Since the sordid soap opera love triangle of banks, the government, and bailouts began in late 2008, we haven't seen much horrifying activity from the stock market. Horrifying activity from the job market, yes, and that shall continue to stay that way. I wouldn't expect God to shit out a massive pile of employment on us any time soon, as many business conservatives would like to believe (they call this by the oxymoron the "Jobless Recovery"). But nevertheless, those of us with jobs have seen our 401ks running a fucking marathon of recovery in the past year. Of course that's because it was below sewage level one to one-point-five years ago.

The way the stock market works has clearly changed. It isn't the steady 7% per year that we've come to expect since the 1930s. Now it's kind of like up ninety billion percent one day, down ninety billion and three percent the next. Such as the Grand Canyon of a 900 point dip that occurred today. So how does this happen? Just how does all this magic witchcraftery stock market nonsense work? 

When I was in business school, they taught that it has to do with a whole host of factors. Including but not limited to: company product demand, assets, debt, liquidity,  price/equity ratios, all kinds of fancy shit that only people who own their own private helicopters understand.

Well, they think they understand how it works anyway.

I'm going to let you in on the truth. The REAL American's guide to the stock market.

See, first, someone gets a huge cash- boner. In this case, it happened to be on Monday, May 3rd. So this guy with the cash-boner he calls his friends and starts a rumor. Not about his huge cash-boner, but about something else, something that seems inconsequential but is actually a sneak attack. It's something that will make his company look bitchin'.

"So, I saw these numbers today, the consumer confidence index is up, and the volatility index is down." He says with scotch on his breath.

 "Y'know, you might wanna sell your shares in your company today, all the billions of them, by the end of the day you'll thank me." He'll continue.

His confidant will agree, "yes, absolutely, thanks for the hint...I can't wait to start jacking off in my money pile." 

They hang up and go off to do their respective deeds.

The next day the market crashes.

Wha'happened?

Well, it was the anniversary of the Kent State Shootings. That didn't help.

It was also a Tuesday, and you know, September 11th happened on a Tuesday. That makes investors nervous.

Also,  it was the fourth of the month. In Japan, the word for four "shi" means "death".

Then some bees flew in front of my window....grrr how I hate them.

Then a bunny somewhere sneezed.

Oh, and a whole bunch of uneducated investors had stop losses scheduled in their online trading accounts.(Meaning, when a stock starts to drop, their account will automatically sell it when it reaches a certain price. If this happens over and over again to millions of shares, the stock price will lose demand and it will drop like the Columbia Space Shuttle). Also, a bunch of collusionist motherfuckers planned to dump their stocks because of the risk of losing their value of their bond portfolios due to the issue with Greece.

Then today, maybe, just maybe, someone entered a sell for 16 billion shares of Proctor and Gamble stock instead of 16 million. Oopsy daisy!

And a whole bunch of other shit happened. Like, I ate a burger.

And that, kids, is how the stockmarket works.