The Occasionally Relevant Metric

[Harry Hope]

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2011_01/027336.php

January 2, 2011

THE OCCASIONALLY RELEVANT METRIC....

By Steve Benen

For about the first two months after President Obama was inaugurated, the economic crisis was extremely severe. Growth was in a tailspin; the country was hemorrhaging jobs; and Wall Street indexes were dropping sharply.

On that last point, Republicans thought they'd found a compelling talking point. By the spring of 2009, a variety of conservatives said declines in major indexes were necessarily evidence that the White House's economic policies were a mess, if not an outright failure, and that the president didn't know what he was doing.

The Wall Street Journal ran an entire editorial on this in early March. The drop in the Dow, the WSJ insisted, was a direct result of investors evaluating "Mr. Obama's agenda and his approach to governance." Karl Rove and Lou Dobbs made the same case. So did Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Fred Barnes. John Boehner also pushed the line. It was one of Mitt Romney's favorite talking points for a while, too.

That was nearly two years ago, and wouldn't you know it, they're not saying that anymore. Oliver Willis flagged this chart, showing S&P 500 growth over the first two years of every president since Eisenhower. You'll notice that column all the way over to the right shows a sharp increase under the current president.

http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2011/01/if-this-is-socialism-call-me-comrade/

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If this is socialism, call me comrade

Harry