Chew on this for a minute Gman......
-Unemployment was 10% 6 months into
Barack Obama's term. Now it's 5.5%
-The Dow was under 8,000 when he took office. Now it's almost 18,000.
-GDP was -5.4%. Now it's 2.8%.
-The deficit was 9.8% of GDP. Now it's 2.2%
... I'm not saying I'm completely happy with everything our President has done but let's give credit where it's due.
I can hear the gnashing of Republican teeth but there's no denying he's done a good job on those fronts cleaning up what the impossibly-stupid guy before him did.
The labor participation rate is lower than it's been in nearly 40 years.
Much of the REAL job growth has been due to the private oil boom of recent years - something Obama opposes and has no control over, yet something he still tries to take credit for. It has absolutely nothing to do with the government.
Tell me how Obama is responsible for the stock market? He's not. Neither was Bush or Clinton. About all presidents and govts can do is to increase or decrease taxes and regs, which have minimal effects. The Dow fell to about 7500 after the tech crash, 9-11, etc. It climbed up to over 14000 in Oct '07. It's now about 30% higher in the last 7 years or so. Ups and downs are part of the game. Pick up an economics textbook sometime.
The crash was largely due to bad legislation going back decades, requiring bad loans to be written to unqualified or shaky borrowers, often with little or nothing down, to institutions who sold most of those loans - often right after funding them. Real estate had been in a bubble prior to the crash, then property values crashed. You can't blame Bush for the crash.
There was also a huge oil selloff from $140 a barrel to ~ $40 a barrel in '08 that contributed heavily to the crash. Of course this caused gas prices to fall back then - are you going to credit Bush for falling gas prices back then, the same way I'm sure you're wrongly crediting Obama with oil going from $115 to ~ $40-ish lately? When oil moved back up from $40 in late '08 to $115 in mid '14 and gas prices increased, was that Bush's fault?
The president doesn't control the price of a barrel of oil any more than he can control the stock market. OPEC, supply and demand, and speculation control the price of oil. And gas taxes and things like excessive environmental regulations can have an additional affect on prices at the pump.
Here's a hint about the cause of the 170% rise in the market from '09 to present:
http://blogs-images.forbes.com/jamesgruber/files/2014/04/fed-rates-vs-sp.png
When it comes to the stock and bond markets, the Fed trumps all. That's also largely true for the prices of metals vs the dollar, and somewhat for the dollar vs other currencies, etc.
GDP will always improve after a recession. Recessions and recoveries are part of capitalism - they aren't caused to any degree or controlled by presidents. GDP has been growing more slowly than after any recession since WW2. Increases in taxes and regs will do that. Please pick up an economic book at the library and do a little reading.
United States Government Debt to GDP | 1940-2015 | Data | Chart | Calendar
