Money-under-the-mattress investments

Had we all been prescient enough to re-allocate our stock and mutual fund portfolios to positions similar to those of the current lame duck resident at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20500 in of 2006, the present stock market free fall would not seem so painful. The Sydney Morning Herald reports:

Going back to his 2006 financial disclosures, Bush had between 2% to 4% of his money in stock and balanced funds.

The rest of was tied up in, as one pundit put it ``money-under-the-mattress investments'': bank checking accounts, certificates of deposit, money-market mutual funds and Treasury bills and notes.

Bush disclosed between $US4.6 million and $US9.7 million in these low-risk investments compared with just $US205,000 in stock and balanced funds.

Mincing no words, the SMH concludes:

While Bush and Cheney appear to have adopted extremely defensive personal finance strategies, their administration's stewardship of the national wealth, particularly in relation to Halliburton, reek of the sort of crony capitalism which would have embarrassed a South American junta.