I'm John Batchel. I welcome my colleague Michael Toth,

research director of the Civitas Institute of the University of Texas at Austin,

examining two equity markets, that of the United States and that of our European allies since 2008.

A striking fact that must be explained.

Michael explains it in his most recent essay for Civitas Outlook.

Michael, a very good evening to you. 2008. I recall being in a dinner and being told by

lords of industry that something was happening that was negative. The overnight rate had skyrocketed

from acceptable to outrageous.

Was there something wrong with the calculation?

Were we seeing something in the market that was necessary to understand where we're going?

That was the moment that we learned about the Great Recession.

Hadn't hit yet, it was going to hit August of 2008.

At that point, I learned from you prior to that,

the European equity markets and the U.S. equity markets were the same.

Since then, what has happened?

Good evening to you, Michael.

Yeah, John, it's great to be with you.

Always enjoyed being on your program. And, you know, I'll pull the camera back just a little bit further. The size of the European economy was equal to the American economy in 2008. And Europe is about half of our size right now. And so, you know, when we look at the Dow Jones Industrial Average, which

broke 50,000, and that was the launching point of a piece that I published in Civitas Outlook,

which was picked up by the New York Post earlier this week, you know, it's been an incredible,

obviously, run of the U.S. public equity markets.

What's oftentimes missed is the public equity's market is a barometer of the health of the

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