The trouble is that conservatives and the media like to use charts like this, which ignore even the recent past [courtesy of Media Matters]:
But the truth looks more like the chart below. Under Bush, the Dow Jones lost 6,000 points, or about 43 percent of its value, from its peak in 2007. That includes about 3,000 points lost since September 2008. Under Obama, the Dow has continued to slide, but it is only down about 1,000 points since its low during the Bush administration.
Thank you. (insert my bowing to you here)
So on an annualized rate:
The Bush stock market lost about 5% a year. Not good, not good at all.
The Obama stock market is losing more than 80% a year (17% since his inauguration, and that is with today’s huge gain). Of course that won’t be sustained.
Oh, and using the “Bush low” as your basis? I’ll use the “Clinton low” to measure the Bush stock market. Up about 90%.
Listen, I’m not trying to say that my numbers are what we should draw our conclusions from. But yours are perverbial smoke and mirrors. Come on.
Yes, its unfair to blame Obama for the stock market this soon into his administration, but this is really lame.
“The Obama stock market is losing more than 80% a year”
Utilizing dissembling fuckery rules, yes.
In other news President Obama’s administration now holds the record for causing deadly gun frenzy in Alabama and Germany. It can now be statistically proven that this president is dangerous to German school attendees and citizens of the border between Florida and Alabama.
Your friends at the WSJ
Jeff - your posts are boring. Bring back the old timers!
What a stretch. I’d rather have a continual 10% fluctuation with the DJIA at 10,000 than a 5% fluctuation with the DJIA at 5%.
Furthermore, (not that I liked Bush as President), the market plummeted after 11Sep2001, not because of Bush’s economic policies, but because of the attacks.
Right now, the uncertainty in the markets are primarily the result of ill advised Obama policies and an unfocused policy regarding economic recovery.
I wish someone with no ties to either Bush or Obama could put things in perspective. Anyone can put a spin on any number. There are so many pieces that come into play. To generalize that Bush was bad Obama is a good is, at the very least, over simplifying things. The biggest fact is that people are so lazy and stupid these days that they have no idea even how to begin getting the facts. Politicians twist the numbers and facts so often that even those with the expertise to decipher it have a hard time saying what caused this and what caused that. We are so polarized that we cannot even cherry pick the good issues and come together to fix things, the current administration included. What is saddest is that we all feel so distraught about our situation and so desperate for a fix that we might not even recognize what is bad or good for us regarding this administration’s policies. We all were so uninterested in economics in high school and college would we recognize if the Obama’s policies are the cause of stabilization? Would the economy had stabilized at this point on its own? Enter stage left the politicians claiming knowledge of all things. Obama supports claim stabilization is a direct reflection of his policies but are they? How can we claim that 100 days in? Only a PHD in economics with honesty and much more time will tell.