Dow 5,000 Redux

Stocks are cheap when valued within the context of a financed-based economy once dominated by leverage, cheap financing and even lower corporate tax rates. That world, however, is in our past not our future.

More regulation, lower leverage, higher taxes and a lack of entrepreneurial testosterone are what we must get used to — that and a government checkbook that allows for healing, but crowds the private sector into an awkward and less productive corner.