No, the market was already broken when W. asked for the job. Greengargoyle (Andrea Mitchell's bedtime toy) jacked up the Fed funds rate repeatedly in 1999 going into 2000, and the bull market finally broke about a month into 2000, the NASDAQ and Dow Industrials peaking a couple of months apart and then starting a long, nasty slide into intermediate lows in 2002.
Then Gargoyle jacked open the Fed window as soon as Dubya's tanks crossed the berm in Iraq, and the market rally-rally-rallied all the way to summer 2004, and then, after a couple of pauses, to recovery highs in 2007.
Greenspan effectively put the Iraq War on the national cuff, and the cash found its way into the markets.
You know the rest, but basically the Fed was jacking with interest rates, investors and the bond and stock markets the whole time, and the Wall Street bigs were harvesting the investors and traders who didn't have inside skinny on the Fed.
s But the secular bear market began in the first month of 2000, and it's still going.
“Greengargoyle”...may I use that one?
The Republicans will win the White House in 2016, and it makes no difference at all who is the Oval Office figurehead. Even Congress obeys the sources of their reelection money.
It’s always been this way.
The trick is to predict how the Big Money going to manipulate the system, and ride their coattails for a tidy profit. (I bought gold years ago, averaged at $400/ounce, for instance. Wouldn’t touch it now, and have no interest in selling my holdings. When the peasants are allowed adult jobs again, inflation will kick in big time...)