Bush, the zero-percenter

0%.

Yes, that's zero-freakin' percent.

That's the entire gain of the stock market, as determined by the S&P 500, from the end of January in 2001 through today. As you try to decide if it's better to put a Republican or Democrat in the White House, consider the simple fact that the market does better under the left.

And more importantly, that today's president -- with a Republican Congress for most of his term -- has the worst stock market return of any chief exec since there was a stock market. Zero. Zip. Nada.

Now, it wouldn't matter so much if I hadn't dutifully put a significant part of my income into my 401(k) every week for years on end, like so many busy American workers, confident the market's historic 8% return would mean a decent retirement fund all day. Skip even a few years, they say, and you lose the magic of compound interest and will end up picking up scraps of aluminum on the highway.

Yet the same thing happens when the market skips a few years. And with most Americans now relying on 401(k)s instead of the quaint notion of working for 40 years to earn a guaranteed pension, it matters a whole lot.

Of course, lots of money was still made on Wall Street in the past few years. By Wall Streeters who got commissions when we bought and sold stocks, for managing those 401(k) contributions, for planning IPO busts, for conjuring up subprime loans and CDOs and lord knows what else.

And that's the reality of investing. As in Las Vegas, the house gets its cut up front. They don't care if we win or lose, only that we keep playing.