Did Obama Cause The Stock Market Rally?
Recently myself and some other political commentators have been dogging Obama for the post-election stock market collapse. At one point the DOW was down 19% since election day, and I (correctly) suggested that it was because of the economic policies Obama had been promising during the campaign.
Now the markets have rebounded a bit and George Stephanopoulos is suggesting that it’s because of Obama (video here). I’m actually inclined to agree.
In recent weeks Obama and Democrats have backed away from their promise to roll back the Bush tax cuts, and Obama himself has appointed a bevy of centrist economics personnel to his administration that, while they have their problems, are hardly the sort of extremists you’d expect to implement Obama’s big government, redistribution campaign agenda.
I think these things have given the market a bit of confidence back, and to an extent Obama should get some credit for that. But what’s interesting is that in order for Obama to instill some confidence in this economy he had to move away from the leftist economic agenda he campaigned on. Which tells us a lot about what that agenda would do if it was ever implemented.
And Obama doesn’t entirely get off the hook here. I’m convinced that he’s just playing nice for a bit, and hiding behind some moderate economic types, to mask his real agenda. Which is exactly what he told it was during his campaign: Big government. Big taxes. Wealth redistribution.
