Obama may be best economic president ever for Stock Market

[Quixote1818]

Last edited Sat Jan 4, 2014, 02:37 PM - Edit history (3)

Note: I edited the title by adding "For Stock Market" because the original title was misleading.


Posted: Wednesday, January 1, 2014 12:00 am

Lend me your ears. I have come to praise President Obama and bury the myth that Republican presidents are better for the economy than Democratic presidents. Not only do Democrats produce superior economic results but they blow Republicans out of the water in the comparisons.

Let's turn the mic over to Bob Deitrick, a principal at Polaris Financial Partners in Westerville, Ohio. Deitrick crunched 80 years of numbers. Politically, 1929 to 2009 were exactly divided — 40 years under Republican presidents and 40 under Democrats.

He put his extraordinary findings in a book, "Bulls, Bears and the Ballot Box."

Because President Obama was in office for only three years at the time of the writing, Deitrick and his co-author left him out. But Deitrick now has enough of an Obama track record to have recently declared in a Forbes interview, "By all measures, President Obama has outperformed every modern president."

Snip> Reagan was a "stimulus addict," in Deitrick's view.

His economic growth came through massive spending on defense and deep tax cuts. The price was a tripling of the national debt.


Snip> Ordinary Americans did better under Clinton, who also left behind a budget surplus. Thanks to a growing economy and higher taxes on the rich, Obama has lowered the deficit to 4 percent of gross domestic product, down from over 10 percent at the end of the Bush years.



More: http://www.logandaily.com/comment/editorials/obama-may-be-best-economic-president-ever/article_9ebe1d22-4941-57bf-bccb-632f7754f368.html?fb_action_ids=10202927123163053&fb_action_types=og.likes&fb_ref=.UsWvyDdcKSA.like&fb_source=other_multiline&action_object_map=%5B690512740989150%5D&action_type_map=%5B%22og.likes%22%5D&action_ref_map=%5B%22.UsWvyDdcKSA.like%22%5D

[reformist2]

1. Dems should NEVER cite the stock market as evidence of good economic conditions, except ironically.

[frazzled]

6. Except it's a major part of public pension funds

For better or worse, a lot of teachers, firemen, and police depend on the stock market doing well for their pension funds to remain solvent.

A good part of the pension crisis of recent years was the result of underfunding due to worse-than-expected performance of the markets.

[Octafish]

11. Like in Detroit.

Except those pensions are now up for grabs by banksters.

[Rex]

35. Word, so easy for people to ignore the corporate tyranny

since it doesn't directly affect THEM. Sometimes, I think that is they only way to get some people to actually pay attention to things like our current economic crisis...which is sad, but so typically human imo.

[sendero]

14. Yes but..

..... what goes up for no reason can come down for no reason and it will.

[treestar]

23. So when the stock market crashes, that should not matter either?

It won't affect the poor either, right?

I can see arguing only the rich benefit, but overall, we need it to be doing well - distribution is a different question.

[reformist2]

25. "Someone told us Wall Street fell, but we were so poor that we couldn't tell."

From an old song by Alabama....

There's some truth in this, actually. Many of today's crappy jobs will be there no matter what Wall Street does.

[whatchamacallit]

26. So if the market crashes

you'll be here laying it at Obama's door?

[treestar]

28. Different hypothetical

If it crashes, you certainly will be laying it at Obama's door. Suddenly it will matter. As long as it's negative it will matter. As long as it's climbing, it's irrelevant.

[whatchamacallit]

29. Not true

because I know it to be a casino, not an engine of the real economy. Try again.

[Mass]

2. For rich people, yes...

Republicans should love him.

[last1standing]

3. This OP is a joke, right?

Regardless of who is to blame, we've had five years of stagnant, and declining, wages and increased costs while the gap between the ultra wealthy and the rest of us has widened.

This is not good economics unless you're one of the ultra wealthy.

[CountAllVotes]

5. +1

n/t

[winter is coming]

12. +1 and tone deaf in the bargain.

I know the President isn't responsible for the economic mess he inherited, but if I see one more, "The economy's doing great! Sunshine and puppies!!" post, I'm going to lose my lunch.

[last1standing]

13. It amounts to little more than bad propaganda.

We're seeing a greater than usual influx of this stuff lately because Obama's poll numbers are down. They think they need to rally the troops, but I don't need to be rallied I need legislation that helps.

Of course Obama can't do it alone but it's better to say that and discuss solutions than to try blowing smoke up our asses and telling us everything is great or getting better. It's not getting better and won't get better until some major changes are made.

Remember "hope and change?" Let's start talking some specifics about what needs to be changed.

[sendero]

16. People..

... cherry pick the metrics they want to use to make a point. The last 5 years have been disastrous for the poor and middle classes. All other metrics are blowing smoke.

The fault for this certainly does not lie entirely with Obama, and it is a fact that he largely inherited the problems we have. Nonetheless any progress he has made towards fixing them has been meager at best. Probably his most notable move was in bailing out the auto industry, and he deserves kudos for that. Trying to keep unemployment benefits is also to his credit, although he failed the last round. Trying to help homeowners in distress, well those programs have not done well.

[Quixote1818]

24. Read the whole article

Deitrick is basing Obama's record mostly on the stock market but not all. I think he is also taking into account that Obama had a HUGE hole to dig us out of and as far as wages go Obama is trying to increase the minimum wage but it's not an easy task with the Republican's. The economist the article is about is also strongly against trickle-down economics.

Snip>

Deitrick is a disciple of Marriner Eccles, the rich Republican banker whom Roosevelt named Federal Reserve chairman. Eccles held that putting more money in middle-class hands is key to recovery and that trickledown economics helps mainly those providing the trickle.

Speaking of income inequality, the gap between the top 1 percent and bottom 99 percent widened 20 percent in the 40 years Republicans ran the Oval Office. In the Democratic presidential years, it narrowed 16 percent.

[last1standing]

30. No one here is arguing that Democrats are better for the economy in general...

...or that Obama has good intention when it comes to the minimum wage or moving away from trickle-down economics. But the fact still remains that the gap between the wealthiest citizens and everyone else is widening, not narrowing. It is also a fact that more and more people are slipping into poverty and that the middle class is still shrinking. These are not good economic factors.

It doesn't matter who Deitrick is a disciple of, or how nice a guy he is. The premise that Obama is overseeing a good economy is patently false when looking at any measure that matters to average Americans. I'm not blaming Obama for this as much as I blame incalcitrant republicans who refuse to help the economy regardless of how badly it hurts their constituents. But again, the fact remains that this is a very bad economy that is not getting much better for most people.

[Quixote1818]

31. I agree the title is misleading

When I sent the article around to my friends I titled it 'Stock Market has done better under Obama than any other president'. Because I didn't like the original title. Still, the article points out some important things such as this:

Ordinary Americans did better under Clinton, who also left behind a budget surplus. Thanks to a growing economy and higher taxes on the rich, Obama has lowered the deficit to 4 percent of gross domestic product, down from over 10 percent at the end of the Bush years.

And Obama admits things are not being distributed the way he would like:



Obama admits 95% of income gains gone to top 1%
http://money.cnn.com/2013/09/15/news/economy/income-inequality-obama/

[last1standing]

32. This is the kind of context that would have helped your OP.

There's not a whole lot that Obama can do to improve the situation as it stands. I think if he had done some things differently earlier on, he would be in a better place to fight right now but that is water under the bridge. We all have to deal with what we have, not what we could have had. Obama can't get much through the house while republicans control it and the house isn't turning blue in the next three years.

I believe Obama's economic tenure will be at as a time of stabilization after the disastrous free-fall created by the bush administration and its cohorts in congress (republican and Democratic). His policies have not helped the economy that much but they did stop things from getting too much worse. That doesn't make for the "best economic president ever" but it does make him better than any recent republican.

If we are very, very lucky we may get a moderate Democrat elected in 2016 who will move the nation more to the left as Clinton did in many ways if we ignore NAFTA and the repeal of Glass-Steagall. If a miracle happens perhaps we could get an actual progressive, but that would need an accompanying wave of progressives elected to congress to be of any use.

[marsis]

33. Obama admits 95% of income gains gone to top 1%

mission accomplished!

[CountAllVotes]

4. This economy is doing me no good at all

I don't play with the Wall Street casino as I do not trust it for one second. I see young women on the TV in the morning playing "as if" games with the stock market. Today I've got a winner, tomorrow I do not is the "game".

This is a B.S. game and it reminds me of what the late Joe Kennedy, Sr. said about the stock market -- "JOE KENNEDY, a famous rich guy in his day, exited the stock market in timely fashion after a shoeshine boy gave him some stock tips. He figured that when the shoeshine boys have tips, the market is too popular for its own good."

Luckily, he did just that and that philosophy paid off for him big time. He saw the writing on the wall, that same writing I see today -- advice on buying this stock or that stock on the a.m. TV channels for those home during the day (i.e. stay at home mom's, retired folks, unemployed people, etc.).

With an average of 3% on my "investments", I'm barely getting by and having to cut more things out every day. Auto insurance went up 30% and home owners insurance went up about 20% this year. And the list goes on ...

This truly sucks for me and likely lots of other folks that are in fixed-income situations that can no longer work. We are in this same boat together, lots of inflation and no returns being paid by the banks = you are screwed.

So, the economy sucks IMO. Businesses are failing where I live. There is ONE store left that sells clothing other than K-Mart.

Its great if you have the money to play around with in the Wall Street casino I suppose but most of us in the USA have little if anything to do with it directly I suspect. You have to have big money to make big money I've always suspected.

[last1standing]

7. The biggest problem with the stock market today is that it has led to a disconnect.

There is no longer any connection between the stockholder and the company. This means that when I buy 1000 shares in IBM I don't care about long term growth or employee satisfaction; I only care about quarterly profits. I want to know how much money I can make in three months time instead of how much profit the company can make over the course of several years with careful management.

This is what makes the stock market a gamble today. When the focus is on the next quarter, there's no ability to plan for the future. Because of this, outsourcing is considered good business even though it tends to have long term negative effects on a company's profitability. It's what makes Bain Capital "successful" even when the companies it buys end up bankrupt and defunct.

[CountAllVotes]

8. The stock market

I believe it is rigged, not just a little bit but the whole sh*t load of "it".

That is why I want nothing to do with it.

Bunch of damned criminals running the show IMO.

So, I'll stay broke rather that risk losing what I do have. Maybe it is not a lot but it is better than nothing.

As for the rest of the world, most people in other countries (sans the rich) have nothing at all to do with it either.

Short-selling is part of this ugly game, a game I want nothing at all to do with.

[last1standing]

10. Of course it's rigged.

We expect that those closest to the situation (CEOs, CFOs, CwhateveryougotOs) who know the most about how the company is doing, because they make the decisions and see the reports first, aren't going to use that information to their advantage on the stock market? Of course they are. Occasionally someone like Martha Stewart will act as a scapegoat but it makes no real difference in how the game is played.

Yet, that isn't what makes the stock market so bad. If those with stock in a company felt they had an actual stake in that business, instead of merely a short term interest in seeing profits increase, these pirate capitalists wouldn't be allowed to get away with manipulating the numbers for their own short term advantage.

[sendero]

19. How many boom-bust cycles does it take..

... for anyone with an IQ above dirt to see it is rigged? The next big crash can't be far away, and of course it will be blamed on the FEDs monetary policy. But the fact is that anything that rises 20% a year for several years IS GOING TO CRASH.

[reformist2]

21. The biggest part of the game now is luring in pension & 401K funds for periodic fleecing.

[cherokeeprogressive]

9. LOL

[eridani]

15. But only for rich people n/t

[woo me with science]

17. The chocolate ration has been INCREASED.

[KG]

18. nice try.

[DesMoinesDem]

20. You don't want to be giving Obama credit for the Bernanke Bubble

because when it pops you'll have to give Obama credit for the fall.

[treestar]

22. Democrats are always better for the economy

Republicans stand for the proposition that war improves the economy, proven wrong. They overspend and get us into debt. For war, not for social good.

[whatchamacallit]

27. Very misguiding, the Stock Market is a metric for the 1%

[L0oniX]

34. Stocks were going to go up anyway ...and Rmoney knew it too.

As long as they keep Fed interest rate low stocks will keep doing good ...but the interest rate is not going stay like it is now.