The first two and a half years of the Bush presidency has coincided with what the Wall Street Journal today calls “one of the financial world’s most painful and protracted downturns ever.” I’m sure it’s just a coincidence.

The same story goes on to suggest that there are signs of a recovery - “a 20 percent surge in stocks since March and a flurry of mergers and new intial public offerings” - but notes that Wall Street firms are behaving cautiously after having been burned by other “recovery” stories back in 2002. Securities firms have slashed a record 80,000 jobs since April 2001 as “deals dried up, initial offerings of stock in newly public companies all but vanished and banks turned off the money spigot to major corporations.”