Voodoo Economics

After 8 years of George W. Bush, our economy is a complete mess. There were the tax cuts for the rich folks, and the war, and the ratcheting-down of regulatory oversight, and the deficits, and the run-up of debt -- capped by the meltdown of our financial markets.

Today the markets rallied, after Bush and his team borrowed more money from China to bail out the investment bankers and others who have been reeling from the liquidity and credit crisis. Thanks to that rally, the DJIA (Dow Jones Industrial Average) right now (almost 2pm EDT) is at 11,365.

For those of you with an interest in history, eight years ago on this day, the value of the DJIA was 10,971 - so with all the stimulation from the Bush tax cuts and the pro-business Republican policies, and with all the money Bush is pushing into the financial markets right now, the Dow is up about 400 points, having grown less than 4% over the past 8 years. To put that in perspective, the Consumer Price Index rose about 25% over that same period.

Even if we could afford it, I don't think I want four more years of this - do you?

Above: A chart I prepared using some historical data from the good people at Yahoo -- showing DJIA closing prices, as adjusted to account for splits and dividends. I drew the red line across the chart to show how close we are to where we were eight whole years ago.

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