There was real economic growth during the 90's, but I don't think anyone would argue that the dot.com "boom" wasn't largely based on hot air, like the Dutch tulip craze. Even at the time, most of the stocks were overvalued to a point where the Good Old Boys of the stock market, who pay attention to things like prices and earnings, were standing with their mouths hanging open.

How many of us didn't get a little creeped out by companies like Amazon who were posting losses year after year yet whose stock skyrocketed?

And we have to remember when tallying up the "losses" in our retirement programs, to actually tally up real losses.

Odds are good that the media, who want Bush politically dead more than anything else in the world, are adding up retirement "losses" based on the maximum values of those accounts. How would these well-publicized losses add up if compared to money actually paid into these accounts from salaries, and not including the "paper profits" generated by the fake boom? How would it compare to having stuck the money into a sock, or a 1 percent bank account?

If I bought $500 worth of shares in Enron while it was cheap, and my stock value went up to $10,000, and dropped to $700, did I lose $9,300 or did I gain $200?

Has anyone actually looked at these numbers? Is it even feasible? Heck, I don't even have enough documentation easily available to figure it out for my own accounts.