Most economists now agree President Lyndon Johnson's exorbitantly expensive Great Society initiatives paved the way for eventual stagflation under President Jimmy Carter.
Big government undermines economic growth.
And a sluggish economy results in poorly performing equities markets. While government spending bloomed from 17.1 percent of gross domestic product to more than 23 percent in 1983, unemployment rose to more than 10 percent, inflation shot up from 1 percent to 13 percent, interest rates soared and the economy was in recession one out of every four years. In addition, taxes rose and regulation exploded. It was not until President Ronald Reagan rolled back the Great Society experiment and cut taxes substantially that the stock market and the economy took off once again.