Bill Clinton: “Anything I say is wrong, right? [Laughter] If I say yes, the market drops tomorrow. If I say no, someday it will drop…”

“Anything I say is wrong, right? [Laughter] If I say yes, the market drops tomorrow. If I say no, someday it will drop, and I'll be a heel. [Laughter] Well, let me say this: It is an astonishing fact. I mean, what was the market when I took office? The market was 3,200. So it's gone up at an unprecedented rate to unprecedented heights. But that increase has been accompanied by a very brisk growth in our economy and strong growth in productivity. And keep in mind, most ordinary citizens who are invested in the stock market are invested through their retirement funds and mutual funds and things of that kind, and the people who are managing those funds are managing huge amounts of money and presumably do have very good judgment about things like that. You know, all markets go up and down at various times, but I think that if you go back over the last 30 years, investments in the stock market held over the long term have panned out pretty well. And there aren't too many people of modest incomes who put a huge amount of money in the stock market on one day and then have to take it out 4 months from now no matter what. And I think that these mutual funds, these retirement funds, they can mix their investments, and they can do it over a longer period of time. So I think on the whole, what they're doing is betting on the larger American economy, and I think that's a very good bet. Yes, Elizabeth [Elizabeth Shogren, Los Angeles Times]. Microsoft Corporation”