And here you were thinking that the market's collapse had taken only six years or so off the value of your nest egg.

After all, the S&P is back to 1,100, about the same level as late 2003.

Silly you!

As we've noted often in recent days, since your government is quietly destroying the value of the dollar (ostensibly to save your ass), the actual dollar-adjusted value of the S&P 500 is back to 1996 levels. Even after the recent 60% recovery!

Here, from the FT, is the S&P 500 plotted after adjusting for the dollar's move relative to a broad currency index:

And here's the FT's take on it:

Another extract from Diapason Commodities’ latest note, courtesy of author Sean Corrigan. According to Corrigan, the chart — which is set to a logarithmic scale — shows the extent to which money illusion has boosted the apparent performance of US equities. As he explains:

Strip out the effect of the sickly greenback (by multiplying by the TWI) and we see that this bust has clearly spelt doom for a three-decade uptrend; that we are both hovering dangerously at the 50% mark of that whole move and also threatening to fail at the previous 2003 low. were that to occur, it could mean a much deeper unwind of the post-Tequila bubble era range.