Obama, Trump, and the Stock Market

Evaluating the effect have Obama and Trump have had on the stock market. Who gets credit? Who gets blame? What do corporate interests have to do with it?

In response to someone who asked, Why has everyone said Trump’s presidency has been bad when the stock market is booming?, Sam Adams made some insightful observations — although he did overlook one important fact:

Let me get this right.

The last guy inherited a country on the precipice of an economic meltdown with Dow touching 6,600 and Unemployment at 10% and when he left Dow was at 20,000 and Unemployment at 4.5%, and he actually signed a lot of legislation to get there, and he is a crappy president in your books.

Meanwhile, the guy who inherited a great economy and Dow goes up from 20,000 to 21,900 and he has not signed one piece of legislation yet to even claim token credit for it — he is a great president and the stock market is booming because of him?

Can you pass me your pink glasses please? I’d like to view the world with it just to see what it looks like.

Piers Sutton responded by agreeing in principle, but pointing out the salient truth that Sam overlooked:

Yes, the housing bubble happened during GWB’s presidency. However, the groundwork that laid the foundations for the housing bubble, which ensured it was going to happen in some number of years, happened during Clinton’s tenure.

Remember Glass-Steagall? That’s the legislation going back to 1933 which separates commercial and investment banking. Well, in 1999 Congress passed Gramm-Leach-Bliley which repealed glass-steagall. This was signed into law by Clinton a few days later.

My comment follows:

Terrific post, Sam. I’ll add that Obama was continuously blamed for the poor economy, too—even though he inherited it. That’s politics, I guess.

The unfortunate fact, however, is that the Democrats did pander to Wall Street. In return for campaign contributions, they helped to remove regulations on speculative banking investments put in place after the Great Depression. The move was started by Republicans, but unfortunately continued by Democrats who were by that time sucking at the corporate teat. (Or just plain sucking, depending on your point of view.) That’s where the housing bubble originated.

The sad truth is that America is currently owned and operated by corporate interests, to the virtual exclusion of the public interest, whenever there is the slightest conflict between the two.

There is exactly one way to fix that problem — a Social Media Voting Advice app. Now we need to get it built!

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