DOLLARS & NONSENSE

Wall Stree Skids On Oil, Deflates on Inflation

Wall Street skidded on oil prices that gushed to $74 a barrel on clerical confirmation from Iran that if the nation is penalized for working on an atomic bomb it just might play the slick oil game.

The Street also deflated on further innuendoes by Fed Chairman Ben Berneke that inflation is still inflating and will require yet more pricks of the interest-rate stylus.

Curiously, the most consequential commodities of the day, specifically, the ballooning national debt and the economically omnivorous war in Iraq went largely unmentioned.

Queried about the disproportionate attention being paid to the less proportionate issues, a Wall Street market maker commented, “Oh, we’re saving those pieces of news for next week, in case the losses we’re inflicting on individual investors and day traders this week aren’t enough to make them throw in the chips so we can pick up their shares for cheap. Of course, once we have them well in hand, we’ll decide that some bit of news or another is good for the economy, so we can drive share prices back up.”

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