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The political consensus may be that President Barack Obama’s handling of the economy has been weak. The judgment of money in all its forms has been overwhelmingly positive, and that may be the more lasting appraisal.
One year after U.S stocks hit their post-financial-crisis low on March 9, 2009, the benchmark Standard & Poor’s 500 Index has risen more than 68 percent, and it’s up more than 41 percent since Obama took office. Credit spreads have narrowed. Commodity prices have surged. Housing prices have stabilized.
“We’ve had a phenomenal run in asset classes across the board,” said Dan Greenhaus, chief economic strategist for Miller Tabak & Co. in New York. “If he was a Republican, we would hear a never-ending drumbeat of news stories about markets voting in favor of the president.”
The economy has also strengthened beyond expectations at the time Obama took office. The gross domestic product grew at a 5.9 percent annual pace in the fourth quarter, compared with a median forecast of 2.0 percent in a Bloomberg survey of economists a week before Obama’s Jan. 20, 2009, inauguration. The median forecast for GDP growth this year is 3.0 percent, according to Bloomberg’s February survey of economists, versus 2.1 percent for 2010 in the survey taken 13 months earlier.
“You have to give them — along with the Federal Reserve – – a lot of credit,” said Joseph Carson, director of economic research at AllianceBernstein LP in New York. “A year ago, there was panic, as well as concern. And a lot of the expectations were not only that we were going to have declines in activity but they would stretch all the way to 2010, if not 2011.”
Since then, monthly job losses have abated, from 779,000 during the month Obama took office to 36,000 last month. Corporate profits have grown; among 491 companies in the S&P 500 that reported fourth-quarter earnings, profits rose 180 percent from a year ago, according to Bloomberg data. Durable goods orders in January were up 9.3 percent from a year earlier. Inflation is tame, and long-term interest rates remain low.
Most business news sources are strictly regimented to satisfy conservative investors. Supposedly broader analyses are allowed only to reflect the views of folks investing in buggy whips and Halliburton.
#39–Couldn’tBmoreStupid==Please identify and connect the dots: How can my neighbor and I trust and deal with one another to strengthen the dollar, diminish/reverse the trade imbalance, balance the budget, prevent big bank fraud, improve healthcare, get our troops back home etc?
I can create a number of dots and hypothetically multiply that by 320 Million but the result pretty much doesn’t look like my neighbor and myself—it looks like general society, aka reality, aka nothing like what you post. What you post is about party noise late at night, or picking up leaves in the fall. Sure you ain’t confused?
What you talkin bout Bmore?
WTF??? Obama has gotten nothing but praise and adoration from the media aside from Fox News, despite spending us into a deficit we will never be able to recover from. He never would have gotten elected if this were not the case. When has a Rebuplican ever gotten this kind of treatment from the media?
Everything Obama wants to achieve (Government Health WelfCare, Cap and Trade, more Stimulus / Jobs bills) has increased government spending at its core. Without ANY of these things, we have have a $1.6 trillion deficit this year. Even if we completely got rid of our entire military as well as Social Security, we would still have a deficit for this year! And that doesn’t even begin to account for the fact that we are $12 trillion and growing and debt. So no, there will be no celebration in the media or anywhere else for a president who sends us down this path, no matter what party he is from.
#41 bobbo the clown – All the problems you’ve listed are problems created or perpetuated by the government. The dollar is weak because of government policy. The federal reserve note is backed by nothing and the government prints it at will, inflating it in the process. In a free market society, no one entity would have a monopoly on currency like the government has now. If a bank in a free market society tried printing worthless paper backed by nothing, that paper would decrease in value, and less people would deal with it, opting for paper from a bank that’s backed by real value.
In a free market society, there is no such thing as a trade imbalance. That is because I would not be “represented” by the government of the US. Therefore, the only trade imbalance would be a personal one – if I only bought and bought without selling anything (product, service, what have you) that anybody else desired. Therefore, I’d have to change my occupation to provide something of value that I could sell in order to rectify my own personal trade imbalance. If I own a business it’s the same concept, only on a grander scale.
Ditto same argument for unbalanced budget.
Big banks exist today due to government regulation. Who do you think drafts the legislation before it’s introduced as a bill by some moron legislator on capitol hill? Our so called representatives don’t know much about banking, or anything else besides how to raise funds for campaigns. They get handed about 1000 pages from some lobbyist or some other representative of big business, and they turn around and use it as their own, without reading it. In a free market society, there is no regulation. That way, there is lots of competition, and the banks who serve the consumer the best will become bigger while those who try to pull the stunts the big banks we have now would soon go out of business and there’d be no government to bail them out.
Ditto same argument for healthcare.
There’d be no massive army controlled by special interests to go shoot up foreigners thousands of miles away in the name of the US in a free market society. Just like during the Revolutionary war, free people would get together to form militias to defend themselves from foreign threats. Don’t forget, there was no US military when the British empire (the biggest, baddest military in the world at the time) to defend freedom loving people from foreign aggression.
You see bobbo, we don’t need tyranny to defend us from tyranny. It’s as if I robbed you at gunpoint, and told you, hey, I’m using your money to make sure you have a job, you are able to trade with others, keep me from getting into debt, protect you from getting taken advantage of by the other children, for you to gain my permission to go see a doctor of my liking, and to fund altercations that I’m in to protect my buddies who help fund my little extortion operation. The government steals from us, then promises to protect our liberty. That is sooooo bass-ackwards!
If he’s so smart why does China own us?
Booboo,
Obama isn’t giving health care to all and you know that. He’s done the same thing with big health care as he did with wall st. While he talked smack about big health care in public, he behind the scenes cut nice deals with them that will end up enriching them, assuming what ever horrible health care plan he ends up backing passes congress. Hopefully it will not. Obama has shown he’s no leader but a reactionary two face chicago goon that needs to be voted out of office ASAP. Hopefully 2010 will be the beginning of the end for our first half white all dunce President.
Blah, blah, blah Obama’s Fault
Blah, blah, blah Bush’s Fault
Blah, blah, blah Democrat’s Fault
Blah, blah, blah Republican’s Fault
You partisan tools are sounding like a broken records. Same BS every time.
The reality is, it’s OUR FAULT, we keep voting for these people, their all corrupt and don’t give a rats-ass about any of us.
“Commodity prices have surged.”
Like food, medicine and clothing.
Thanks, B.O.!
I must have missed all these stories in the media when W was president. With Clinton every good piece of economic news was being labelled as proof of his economic policies working, while with Bush they seemed to go out of their way to find negatives. Not economic, but the best example is the AP’s competitor writing As violence falls in Iraq, cemetery workers feel the pinch
#46 big – You’re right, it is our fault. But whether we vote or not, it won’t make a difference. Because the politicians will still vote. And so will their families. And friends. And special interest groups.
It’s our fault because we keep funding this bipartisan b.s. As long as we keep paying taxes like good little citizens, nothing will ever change.
Americans give their Presidents, a hard time. And seem obsessed with trying to kill them. It ain’t easy trying to help. If you want to be a president, move to France. President la France, Barack Jon Claude Louis Obama. Has a nice ring to it, don’t you think?
# 28 Breetai:
“Is the Patriot Act Okay with you guys now that Bush isn’t president?”
No, dammit!
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# 43 BmoreBadBoy, tell us some more fairy tales about the Perfect Free Market! Tell us about how the Perfect Free Market will save the Princess from the evil Government Tax Robber and we’ll all live happily ever after while the sun dawns and the blue birds of happiness sing!
I hadn’t seen this article; but, did notice a couple of folks on Bloomberg TV discussing it, yesterday.
It’s true. Though hacks like Fox Business News or even staid Republican trollops like CNBC would never admit it.
I still find more consistently honest biz news over at Bloomberg. Too bad they lost Bernie Lo in Hong Kong back to CNBC. The latter must have paid a bundle to get him.
Funniest sht this morning! This one middle age woman comes into the cafe to get a morning sandwich. She comes 3min’s after I do. She idles around the place waiting for her sandwich and me for my ice milk cafe.
I look outside at her vehicle, plastered with Patriot Act this and that and starts smiling that this either must be a nutty Republican or a derange tea party member..in my hometown of San Diego.
I didn’t say anything of course, being the nice person and all
7mins into her wait she starts acting up, like a derange bitch. Everyone in there just kinda stare at her curiously. She starts babling about how long dos it take to make a sandwich, constantly looks at her watch, figgiting, giving the cashier a hard time, complaining over and over and when she finally got her sandwich, snatched it from the counter without a word of thanks and stormed out with an attitude to her Patriot Act covered car.
During her bitching moment I took time to calmly tell her she’s a bitch and then turn to everyone in the place and told them “what a bitch.” I was hoping to see her crash right off the bat in her current state of mind but sadly it was too early in the morning and there weren’t enough vehicles on the road. Sigh, you win this one God!
She was dressed in almost hippy clothing, glasses to make her “look” smart, and a racist fcking face if I ever seen one in my yellow Asian life! well, Brown Asian life!
You Republicans crack me up, Dems too..but mostly Republicans. Keep the insanity coming, they’re fcking hilarious, espeically in the morning!
I just don’t get all the partisan BS. On the Patriot Act issue.
“Obama’s signature comes after the House voted 315 to 97″
315 votes for it 97 against and Democrats the party against it are in control.
Are the Democrats actually in control? I hate to say it looks like Ron Paul accidentally had a moment of cander when he said the CIA is calling the shots and ran a successful coup on the US government.
Because the Politicians are definitely not running things.
#38
I see a problem with producing stuff here as it is. Take for example my colleague here at work; he doesn’t have much to do but instead of helping me and my technician debug/repair/ship/receive and everything else he sits pretty in his office. God forbid he should get his fingers dirty *roll eyes* And it’s not just him either, most of my nice colleagues here don’t expect to do any of the grunt work at all.
Producing here in US you say? Not with this kind of American attitude you can’t. Immigration be damn but at least things are getting down where they need to be. Lazy bunch of retards IMO.
And then there’s one of our factory up north where ALL the white workers get together and waste time instead of doing work. Who does the work and come on time you ask? Why, it’s the Spanish workers, the single Japanese worker and some other asian workers. Why aren’t these wht fcks getting canned? Well…it pays to also be wht and have good relations with the boss and higher up. Yay, win-win for all. Except of course company is doing poor and may shut down.
Mind you I don’t think all white people are this bad, but there are sure many of them out there in every single class level.
#51 Patsy – They are fairy tales, because we are being held back from a voluntary society by government and people like you who support it, mostly out of ignorance and comfort with the status quo. Try to open your mind to new ideas and stop letting those in power think for you. If our so called founding fathers acted like you do, we’d still be under the oppressive thumb of a king thousands of miles away…
Republican #1:
“if we surrender on health-care, we’re doomed.”
Republican #2
“If we don’t, we’re doomed, too!”
Republican #1
“Face it. We’re doomed.”
When the carbon footprint of the average American is higher, I’ll believe there is a recovery going on. The entire purpose of the economy is for Americans to have more private property, live in bigger houses and drive bigger trucks. I say to you Mr. Obama “fix it!”
Why does Bernanke look so uncomfortable in this pic?