Jim Cramer who describes himself as an Obama supporter:
I also made it clear in a New York magazine article that I favored Obama over McCain because I thought Obama to be a middle-of-the-road Democrat, exactly the kind I have supported all my adult life, although I will admit to being far more left-wing during my teenage years and early 20s.
To be totally out of the closet, I actually embrace every part of Obama's agenda, right down to the increase on personal taxes and the mortgagededuction. I am a fierce environmentalist who has donated multiple acres to the state of New Jersey to keep forever wild. I believe in cap and trade. I favor playing hardball with drug companies that hold up the U.S. government with me-too products.
believes that President Obama's agenda is driving the increasingly steep downward slide in the stockmarket:
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Look at the incredible decline in the stock market, in all indices, since the inauguration of the president, with the drop accelerating when the budget plan came to light because of the massive fear and indecision the document sowed: Raising taxes on the eve of what could be a second Great Depression, destroying the profits in healthcare companies (one of the few areas still robust in the economy), tinkering with the mortgage deduction at a time when U.S. house price depreciation is behind much of the world's morass and certainly the devastation affecting our banks, and pushing an aggressive cap and trade program that could raise the price of energy for millions of people.
The market's the effect; much of what the president is fighting for is the cause. The market's signal can't be ignored. It's too palpable, too predictive to be ignored, despite the prattle that the market's predicted far more recessions than we have.
I don't know if Obama's agenda will turn out to be right for the country in the long run or not. My belief is NO! I do know that until some kind of certainty can be restored to the economic system we are going to continue to see wealth evaporate. So far, and I know it is early in his tenure, the President's team has not offered that hint of stability. That has to change.
Cramer is right, get things working again first then you can try and push through an agenda.
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DJohn
John Boni
Blackflon
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Kerry Lauerman
Joan Walsh
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Comments
My layman's opinion is that this situation is offering Obama - and any administration in his place - very little choice.
Perceived action is the rule of the game at this point...remaining passive and spending less would result in visibly not supporting large unionized bodies such as the car industries workers for instance...etc
As outrageous as the AIG executives are, I am discovering that the consequences of not bailing out such an entity would be enormous and so on...
But it's politics...and doing the perceived right thing is it.
Should an objective analysis of this situation suggest a more radical - or shall we say a less apparently "first degree"- course of action, it would either be rejected or promote too much opposition on both the political and public fronts. To illustrate this dynamic, the analogy of the long standing debate about the legalization of marijuana has to sides...
One is the side of rational thinking that goes down a long list of ills that could be averted by it, not least the crime that emanates from its illegal distribution...etc
The other side is the side of the visibly acceptable course of action
which is bound to remain subjectively linked to perception and cultural dogma...
While not even a smoker myself, I find the obviously counter-productive situation this debate generates most irritating, and perhaps I'm right to see the current situation as modeled on these same dynamics in some way.
Doing the right thing is, indeed, relative it seems.
I hope you won't mind my not having the time to edeit this into a shorter note...