Better than Hoover a mattress

The Dow Jones Industrial Average continued its bearish slide, closing this week at 11,100, near a two-year low, and inching ever downward toward the 10,587 mark where the market stood the day President Bush was inaugurated. For those who are keeping score, that's a seven and a half year return of 4.8%, or only 0.65% annually.

To put that in perspective, had you invested $10,000 on inauguration day in an index fund that tracked the DJIA, it would be worth $8,568 today in inflation-adjusted 2001 dollars, compared to only $8,175 had you simply stuffed that money in a mattress.

What with no bottom in sight to the housing, banking, automotive and other industries, and one of the largest bank failures in US history making headlines yesterday, that mattress is beginning to look like a pretty savvy investment. Our Republican administration on the other hand... not so much.

[David Goldstein blogs on WA politics at Horsesass.org]

Comments

[Sciguy]

Some bank interest rates are 0.1%. No typo. I think one would be better off stuffing money into a mattress - the PAPER will be worth more than that in a year.

[MajorKong]

Now remember that these are the same people who wanted to turn Social Security over to Wall Street.