Anatomy of the Meltdown 1998-2008: The Worst Decade in Stock Investing, or Was It?

This is the 2nd Edition, published on July 11th, 2011, with a new introduction by the author. The first book was published in June 2009. "The 2008 Stock Market Meltdown was the worse since 1931. The decade just ended was the worst on record. However, I had memories of good and bad times. This "Worst Decade" short cut needed a bit of perspective. These were volatile years, starting in 1995: up 300%, down 50%, up 100%, down 50%. We were witnessing the death of Money Creation. We could not tell how the financial and economic systems would emerge. Fortunately, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke had a plan B, outlined in November 2002: "Some observers have concluded that when the central bank's policy rate falls to zero, monetary policy loses its ability to stimulate aggregate demand. In my view, this conclusion is clearly mistaken." The other hope was statistical. The six previous worse decades for Stocks since 1826 had all been followed by positive decades,with an average compound real annual return of 11% - except for 1938-1948. Knowing what we knew then, the question was: will it happen this time?"