With Financial Markets Moving Up, Will Talk Radio Give Any Credit to Pres. Obama?
Dear conservative radio talk show hosts,
What happened to you spending massive amounts of airtime talking about how this was “Obamas economy” as recently as a few weeks ago and lambasting him for not “keeping his mouth shut!” which in your opinion was causing the markets to tank?
Has something changed in the last several weeks that’s caused you to abandon your rants about how President Obama would kill this economy and that the markets were clearly expressing their opinions on our new President and his financial policies in a negative way?
Like I said back then, I thought that up or down, it was kind of silly you were choosing to rip into the new President a few weeks into his administration by using the fickle Dow Jones industrial average as your “proof” that Wall Street had expressed their opinion about the new President, and it was an overwhelming “NO!”.
Anyways, since you spent so much time a month ago trying to make the point that because the markets were down that Obama was a failure, I thought you’d probably want to spend just as much time talking about how Pres. Obama must be a success now that the markets are moving up.
Fair, accurate and balanced and all, you’re probably dying to get this story out there.
All my best,
Dan
Dan, the markets are up today based on an accounting rule change. This accounting rule change means that analyst estimates that were based on the old rule are too low based on the new rule and will need to be adjusted upwards. Earnings projection increases mean the stock prices go up, right?
There’s just one problem. It’s all fake! There is no actual value creation here. The market is trying to determine the current value of the economy, and the government keeps changing the rules. Yesterday, this asset was worth $0, today the government will buy it for $1 million, so it’s worth $1 million. Yesterday the money supply was this, and now it’s $800b higher. Yesterday, this is how you put these assets on your balance sheet, today it’s completely different.
So, let me ask you: how do you think this plays out, in the long-term?
Tell that to the 8.5% who are unemployed and the 1 million+ who have been laid off since Obama was elected. I am sure they are happy the Dow is up a few hundred points.
@Dan H: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post_hoc_ergo_propter_hoc
Matt, the irony of your response to Dan H just drips off this website.
Let’s review the intent of Dan C’s original post:
Markets down = irrefutable proof of Obama’s flawed economic policies, according to our favorite GOP propagandists on WTMJ and WISN.
Now that the markets are up, shouldn’t that – accordig to the logic of your idols on the radio – indicate that Obama’s policies are, in fact, sound?
Of course it doesn’t. THAT’S the point of Dan’s post. He is highlighting the Post hoc ergo propter hoc of right-wing talk radio.
Either you completely missed the point of the post, or are deliberately deflecting the direction of the posted comments.
Which is it?
@DV: I think you have been in the partisan trenches too long. I dsagree with leftist philosophy, but that doesn’t mean I am committed to disagree with everything said by someone on the left. I think it’s a problem when you can’t even tell when someone on the “other side” is agreeing with you. If I was a leftist in your mind, you would have had no problem understanding that my Latin reference was refuting the claim that there is any evidence whatsoever that the unemployment increase is due to anything done by the Obama administration.
Dan’s a smart guy and I have a lot of respect for him and a ton of other people on the left. I’m not going to agree with him on a lot of policy, but that doesn’t mean I have to find something wrong with every point he maes. I’ll give you a few minutes to digest the concept of refuting ideas rather than people.
DanH: you make it sounds like President Obama is on the hook for all of those jobs losses. You and I both know he inherited a very bad situation with massive job cuts taking place the entire last half of the last year, well before he was in office, much less won the election.
Yes, on his watch there have been job losses, but I think that soon enough, things will turn around and just like how conservatives were bashing Obama when the markets were going down and trying to tie him with the blame only to disappear on the subject when things start moving up, we’ll see the same thing with job creation.
Matt, you know a lot more about finance than me, and you’re right about the reasoning behind the upswing – and the downturn a few months ago.
I personally will buck the trend of trying to claim that I know what is going to happen simply because I have a weblog, and as such will avoid the six most uttered and annoying words of the last year on cable TV news and the Internet: “Well I’m not an economist, but…”
Things always turn around. I suspect they will this time too.
Maybe the recession is coming to an end. Recessions do that, no matter who’s in the White House.
One thing is constant, if the economy improves, the White House takes the credit, if the economy tanks, it’s the fault of the prior occupant.
New business bonuses announced, will Congress impose a 90% tax?
http://dealbook.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/03/fannie-and-freddie-detail-retention-bonuses/?hp
“One thing is constant, if the economy improves, the White House takes the credit, if the economy tanks, it’s the fault of the prior occupant.”
That is so true, smitty. Both parties do it. Bush did it. Clinton did it and Obama does it.
Matt, it’s clear that your supreme arrogance has rendered you unable to grasp the notion that you COMPLETELY MISSED the point of Dan’s original post.
But since all you seem to have in your quiver is to attack me personally with your partisan ASSumptions, I’ll simply bid you a pleasant weekend and stop wasting my time with you.