Preventing another market plunge

Dear John: I have read numerous columns you have written about how the plunge protection team stops sharp price drops by buying certain futures contracts, which forces the purchase of shares to stop or slow down the free fall of stocks.

You seem to indicate that the plunge protection team consists of members of the Federal Reserve and certain Wall Street bankers.

Can many of these people do serious damage to the economy and the Trump presidency by doing nothing?

It could lead to a serious recession — or even a depression. J.D. Dear J.D.: Here are the facts. In late 1988, President Reagan created the President’s Working Group on Financial Markets. In 1989, Robert Heller, who had just left the Fed, proposed in a speech and later in an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, that the Fed should rescue the stock market whenever it gets into serious trouble.

Based on those two facts, I’ve always been very suspicious that Washington, with the help of friends on Wall Street, has been protecting the market. That seemed to be proven during the Great Recession, when US Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson had numerous calls with Goldman Sachs right in the middle of the crisis and right before markets started turning better.

So, can these same people turn on Trump and let the markets plunge?

Sure, except that most of the players you refer to also have their personal fortunes tied up in the stock market.

The bigger question might be: When the stock market begins to fall because there’s a bubble, will the same kind of people eagerly come to the market’s rescue?

And that answer is I just don’t know. Sorry.