Was 2002 a good year economically? NPR’s Marketplace put in this way in a 2002 timeline of each month’s economic events:
- January: K-Mart files for bankruptcy. Argentina devalues its currency.
- February: The Enron hearings.
- March: The accounting firm Arthur Andersen indicted.
- April: Merrill Lynch’s CEO apologizes for allowing his company to fall short of expectations with regard to its analysis of stock.
- May: Unemployment hits an eight-year high.
- June: Arthur Andersen found guilty.
- July: President Bush, speaking near Wall Street, denounces a climate of greed.
- August: Questions about Martha Stuart’s biotech share sale and US Airways files for bankruptcy.
- September: The September 11th anniversary.
- October: West coast ports are reopened after a lock-out.
- November: SEC Chairman Harvey Pitt quits.
- December: United Airlines files for bankruptcy protection and the Treasury Secretary is forced out.
Add to this a simmering confrontation with Iraq, Osama Bin-Laden, and the anthrax killer still at-large, and Scooby Doo’s big screen debut and, what, you thought stocks were going to go up? […]
Hmm, such reports give me an odd feeling of schadenfreude.