“May you live in interesting times” … Ancient Chinese Curse

That’s right. This famous Chinese proverb was actually written as a curse, and I’d say that it totally and completely sums up this past year. 2008 just became the worst investment year since the Great Depression, with losses of 35-40% for most major indices. At least we can say that it wasn’t boring....and that it only lasted one year.

Like 2001, none of us will ever forget this past year. It started innocently enough, with the Dow Jones coming off of an all time high, and the economy in seemingly good shape. In retrospect, we now know that the recession began in November of ‘07, but at the time everything still felt pretty normal. After all, we had Bush, Bernanke and Paulson telling us that everything was in great shape…that the underlying economy was strong, that housing was going to hold up just fine, and that the derivatives problem was being exaggerated. Famous last words from our infamous leaders…

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