CHANGE THIS! Obama ran on a platform of "change," and was fond of pointing out how horrible everything is -- that is, how much it needs his "changing." OK, let's hold him to it. Here's the benchmark. On election day,
The inflation rate was 3.7%You XL usere, feel free to make graphs.
Unemployment was 6.5%
The prime was at 4%
The Dow closed at 9,625
The NASDAQ closed at 1,780
The S&P closed at 1,005
Oil was $60 a barrel.
U.S. monthly domestic oil production: appx 155 million barrels
U.S. proven oil reserves: 21.3 billion barrels
U.S. offshore proven reserves: 3.9 billion barrels
2 comments:
"Here's the benchmark. On election day, "
Shouldn't you at least wait until he takes office?
And what was the benchmark 4, 8, 12, and 16 years ago (etc. as far back as you want to go)?
The market is nothing if not forward looking. If I wanted to be scrupulously fair, I'd pick as start date, the day of the Pennsylvania (I think) caucus, when it became clear that Obama was going to be the nominee, and barring some major gaffe, president. Failing that, one could always use the date of the last party convention. The exact date is not so important as is the comparative results 4 years later.
In 1928, the market began declining when the Smoot-Hawkey tarriff bill was introduced in the house. You can pull up the D-J 30 and mark each step of its passage, and even the date of a speech by Hoover to the effect that he would sign it if it reached his desk. The drops were spectacular and make you wonder why nobody noticed. I suppose it's possible that that early in the century, business wasn't used to paying big time protection money to congress to get them to listen.
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