The Standard & Poor's 500 index ? a stock market benchmark for the retirement savings of millions of Americans ? hit an all-time high Wednesday, raising hopes that Wall Street's 4 1/2 -year rally will keep on rolling.

But for many average investors, the event is a painful reminder that a key part of their portfolios has done little better than break even over the last seven years... "It illustrates just how much damage a bubble can do" to investors' portfolios, said Russ Kinnel...

Here are the points which particularly disturbed me - with my layman and simplistic rebuttals:

When earnings collapsed during the 2001 recession, many investors fled shares that suddenly appeared overvalued. The terrorist attacks of that year and the corporate scandals of 2002 compounded the miseries of blue-chip stocks...

I thought earnings were being revised downward all throughout 2000. In fact I remember that "profits from current production hit their peak in mid year 1997" then dribbled down to 2000 then sunk. Quarterly S&P 500 year-over-year percent earnings growth started it's slide south in March of 2000 and started back up in the first quarter of 2001.

Possibly it would be better to just call it the 2000-2001 recession. One has to remember that both Newsweek and the LA times has redefined the 2000 energy crisis as the 2001 crisis. My memory, and a quick look back at charts that I saved tells me that employment fell beginning early in 2000, initial claims for unemployment rose from early 2000 to mid-2001, S&P 500 trailing earnings fell from a peak in 1999 to a low in mid-2001, industrial production growth went negative in mid-2000, housing starts fell from 1998/1999 peak to mid-2000, new orders for durable goods fell from a early-year peak in 2000 to a low in mid 2001, manufacturing (PMI composite index) started down at the beginning of 2000 - went negative (below 50 in the 3rd quarter of 2000), capital spending for non-defense capital goods (excluding aircraft) crashed from a peak in 1st quarter of 2000 to a bottom at about the beginning of the last quarter of 2001.

"...many investors fled shares that suddenly appeared overvalued [sic - during the 2001 recession??]..."

That is really a trippy statement. Shares were extremely overvalued during the lead up to the peak of the early 2000 bubble top. They did not suddenly appear overvalued - and during the 2001 recession?? Had not the S&P lost about 1/2 of the value it would lose during the 2000 collapse by the time Bush took office?

The terrorist attacks of that year and the corporate scandals of 2002 compounded the miseries of blue-chip stocks.

Well, I agree that 9/11 compounded the miseries of the blue-chip stocks, but it was the exposure and the investigation of the corporate scandals which were an integral part of the bubble market and bubble economy that compounded the miseries. Take a quick look at the dates of the indicted and convicted activities of which the scandals were comprised of. A logical guess would be that any 2002 corporate scandals would be comprised of continued activity in efforts to hide the illegal and unethical activities of the scandals of the late-90's.