Why ‘Obamanomics’ is working

[cal04]

Ignore polls, watch the markets: Economy is perking up
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/36322393/ns/business-businessweekcom/

It's never easy to separate politics from policy, and the past 18 months have only increased the degree of difficulty. The U.S. has been through a historic financial crisis followed by a historic election and a series of historic federal gambles — from bailing out AIG and GM to passing a $787 billion stimulus and a $940 billion health-care reform bill. All that risk has made policy more complicated and politics more fraught ("You lie," "Baby killer").

A Bloomberg national poll in March found that Americans, by an almost 2-to-1 margin, believe the economy has gotten worse rather than better during the past year. The Market begs to differ. While President Obama's overall job approval rating has fallen to a new low of 44 percent, according to a CBS News Poll, down five points from late March, the judgment of the financial indexes has turned resoundingly positive. The Standard & Poor's 500-stock index is up more than 74 percent from its recessionary low in March 2009. Corporate bonds have been rallying for a year. Commodity prices have surged. International currency markets have been bullish on the dollar for months, raising it by almost 10 percent since Nov. 25 against a basket of six major currencies. Housing prices have stabilized. Mortgage rates are low. "We've had a phenomenal run in asset classes across the board," says Dan Greenhaus, chief economic strategist for Miller Tabak + Co., an institutional trading firm in New York. "If Obama was a Republican, we would hear a never-ending drumbeat of news stories about markets voting in favor of the President."

Little more than a year ago, financial markets were in turmoil, major auto companies were on the verge of collapse and economists such as Paul Krugman were worried about the U.S. slumbering through a Japan-like Lost Decade. While no one would claim that all the pain is past or the danger gone, the economy is growing again, jumping to a 5.6 percent annualized growth rate in the fourth quarter of 2009 as businesses finally restocked their inventories. The consensus view now calls for 3 percent growth this year, significantly higher than the 2.1 percent estimate for 2010 that economists surveyed by Bloomberg News saw coming when Obama first moved into the Oval Office.

[DJ13]

1. "Obamanomics" is trickle down

Of course the MSM is going to claim "its working!!", it IS working.......if you're in the top 10% of income earners.

You cant fix a consumer led recession by shoring up the corporations and the wealthy at the expense of everyone else.

One of these days the Rubin disciples in the WH might come to grips with that.

[underpants]

3. Not to argue (and I am not a fan of everything that has been done) but...

he had to steady the ship. We were listing almost out of control.

In the modern age of Friedman economics being in effect that means the government has to appease the Masters of the Universe....at least when the former workers of the Masters are chiming in.

:shrug:

it is getting better and from another article I read recently anyone who has "shorted Obama" has lost a lot of money

[DJ13]

4. Im not saying to not help them, Im saying it needed to be a two track strategy

In typical (for the last 25 years) DC fashion, the admin felt they only needed to rescue the upper classes, expecting them to spread their wealth downward to improve the rest of the economy.

That has never worked, and in fact is the same philosophy that created our economic crisis in the first place.

A little less spent on bailouts for the banks and shareholders and a lot more spent on consumer debt forgiveness, jobs programs, and instituting a program to re-industrialize our country would have gone a lot farther than where were at now.

[truedelphi]

7. + 10,000 n/t

[underpants]

13. That is actually what I was getting at

thanks. you are right.

[No Elephants]

8. Yes if you shorted all the securities in your portfolio, you would have lost a lot of money.

The people who have money to invest = the richer folk in our society. You know, the ones money trickles down from.

A little saying I came up with during the bailout: "Trickle down, tsunami up."

[No Elephants]

9. Self Delete Wrong spot. (Duh.)

[Go2Peace]

2. Obama did the right things with stimilus, but these pronouciations are premature

We are pumping dollars (M3) still at alarming rates and we are nowhere near out of the woods. There may even be a big bump and a nice ride for a few years but you can do that by overpriming the pump and creating another big bubble, but at what cost down the road.

The real test will be months from now... will we change the course and start the hard work of changing the economic fundamentals toward a more sustainable and equitable situation? Or do we end up "leaving it for later" and end back up with another horrific downturn after we enjoy our little period of artificial prosperity?

[salguine]

5. Huh...I'm not a fucking Insurance company CEO, so I didn't notice it working.

[Larkspur]

6. Other than the COBRA subsidy, it's not working for me

If it wasn't for the incompetence of the H-1B/L-1 visa IT folks from India, I'd still be out of work. I was laid off in November 2008 along with a bunch of us with 10+ years of experience. Returned as a temp-contractor on July 20, 2009 because the Indian folks they shoved the environment I once managed onto screwed it up.

I keep looking for full-time employment, but there's not much out there for my skill set right now.

What's Obama's plan to help us 45+ year olds find employment that pays a decent wage?

[robinblue]

11. I think it is to enroll in a community college to acquire a different skill set.

[Larkspur]

14. What kind of skill set?

[No Elephants]

10. It'not about Obama, folks. Or Democrats .Or Republicans.

It's about greed and fear. It's about big business. It's about what has happened to this country and the world and the dwindling oil supply and other dwindling resources in the last forty or fifty years. And what's happened to our politicians.

People in power in this country in both Parties are driven by what is good for big business and Wall Street. Some of them honestly believe that what is good for big business is good for everyone--a rising tide lifts all boats. That may have been true when our economy was confined largely to the U.S. and the U.S. was one of the biggest, if not the biggest, exporter of both goods and innovation.

Anyway, politicians get lobbied. They consult economists. Economists don't work on assemby lines. People who do are collateral damage to economists.

People have to wake up. Get over idolatry and stop looking for a messiah to rescue you. People have to unite and start doing what is right for them.

Join unions--but stay awake and make sure the hierarchy doesn't screw you. Join other truly populist organizations. Primary incumbents who have sold you out. Demonstrate.

The days when you be passive are GONE. Deal with it.

Unless and until we ALL wake up and band together and get really active, we're toast and only going to get toastier.

[KoKo]

12. Well said...we now get propaganda from this administration like the last ones. n.t

[w4rma]

15. Wall Street is doing well at the expense of Main Street. nt