Tuesday, March 03, 2009

RICH LOWRY HACKS AWAY AGAIN

In another silly bit of NRO wingnut hackery, Lowry notes that the stock market, as measured by the Dow Jones Industrial Average, responded better to FDR than it has to Obama. Here I'd like to point out how extremely narrow his perception by providing a chart of the DJI from 1925-56. The Dow did not regain it's pre-crash high until 1954. This should be a sobering statistic for those who were all excited about diverting Social Security money into the stock market. (SOURCE: MSN Finance)



The DOW is also a very imperfect measure of the health of the economy because it doesn't often track GDP. Here's a chart of GDP for the years 1929-1956. (SOURCE: Bureau of Economic Analysis)

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Um, we wouldn't be diverting money into the "stock" market with Social Sec. It would mainly be bonds and safer investments. Still... it was to be only 2% - and the biggest positive is it would be REAL money (not an IOU) and you would keep it. If you died, it would go to your kids. Right now, if you die, that money just disappears. That's a lot worse than the stock market! Real wealth generation.

The people with the most to gain would be African-American males. A majority do not collect Social Sec even though they pay all their life. When they die, it goes away. Now, imagine it going to their children's retirement fund! WOW. A couple of generations and the wealth would be amazing.

Plus, unless we do a 'new deal' the recession will not last that long. That's a big 'if' seeing who's in the White House, but I'm optimistic.

Steve J. said...

Um, we wouldn't be diverting money into the "stock" market with Social Sec. It would mainly be bonds and safer investments.

A lot of the Big Shitpile was rated "AAA"

Steve J. said...

The people with the most to gain would be African-American males. A majority do not collect Social Sec even though they pay all their life.

FALSE