Dismal Science, Indeed

Dark Wraith, over the UnCap Journal, has a devastating analysis of the performance of various stock indexes during the reign of the Bush administration. Apart from some excellent analysis, DW shows, among other things, negative annualized real returns for every single year of Bush's terms in office and highly negative total real returns for the five years since Bush took office in January of 2002:

Total Real Portfolio Returns
Dow Jones Industrial Average: —12.05%
Standard & Poor's 500: —15.20%
NASDAQ Composite: —25.39%

It is, of course, entirely ironic that while Bush demeaned Social Security and touted the stock market as the only viable vehicle by which people might be able to retire comfortably because of the "great returns" provide by investment, his administration had created so uncertain a climate that the stock market has opined, in no uncertain terms, that with Bush in charge, your retirement accounts will do nothing but suffer. As DW notes:

Regardless of how large the nearly daily dose of good economic news the Bush Administration induces the mainstream media to repeat, the Administration can neither manipulate the stock market data, nor can it find a scapegoat for the broad-based, long-term depletion of private equity value its policies have caused. For the average American who contemplates retirement in part or in whole based upon investments made and held in the stock market over many years, the Bush Administration's record is nothing short of catastrophic in terms of the financial security for what will be generations of citizens in their retirement years. For most, however, the full realization of the value lost and the disrupted, nearly irreparable damage to future capital appreciation of their investments in the stock markets will come only after the era of the neo-conservatives has come to an end.

And you thought Social Security was in trouble.