That inspired me to go collect some historical data on the Dow Industrial Average and put things in perspective.
I have no idea how closely the DIJ tracks or reflects a "healthy" economy. But for whatever it's worth, here's a picture of the DIJ in recent years.
I have no idea how closely the DIJ tracks or reflects a "healthy" economy. But for whatever it's worth, here's a picture of the DIJ in recent years.
The vertical lines are years (1992-2000 for Clinton, 2000 - 2008 for Bush, 2008 - 2012 for Obama).
In case you're not so good at reading graphs, the above illustrates that under Clinton and Obama, the Dow Industrial Average rose consistently; an average of 29% per year for Clinton, and 14% per year for Obama. In the Bush years, the DIJ rose a very sluggish 5% per year, until it collapsed completely in 2007/08 and showed an 18% loss for the entire Bush presidency.
I sent the picture to my friend along with some comments about how he might not feel Obama had done such a bad job on economic matters if he looked at actual facts and figures instead of listening to the right-wing liars on Fox News.
And if you think that Republicans and/or conservatives are the least bit concerned with "fiscal responsibility," (a) you have been duped by the lie repeated often enough, and (b) you need to look at actual facts and the historical record.
2 comments:
Not that I expect this to make a difference in convincing anyone, but...
The ideal fiscal responsibility situation from the historical record needs to take into account congressional composition AND the presidency.
And the best thus far tested fiscal responsibility combination is
Republican Congress, Democrat President.
Second best is Republican president, Democrat congress.
The problems start in earnest only when one party controls both.
That seems to be a reasonable assessment which I have no reason to doubt. It is also the case that TIME is a big and largely unknown variable; do good fiscal actions by today's president/congress have a good effect today--or only some unknown number of years down the road? Were decisions of the Reagan era in part responsible for the great economy during Clinton's years? To what extent were decisions and actions in the Clinton era responsible for the economy of the Clinton era?
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