daily - things indeed appear to be getting more serious. I'll start with the Dow simply because it is the headline number, the one that everyone hears about. Even those who know little to nothing about the market in general are familiar with it from news summaries and headlines. But headlines don't tell the whole story: