Word: todays
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...almost as if we as a nation said in previous decades, "Why do today what we can put off until the first decade of the 21st century?" But we didn't rise to those challenges. What we just lived through, then, was the chickens coming home to roost...
Surprisingly, housing prices were not such a debacle - that is, if you bought early and stayed put. The median price of an existing home was $143,600 in 2000. Today the median is nearly $175,000. But remember, millions of Americans splurged for homes in the middle of the decade when prices were high: in July 2006 the median selling price peaked at $230,300. If you bought then - assuming you haven't lost your house to foreclosure - your home has lost some 25% of its value. Nothing to cheer about there.(Read "Facing Foreclosure in Tampa...
...that relied on amateurish financial controls. Insular thinking reinforced by decades of outsize market share. It was as if Detroit had drawn a road map for Toyota and Honda. And the Japanese drove right in, decimating the U.S. companies. In 1979, GM's U.S. employment peaked at 618,365. Today it's at 75,000 and falling fast. GM's U.S. market share, once about 50%, has fallen to about 20%. True, the quality and efficiency of American cars have improved dramatically, but it may be too late...
...bring our roads, highways, bridges and dams into good shape. Sure, the engineers are looking for work but know that the U.S. spends only 2.4% of its GDP on infrastructure, as opposed to 5% in Europe and 9% in China. Here again, why should a politician spend money today to fix something that won't collapse until tomorrow? Especially if he or she could get re-elected by cutting taxes instead...
...will rebound. "Usually when you've had a really bad decade like this one, the next decade turns out to be much better for investors," says Richard Sylla, a professor of economics at the NYU Stern School of Business. "Probably 10 years from now, people who are investing today are going to have fairly nice returns." Over time, stocks have averaged a total return of about 9%. Remember, stocks were down 1.2% per year this decade, after being up 18.2% per year in the 1990s. Returns always revert to the mean. (See the worst business deals...