The problem is that some massive risks are being taken, and when counterparties (LTCM & Amaranth were only the beginning...) disappear, derivatives cease becoming a useful financial instrument and start us down the road -- once again -- to "too big to fail" bailouts, a-la CitiBank's idiotic mess in Mexico the taxpayers had to clean up. IOW, Dianne's an idiot, but IBD is not any more likely than Dianne to properly-cover this pending disaster until it's an actual disaster.
JMR

Rich. thank you. thank you. and that is the way the left seems to remember the late 90's bubble economy, do they not? Charles Gibson had plenty of company, also.

I truly believe that a polling today would show that a broad majority of voters would now look back, and rememember that it was GW Bush who brought down that stock market bubble, and threw all into reverse. A polling amonst the MSM and the Blue folks, would show a great majority of folks who have been fooled.

Fortunatley (although the media will not share it with the public) we have some rather meaty analysis of record from the far left.

An excerpt  (my bold) from Bursting Bubbles BY DEAN BAKER 5.9.03

In 2000, President Clinton could legitimately boast of the “best economy in 30 years.” Unemployment was low, wages were rising at all income levels, and the poverty rate was headed downward at a rapid pace. But after President Bush took office in 2001, the economy fell into recession, shedding jobs and causing real wage growth to slow and eventually stop altogether.

A convenient story explains this sharp economic reversal. According to the script, Clinton eliminated the deficit through progressive tax increases and spending restraint. This deficit reduction lowered interest rates and spurred an investment boom, which was the basis for the extraordinary growth of the late ’90s. Then Bush came into office and quickly squandered the surplus with his tax cuts to the rich and military build-up. As a result, the deficit skyrocketed and the economy tanked.

It’s a good story, but the reality is quite different. The Clinton boom was built on three unsustainable bubbles. One of them, the stock bubble, has already burst. The other two bubbles—the dollar bubble and the housing bubble—are still with us. The dollar bubble is starting to deflate, and the housing bubble is perhaps just now reaching its peak. These bubbles created the basis for the 2001 recession and the economy’s continuing period of stagnation.

The basic facts of the economy’s rapid deterioration over the last two years are widely known. After creating an average of more than 3 million jobs a year from 1996 to 2000, the economy has lost more than 2 million jobs since March 2001. This reversal has been associated with a rise in the unemployment rate from an average of 4 percent in 2000 to 6 percent today. The increase among African-Americans has been even larger, rising from 7.6 percent in 2000 to 10.9 percent in April, and larger yet for African-American teens, with the unemployment rate rising from just over 24 percent in 2000 to peaks as high as 35 percent in March. While real wages were growing at close to a 2 percent annual pace in 2000, wage growth has recently fallen to zero for most workers.

The economy’s reversal was associated with a plunge in the stock market. The S&P 500 fell from a peak of more than 1,500 in March 2000, to lows of less than 800 in the past year. The tech-heavy Nasdaq took an even sharper plunge, falling from a peak of more than 5,000 in March 2000 to under 1,200 last summer. Adding to this picture is the reversal in the budget situation. The surplus of $236 billion in 2000 has given way to a deficit that may reach $500 billion in 2003.

[Ah.. even the liberal economic experts understand that the job losses and the return to large federal deficits had nothing to do with Bush. - gary]

Of course, the stock market downturn should not be included among the economic failings of the last two and a half years. That downturn really was just a healthy return to reality. The long stretch of new peaks that the market hit in the ’90s should have been a warning of bad times ahead to anyone paying attention. Instead the boom was widely celebrated as evidence of a new era of unbounded prosperity. The failure by the Federal Reserve Board or the Clinton administration to take actions to stem the growth of the stock bubble laid the grounds for a train wreck; the only question up in the air was when it would hit...

..In short, any serious economic analyst should have been able to recognize the stock bubble of the late ’90s. The fact that those in positions of responsibility either failed to recognize the bubble or chose to ignore it was a mistake with enormous consequences.

The stock market bubble added more than $8 trillion of paper wealth to the economy. This stimulated the economy in two ways. First, when families see the value of their stock portfolios rise, they spend more, since they feel less need to put money aside for retirement or their kids’ education. Just as the textbooks would predict, consumption boomed and savings fell through the floor in the late ’90s and 2000.

The Clinton legacy - the fantasy "feel-good" years. Nothing of substance, only a wild fling - an orgy of waste, I'd say.