Investors in 2000 looking back at the 1990s could have been pardoned for feeling euphoric. The S&P 500 (Chart 1.1) had risen 237% since 1992 – a compound annual rate of 16.4%. This gain followed a plethora of troubles at the end of the 1980s – the savings and loan crisis that corresponded with widespread commercial real estate problems; the collapse of the nascent junk bond market; the bankruptcy of Drexel Burnham, and the jailing of its hero, Michael Milken; and the military downsizing that followed the end of the Cold War.