so many financial indices

so many financial indices

fiction
edward w pritchard


So many financial indices start our day. Individual stocks and bonds are totally passe. Gone with the ticker tape, gone with old Jewish men of means sitting in a Merrill Lynch office watching the prices move left to right across an electronic board while they reminisced about how their fortunes started that day Uncle Hy gave them a lead on where to get a trailer load of rusted iron rods.

So many stock indices and composite sector international investments  fill the business news channel that I no longer wait to watch what the pretty blonde news casters have to say about Hong Kong this morning or Kuala Lumpur this afternoon.

An interesting index that I used to hear discussed was the misery index. Starting in the Johnson administration it is an attempt to  garner the actual well being of American families. I have never seen daily fluctuations reported but it is interesting if that type of pin point accuracy was possible because of new developments in machine intelligence. Of course it could be paid for by allowing speculators to invest with commissions to middlemen and a small fee to maintain the house.

Related would be creation of a daily index of severe misery on the Continent of Africa. A daily fluctuating poverty index. Currently persons living below the sustainability to live criteria is always highest worldwide in Sub Saharan Africa. If daily fluctuations in such an index were reported perhaps strategies to lower that index each day could be gleaned as a by product of speculation for profit in wealthier Countries by investors going about their normal business activites. As a by product severe misery and extreme poverty worldwide could be permanently lowered.