S&P 500 gains since 1966

0.44% per year.

While your statistics are not false they don't show a true picture of things. As with all statistics they are meant to generalize things so to give one a clear picture of reality. Lots of times the statistics are true but they show a picture that is not. What you have done is averaged a long term trend with a short term event, the precipitous drop in the market we had in the last few months. You could have done the same thing after the market dropped 25% in 1987. By averaging the long term average with our extreme drop over the last few months it makes it look like there were no gains in forty years. If you had stopped your statistics in 2007 you would have had a completely different picture. You would have a lot different picture if you had statistics from 1966 to 2016. It's like this. If you averaged Bill Gates' and my wealth we would both be billionaires. Unfortunately for me that isn't really a true picture of my financial situation. What's that saying about lies, damn lies, and statistics? Make real sure you know what you are doing with them because they can really confuse you if you don't.

Hawke

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Hawke
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------------ Here is an example of an actual investment into a company. Note this was a direct purchase of stock from the company with the money going to the company rather than the purchase of shares on the secondary market with none of the money going to the company.

=========== Abu Dhabi Deal a 'Stroke of Luck' for Daimler

By Hasnain Kazim and Bernhard Zand

Abu Dhabi has bought a 9.1 percent stake in Daimler in a deal analysts say has come at just the right time for the German automaker battling the global economic downturn. The stake is expected to shield Daimler from a hedge fund takeover.

It was the kind of news the German stock market had evidently been waiting for -- after the emirate of Abu Dhabi said on Sunday evening it was taking a 9.1 percent stake in German auto maker Daimler, the stock leapt as much as six percent. By midday on Monday, the stock was still up around two percent. Analysts said the investment by the oil-rich sheikhs would stabilize the Stuttgart-based company which is suffering from the global slump in auto sales. Daimler, they said, had found a new strategic investor with a long-term focus.

While Daimler AG is world-famous, its new shareholder, Arab state fund Aabar, is little known in Germany. The company belongs to a complex web of state-owned and semi-state-owned investment vehicles set up by the sheikhs of Abu Dhabi to multiply their petro dollars.

Aabar is controlled by the state fund International Petroleum Investment Company (IPIC), which has an investment portfolio estimated at more than $14 billion. Daimler could use liquidity at this time of crisis in the global auto sector.

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Unka' George [George McDuffee]

------------------------------------------- He that will not apply new remedies, must expect new evils: for Time is the greatest innovator: and if Time, of course, alter things to the worse, and wisdom and counsel shall not alter them to the better, what shall be the end?

Francis Bacon (1561-1626), English philosopher, essayist, statesman. Essays, "Of Innovations" (1597-1625).

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F. George McDuffee

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