The Japanese Nikkei 225 stock index made headlines today as the index had crossed the 10,000 barrier. The Nikkei index has climbed around 45 percent since its March low and is now at its highest level in eight months.

There’s little reason to celebrate though, a quick peep at the chart below reveals that even at 10,000 the Nikkei is still down almost 75 percent since its peak in 1989. Since the Japanese bubble busted the Nikkei continued to seek lower lows, investors who followed a buy and hold approach for the last quarter century received a return of virtually zero percent. Three times hooray for massive government intervention, the same trick that’s now tried in the West.