okie wrote:nimh, if you look at your graph, you would notice the DOW was peaked out on the cycle before Clinton left office.
Peaked out? If you mean that it had levelled off, yes indeed - the DOW was
at its peak, and - atypically - remaining there, stable, rather than dropping again. It had reached about 10,500 about a year and a half previously, and had been holding steady at that unprecedented height since.
okie wrote:The market consists of cycles, so it was already peaked and headed down by the time Bush took office.
No, it was not already heading down; it was remaining steady at the highest level it had ever reached. As you can see quite easily in the graph, the DOW in fact
remained steady after Bush took office for almost another year. Even 9/11 couldnt keep it down for long, it bounced right back. It only fell for a longer time halfway through 2002 -
almost halfway through Bush's first term, and a year and a half after Clinton had already left the scene.
Furthermore, you are shooting yourself in the knee (is that the expression?) with your argument about how the market is by definition cyclical. If the market always consists of cycles, then yes, of course, the peak it had reached in the late 90s would inevitably be followed by a drop again - its the nature of the beast - and thus not something you can blame on
Clinton. What is left then is that, while the market by definition alternates peaks and drops, the peak it reached under Clinton was higher than any it had reached before. A damning piece of evidence, for sure.
