Saturday, February 21, 2009

Dave Burris Declares the Verdicts Are In

Yesterday, Dave Burris said I was too quick to complain that he's already blaming Barack Obama for our economic troubles. I accepted his explanation that his post on the wholesale inflation numbers for January reflected his criticism of the Federal Reserve Bank, and not of Obama.
All well and good, but where would I possibly get the impression that Dave is itching to blame Obama for our dismal economic conditions after one month on the job? Perhaps from this post:
First Month Verdicts In
Feb 21st, 2009 by Dave Burris
The Obama administration has reached the one-month marker, and a few folks have weighed in on the first 30 days.
Stock Market Gives Obama’s First Month an F
I can think of a few reasons why stock prices are falling: We're in the middle of the worst economic crisis of our lifetime; businesses are reporting dismal earnings, 600,000 workers are losing their jobs every month, our financial system is in failure mode, and credit is still hard to come by.
Clearly these economic troubles are were not set in motion in the last month.
More than anything else, a stock price reflects the underlying value of the company. Maybe, just maybe, stock prices are down because businesses are in terrible shape. Yet Dave Burris impatiently points out that Barack Obama hasn't fixed it all yet, and links to an opinion piece giving him an F.
Here's some of what I wrote yesterday in the post Dave objected to:
I imagine Republicans like Burris will continue to criticize Obama’s economic policies over the next 47 months. That’s what opposition parties do. But perhaps he could try a little harder to give his arguments the ring of plausibility.
Blaming Obama's economic policies for the falling stock market this early in his term is barely plausible. Perhaps Dave could try a little harder with his arguments.

7 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Again with the assumptions about things I didn't say.

Where did I say that Barack Obama was supposed to fix the economy in one month?

The point is that the trillion-dollar stimulus passed, and the stock market went DOWN. Geithner announced his trillion dollar bank bailout. DOWN. Administration announces the mortgage plan? DOWN.

The moral of the story is that individual and institutional investors have no faith in these plans.

And many stocks right now are tremendously undervalued compared to their balance sheets.

The point of the post was what I wrote at the end of the post -- every administration has growing pains, and this one is not immune.

You're getting really good at arguing with what you think I'm saying, Tom. Good luck with that.

8:30 AM, February 22, 2009  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I don't know which is more unsightly.

Dave typing up the RNC's vapid anti-Obama talking points, or Dave trying to pretend that he wasn't typing up the RNC's vapid anti-Obama talking points?


jason330

9:46 AM, February 22, 2009  
Blogger Tom Noyes said...

Dave, I don't think there's any misunderstanding on my part: You think the stock market is down because of Obama's economic policies.

I disagree. I think the market is down because business is lousy.

We're coming up on the last week of earnings season. Many companies failed to meet already low analysts' expectations.

In other bad economic news, GM and Chrysler released stategies that reveal that it will be hard for them to recover given current weak demand.

It may just be that investors have diminished faith in the the stock market, period--Obama's policies notwithstanding.

10:19 AM, February 22, 2009  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"You think the stock market is down because of Obama's economic policies."

No. I think the stock market did not respond favorably to any of his plans. There's a difference. The stock market was down when he got there.

(By the way, if we're going to debate what I'm thinking, I'm going to win because, you know, I have the inside track on what I'm actually thinking.)

And is Jason your Flavor Flav now, or is it just that he remains free of any coherent original thought?

10:29 AM, February 22, 2009  
Blogger Tom Noyes said...

So instead of saying the market's down because of Obama, you're saying the market's not up because of Obama?

Read your first comment:

"The point is that the trillion-dollar stimulus passed, and the stock market went DOWN. Geithner announced his trillion dollar bank bailout. DOWN. Administration announces the mortgage plan? DOWN."

10:54 AM, February 22, 2009  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Why would the stock market not respond favorably to TRILLIONS of dollars being injected into the economy?

11:27 AM, February 22, 2009  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Dave - Which are the top 10 companies that will be getting the benefit of the stimulus? Tell me that and I'll tell you 10 stocks on the rise. Until the individual spending projects are fleshed out, it is a crap shoot.

7:52 AM, February 23, 2009  

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