Dilbert cartoonist Scott Adams says Wall Street has just about pulled in all the rubes now so it’s time for them to tank the market through stock market manipulation, presumably after shorting it first. After all, given the pretend enforcement that the Obama Administration does, their risk is minimal even if their behavior is criminal.
Normally I wouldn’t buy into a conspiracy theory that has no smoking gun type of evidence. But financial markets are a unique situation. When you give people in that industry the motive, the opportunity, and a near-zero chance of getting caught, how can you expect them to play fair? The bigger shock to me would be to learn that the markets are free of manipulation. That would be a violation of everything I know about human nature.
So look for a 20% correction in 2013.
He explains for Business Insider
We can only give a guess of the odds that the market is being manipulated. So I ask myself: How often does the fox leave the hen house because he feels that taking an egg would be wrong?
If you have a different answer from mine, I applaud your faith in human nature.