MSNBC continues to use misleading charts suggesting Obama is responsible for Dow's decline
SUMMARY: In the past few days, MSNBC has repeatedly used misleading graphics of the Dow Jones industrial average showing a decline since the beginning of November 2008, suggesting that the drop started with the election of President Obama. In fact, the Dow was on a downward trajectory months before the election, dropping 3,738 points from May 2, 2008, to November 3, 2008.
In the past few days, MSNBC has repeatedly used misleading graphics of the Dow Jones industrial average showing a decline since the beginning of November 2008, suggesting that the drop started with the election of President Obama. In fact, as Media Matters for America has documented, the Dow was on a downward trajectory months before the election, dropping 3,738 points from May 2, 2008, to November 3, 2008.
At least twice during MSNBC Live on March 7, anchor Alex Witt aired a graphic labeled "Stock Market Slide," which started with "Election Day" and included a point marked "Inauguration Day":
During the 7 a.m. ET hour of MSNBC Live, Witt stated to CNBC senior contributor Ron Insana: "On Election Day, the Dow was at 9,625 and change; January 20 -- Inauguration Day -- it was at 7,949. And yesterday the Dow is at 6,622, a drop of nearly 3,000 points just since Election Day. I mean, any explanation as to why Wall Street has not taken to everything that President Obama is trying to do?" During the 10 a.m. hour, Witt again showed the graphic to Washington Post staff writer Anne Kornblut, stating: "[W]e have a graphic showing about how Wall Street has been just staggering. So, how long do you think good intent and this relative honeymoon period will last if the numbers and the graphs keep continuing the way they look right now on our screen -- downward?"
As Media Matters has documented, anchor Contessa Brewer also aired a cropped graphic of the Dow during the March 3 edition of MSNBC Live, labeled "Dow Since Election Day."
In addition, on the March 6 edition of Morning Joe, host Joe Scarborough aired a similar graphic, labeled "Dow Since Election Day," after stating: "[W]e've also been frustrated about the lack of clarity out of the Treasury Department. We've been showing graphics of the Dow Jones just collapsing since Barack Obama's election."
On the March 6 edition of Hardball, host Chris Matthews showed a "Dow Since Election Day" graphic while claiming the market doesn't "like what they hear coming from Obama."
Contrary to the suggestion that the Dow started to decline with the election of Obama, the Dow from October 2007 to the present shows a downward trajectory occurring before Election Day:
As Media Matters has noted, other media outlets, including Bloomberg News and FoxNews.com, have echoed this misleading claim, which also has been highlighted by Matt Drudge.
From the 10 a.m. ET hour of the March 7 edition of MSNBC Live:
WITT: How about this new Newsweek poll; the numbers we've been getting -- quite interesting. Fifty-eight percent of Americans approve of the job the president is doing; 72 percent have a favorable opinion of him. Do these high numbers surprise you, given the state of our economy?
KORNBLUT: It's been interesting. The numbers have been consistent over the last few weeks that President Obama still has a lot of support from the public, even on the economy.
You're talking about Iraq, but even on the handling of the economy --which, of course, has only gotten worse -- there has been an expression of confidence in his actions. I think the White House would interpret those numbers to mean that even though things on the ground here haven't turned around, even though we're still, obviously, engaged in Iraq, the public sees him taking concrete steps to try and move things forward.
And all the rapid action we've seen over the last few -- six weeks or so that he's been president, is a demonstration of his intention to do things, even if it hasn't actually happened yet.
WITT: Well, good point you make here. The intention is all there, but let's look at -- we have a graphic showing about how Wall Street has been just staggering. So, how long do you think good intent and this relative honeymoon period will last if the numbers and the graphs keep continuing the way they look right now on our screen -- downward?
KORNBLUT: Well, it's interesting. It's almost a redefinition of the presidential honeymoon. Usually, we consider the honeymoon to be a period of good times -- six months or so that the president gets. This honeymoon is really more sort of a grace period, that -- you're right, it seems to have gone on despite all of the bad news.
There have been, of course, a fair number of stories asking about his effect on the markets and whether at some point he can stop the bleeding or stop the drop of the Dow, which hasn't happened yet. So, I would expect that those stories will continue. You know, if the Dow were to get down much, much lower, I think that the sort of grace period might end.
WITT: I'm curious what you think has been the greater influence. Is it what Barack Obama has been saying, how he's been saying it, or just the language that he's been using? I mean, tough talk in many cases, and he's been talking about things in very serious terms. Or is it what they've been doing that has had a greater influence on the economy of late?
KORNBLUT: I think there is no way to separate it out. It's a great question. I think that at this point, talk and action are all intertwined. I do know that the White House has been eager to get him out of Washington. That's why we saw him travel to Ohio yesterday. That's why we've seen him in North Carolina.
Starting pretty soon we're going to see him traveling overseas. He's going to follow in the footsteps of Clinton now and be traveling on March 31 on his first overseas trip. So, I think all of that activity is intended to both be the activity, but also to send the signal that he's really trying to do something.
From the 7 a.m. ET hour of the March 7 edition of MSNBC Live:
WITT: Joining us right now live in studio, CNBC senior contributor Ron Insana. Good morning to you, Ron.
INSANA: Good morning, Alex.
WITT: Or is it a good morning, right?
INSANA: Well, it's a bit of a hangover from yesterday. I mean, the stock market seemed to shrug it off after anticipating it on Thursday with that big downdraft.
But this is a rough set of numbers, Alex. There's no other way to cut it. The 651,000 jobs lost are part of a 4.4 million job total that has disappeared or have disappeared in the last one year.
WITT: Ron, it is -- it's unprecedented job losses here. I mean, are we going to see it get worse before it gets better?
INSANA: Well, you have to assume so. I mean, the economy appears to be decelerating more rapidly than people thought. Not quite unprecedented. We're going -- we're going to be worse than the recession of 1980-81, but it's not yet as bad as the Depression of the 1930s.
It's going to end up somewhere in the middle, one would assume. But it's hard to imagine that under these circumstances, given that we haven't fixed Wall Street yet, we haven't fixed the housing problem yet, that we're not going to see more job declines before the economy turns.
WITT: You know, you bring up Wall Street. I want to look at the stock market and how it's gone. We're going to graph it for you since Election Day last November.
And here it is. On Election Day, the Dow was at 9,625 and change; January 20 -- Inauguration Day -- it was at 7,949. And yesterday the Dow is at 6,622, a drop of nearly 3,000 points just since Election Day. I mean, any explanation as to why Wall Street has not taken to everything that President Obama is trying to do?
INSANA: Well, I think that's only part of the story. I mean, first, the banking system remains under severe stress. We haven't been able to determine yet whether or not there's an adequate plan to restore the solvency of our biggest banks and financial institutions. That's a primary concern. On top of that, it seems that Wall Street's become somewhat concerned about Washington's inability to chart a very clear course for how we're going to come out of this.
The stimulus, some believe, was too small -- believe it or not -- that it's not large enough to stimulate enough jobs to turn the economy around. And then beyond that, the president's bailout plans haven't taken shape and haven't been given enough detail for people to feel comfortable.
And then he immediately turns to health care before having solved the economic problem, and I think that's gotten some people concerned that the focus isn't on the economy.
From the March 6 edition of MSNBC's Morning Joe:
SCARBOROUGH: And he's a guy that comes -- say what you will about Newt, he's a guy that comes up with ideas.
The thing that's frustrating us -- we've been frustrated about the lack of Republican leadership -- but we've also been frustrated about the lack of clarity out of the Treasury Department. We've been showing graphics of the Dow Jones just collapsing since Barack Obama's election. Can you tell us what's going on in the Treasury Department?
DAVID GREGORY (host, Meet the Press): No. And it doesn't seem like the Treasury Department's got a handle on that, either. I mean, the difficulty is -- and the White House knows this -- Secretary Geithner has not established his credibility with the American people or with Wall Street. He's obviously got credibility there. He's got a long period of time there and certainly knows everyone there, but has not in this capacity established his credibility. He does not have adequate staff to take on this crisis.
And there is a vacuum here. The president is trying to fill it in most respects, but it's simply not enough. This confidence question, I think, is huge. The lack of clarity -- they have yet to really decide how they are going to take on the most difficult part of this, which is, how do you clean up these balance sheets of the major banks?
As [MSNBC political analyst] Pat [Buchanan] and I were talking about, remember back in the Great Depression -- I don't remember, and I know you're too young to remember -- but what FDR did by closing the banks immediately was address this confidence question.
SCARBOROUGH: Yeah.
GREGORY: And the market is one metric of that; the Dow is one metric of the fact that there is really panic. This is psychological.
If they're analyzing the decline since the dow's peak in 07 they should show the full time span. If they're analyzing the way in which the market has continued to decline this year, the Nov-March span seems reasonable.
Putting up the DOW since Election day is just factual. That's what it is.
Of course it had been sliding before that, who doesn't know that? Election Day is a legitimate point to start tracking it. So is Inauguration Day. So is the start of the decline. If MSNBC put up the graph of the DOW since 2007 then MMFA might say they are misleading because Obama wasn't in office until 2009. The media won't win no matter how they present the material if it looks unfavorable to the Democrats.
Maybe MMFA could at least acknowledge that the DOW has dropped almost as much in the past three months as it dropped in the six months before that. Or is that asking for too much? I strongly disagree that MMFA has an issue with this.
Actually it isn't factual because it's out of context. It's like if I said that John Hinckley shot Reagan and then Reagan died. It contains facts but it's absurdly out of context to make a false point.
What false point are they making? I don't see anywhere in the article where they claim that the DOW wasn't going down prior to the chart they show. It's common knowledge that it was.
That's your excuse for the media not including in the graph the proof that the stock market collapse started long before election day? That it's "common knowledge?" Seriously?
By your logic, why show a graph at ALL, since it's "common knowledge" that the market has gone down between election day and today?
Are you really this dense? Are you prepared to excuse every case of Lying by Omission with this "common knowledge" crap?
Omitting facts that are common knowledge is not "lying by omission"
However, inferring from this graph that MSNBC is "misleading" the public is partisan, disingenuous nonsense.
And you know that if McCain was elected and this trend happened, the MMfA would be contending it was "more of MsSame" that was doing it and endorse the graph. MMfA and it's sycophants are all hypocrits, moral relativists when it suits them, and thisis another typical example of how "facts dont' mean anything without the right IDEOLOGICAL context, but when it suits them, such as with GLOBAL WARMING, well facts are always facts and cant' be denied.. Just more lack of critical thinking and ideoogical fanaticism on the part of the extreme left here.
Facts are facts? You mean like your hypothetical tirade on the left's reaction if McCain had won?
I think the chart is misleading because you can see (obviously) that the DOW has gone UP 12 times for a total of 1251 points since Barrack became President. So, in less than 2 months the DOW has gone up 1/3 as much as it did during Bush's entire 2nd term. Those are simple facts.
Excellent analysis. I'm sure you are making a killing in the markets.
The graph was misleading and was being used to blame Obama for the decline. That was the context the graphs were used in . Infact the market had declined more before the election than after.
context? you ignore the span of time before th eelection to make your statement. The fact is that the DO Whas lost over 3000 points since election day, and really tanks every time Obama come s up with another plan or Gehitner opens his mouth. In the context you also fail to note that the DOW had its second greatest one day recovery ever, immediately after the tanking and the passage of TARP, which by the way, was when BUSH was still in office. The ony FACT here is that MMfA makes anotehr tempest in a teapot to maintain the fervor of their ankle and rug biting followers.
So what? We know the market is not rational.
Wall Street is where greedy gamblers work.
Its sad, but you are correct bruce. That is the way MMFA and the dems here work. I asked in another thread how long Obama had to be in office before we could blame him for anything, and people said 4 years, 8 years, etc. There is a certain segment that will never even see the possibility of responsibility and Obama in the same sentence.
These are of course the same people who want to blame Bush for 911 because he was in office, but will give Obama a free pass for as long as he is there.
blame Bush for 911 because he was in office'
Wrong again little buddy. We blame Bush of what he did AFTER 9/11:
* sat in the classroom for 7 minutes after being told the country was under attack.
* lied about WMD in order to get his revenge war against Saddam.
* subverted the constitution in his quest to make you righties feel all safe and snug in your beds.
I blame Bush for what he did BEFORE 9/11. Which is literally absolutely nothing.
He had never even heard of terrorism and had no idea it existed, even after being directly told otherwise.
all you need to do is take bush's own words on it. he told bob woodward that he was "not on point" about bin laden prior to 9-11. and it was not only that he sat in the classroom for seven minutes after being told, but there were no shootdown orders issued until 1030 am. as the 9-11 commission noted, the pennsylvania plane could have made it to the white house or capitol by that time if the passengers hadn't brought it down.
Bush ignored warrnings of an attack coming on US soil. He had told his people to worry about Sadam not Bin Lauden when they told him Bin Laudin was the real threat.
These are of course the same people who want to blame Bush for 911 because he was in office, but will give Obama a free pass for as long as he is there.
You post some crazy crap POV, but this tops it!
Bush WAS the Commander in Chief of the United States, for 9 MONTHS!
At what point does he become responsible? How freaking long is HIS probation period in wing nut land?
Now you want to blame Obama for what happen when he was elected, yet he never made a single executive decision, President Bush did!
You blame Obama and he hasn't been in office for 100 DAYS YET!
Perhaps the problem is Obama has NO executivie experience.
Obama was told about the economic crisis, yet the Dow has gone down 3,000 points since he took over. Seems like you want it both ways. You want to blame Bush and let Obama off the hook.
So Pearl, how long do you give Obama before you say either the stimuls failed, or that he bears responsibility for the repeated drops? 6 months, 9 months, 2 years?? How long? You know he is desperate when he does a photo op in Cleveland over 25 jobs.....25 jobs the city will not be able to keep after the stimilus money is gone btw. Attack my points all you want, but how long do you give him?
"Obama was told about the economic crisis, yet the Dow has gone down 3,000 points since he took over."
So you think that he should have been able to turn the economy around in the past month and half? That's beyond stupid. You do realize that we're looking forward to years of recovery, don't you? It's going to take years for all the stimulus money to even be spent. I predicted that the dumber wingnuts would start claiming that stimulus bill isn't working almost immediately after it got passed. Thanks for making my prediction come true.
So in other words.....you will never blame Obama for anything. Not after 3 years, 7 years, Never. Thanks for proving my point of the hyprocrocy of the left.
He's been President for less than two months, for Christ's sake. You CAN'T be serious.
If this were May 1861, you'd be bitching that Lincoln hadn't ended the Civil War yet. If it were May 1933, you'd be crowing "gee, what happened to Mr I'll Fix the Economy Franklin Roosevelt? Bet you wish Hoover was back, dont you?"
The stimulus "didn't work?" It hasnt even been implemented yet, you idiot.
You need to do some research about FDR and what happened after he took office. The Dow jones average increased 48% by May 1, 1933, after he was in office only 8 weeks. If you recall FDR took over from a failed Republican president. Two months if office is not too short a time period to expect some improvement. Instead the stock market has gotten worse. Obviously he is doing something wrong. Obama should start acting like FDR and quit acting like Hoover
If you recall, this is 2009 and not 1933. Apples/oranges again. Obama is not acting like Hoover, who froze govt. spending which led to the depression. FDR increased govt. spending, which put people to work and led us back to economic health.
You really should read more.
Do you understand the concept that to fixe a problem sometime it has to get worese first. Another problem that Obama is having is the media and personalities such as Rush, Bill, Sean and Pat trying to sabitage him from before he took over.
"So in other words...[I'll just make up a bunch of stuff that you didn't say or imply.]"
The only point you've proven is that you're just another braindead wingnut who doesn't even know how to spell hypocrisy, let along grasp its meaning. Aren't you even the least bit self-conscious about rambling on incoherently on a topic that you clearly don't know the first thing about? If you're going to protest Obama's ideas about how best to spark an economic recovery, then you first might want to acquaint yourself with the basics of, you know...economics.
You're attempt to equate Bush's failure in preventing 9/11 with Obama's "failure" to turn the economy around is 50 days is as idiotic as when you claimed that comparing Bush to a monkey was the same as calling him the n-word.
And yes, I accidently wrote "You're" instead of "Your," so you can skip the grammar attack rebuttal.
On the bright side, Clams, this BS seems to be working on only the most rabid and blinded right-wing nuts. I have a few co-workers who are pretty much mindless Republicans, and they crack up at the analysis of our current economy as a result of Obama's first few weeks in office.
Ask anybody you know who has ever gotten into, and out of, bad credit card debt which took longer, doing the damage or repairing it. The GOP and their media seem to be concentrating on the far right fringe right now, just keeping the faithful mollified with anti-Obama hatred while the rest of the country tries to survive the current situation and stop the bleeding.
No, Colonel, NO! The economy didn't recover fifteen minutes after Obama took the oath of office, which means he's a failure! A FAILURE!
After all, the was the "Messiah," right? (And who called Obama "the Messiah?" Why, the Right Wing, of course.)
The current strategy is to pretend that people are getting impatient and have decided they misjudged Obama and they have buyer's remorse. No evidence of this, of course, but if you say something enough times, it becomes the truth, right? Hey, it's worked before!
Exactly, JJamele, that was part of the whole plan the rightys set in motion with the "Messiah" nonsense. After eight years of holding W to the lowest standards on everything, excusing every mistake, and asking for leniency in judging him, they suddenly have these ridiculous, even impossible, requirements for the president.
What's funny is to consider what would happen if Obama followed the complainers' orders to the letter. Apparently he would pass no legislation and spend no money, and that would fix last month's unemployment rate.
How are people supposed to take you serious when your statement of "facts" are so easily proven to be false? Since January 20th, when Obama took over, the DOW has gone down 1,323 points. Willful ignorance, again, at its best.
well i have to ask you how much did the market drop from say 2007-until obama too office? wouldn't it have been some ooh maybe 6000 points...maybe? but then who was president then......certainly not obama.....dick....well one could argue he was acting like one....no it was W.
"Obama was told about the economic crisis" -- then I guess he should have done something about it.
His first act should have been to draw up an executive order stating that the stock market can't go down any more. Then he should have passed some tax cuts and moved tax day to January 25, so that the entrepreneurs can immediately reap the harvest. Then he should have passed funding for R&D on a time machine, so that we can go back and nominate a "real conservative" for president in 2000, instead of the guy who every republican alive said was a real conservative.
Then Obama should have given hundreds of billions of George Soros's money (not the taxpayers') to AIG for them to use any way they want. Then Obama should have written an op-ed in the NYT stating that it would be really cool if businesses would hire people if the invisible hand would let them.
After he did all this, he should have gone on TV and stated that government should never, ever do anything, ever, except fund missile defense to keep us all safe.
So Basically NONE of you have the GUTS to say how long Obama has to be president to take blame for ANYTHING. You guys are pathetic.
Both Obama, and every economist who knows what they're talking about, has already warned that the stimulus will take years to take effect. And you're already looking to blame him for the present state of the economy? Who's pathetic? It's simply idiotic to blame Obama for the economic crisis we're in. Idiotic and desperate.
Suppose you take your car to a repair shop with a dead battery. If your car isn't fixed in one hour, it's the repair shop's fault.
Now suppose you take your car to a repair shop because it won't run, and you don't know why. Is it the repair shop's fault if it's not fixed in an hour? Who knows? We don't know how badly the car is damaged.
We don't know if we're in a depression or not. If we are, an entire presidential term is probably not enough to fix it. So essentially, Obama will never get the blame for this economy ever, no matter what. Is that unfair? No, because YOUR PARTY SCREWED IT UP WAY TOO FRIGGIN' BAD. That's something you'll have to live with, not us.
I hope Obama does the right things, and I think the right things are raising taxes on the rich to balance the budget, nationalizing bad banks, pumping lots of money into R&D for new technologies thus creating new American industry, and lowering our health care costs via universal coverage. Am I right about those things? If Obama does something else, will he be right? Who knows?
We're stuck with him, because no matter what we aren't going to rehire the idiots who broke everything.
Damn well put.
that you are steve.....
how about this ill say it for the third time....100 days the same standard that W. got.
how about this ill say it for the third time....100 days the same standard that W. got.
POV, if having executive experience is YOUR measure of success, maybe you can explain why so many failures are occurring on Wall Street. CEOs at Citibank, Merrill Lynch, Bear Stearns, Washington Mutual and Lehman Brothers ALL have some type of executive experience and ALL of the companies have either gone bankrupt or needed MY tax dollars to say afloat.
Wall Street numbers are going down because of a complete financial crisis, not Obama's presidency.
Citibank, JP Morgan Chase, Bank Of America and American Express are DOW components. Since financial companies just required a 700 BILLION bailout, common sense says their stocks won't have much value. General Motors is another DOW component, which is on the verge of bankruptcy. Home Depot is another DOW component, which is down due the housing/construction markets.
I'll leave it up to you to look at the other stock that make up the DOW and figure out why the market is down.
NOTHING was done by the Bush administration and Republicans regarding the housing market, financial institutions, JOBS, health-care or anything else over the last 8 years.
Common sense thinking people know it's going to take a lot of work and a long time to fix this mess.
Yea it's gone down 3,000 but prior to his election it had gone down 3700 points! Obama inherited this mess from GWB and his conservative policies. Your people created this mess along with 2 wars(none payed for),a collasping infrastructure and where still sucking at the tit of OPEC. You guys are good at destroying the government and what a mess you've letf this country. After 8 yrs this phony bubble that was fueled by "funny money" burst and the party that never takes responsibility for anything wonders when the mess they created is goinna be cleaned up!?!? Amazing!
I hope you realize that the "near 3000" pointb drop is a greater percentage drop in a much shorter period of time than the "3700 point drop" was. The near 3000 point drop was a 31% drop and the 3700 point drop was a 28% drop.
I'm not pointing fingers at Obama for causing this. However, it is fair to show that the decline is accelerating and ask the questions why that is so. Clearly it will eventually turn around and Obama will get credit at that time.
Stop hiding behind I'am not pointing fingers but! Yes your pointing figures. Are you saying the 1 month difference in time: 6 months=3700 points 5 months 3000 a 3% difference really shows anything?You say"...However, it is fair to show that the decline is accelerating and ask the questions why that is so..." So you want to take a month difference and draw a conclusion that the market is declining?? That's not fair!??Why would you want to set policy based on weekly or monthly trends? But more importantly why would you want to use the DOW as an indicator of sound fiscal policy? In a article dated 3/5/09 titled "What the DOW isn't:Stocks misused as score card of Whitehouse policy" They assert and correctly I feel that: But reporters and commentators are mistaken if they believe the Dow Jones average amounts to a public referendum on the Obama White House (or any other White House, for that matter). There is also little evidence that a rising stock market is necessarily tied to increased prosperity or broad economic health; it is a measure of what people who trade stocks think those stocks are worth, i.e. how much they think other traders would pay for them. As Dean Baker wrote in response to a Washington Post article (3/3/09), the value of the Dow is not a reliable indicator of much of anything: "As should be apparent at this point, the stock market can often be driven by irrational exuberance. Remember, it was almost three times as high in 2009 dollars back in 2000 as it is today. Did that make sense?"
The stocks lost value not because of Obama's policies.but because their value was inflated and illusory, instead of reflecting on Obama's policy it is more a reflection of the market and past practices and is now adjusting itself. To use a DOW graph is unfair and MSNBC and you seem to be blaming Obama. Admit it and stop hiding behind it's "fair" by using an unfair process, the graph and the DOW!
It's really a 6 month to 4 month comparison but who's counting.
You will have to show me where I have blamed Obama for any of this. I haven't. Of course, if the DOW had subsequently turned around right around election time I'm pretty sure it would have been because of the "confidence" created by a new administration and a new direction for the country. He would have gotten the credit 100%, deserved or not. Maybe it would have been deserved. You wouldn't have had a problem with that I suppose.
The DOW is not THE economic indicator but it's one indicator. It certainly has a big impact on the economy. To deny that is not credible.
I always love the "inherited" line.. He nherited nothing. He spent four freaking years chasing the train to get elected, and he did virtually nothing for 3 of those 4 years in the senate while doing so. The "Bush inherited the 9/11 crisis" didnt' fly wiht you poeple. so at least be even handed in your thinking unless you've all become so brain-washed that it isnt' even possible for you to believe Obama might not be the Messiah.
yes and look where "executive experence" in the form of W. got us. i mean yes he was governor of texas but once he became president i mean look at all the crap he did....he tried to usurp power for himself. let his VP run rampant with no check against him.
i say give him the usual 100 days that everyone else has gotten. things move at such speeds that it is more than feasible
You've shifted the topic from Obama to Bush. Obama is the president now and bears responsibilty for the course of the country. Obama's policies, especially his economic policies, don't bode well for investors. Investors have no confidence in a president who, in an economic crisis, signs a spending bill that has yet to have a positive influence on the economy. There are no economists of any stature that are lauding Obama's response to the economic crisis. None.
"Investors have no confidence in a president who, in an economic crisis, signs a spending bill that has yet to have a positive influence on the economy."
Are you competing with POV to see who can come up with the most idiotic post on this topic? The bill hasn't even begun to be implemented yet!
The spending bill has been made public and that is what investors,meaning the general public because that is what comprises investors, are reacting to. Investors don't have to wait for anything to be implemented to either invest or cash out. I thought you understood that yet you refer to my post as idiotic. Duh!
The very premise that the DOW should be a moment-to-moment gauge used to measure how people are reacting to the stimulus is idiotic.
Are you trying to tell us the market is rational? It's not. It is just as easy to make the counter argument that the market is having an irrational reaction to long lacking common sense.
What the Dow Isn't
Stocks misused as 'scorecard' of White House policy
3/5/09
To hear some in the corporate media tell it, you judge a president by how the Dow Jones Industrial Average is performing--and, thus, Barack Obama is not doing a very good job.
As NBC's Meet the Press host David Gregory said (3/1/09):
The Obama stimulus package, $787 billion. The housing plan, $75 billion. That's $2.3 trillion. Seven hundred and fifty billion dollars additional in this document for additional bailout money for the banks. Meantime, what metric do we have to see how people--what people think of that government intervention? The Dow is one metric. It closed on Friday at its lowest level since 1997, just over 7,000.
MSNBC host Chris Matthews put it earlier (Hardball, 2/23/09):
How does [Obama] deal with the fact that he has a scorecard now. It's called the Dow Jones.... No matter what they say, the Dow keeps going down. It's down to almost 7,000 now. I used to think 8,000 was the floor. It's heading toward 6,000! People are really getting angry! I'm getting angry!
Some of the commentary was even blunter. NBC's financial pundit Jim Cramer declared on the March 3 Today show that Obama is pursuing a "radical agenda" that amounts to the "greatest wealth destruction I've seen by a president." When reporter Erin Burnett seemed to disagree slightly, Cramer retorted: "The stock market is the country right now. This is where people's wealth is."
But reporters and commentators are mistaken if they believe the Dow Jones average amounts to a public referendum on the Obama White House (or any other White House, for that matter). There is also little evidence that a rising stock market is necessarily tied to increased prosperity or broad economic health; it is a measure of what people who trade stocks think those stocks are worth, i.e. how much they think other traders would pay for them. As Dean Baker wrote in response to a Washington Post article (3/3/09), the value of the Dow is not a reliable indicator of much of anything: "As should be apparent at this point, the stock market can often be driven by irrational exuberance. Remember, it was almost three times as high in 2009 dollars back in 2000 as it is today. Did that make sense?"
"It took only 14 trading sessions for the Dow to fall from 8,000 to less than 7,000," declared Today host Matt Lauer (3/3/09). As pointed out by Media Matters (3/3/09), MSNBC anchor Contessa Brewer seemed to more explicitly tie the market average to Obama: "Since Election Day, the Dow Jones industrial average has dropped nearly 3,000 points. It's shed a quarter of its value in just the past two months." The Dow had also lost more than 3,000 points in the six months prior to Election Day, which might suggest the problems started long before last November.
And such commentary certainly suggests that the downturn in the market is some sort of reaction to White House actions--rather than a response to the routinely downbeat reports from major corporations, indicating that they will make less money and hence be worth less to investors than they have in the recent past (and in the case of many major financial corporations, their balance sheets are worse than downbeat). As the Washington Post reported (3/5/09): "The U.S. recession is dragging down almost every industry in almost every part of the country and businesses do not expect conditions to improve until late this year at the earliest, according to a Federal Reserve report released yesterday."
If reporters really want to assess public reaction to White House economic proposals, there is a much more straightforward way to do that: public opinion polls. Those show much more public support for the Obama administration than is evident among Wall Street investors--or millionaire TV journalists.
Investors are insane. They're the guys that tanked the economy, remember? The fact is, they are friggin greedy and don't put anything in perspective...they want some solution to their own creation that gives them a quick "fix" like a drug addict.
Investors didn't tank the economy. Any investor has the right to cash in his or her stocks anytime they wish. Investors react to how they feel the economy will prosper or decline at any given time and in any given sector. That is precisely how the stock market works. If they didn't have the freedom to do just that, we wouldn't have a free market system to begin with. Obama made it quite clear during his two year campaign that a free market system would be a thing of the past if he were to be elected president. The summer and fall of 2008 reflected the fact that Obama was going to be elected and investors reacted accordingly. There's really no mystery here.
"Obama made it quite clear during his two year campaign that a free market system would be a thing of the past if he were to be elected president."
Oh, he made that quite clear, did he? Care to back that up with anything resembling a quote or a fact?
Would you care to dispute it?
Would you care to prove it? The loans made to the banks under TARP started in the Bush administration!
You made the allegation you prove it or STFU!
and where and when did he give that quote....where is the speech that had those words in order with nothing in between them that may show that your prhase was taken out of context.
We do not now, nor have we ever had a free market. And you right that Obama made his solutions very clear and contrasted them with McCain brilliantly. McCain's Reaganomics lost. Conservatism lost and your ideology lost. The only thing you righties are trying to do now is knee cap Obama because when he succeeds your precious Republican Party will lose control for generations.
As for markets, they are driven by irrational exuberance, as well as, irrational pessimism. The truth is markets can not be relied upon as good indicators of the economy.
Reaganomics didn't lose, conservatism didn't lose and ideaology didn't lose. A charasmatic black democrat male won who promised change and hope. He brought change and corruption. Four appointments right out of the box didn't pay their taxes. Obama promised transparency yet continued the same secrecy as the Bush administration. Obama promised no lobbyists yet he has four as advisors. Obama promised a foreign policy that would bring respect to America yet Mrs. Clinton has made several blunders so far. She didn't press China on it's human rights failures and looked foolish trying to be clever with the Russians. All of these things, along with a spending bill and a promise to socialize medicine in this country, at a cost no one can yet imagine at a time when we can least afford it, has brought the market to it's knees. Your first statement that we have never had a free market system boggles my mind. If it isn't a free market system, then what is it?
dont play that card. retract it fast or ill make you look stupid very quickly.
What do you call subsidies for profitable companies that produce pharmaceuticals, drill for oil or manufacture military arms? You call that a free market?
What do you call tax incentives for companies to do business in your locality?You call doin' it on your own?
Please. Your lack of understanding the true nature of our corporo-Marxist market boggles the mind, if only a little more than your lust for controversy.
You need to understand that yes, conservative ideology has lost. The only people who still believe in the myths of small government are dittoheads and/or tv pundits. Activist government is the new center. Not activist government that cuts taxes for the rich, but government that acts on behalf of actual working people. Believe it.
Nobody wants a conservative society that puts profit ahead of people, nobody wants a price tag attached to every aspect of their lives. That's what cons offer; pay to play. Well, sorry pal. Our common interests, the things we share that enable opportunity, like healthcare, are just too important to hand over to inefficient private interests who are too concerned with sucking off every penny.
You lost and we will drag you right wingers, kicking and screaming, again, into the future.
Well said!
You seem to contradict yourself? If Obama just represented hope and change what was it that scared the DOW? Come on don't pretend you've forgotten all the trash your side hurled at him and his economic policy. Remember tax-cuts for 95% of the population and how that was socialist? Lets see conservatism wasn't on trial then why did you get your butts kicked in the last two elections and barely hung onto the presidency in 2004. It was resoundingly clear that people wanted a new course from the failed policies of conservatism represented by GWB with a promise to continue them by McCain/Palin. you didn't win, but I forgot it wasn't your ideas that were rejected it was the medias fault. Please stop throwing around this word socialism. I could care less WTF you call it as long as I'am insured. We can afford becuase we cannot afford not to have it. Where were you when we were funding this war in Iraq(cost not even put in the budget)! Can you tell me why Iraqi's have "free" medical care but it's bad for us ? I want the same damn coverage that Dick four heart attack and still living Cheny has, it is our right! The free market went away with the creation of nation states. You sound embarassingly shallow and ignorant by claiming we have a free market.
so your joining in with glenn beck and implying that president obama is some sort of marxist or communist or socialist?
why not just come out and say it you coward.
Investors dont tank the economy? There was a ban last fall on short selling the market because investors were tanking the market.
Investors are typically republicns and don't like democratic presidents, but look at the last 100 years. You will see that the performance of the stock market has been exponetially better during Democratic terms. Clinto had the greatest gains in the DOW of any president in 60 years.
I guess now you will argue that the president has nothing to do wiht the market.
"There are no economists of any stature that are lauding Obama's response to the economic crisis. None."
Only in as much as they don't think the recovery package is big enough.
president obama is responsible for what he does from jan 20th onward. that includes fixing a mess left to him by the previous president. you cannot talk about them as if they are seperate issues....the are continious.
its not like we could hit a reset button on jan 20 and everything was back before bush took office.
man wouldnt that be a great thing....a reset button that would erase bush and dick
well clocktower you are correct to a point....but your implication is incorrect. economists problems with the spending bill is that its not enough. its not big enough. they felt obama should have not had any tax cuts and made it all spending.
ex. paul krugman. phd in econ. and latest winner of the nobel prize in economics. which means a heck of alot more than a degree from regent univ.
A Nobel Peace prize used to mean something but now they are given out to liberal darlings of the media. I wouldn't put a lot of stock in that.
why just because al gore won one?
That's part of the reason. A boring docudrama produced, by a politician who couldn't win the hearts and minds of Americans,as president or scientist, but wows the liberal media, is co-winner of a prize that used to be extended to those who saved lives by virtue of their work. The invention of dynomite saved thousands of lives and transformed the world and that is why Alfred Nobel was honored as the icon of saving lives. To put Al Gore or Yassir Arafat in the same category as Mother Theresa is insulting.
A boring docudrama
Did you watch it? Probably not.
a politician who couldn't win the hearts and minds of Americans
Psst...Gore won the popular vote in 2000.
a prize that used to be extended to those who saved lives
Our defense department classifies Global Warning as the #1 national security threat.
He actually won the hearts of the American people and the popular vote as well.
Would you like the nobel winning conomist of he were hired by reagan?
ah and there it is...never mind the fact that Alfred Nobel's invention was put to use in war which he deplored......so as many lives as he saved....he been responsible for t he deaths of far more people than he saved.
your prejudice is overwhelming in he fact that scientists found Gore's assertation to have merit. otherwise he wouldnt' have gotten the nobel prize. Arafat, he was seen as instead of trying to murder people, he was playing peace maker after he had been responsible for many atrocities.
your logic would suggest that someone like say....rush nash shouldn't have gotten his nobel prize because he is a paranoid schizophrenic. and that "a beautiful mind" caused people to take pity on him. didn't have anything to do with his contribution to mathematics and ECONOMICS. Which were vast. but that doesn't matter to you. what matters is trying to make something that is a symbol for good. and make it seem less important just because Al Gore won it.
youo have shown yourself to be grossly misinformed and ignorant. not to mention a poor speller....its dynamite. you have shown you cannot be taken seriously.
and it amazes me that you believe the nobel prizes are somehow corrupted......do you get how many people are nominated and what they have to contribute in their fields to get nominated even?
and ill bet any amount of money you want. that if W, dick, hank paulson (who by the way i dont see him getting nominated for a econ nobel prize.) or any avowed conservative, republican party member or economist does not have a nobel prize to their name.
That only proves my point.
lol. your idiocy knows no boundry does it......i mean seriously.
hey did you ever stop to think why they would never even be thought of for such a prize.....here's a thought.
the world hates them, and with good reason. Dick and W. are seen as at the very least idiots and incompetent. at the worst they are seen as war criminals.
you think Adolf Hitler, of Joseph Stalin should have been nominated for such a prize? they killed millions between them.
what were the great contributions given to us by W. and Dick? a needless war? deaths of Thousands, displacement of more? the world seeing us as a bully?
what have they done. that would warrant a nobel prize?
the answer is nothing, they have done nothing that would ever warrant even consideration. and anyone who thinks otherwise is either a drug addled mindless sychophant, or completly delusional
you have just proven that not only are you not to be taken seriously but that you are either severly ignorant or just that blindly loyal. which i do not know nor di i care.
i find it difficult to have respectful discussion with someone who believes the nobel prize....is "given out to liberal darlings of the media. I wouldn't put a lot of stock in that." theclocktowersniper.
Jimmy Carter, the worst president in American history, Kofi Annan, the corrupt leader of the U.N., Yassir Arafat, the pistol toting moron who directed the murders of thousands of jews, Gorbachev, the soviet dictator responsible for the deaths of thousands of his own countrymen. All of the above were canonized for their liberal standing and position by the world media complex yet none contributed to the general well being of the world or any nation.
How's your GED studies coming?
so none of the good work they when they EARNED their prizes matters. did matters......
ok. let me school you ALOT.
and the war dead of these latest conflicts we are in? does not W. and Dick recieve some blame, especially for Iraq and lying us into that invasion? where is the blame for them?
so none of the good work they when they EARNED their prizes matters. did matters......
ok. let me school you ALOT.
and the war dead of these latest conflicts we are in? does not W. and Dick recieve some blame, especially for Iraq and lying us into that invasion? where is the blame for them?
To pointofview:
Let's face it, pointofview, you're still blaming Monica Lewinsky for 9/11!
Blame? blame president Obama....when the house of cards was built could easily go back to bush and probably even clinton and you wanna blame obama? now aside from blaming obama for anyting since he took office so far being absurd.....where is your admittance that bush caused a big part of this all
You know as awell as I do that by choosing election day or inauguration day as a graph starting point they are implying that these dates were significant in some way for the decline.
They were not. They could just as well have picked any random date, since those were as significant for the decline as these two days.
Why not use the common graph method of showing decline since Januar 1st, the last month or since the actual start of the decline?
"Maybe MMFA could at least acknowledge that the DOW has dropped almost as much in the past three months as it dropped in the six months before that. "
You're choking on your own rules, idiot. MMFA's article was "just factual".
Obviously I don't expect MMFA to be fair in their analysis. That is not their purpose for existence.
Showing your colors??? Again the graphs MSNBC were showing is misleading and used to blame Obama for the decline. Earlier on another post you agreed that the decline was not due to Obama are you now changing your mind?
I'm clearly not a liberal and never claimed to be. I don't blame Obama for the decline and I don't see the graph as misleading. Nobody said that the DOW started falling on election day. Obama won for a big reason that the economy has been tanking for awhile. It is being discussed and analyzed further because the decline in the DOW has accelerated since he was elected.
Nobody likes that but it is a fact and it is fair game to try to determine why the decline in the market has accelerated in the past few months. To ignore that would be completely irresponsible on the part of the media.
On the March 6 edition of Hardball, host Chris Matthews showed a "Dow Since Election Day" graphic while claiming the market doesn't "like what they hear coming from Obama." That's just one example from the article, but in almost every case the graph was used to say Obama was the reason,that is the context the graph was used in. It was cropped unfairly to show that the market according to the MSNBC pundits wasn't responding to Obama's policies since the market had been in a long decline before he took office. That was the purpose of the graph, do you agree with their findings? Their meaning MSNBC's.?
sorry I meant to say: It was cropped unfairly to show that the market according to MSNBC pundits didn't like Obama's policies but that is unfair since the market had been in a long decline before he took office.
Furthermore the DOW is not the indicator of whether a Presidents Policy is working or not.
"it is fair game to try to determine why the decline in the market has accelerated in the past few months."
Simple. Markets are not rational.
"To ignore that would be completely irresponsible on the part of the media."
Wrong. For the media to see what a blatant attempt by the right to misdirect the discussion this is, would be thoroughly responsible of the media. So don't whip out your responsibility card now that it suits your argument. Where was the responsible media a few years back sounding the alarms of the approaching housing bubble? Where was the responsible media in educating the public on the dangers of the Wall St practice of selling bundled loans?
Maybe they didn't want to upset an irrational market? It would have been bad for Wall St, the DOW would have suffered, if the public had known that a bunch of river boat gamblers were rolling the dice with their money in a consequence free Republican deregulated market.
Please, Bruce. Surely you can see that this whole fixation is nothing more than pure Republican distraction?
Several entities dropped the ball on the housing crisis, the media being one of them. Yes, markets can be irrational but that doesn't make them any less important.
Clintons market in the late 90's was to a large degree driven by the dot com boom that was in hindsight irrational and not sustainable. I don't see a lot of people disavowing credit for that, however. Everyone just smiled and accepted their 25% annual returns for four years.
This is a lot more serious, however, because that money has disappeared. "Experts" are predicting that it will be ten years before we get back to 14,000 so obviously people are very concerned. That is the reason for the fixation, because half the country just got cleaned out.
Come on it's implying that the fault is President Obama when he just inherited this crisis and is trying everything he can to stop the down fall of this country. If you can't see that you are one of the 30% of the Republicans who are in the twilight zone.
The "slide" had been in progress way before the election. Obama just jumped on the slide and is trying to put on the brakes. He is digging in his heels in an effort to slow and eventually stop the fall. The GOP is just throwing more ice under his feet. Way to GO, "Grand OLD Party"!
Just imagine if John " the fundamentals of our economy are strong " McCain had jumped on. with Barbie "I can see Russia from my window "
Yeah, just imagine. But that didn't happen so why speculate. It's bad enough with Obama's policies.
Perhaps you should examine your own opinions and actions.
What is that supposed to mean, mary? I've offered my opinions but my actions are invisible to this website.
The Dow and S&P500 has been falling since 10/2007. Back when Bush was about to take office in 2000, the Dow took a plung into 2003. Notice it did not start falling on 9/11/2001, it was already falling. In 2003 both the Dow and S&P bounced to test old Clinton highs. As an X-Broker I knew the Dow could exceed it's old high but if the S&P did not follow for a large percentage, look out below. S&P doubled topped and reversed in 2007. And the Dow followed. Not 2009 but 2007. Look at historical charts. When I was a Broker, we use to look at MSNBC and laugh at the freaks they had on there and had pitty for the fools that followed their advice.
What does President Clinton have to do with this subject?
The subject is whether presidents should be scored by the stock market.
Since no republican would ever score Clinton by the stock market, it follows that they aren't allowed to score Obama by the stock market.
Jeebus, I've been away for a while, but it seems like the resident wingnuts have actually become dumber. They can't even seem to follow the conversation anymore. I remember that we used to have to explain every article to them, but now it looks as though every single post has to be explained to them as well.
The stock market volume was barely 8000, if that, at the end of Mr. Clinton's second term and had lost considerable gain in the last six months of that same term. Mr. Clinton's success was not the stock market but his ability to control spending, quite well I might add, and reduce the deficit, but thanks for trying to explain that to me. I've only been on this site for two weeks so I'm not a resident wingnut quite yet, clamscasino, but I'm sure glad you and steeve are here to fill me in on stuff. Given time and an education from you two, who knows, I might finish high school. :>)
The market went from 3000 to 10000 under Clinton. It was literally beyond anyone's wildest dreams. And it happened after a giant tax hike on "entrepreneurs" and "investors".
It's the sort of thing that might cause a conservative to question the basis of his theories.
Wrong! It never reached 10k under Clinton.
Too bad the comments section will close before we can put money on this. (We are talking about the DJIA, right?)
Yes we are. I believe it was 2004 or 05 when it reached 10k.
This is an exercise that you can try at home. Go to teh google, ponder some relevant search terms, and try to get to the bottom of this.
Since this is the teacher's edition of the textbook, the answer is provided. However, it really will benefit you in life if you're able to do this yourself.
Unbelievable.
"Wrong! It never reached 10k under Clinton." Are you trying to look stupid or do you have no other choice? Now I have provided a simple chart for you to follow. here is a little help. Clinto took office on 1/20/1993 and left office on 1/20/2001. Drag your cursor along the chart and you will see where the DOW was @ different points. It looks to me that the graph pretty much goes straight up from start to finish.
Statistics do not lie however liers use statstics to make there case this is just such a case between November 4 and January 20 Obama could do nothing. Also that the momentum once started is hard to stop. After September of last year it was plain for anyone with half a brain to see that the market was going to have to hit rock bottem before it recovered regaurdless of what was done. What Obama is doing is making that bottem higher in the long road.
NOT SURPRISE!!!!!!!!!!! MSNBC LIKE THE REST OF THE RIGHT-WING MEDIA WILL BLAME OBAMA FOR EVERYTHING NOW BUT FOR 7 1/2 YEARS THEY SAID NOTHING. BUT LET MCCAIN HAD WON YOU WOULD NOT BE SEEING THOSE GRAPHS, OUT CRY FROM WALL STREET AND THE REST OF THIS MESS THAT IS GOING ON NOW ABOUT HOW IT'S OBAMA FAULT. AND I WISH THE DAILY SHOW WOULD SHOW ALL THE NEWS STATION LIKE FOX, CNN, MSNBC, ABC, NBC AND CBS WHO ALL SAID THE ECONOMY WAS GREAT ALSO LIKE CNBC.
Wow how crazy would tyhe country be if Bush's Social Security plan of investing funds in the stock market was implented. The trouble with the Repubs is that they are only interested in a small segment of the population instead of the whole country.
Apologies to Lao Tsu
I thought Mr. Spock said that.
What a ridiculous set of rantings on this thread about an issue that is a ridiculous issue.
There is a GLOBAL RECESSION that has EVERY worldwide index in every stock market plummeting.
To blame this on a guy that has been in office for 2 months & whose policies were just passed and will not take effect for months is UTTER NONSENSE.
You said it the problem is the right thinks now is the time to blame so they can have hope for 2010 mid terms.
I agree with bruce that, "The media won't win no matter how they present the material if it looks unfavorable to the Democrats."...according to mmfa.
I also agree with progressiveright that, "Statistics do not lie however liers use statstics to make there case..."
It's mmfa's stock in trade to cherry pick data to support the liberal cause...so I'll add my own cherries with the following...using the dow jones link provided by mmfa:
-- In the 45 days before the election...the market fell about 2000 points...suggesting that the market had little faith in the policies of the Bush administration.
-- In the 45 days after the election...the market fell about 800 points...suggesting that the market had bought into the Obama campaign promises of hope and change.
-- In the 45 days after the inauguration...the market fell about 1300 points...suggesting that the market was less enamored with Pres.Obama's campaign promises after they witnessed his actual policy decisions.
Then in regard to mmfa's "downward trend" defense of Pres.Obama...the market decline has changed very little since his election or inauguration. Using their 3738 point drop in the last six months of the Bush administration...the market declined about 625 points a month.
Since Obama's election...with the promise and subsequent authorization for stimulus spending of around a trillion dollars...the market has continued to decline at a rate of about 550 points a month.
That's my little bowl of cherries...feel free to coat them with sugar or not.
"In the 45 days before the election...the market fell about 2000 points...suggesting that" the economy wasn't very good.
"In the 45 days after the election...the market fell about 800 points...suggesting that" the economy wasn't very good.
"In the 45 days after the inauguration...the market fell about 1300 points...suggesting that" the economy wasn't very good.
This is a good post by wesley, but it remains true that stock market analysts don't know anything.
Do you people realize that there is actual economic data and maybe that has some factor on stock prices? Unemployment is at it's highest in 25 years and all indications are that it will continue to keep going. We have had record declines in home vaules. AIG posted the largest quarterly loss of any company ever. 2 of the 30 components of the DOW could very well go bankrupt. Do you really think that it matters to the market who the president is?
This shift to try to blame Obama is almost comical if things were not so serious. I pose the questions what more could be done and where would the stock market be if the bail out or stimulus packages were not passed. Obviously these questions are unanswerable, yet the presidnets detractors are trying to insuate that they woul;d be better. Both arguements are not provable.
What? Hasn't Obama been in office for about 2 months. This administration is to blame for a crisis that has been festering for years. NO! Conservatives and their policies are the blame. As far as tax policies I've seen no shifting only the ranting by the right that he will raise taxes which is a lie when 95% of the people will see a tax-cut . It's typical republican BS to view a tax-cut for middle and low income folks with an increase (by letting the Bush tax cuts lapse)on the top 5% as oppression,we see who you serve.
And don't forget that Bush's tax cuts were set to expire in 2010 anyway. Obama is simply allowing this to happen. With wingnut logic, we could say that Bush is raising taxes.
Check this out clams:
SOAKING THE RICH (REDUX).... Hilzoy had a great overnight item on the odd conservative complaints about President Obama's proposal to raise the top marginal tax rate to 39.6% -- where it was under Clinton, and where it was intended to be in 2011 based on George W. Bush's plan. Hilzoy compared a 39.6% against other major capitalist democracies, and just as importantly, against other modern U.S. presidents.
Hilzoy concluded, "All in all, it seems as though we've been suffering through an awful lot of socialism and class warfare all over the world, much of it at the hands of people conservatives claim to admire. If a top marginal rate of 39.6% is enough to make society's producers and creators go on strike, then Galt's Gulch must be getting pretty crowded."
Quite right. But I also thought it would be helpful to add a visual element to this.
John Cole posted this graph a few days ago. See that column on the far-right edge? That's where Obama proposes the marginal top-rate should be.
It's also the rate conservatives believe is so outrageous, that they're accusing the president of "socialism" and talking openly about the "Going Galt" scenario in which wealthy and industrious Americans would deliberately make less money to spite their country.
It's all quite silly, but the graph adds some helpful context to drive the point home.
Obama is proposing a top rate lower than Reagan's first term, lower than Nixon's, lower than Eisenhower's, and lower than FDR's when he pulled us out of the Great Depression.
So, really, try not to hyperventilate.
Excellent. Thanks for that. It really proves all the breathless cries of "Socialism!" are coming from mindless parrots, who are working themselves up into a frenzy at their own expense.
That's great. If Obama raised the rate to 60%, he could pass a Krugman-sized stimulus while balancing the budget THIS YEAR, then run huge surpluses the rest of his presidency and pay off the entire national debt in 8 years.
The rich's inert wealth is like a supermassive oil deposit whose size defies the imagination. Drill baby drill.
fmbanker, i can maybe concede the point about geithner.....but what i don't understand is this; geithner when he was announced....he was hailed by nearly everyone on wall street. and the second that preisdent obama is sworn in, and geithner is sworn in, suddenly there is no confidence in him.
I think what confidence people had in geithner evaporated because he offered nothing, and he was shown to be a tax cheat. btw, Jim Rogers, the commodities guru has absolutely no confidence in Geithner, saying he was wrong the entire time he was as the fed.
and who should have been appointed? Phil Graham? he said we are a bunch of whinners and look how that turned out
The GOP's plan is to bury the BUSH recession under the name OBAMA. They are fresh out of constructive ideas, which leaves foisting blame and fostering misinformation. Sadly, even the so-called "liberal" MSNBC is plying the public with the GOP's baloney. The right accused the left of considering Obama a messiah. Yet it is the right who actively blames Obama for not reshaping reality in an instant, as a messiah would do. Funny how Bush's bungling idiotic missteps were tolerated under the auspices of "he's only human" but Obama must part the seas and strike down our enemies with heavenly fire or, according to conservatives, he's a failure.
Randy
I came up with the similar numbers myself and i was not watching MSNBC. It is true that the DOW and other averages have declined since the high on October, 9 2007. It is also true that the major average have declined since election day. Those are facts which are verifiable through any financial website such as Yahoo.
I also measured the decline in the DJIA from 1/20/09 to 3/6/09. Since then the DJIA has declined from 7949.09 on Jan. 20, 2009 to 6626.94 on March 6, 2009. This is a decline of 1,322.15 points or 28.13 points per day.
The DJIA declined 6215.44 points to 7949.09 on Jan 20, 2009. This was an average decline of 13.25 points per day.
Conclusion? The DJIA has declined twice as fast under Obama as it did under Bush.
Unfair comparison? How about comparing the performance of the DJIA under FDR and Obama during their first few weeks in office. During FDR's first 8 weeks in office, the DJIA ROSE 48% and kept on rising during his first year in office. Obama is often compared to FDR but based on this data, he is doing worse. He is going in the opposite direction.
In fact, Obama is looking more like the new Hoover, not the next FDR
MSNBC is not misleading anyone on this issue. Media Matters is the one who is not dealing with this issue. This article was the equivalent of anything done by Limbaugh
liebuster.....how do you explain the growth of the market during clinton's time? i mean it was slow, but steady. and that seems to have had a larger impact especially since he was able to get a budget surplus.
No need to explain that in this context. Clinton was not known as the most liberal democrat in Congress.
Right! It was slow, so there was no BOOM. If the economy booms, there will ALWAYS be a bust. This is Capitalism 101. I bet $1000 you can find that in a high school American History textbook.
but in the long term, would it not be better for consistent grown rather than a boom and bust?
We are in a capitalist society. What financial system are you talking about that ONLY increases in value? I would not want to be part of that!
Either way, that does not exist!
i dont mean only increase....but where the fluctuations are not so up and down so dramatically. and that overall there is steady growth, not explosions and then falling off a cliff.
ok. What is THAT financial system called?
i would imagine capitalism.
i couldn't imagine it being called anything else especiallly if there are fluctuations which would be normal but in the over all sense there is a general, even if it is small growth.
More revenue was brought into the governments bottom line with a LOWER rate in place before than will be brought in with a higher rate now
Liebuster....lied
NO credible economist would state lowering tax rates leads to higher revenue.
Supply Side is a myth
Really? Well, here are the facts. (You have just made a liar out of yourself pal!)
Be right to you.
tax do not worki
In an October 17, 2006, article, the Post quoted Alan D. Viard, a former Council of Economic Advisers senior economist under Bush, saying that "[f]ederal revenue is lower today than it would have been without the [Bush] tax cuts. There's really no dispute among economists about that."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/16/AR2006101601121.html
President Bush's Treasury Department, analyzing the "dynamic" effects of making the Bush tax cuts permanent, found that even under favorable assumptions, the positive economic impact would make up for no more than 10 percent of the tax cuts' cost.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/30/AR2007113002190.html
TREASURY DYNAMIC SCORING ANALYSIS REFUTES CLAIMS BY SUPPORTERS OF THE TAX CUTS
The Treasury also study decisively refutes the President’s claim that "The economic growth fueled by tax relief has helped send our tax revenues soaring,"
— in essence, that the tax cuts have more than paid for themselves. [1] Instead, under the study’s more favorable scenario, the modest economic impact of the tax cuts would offset just 10 percent of the long-run cost of making the tax cuts permanent according to an analysis of the Treasury study by the non-partisan Congressional Research Service (CRS).[2] http://www.cbpp.org/7-27-06tax.htmMore money for the rich supplies more money for the poor. Unfortunately, Obama has created equality by destroying wealth. We've lost 6 trillion in wealth. In the last 25 years, the middle classes income has risen by 22%, compensation went up (after inflation)30% and spending went up over 50%. The middle class has dramatically improved their lifestyles in only the last 25 years. MANY people were not rich in 1980, like Tiger Woods, etc. The most amazing point is poor folks in 1980 would more likely to be rich by 1995, than poor. 1979-2005 the REAL "per capita" income (not by households, that number is skewed/tricky)rose by 44% from 1983-2005 and 22% from 1983-1992. Most people that are rich today are not the same ones 15 years ago. Income groups fluctuate all the time. 1% is going to be paying over a third of all federal tax. The top 50% of citizens pay 97% of all federal tax. The left says that the top 1% does not pay enough tax. In 1980, If you compare the tax returns of tax filers that were in the lowest tax bracket in 1987 with their returns in 1996 only one third were still in the 0% tax bracket, 25% were in the 10% bracket, 32% moved to the 15% bracket, 9% moved to 35% bracket, on and on. The poor are the most mobile in this country.
The real statistics are exactly the opposite of what you hear on TV and in the newspaper. You want to get more revenues out of the rich? Cut their taxes. Ronald reagan taught us this and it worked. During the Bush years, every single year the revenues went up.
Destroying the rich is the absolute worst way to create prosperity. Of course, more people come into the system poor than rich. Most all of us start poor out of school for instance. In 1980, when we had a 70% top tax rate, the richest 1% paid 20% of all tax. Do you know what the top 1% pays today? 40%. The Obama plan they will be paying over 50%.
The statistics and the facts show when more money is in our hands, we spend it and revenues for the government go up dramatically.
Supply side theory is a myth
And this is a lie :
The top 50% of citizens pay 97% of all federal tax.
No matter what liberal twist that you can put on this with graphs, websites, etc. the facts remain the same. More revenue was brought into the governments bottom line with a LOWER rate in place before than will be brought in with a higher rate now.
Still false.......never happened
When 99% of Obama's questions leads him to a favorable result, I'm glad someone gives him real questions for a change.
When 99% of Obama's questions leads him to a favorable result, I'm glad someone gives him real questions for a change.
Alice09,
I "agree" with everything you have written here. David Gregory, Mika, Joe, Pat and so many Others that speak on MSNBC are Republicans with "bias" negative comments knocking President Obama and the Democrats in Congress on "every" issue. If these guys/women slip with a positive comment, then it is "quickly" erased with words like but, if, maybe, etc. to turn the positive into a negative viewpoint against President Obama and the Democrats. So, so, so shameful.
nah, let cramer go, he is funny to watch
Actually they are below your post above. These statistics are fact. No denying these numbers.
This has been the strategy of the Republicans for awhile now. They tried to blame the initial economic meltdown on the fears of a Democratic president. This is just an attempt to do the same thing in reverse. The GOOD NEWS: the American people are not buying it. They know Bush created this mess and there is no amount of Republican rhetorical tricks that will get them out of it. Also, many Republican ADMIT they created this mess with reckless spending and poor oversight. The BAD NEWS: Obama has to reverse this trend and the only way to do that is the long view. I have news for the spinmeisters out there. The most brilliant economic mind in the country (even if they do everything right) will not get us out of this mess for years. The idea that policy should be created based on what happened in the yesterday, last week, last month, or even last quarter is ridiculous. People keep thnking the market is going to bounce back up to 14,000 tomorrow is we just put the right policy in place. THAT WON'T HAPPEN. The market was overpriced in the first place because some idiot out there developed an economic policy that taxed production at a greater rate than the buying and selling of produced goods. THAT is why we are in the mess we're in.
You're trying to explain rational economic policy to people who belive that global warming is a hoax because we had a blizzard yesterday.
You want to get more revenues out of the rich? Cut their taxes. Ronald reagan taught us this and it worked. During the Bush years, every single year the revenues went up.
Taxes always go up except during a recession
Reagan may have resisted calls for tax increases, but he ultimately supported them.
In 1982 alone, he signed into law not one but two major tax increases. The Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act (TEFRA) raised taxes by $37.5 billion per year and the Highway Revenue Act raised the gasoline tax by another $3.3 billion.
According to a recent Treasury Department study, TEFRA alone raised taxes by almost 1 percent of the gross domestic product, making it the largest peacetime tax increase in American history. An increase of similar magnitude today would raise more than $100 billion per year.
In 1983, Reagan signed legislation raising the Social Security tax rate.
This is a tax increase that lives with us still, since it initiated automatic increases in the taxable wage base. As a consequence, those with moderately high earnings see their payroll taxes rise every single year.
In 1984, Reagan signed another big tax increase in the Deficit Reduction Act.
This raised taxes by $18 billion per year or 0.4 percent of GDP. A similar-sized tax increase today would be about $44 billion.
The Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1985 raised taxes yet again.
Even the Tax Reform Act of 1986, which was designed to be revenue-neutral, contained a net tax increase in its first 2 years.
And the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1987 raised taxes still more.
The year 1988 appears to be the only year of the Reagan presidency, other than the first, in which taxes were not raised legislatively. Of course, previous tax increases remained in effect. According to a table in the 1990 budget, the net effect of all these tax increases was to raise taxes by $164 billion in 1992, or 2.6 percent of GDP. This is equivalent to almost $300 billion in today's economy.
http://www.nationalreview.com/nrof_bartlett/bartlett200310290853.asp
These facts have nothing to do with the price of tea in China.
Revenues DID in fact go up without raising the 1%'s tax rate and this was in every single year in Reagan's and Bush's tenure...period.
ALL this Obama plan was about was evening the difference between the 0% and the top 1%. This was not for the middle class as he lies to you and the rest of us. The difference is that any of us that does not get our info from Rush, CNN or MSNBC or liberal websites knows better.
Tonight I will destroy the list that goes around saying that the US healthcare system is horrible. I will show that is the furthest thing from the truth.
Tax revenues go up each year except during recessions and you've no idea what you're talking about. You're simply repeating right wing garbage not substantiated with facts
So are you saying that the tax increases under Reagan had nothing to do with increased revenues? Of course revenues go up when we are not in recession. It is called inflation and population growth. The problem with the Bush admin is that we had a net negative loss of jobs and flat meidan wages despite inflation. Therefore middle class people actually lost money and wealth when you factor in inflation.
Go away for a few days and look at all the fun I have missed. Just one set of comments that hit me though..... if the Stock Market is no indicator of the economy why do we all talk about the real great depression starting with Black Friday and the Stock Market crash?
What all the lefties on here fail to realize is that for us righties, the stock market is our bellweather, we gain or lose confidence in our spending projections based on that bellweather and right now your man, BHO, is giving us no confort; just heartburn. You can't force us to have faith in him; either we do or we don't. I don't. And until I have confiedence in the future my money stays put, more jobs will go and the depression will deepen.
Why would Obama allow that to happen man? Why allow them to quench their thirst on their own when they can just come back to him for more of his special koolaid? These folks were not preached the common sense that nothing for free is usually that good.
Don't worry! I have felt like Conan in a room full of chihuahua's here. They have made me feel right at home...
Also, I have learned what the foundation is of a liberal, "the general welfare" of the people. (In the preamble) I'd like to see how they could stretch the right to bear arms or something. Does that mean I can own a nuclear missile? Does that mean I can own a firing range in my back yard? Does that mean "bare arms"? Guns w/ no bullets? if you can take something that is not listed as a right, the general welfare(breathing, citizenship, etc)
taken to its extremes you are correct.
but there is an implied responsibility in those words that to be careful in how far you go.
like with the 1st amendment....you can say whateer you like. but..you also have a responsibility to be respectful of others in what you say.
giving us no confort; just heartburn...
Ooh, poor baby.
You simply do not understand economics. The gravy train that has rolled merrily along with no conductor or brakes, for that matter, has come to an end and the greedy gamblers on Wall Street are throwing a hissy fit and holding back capital.
Don't blame Obama - blame those that so easily lose confidence (like yourself).
Yes, the almighty left knows all about economics....so tell me what economic theories is the almighty one following? TO what precedent? As you might expect for every economist you can quote I can quote the counter point. BEcause remember, if economists were all that good there would be perfect knowledge about future values/pricing and every economist would make a killing iont he market and wouldn't have to work....so the fact they are working means theirs is no exact science.
Businesses run on economics. Fast trading in back rooms by the wall street types is not how the majority of us made/make our money. That gravy train did not create many jobs...but good old manufacturing and construction does. What you say, that is what the chosen one has in his stimulus bill!! I am talking private sector based growth not government. Sustainable growth is needed for true recovery. Read your economic texts again, especially the discussions of guns vs butter.
And btw, "we" do not lose confidence so easily, if "we" did we would not be very successful. But even if we did, that is better than the blind faith of the rest of you incapable of independent thought and analysis caused by too much time spent in sunless environments.
Well...it appears that after two tax cuts, two wars, rebate checks and the worst job creation numbers in 40 years, right wingers think they should be taken serious about economic policy
National debt doubled un Reagan/Bush I
National debt doubled and increased by 5 trillion from 2001-2008.
Tax cuts aren't the answer and supply side is a myth
Reagan took over Jimmy Carter's mess. I seem to remember 18% interest rates, a stifled economy, and fairly high unemployment. The right approach seemed to bring the US out of its funk. Sorry, but BHO is not achieving the same thing, nor is he instilling confidence in his actions from anyone outside of the "He's going to buy my mortgage and let me keep my house for no p[ayments" group.
Actually vene Jimmy Carter had better emloyment numbers than Bush/Cheney - 10+ million jobs were created....twice as many than Bush/Cheney. Virtually all the job gains under Bush have disappeared in the LAST 12 months
Interest rates drive the economy not income tax rates
The fed under Carter hiked interest rates to get inflation under control and by doing so was a one term president. But he did the right thing.
Tax cuts do not increase debt. Revenue has increased during every tax cut. What creates the debt is out of control spending.