A decade after the stock bubble

The Dow Jones Industrial Average has just hit 10,000, which is where it was a decade ago. Likewise, I predict housing prices will be at roughly today's level a decade from now, although the Democratically-controlled Congress seems intent on having another housing bubble in the interim.

Things don't look quite so rosy for the S&P 500—a better measure of the stock market—which is below its October 1999 level:

But don't worry. Some things have kept going up over the past decade. For example, the national debt:

• $5.656 trillion in 1999
• $11.909 trillion in 2009