Flying Pink Unicorns

The Dow is very near its lows reached just after 9-11.

The Dow Jones closed today down 411 points to 8,282. As everyone surely knows, the markets have gone to hell in a handbasket recently, on the financial crisis, the recession already underway, and fears of a godawful nasty recession.

Adjusting for dividends and splits, the Dow Jones is now lower than the adjusted level it was at shortly after 9-11.

Let me run that again. In the 7+ years since the market reopened following 9-11, the Dow has basically treaded water. I thought we were told that up until recently the economic record was good, no?

In terms of stock market returns, Bush 43's record is godawful.

The Dow, adjusted for reinvested dividends and splits, is slightly more than 20% lower than it was on Bush's inauguration day, and is only the tiniest little bit above the adjusted level immediately after it plummeted following 9-11.

Although not unprecedented, this is quite the lousy stock market performance. I remember the days when conservatives used to say that the market made a fine unbiased and merciless judge of our nation's economic policies. By that token, Bush would receive a D, and Clinton an A+. I await the first prominent conservative making that (perfectly logical) argument).

Now of course, some of my GOP oriented critics will say that 9-11 wasn't Bush's fault and the huge financial meltdown wasn't entirely his fault. Let's leave 9-11 blame for another day (I don't really blame Bush, but his people did squat beforehand). The financial crisis, on the other hand, occurred at the tag end of 8 years of GOP White House control, with the congress under GOP control for the bulk of that time and in the control of unusually cowardly democrats for the remainder. Bush got most of what he wanted on the tax, budget and regulatory front. And the results are, well, not splendid. Greenspan was a bipartisan affair, but the regulators were all GOP, all the time. Congress mostly. And we had, failure, men and women, failure. Under Clinton the dollar soared (I can remember Rockefeller Republicans talking a ton about preserving the store of value in the currency). Under Bush not so much.

When Bush took office, the dollar was at .93 dollars to the Euro (the Euro was slightly stronger than the dollar). This was basically unchanged just after 9-11, at about .92 dollars to the Euro.

The dollar closed yesterday at 1.25 dollars to the Euro. The dollar has rallied significantly since the financial crisis began, as it has hit Europe quite hard as well. Though it is powerfully interesting that the dollar RALLIED as the US-centered financial crisis exploded.

Anyway, after 2 terms, the dollar has tanked under Bush and GOP Congressional leadership.

And no wonder. Big and now MASSIVE budget deficits, big trade deficits, diminished private savings, and presto, you have a dollar rout. The wonder is that it isn't worse, and if Obama and the donkeys in Congress don't hop to it, it could get a ton worse.