I am eternally grateful to Matt Krantz for pointing out that some stocks perform better or worse than others.  What an eye-opening revelation!  I see a big promotion and reward in line for Matt.

To put the late 90's bubble in perspective, as I have often done, let's quote one of the MSM's favorite economists - a true progressive lefty, Dean Baker.Baker is the author of several related papers, including "The Costs of the Stock Market Bubble," "The New Economy: A Millennial Myth," and "Double Bubble: The Implications of the Over-Valuation of the Stock Market and the Dollar," and is co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research.

He wrote often about the dangers of the late 90's [Clinton bubble], warning about what would happen when it crashed, and revisted the trail of destruction it left behind after his predictions came true. A few of his choice words, scattered amongst his papers - all talking about the Clinton bubble and what was handed to Bush. One might wonder why the media does not openly discuss such? LOL now:

- As a result, millions of families have seen their dreams of a secure retirement or their children's college education vanish with the stock market bubble. The level of negligence of the nation's political leaders in ignoring the stock bubble exceeds anything since the days of Herbert Hoover.

- What are you going to tell people who lose much of their retirement savings in their 401K when there's a downturn?

- The main feature of the 'new economy' is a stock market bubble of unprecedented magnitude. When the bubble bursts, the new economy will just be a bad memory. The inflated stock market has created enormous distortions in the economy, the ramifications of which will only be apparent when stock prices return to more normal levels. If the market falls 50 percent and loses $10 trillion of wealth in a correction, it's going to be very hard to avoid a recession.

- The first step in dealing with the current recession is to recognize clearly its cause. On this point, there can be little ambiguity. The cause of the recession was the collapse of the stock market bubble.

The decision by the Federal Reserve Board and the Clinton Administration not to take any actions to try to limit the run-up of the stock bubble was a mistake that the nation will suffer from for many years to come.

Even the most cursory review of the data shows that the "new economy" was mostly hype.

- Furthermore, it was an enormous failure of public policy, not to warn people about the stock market bubble that created this situation. At a macro level, it will be difficult to again pump up the economy in the wake of the collapsing bubble. At the individual level, millions of households now find themselves with insufficient savings to pay for their retirement or their children's education.

The stock market bubble created a huge amount of unpredicted wealth, which has quickly dissipated. Millions of families have been hurt as a result.

- ..this paper shows the extent of the over-valuation to be in the range of $8-13 trillion. An over-valuation in the stock market of this magnitude is going to have very serious consequences for the rest of the economy.

- As noted above, the stock market crash was the immediate cause of the recession in 2001 and the resulting rise in unemployment. It also has forced millions of workers to radically alter their plans for retirement or their children’s education.

Of course, there's no chance of the media doing this again, is there? Well, not as long as a Conservative is in the White House. More from Baker:

- The media routinely ran stories in this period in which it mistakenly reported the new highs reached by the stock market as good news indicating the continuing strength of the economy. The fact that the rising stock market indicated a financial sector that was getting increasingly out of balance with the real economy was rarely even raised as a possibility. 

For example, National Public Radio (NPR) ran a story in October of 1999, a time at which price-to-earnings ratios were more than 60 percent above their historic averages, praising a 3.5 percent single day jump in the S&P 500 (“US Economy and Stock Market Both Doing Well,” All Things Considered, 10-28-99). The story began, “just when confidence in the US economy’s brilliant balancing act begins to erode, it seems to respond yet again with another encore.” The next month, a weekend story on NPR summarized all the good features of the economy, including the observation that, “the market keeps going up” (Weekend Edition, 11-21-99). 

While I have disagreements with Baker's economic vison for our future, I certainly have a bit of respect for a man, who can call a duck a duck. The MSM loved era of peace and prosperity was a duck.

Quack.