Free Republic

The greatest lie ever told used to be Wall Street telling main street to “buy and hold”. Of course thats what they told you every chance they got. It’s not what they did. The holding period for stocks dropped from 8 years in 1960s to 2 years in the 1990s and 8 months in the 2000s. Today, stocks are bought and sold in milliseconds. Which is one of the big reasons you don’t hear much about buy and hold any more. That and the fact it didn’t work. I think individual owners of stocks finally came to understand that...

At less than half the Bush Administration’s original January 10-year proposal, the $350 billion tax bill was passed on May 23 by 231 to 200 in the House (Ways and Means Chairman Bill Thomas, R-CA) and by 51 to 50 in the Senate (Finance Chairman Charles Grassley, R-IA).
Stimulating the private sector and fighting deflation now are considered more important than balancing a budget deficit that is said to be caused by the slowing economy and the costs of the fights against terrorism and Iraq (projected 2003 shortfall: ~ $300-400 billion; 2004: ~ $350 billion).
Because of...