Another important question is 'what is causing the stability?' It seems to be related to the Fed's quantitative easing policy, which is essentially printing unlimited money and handing it over to major financial institutions with the goal of producing confidence in the economic order. We're talking about massive relative wealth reallocation (because the sum of all money should hypothetically equal the some of all available goods) with the goal of creating stability. It's trickle-down economics, plain and simple.

@1 That was the year Nixon took America completely off the gold standard.

I blame whoever tried to teach Charles' son to knit, and the nefarious increase in the number of kitchens, myself.

Oh sweet baby Jesus, use spellcheck for the love of all that is holy. It is "volatility," not "volitility."

Charles makes enough sense that I wonder how he's still at The Stranger. Whatever you do, DON'T get him and Constant into the same room. The reaction would make the Russian meteorite look like a pot of boiling water: "But Obama's plying seventy-eight dimensional checkers...Socializing the costs and privatizing profit...His interesting choice of cabinet hardware and furniture wax...Trillions in bailout money." Poof. No more Sasquatch or Bumbershoot. For the love of Gawd, DON'T DO IT!

@1 Also consider that the peak of American living standards is considered to be 1974, about the same time that Samuel Huntington's "The Crisis of Democracy" appeared to counsel the 1% how to beat it back. Neoliberalism really got started in the last half of the Carter Administration with the deregulation of airlines and trucking, and spiraled out of control from there.

@sgt_doom I don't entirely disagree, but it's a comment thread, not a dissertation committee.

It has been said, never confuse an ever rising DOW with genius, yet that, of course, is what happened in the 00s.

Sweet! Nice one Charles.

In that spirit, here's a comment on the coming fracking/natural gas bubble:

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2013/02/f…

Oh, yes, let's all believe the markets are too big to fail and invest our futures. That's worked out so well in the past. This is more of "the end of history" delusion.