Dow Jones -267....Below Bill Clintons High

11,544.28......-267.00 -2.3%


......Your doing a HECKOF a Job BUSHIE

in reporting on it.

Go George!!

It's not that I think Bush really is doing a bang up job; I obviously don't.

However, the sock market is a very poor indicator of economic vitality nowadays and has been for some time. Although some may take this as heresy, it really wasn't that good of an indicator when Clinton was president, either.

The widening income gap and the shrinking of the middle class have insulated the investor class from the rest of us. What investors want is a return on their investments. It doesn't matter to them whether the economy is geared toward caviar for the elite or fish sticks for the masses, as long as it produces profits. It doesn't matter to them whether the goods are made with Chinese labor and sold to wealthy Arabians who like to call themselves "Saudis," as long as the money ends up in their pockets. It doesn't matter to them whether the "recovery" from a downturn is jobless, as long as they get their piece of the action.

The rising tide no longer lifts all boats, only the luxury liners.

Ronald Reagan, an overrated sonofabitch if there ever was one, got one thing right and that's what made him such a good vote getter: all economics is personal. It doesn't matter what charts and statistics can be produced to support the idea of an economic upswing, the important question remains: Are you personally better off now than before? The corollary is Paul Krugman's admonition to Bush's economic team: If your figures say that every one should be happy and no one is happy, then you're looking at the wrong figures. The party of Reagan was so enamored of the discredited trickle down theory that it forgot that part. That is why, in spite of the failure of congressional Democrats to end the war, restore civil liberties or impeach and remove Bush, the Republicans are going to take a bath in November.

11,505.2