Did anybody notice the S&P 500 closed at an all time high on May 30, 2007?

[Lasher]

Yessir, closed at 1,530. The economy is booming! Or is it?

The last time before May 30 that the S&P broke this record that was on March 24, 2000 when it closed at 1,527. Over seven years went by before this benchmark was reached! You have to go clear back to the Great Depression to find stock market performance this bad!

I did some research on how the S&P has done under each president, going back to 1977 (Carter). Based on the S&P closing price on the last trading day of the year, the average annual gain for all years 1977 thru 2000 was 11.86%.

The average gain for years 2001 thru 2006 (Junior) was....wait for it....

2.59%!!

Clinton's average was best, at 15.86%. Poppy turned in a good performance with his 12.63%. Saint Ronnie of Reagan turned in a below average 9.87%. And Carter did the worst with his 7.07%. Until Junior came along, that is.

These historical prices are a matter of public record.

Oh but happy days are here again and Junior's going to catch up before he leaves office. Ya think? If the S&P ended this year with Friday's 1,507 closing price, Junior's average for years 1 thru 7 would be 3.12%. It would have to close at the end of 2008 at 2,030 (a gain of about 20.5% each for years 2007 and 2008) just for Junior's average to equal Carter's 7.07%.

Remember Carter? The guy who has been vilified by right wing stink tanks since Saint Ronnie's day as the biggest economic disaster of all time? And Junior will have to come up with an average of at least 20.5% just to catch up with him. Anybody wanna bet he'll be able to pull that off?

'cricket, cricket'

Consistently The Decider's performance looks good only compared to his own prior massive failures.

OK I guess I understand now why we haven't seen much celebration by the corporate media on account of the S&P 500 record closing on May 30. But the next time you hear some Republican say the tax cuts are working or the economy is booming thanks to Junior's brilliance I want you to print out this OP, roll it into a tight cylindrical shape, and shove it up their - ahem - nose.

[ComerPerro]

1. Notice Repigs are very careful to use terms like "improving" and "last five years"

that is, they only want to compare things to Bush's other records of failure. So, the economy is "improving", but basically Bush tanked things so badly that it had nowhere to go but up. So even if it was lower than it was before he was in office, its an improvement over the low point, right?

And they only look at things over the time Bush has been President.

Basically, what they are saying when they tell us how great the economy is doing is that we are slowing starting to recover from Bush's fuckups.

[Lasher]

4. Yeah, like he's going to cut the deficits in half.

In half compared to what? To his own repeated record deficits, that's what. And even at that they're lying about his starting point.

Amazing how right wing pundits still praise the virtues of supply side economics. These con artists just wait until inflation and normal growth & productivity improvements generate the numbers they were looking for. Then they say, 'See, it just took (fill in the blank) decades for the tax cuts to kick in! I have even seen an assertion that credit for Clinton's prosperity should be given to Sain Ronnie's tax cuts! And he really didn't cut taxes overall, BTW.

[ComerPerro]

5. Yeah, its funny, five years later, "The tax cuts are working"

The real reason the economy is improving, I tell you, is because I planted a tomato plant under a willow tree and recited a spell of invocation. This was ten years ago. It just takes a while to work. But its kickin in, I swear. I should be rewarded for this effort.

[gravity]

2. The market in 2000 was a bubble

The market was inflated back then, and the fundamentals didn't support the high price, unlike.

I didn't think the republican tax cuts were responsible for the improvement either. I just don't like it when either side of the political spectrum cherry pick data to support their cause. Correlation does not equal causation,

[Lasher]

6. Were there other bubbles during the 3 decades I cited?

I simply stated the facts and did not cherry pick as you have charged. I didn't make excuses for Carter on account of the Arab oil embargo, for example. A more realistic comparison might be developed, however, if adjustment for inflation were to be applied. But I did my homework. If you want to make a case that my conclusions were unethically or even incorrectly drawn, put your spreadsheet where your mouth is.

[gravity]

11. A bubble was created during Clinton's term in office

Even if Gore won the election in 200, there would have been a dip in the stock market. It would probably been less, but who knows for sure?

I just think you are placing too much emphasis of the president on the stock market. The president's policies influence the market some, but there are many other forces that influence the stock markets, like the Internet in the 90's (Well the real winner in 2000 was partly responsible for that, so I could be wrong:)).

[Lasher]

13. Clinton handed a loaded gun to Junior, who proceeded to shoot himself in the foot with it.

The downturn started before the 2000 election and Clinton's last year in office reflects diminished results. The amount of a president's influence on the economy could be a topic for legitimate discussion. But Republicans have claimed loud and long that implementation of their fiscal policies would result in prosperity for all. So much so that they own the results of their policies. I for one am not going to let them run from accountability in that regard and then take credit for favorable results that fall into their laps by coincidence.

I did not initially cite the following article because it did not include an analysis of Junior's economic results compared to other presidents, and also because I was unsure of the methodology used to determine S&P performance. It is important to use the exact same criteria in such a comparison.

Over the years, several studies have shown that the stock market has fared markedly better under Democrats than Republicans. (see: "The Presidential Portfolio") The difference, according to Pedro Santa-Clara and Rossen Valkanov, both professors at the University of California Los Angeles Anderson School of Business, is much too large to be random and cannot be explained by fluctuations in the business cycle. Nor can it be explained by higher interest rates in Republican administrations.

The UCLA professors looked at data going back to 1927. Our own study of the post-World War II presidencies confirms their results. We found that the S&P 500 has averaged a total return of 14.1% per year under Democratic presidents since April 1945, and 11.8% under Republicans. The best total returns--17.4% per year--were under Bill Clinton, whose presidency ranked first in economic results. (see: "Presidents And Prosperity") Gerald R. Ford ranks second, followed by Harry S. Truman.

http://www.forbes.com/strategies/2004/07/21/cx_da_0721presidents.html

Emphasis mine.

Republicans can't promote prosperity (except for rich people) even with their colossal deficit spending. As the numbers show, supply side economics, AKA the trickle down theory, have never been anything more than an attempt to find moral justification in taking from the poor and giving to the rich.

[Hamlette]

3. You should have gone back further, the market was basically flat for 16 years

ending in the mid 80s.

[joeunderdog]

7. good point. Unemployment numbers are even more incriminating.

Didn't I hear that no democrat's worst numbers (post-Depression) were as bad as the Repukes best performance (Nixon)? I saw this on DU at one point. Anyone have the stats on this?

[Lasher]

10. Here is a good graphic on that

This includes unemployment and deficits, by president

http://ibew.org/legislative/Rev042304-JustFacts.pdf

Junior's unemployment results have never been as good as they were when he first took office.

[Lasher]

9. The source I used only went back to 1970 if memory serves.

This gave me an incomplete picture of the Nixon/Ford era. I didn't think it appropriate to include Ford alone because he just served 2 years.

The source I used was Excite's financial section.

[NewYorkerfromMass]

8. S&P much better stock record than the DOW

especially with the jerryrigging of the DOW 30 in recent years to include such iconic American enterprises as... WalMart and HomeDepot!?!
Thanks for posting this.

[Lasher]

12. Yes, The Dow Jones index of 30 industrial stocks is narrowly focused.

But since Republicans like to talk about the Dow, let's take a look at how it's actually been doing.

The pre-Bush II all-time high was at 11,723 on January 14, 2000. It was at 10,578 when Bush took office. It didn't finally reach another all-time high until last year, when it closed at 11,727 on October 4. It closed on December 14 (not the last trading day of the year but I don't feel like re-doing my calculation right now) last year at 12,462, which is an average annualized growth of 3.0% during the current administration.

Under Bill Clinton, it was 15.9 percent.

Bush's dad: 9.8 percent.

Ronald Reagan: 11.3 percent.

The average annual inflation rate for the years 2001 thru 2006 was 2.7%

http://www.minneapolisfed.org/Research/data/us/calc/hist1913.cfm