hmmmmmm.....
for some reason nobody has been posting on this thread in the last few weeks
anyway, as I have pointed out at least SEVERAL times, I think this thread is a load of hooey. But I felt a need to put the following somewhere....... I couldn't resist, and just took a look at my long term investments (which I generally try to ignore, since I have no illusions about my ability to time the markets).
Ouch!! down 5% this year, already.
But, I have to say, such a short time horizon doesn't tell you much. So I looked at the Dow from February 13, 2001 (10,903) and yesterday, February 12, 2008 (12,379)
ouch again.
that implies a DJIA stock return of a little over 1.8% /year. I'm not EXACTLY sure what the averages over the last several decades, or the last 100 years, or whatever, have been..... but I'm pretty sure stocks have generally done better than this !!!!
By contrast average inflation over the same period has been about 2.8%, so we have lost 1% /year in real terms during the Bush years.
Kabooom indeed.