But your purchasing power is down 0.5%.

See how this works?  Look at the upper right corner.  That's the dollar's net change for the day.

The market is up 1/4%, but your actual purchasing power has dropped twice as much as the market has risen, and since your entire net worth is not in the market, guess what - you have in fact lost.

This is the game that is being run folks.  It is not an accident.  It is in fact an intentional act being undertaken by our government and our Central Bank.

If Americans understood this you would expect they would be in the street and demand that it stop.

There is no "appreciation" going on in the markets.  If you're buying US Stocks in Euros, you're losing money today.

And oil is up nearly 0.7%, which means gas and other forms of energy are going up in price faster than the stock market.

This is the game being played to "pump confidence" in the stock market.  The Fed comes in and "POMOs" their so-called MBS "rolloffs", and the money immediately goes into speculation.  This drives up equity prices, but it drives down the dollar by more (about 12% since this new "POMO" program began in June) and in turn this is immediately reflected in higher commodity prices.

Corn, 330 -> 508 today, a fifty four percent increase.

Wheat, 425 -> 694, a sixty three percent increase.

Soybeans, 893 -> 1125, a twenty-six percent increase.

Rice, 9.55 -> 12.55, a thirty-one percent increase.

Oats, 188 -> 344, an eighty-three percent increase.

All of this, of course, is food.  Both directly, in what you eat, and indirectly in what you eat eats.  It's feed for poultry, beef and pork, along with your direct consumption.  And all of it is up at inflation rates that are in pure hyperinflation territory - all of these changes in price are over the last TWO TO THREE MONTHS!  Annualized that rate of change and you see terrifying numbers - from clean doubles to quadruples.

Those who claim that "all that will happen is that oil will go up a bit" are dead flat wrong.  The move has already happened.  The debasement of the currency that Bernanke has foisted off on you as "good" by "supporting" the stock market has in fact led to some small support in the stock market.

But it has added anywhere from 20-80% to the cost of the materials that go into your food in the last three months alone, most of it due to speculation - exactly as was OIL when it went to $147 and drove gas to the moon a couple of years ago.

For those in the middle class and better, this won't kill you.  But for the "less fortunate" - that is, the middle class and below, this is ruinous. 

It may, in fact, cause literal starvation.

This is the policy of your government and your Fed folks.  

Intentional policy.

Utter destitution and possible death for many Americans - 25% or better of the population - for the purpose of protecting Manhattan NY, otherwise known as "Wall Street."

For "protecting" the people who believe that the stock market is the key to confidence, along with protecting those who caused our economic meltdown for their own personal profit, you will be intentionally starved.

Your cost of living is being driven higher, despite being told that there is "no inflation", so for those of you on fixed incomes, there's no COLA increases in your Social Security and Pension checks.  None.

But the cost of your meat is going up, the cost of your dairy is going up, the cost of everything you eat and the energy you must consume to live is, in fact, going up. 

If you're wondering how your grocery bill can be up 10% or more in the last two months while the government claims "no inflation", the commodity markets do not lie, but governments sure as hell do.

What's worse is that the impact on animal products - particularly meat - is anywhere from six months to a year or more behind, because the feed has to go into the animal and produce body mass in the form of meat before that makes it to the grocery store.  So if you think it's bad now, just wait until you see what beef and pork prices look like in another six months to a year.   They're going higher.

Are you going to sit for this America?