Wednesday, July 30, 2008

OH-16: How's Your Economy?

I was sitting here looking over this morning's e-mails and looking at the "stock market advisories", when this nefarious question popped into my head. How's your economy after almost eight years of "Bush-enomics"?

Well, a look at historical Dow Jones Industrial Index closing numbers lead me down a mathematical path. I found out that the old axiom about the stock market growing at a rate of 8%-12% per annum has been proven untrue under the "Bush/Cheney Watch". Stay with me here.

On January 28, 2000, the DJI closed at 10,739. On July 29, 2008, the DJI closed at 11,398. Now, let's look at the reality of "delta".

11,398 - 10, 739 = 659 points
659/11,398 = 0.0578 (points divided by points = a ratio)
0.0578 x 100% = 5.78% (this represents "total delta" over the 7-1/2 year run"
5.78%/7.5 years = 0.771% per annum over the run (divide by 12 to get monthly "delta")

I don't know how that works out for your IRA or 401k, but I'm guessing it's not moving mountains for the average middle-class American worker. So, I ask, again...

"How's your economy?"

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ask some conservatives how the economy and they'll tell ya every thing is great and we're a bunch of whiners.

"how's your economy" should be the new tag line for working people everywhere.

GARoach said...

Welcome aboard, Chris!

"Ask some conservatives how the economy and they'll tell ya every thing is great and we're a bunch of whiners."

Ideology vs. Reality Based Logic
Of course!

"How's your economy?"
I like your idea; they just hate it to hear us speak truth to power. If one is to do the math, it becomes a "Mr. Obvious" dogma for the GOP economic package.