Hard to make money when they're stealing it from you...

Since George W. Bush became president, on 1-20-01, the DJIA has now lost 1946.19 points, or 18.49%. Think that money just evaporated? No. It went somewhere.

American history provides us with an apt description of people who take control of the country and rob us all blind. They're called robber barons. And the Republican party has spent the last 40 years perpetuating one long Baron von Robsalot end run on the US Treasury, financed by the Future Generations of America (TM). If you just look back over the archives of this blog, you will find case after case of the Bush administration apologetically pilfering every dime they could get, right down to literally flying pallets of cash to Iraq, where it disappeared into blood-thick air.

Who (besides Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman) would have thought that they could possibly follow Iraq with a bank robbery of such epic fail proportions that it will eventually dwarf the Iraq war?

Of course, when the bankers opened their vaults and realized their computer traded derivatives and credit default swaps were really just smoke and broken mirrors, someone had to pay! So what if we're all just the victims of the largest crime in history, perpetrated by computer trading ponzi scheme wizards with golden parachutes and private islands to suffer on while the rest of the world writes the next Mad Max movie.

So, as election day approaches, all you greedy capitalist Republicans who have somehow wound up in bed with the Armageddon Hugging Pentecostal Secessionists should take a good hard look at this fun little graph (above). There are more fun graphs and the story from the dreaded New York Times. Hell, if you don't believe it, go check it out yourself. The DOW Jones Average closings are a matter of history. Indisputable. Unless, of course, facts about your money don't matter to you.

As of Friday, a $10,000 investment in the S.& P. stock market index would have grown to $11,733 if invested under Republican presidents only, although that would be $51,211 if we exclude Herbert Hoover’s presidency during the Great Depression. Invested under Democratic presidents only, $10,000 would have grown to $300,671 at a compound rate of 8.9 percent over nearly 40 years.

I'm taking suggestions as to where we should spread the ashes of "trickle down" economics.