On Fri, 18 Feb 2005 13:36:39 GMT, "Jim," wrote:


The comparison might be from 2001 (the first year of Bush when
everything went to hell). I'd like to see things compared to the last
year of Clinton when we were doing pretty good.

It was prosperity based on a lie.

During the last year of Clinton's administration, the bubble started
to burst. Clinton had no interest in regulating, or allowing the SEC
to regulate, the accounting practices which were being used to inflate
stock and bond prices. I present EBITDA - a useful tool to determine
the profitability of companies during the '80s. It morphed into an
accounting gimmick under the lax rule of the Clinton administration.

To wit: As part of EBITDA, companies were allowed to set a "value" on
brands and/or naming trade rights. Thus, something that was totally
ephemeral, was added to the bottom line instead of how much money was
taken in, how much product was sold. It inflated the value the
companies involved in the Tech Rally while influencing few of the Big
Board companies which were a little more circumspect in how they used
this new concept.

By mid-2000, this inflation was becoming highly apparent to money
managers who started pulling back slowly. By the Fall, the whole
thing was starting to fall apart and by the time the election rolled
around, the cracks in the bubble were becoming major fault lines.

As we all witnessed, the bubble burst leaving a lot of ruined
portfolios in it's wake. Add in the aberration of 911 and you have
all the influences available for Depression or worse.

It didn't happen because the economy is basically sound and working.

The economic "failure" of the Bush administration, viewed in
retrospect, can be directly laid at the feet of the Clinton
Administration. That is the way historians 50 years from now will
view it and that is the way it is.

I'm not a big Bush fan, but to blame him for something that wasn't his
fault isn't fair.

Later,

Tom