DISQUS

grandpaw · 10 months ago

Surely it is a joke worthy of the late night talk shows to claim that what Obama has done or not done these last six weeks is the cause of what the stock markets the world over have done. Obama would indeed be the Messiah if he could have turned the world around in six weeks. But the best joke is the one in which someone states what the stock market would have been.

Elwood · 10 months ago

30 years ago in my econ 101 class, the professor stated that politicians plan their econimic plans so that in 3-1/2 years the economy is doing well for their next election. So now we have to suffer for 3 more years until his "reforms" kick in and the economy recovers.

jgd · 10 months ago

On the other hand, with market being forward looking, if they had any indication Obama's economic policies were focused on improving the economy and not just welfare increases and campaign paybacks the chances are much better the market would have gone up and not down. With Obama saying "the stock market is sort of like a tracking poll in politics. It bobs up and down day to day, and if you spend all your time worrying about that, then you're probably going to get the long-term strategy wrong." he obviously is not concerned about the millions of people losing their life savings.

Just like you, Obama's is more concerned about the size of the government increasing than he is with the stock market going up or unemployment going down.

sharon blackburn · 10 months ago

McCains call to suspend campaigning and work on the economy was pure grandstanding, and nothing more. What fools you look for taking it as a serious attempt to help. He fooled you all through this election, but he lost, and his vague ideas of what makes the fundamentals of the economy sound, have been shown up as empty hubris.

That old man let you down, and made you look bad in the doing.

KW · 10 months ago

Obama clearly demonstrated his lack of understanding in vast the differences between stock markets and the polls. Americans, especially the middle class do not have their financial futures invested in polls, and they care very much whether the market goes up or down from one day to the next.

This is precisely why the drastic 30% decline in the markets since Obama came to power is of great concern to so many voters. They understand this catastrophic drop doesn't have anything to do with Bush's prior policies or the Republican minority in congress.

It's all about the current administrations policies and/or lack thereof that's scaring the bageebers out of all investors, especially the middle class.

cheryl · 10 months ago

I thought everyone was complaining about the lack of oversight and regulations that drove the market to collapse. The greed in "making money" through high risk and incomprehensible investment schemes. Someone had Madoff tagged long before this year and the SEC would not listen. It seems like someone dropped the ball in making sure everyone played fair and the middle class lost big time. Please don't tell the stock market would be 9000. This all happened prior to this administration and we all agree that the markets and economy will not recover any time in the near future. (I did not like the first Bush bailout of AIG and GM - GM is going down together with taxpayer money)

Romulus · 10 months ago

I love these self-proclaimed experts who uttered not a peep when Bush was virtually doubling the national debt during a time of relative prosperity, an act of almost incredible recklessness. And now that our economy is on the edge of a cliff and money has to be pumped in immediately, which only the government can do, they criticize everything Obama does for patently political reasons.

bellle · 10 months ago

Per Romulus....never criticize a liberal politician.

cheryl · 10 months ago

Funny how Neil Bush was involved in a savings and loan scandal and another Bush kid was involved with the downfall of the banking system (also ironic that both involved bad real estate loans). Why is it we never learn?

Bob Roberts · 10 months ago

Romulus,

You don't even make a valid point. The democratic controlled congress during the Bush administration ran deficits. But Obama has led us into more debt in 50 days than all years totaled together fromt he start of our nation. You can't blame Bush for Obama's reckless spending. It is his issue. It is his problem. He ran for the office. He was part of the issue before he became President. If you believe he "was shocked to find the amount of debt" when he became president, then you are very guliable. He was a senator. If he didn't know what was going on for the job he was running for, he had no business trying to become president. Worse yet, he is admitting that as a senator, he was clueless.

Tbone · 10 months ago

KW-

Can you explain how the market has declined 30% since Obama took over?

The dow is currently at 7043. On Jan 20, it was at 7949. This represents a decline of 11%.

Last I checked, 11 does not equal 30.

How is Obama responsible for the market before he even took office? Furthermore, during the last 8 years, republicans have been quick to say that the president has little effect on the stock market, yet suddenly, when a democrat is in office, all the sudden he has all the influence in the world over the market? Double standard much?

Also, someone needs to tell donald that we've been cutting taxes and regulation for the last, what, 30 years? In case no one has noticed, it hasn't really worked out too well.

goodspkr · 10 months ago

I thought everyone was complaining about the lack of oversight and regulations that drove the market to collapse. << cheryl

Nah, Cheryl, it was a lot more complicated than that and that is what the democrats what you to believe.

This was not a failure of capitalism, but a failure of government that caused most of the problem. The Federal Reserve kept interest rates too low for too long.

Fannie and Freddie took toxic assets bundled them together and declared they were "safe." They did this to please Barney Frank and Chris Dodd who were pushing for loans to loweer income people who could not really afford the loans.

AIG insured these assets and lost any sight of safety and security.

The Bush administration attempted to put more oversight of Fannie and Freddie, but were blocked by the Democrats. This happened in 2005 and 2007. John McCain was one of the sponsers of legislation to do this.

The experts had estimated that this recession would be over in the fourth quarter of this year before Obama's policies started to much that up. The government put through the biggest stimulus bill in it history and Wall Street still drops 20%. Perhaps that's because it wasn't a stimulus bill at all but rather a liberal dream full funding act.

As Obama, Clinton, and Emmanuel have stated "don't let a crisis go to waste." So Cheryl, while you try to convince yourself this is Bush's fault what you need to realize that Obama has gotten everything he wanted and it is now his economy. And I do blame him for the losses on Wall Street since he came into power. Either he is an economic idiot or he is a left wing ideologue.

Hard Truth · 10 months ago

Another petty insult from bellle with no thought behind it or evidence to contradict the original poster's excellent point. How typical.

sharon blackburn · 10 months ago

Belle needs to go back to her knitting and let us debate this. Give Obama a chance, if any of you conservatives have ideas tell him, he has e-mail and the Democrats listen to folks. We need to get money into the economy fast, no matter how.

grandpaw · 10 months ago

Bush made the country sick and now the conservatives are complaining about the cost of the operation to make it well again.

DLB · 10 months ago

Cheryl, there has been a dramatic INCREASE in the number of regualtions throughout the economy, and the rate of increase accelerated under Bush (that's not a compliment or defense of Bush, just an observation), and the US financial sector is more heavily regulated than any other. Revenue to government (the true measure of the tax burden) also ran to record highs. Undoutedly this not just an Obame problem--Bush tee'd up the ball for our problems with a willing and profligate Congress and destructive, irresponsbile policy by the central bank; Obama is just trying to hit that ball out of the park with his political stimulation bills and power grab.