You know that nut-job uncle of yours who keeps forwarding shit to your email about how Obama is a Muslim trying to take away our guns and hand America over to the UN? Yeah…that guy?
Now suppose you engaged in an economic game with him beginning in the early 1960s. You each would invest $1,000 in the stock market. But he would do so only during the terms of Republican Presidents. You would do so only during the terms of Democratic presidents. Who’d be ahead today?
Clearly your Uncle would be wiping your socialist ass with the help of Republican Presidents and their laissez-faire, free market, capitalist policies. Right?
Um…not so much:
Uncle Billy-Bob: $2,087
You: $10,920
(And Billy-Bob has almost five extra years of investment on you. )
Any questions?
I’ve known about this for a long time. Does it surprise anyone that HA’s premiere lagomorph stock-flipper votes for Democrats? I like the Blue line better than the Red line on that graph. This is MONEY we’re talking about, folks, the FREE kind you don’t have to work for! Maybe the cheap labor conservatives deliberately tank the market to force people to go back to work at Republican wages.
Apple Factories Work People To Death
Speaking of work, before you buy any APPLE products, you might want to think about the working conditions in the factories making those products:
“Of course, it becomes obvious that working at Foxconn is not like working anywhere else, as soon as the infamous suicide nets come into view. These nets were installed between buildings after a spate of worker suicides in 2010. According to the segment, Apple CEO Tim Cook, then Apple’s COO, flew to Shenzhen following the series of suicides and put together a team of experts to examine the issue, and these experts recommended installing the nets.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/.....d=webmail5
That’s right, when Apple’s CEO found out the workers making his company’s products were committing suicide because the working conditions were so bad, he sent experts who “solved” the problem by installing nets to catch the workers jumping off the roofs of the factory buildings! Apparently his thinking is that it’s hard to squeeze more work out of your workforce if they’re dead.
Who the fuck would buy anything from a company like that? Nobody with a conscience.
According to the video in that article, Foxconn employs 1 million workers who are paid $2 an hour to work 6 days a week.
Let’s see, according to that graph, stocks outperformed under GOP presidents for 4 of the last 50 years — the 4 years of George H.W. Bush. Man those guys suck! Now I see why Wall Street invested nearly a billion dollars in Obama’s 2008 campaign.
The 8-year-old girl shot in a Bremerton classroom by a boy who brought a loaded gun to elementary school apparently will survive.
For those on Facebook, it would be a good idea to post this on your wall. Sure, you are going to get blow-back from your “Uncle Bob’s”, but we need to fight for the truth. The wingnuts re-post Limbaugh, Hannity, and O’Riley stuff several times a day, we can’t let them get away with repeatedly saying that the Democrats are bad for the economy. Facts are on our side.
Heading off the inevitable criticism…
Suppose any of those Democratic Administrations had passed the dreaded, and never actually proposed by anyone, 50% capital gains tax rate.
The post-liquidation and taxation value of those accounts would be just over $2000 for R’s (assuming they slashed that CG rate to zero) while those “socialists” would have about $6000.
Republician economic theory continues to be, dare I say always has been, a fraud.
I wonder why the NASDAQ is still nowhere near the 5200 level it reached in March 2000?
Actually, no, I don’t. It was due to a massive bubble that burst when it became clear that the companies with PEs nearing 3 digits had zero earnings and wouldn’t earn money for years, if ever. Sure made the graph during the Clinton years look good, though.
The graph during Obama’s tenure also looks good. So how come Goldman Sachs – his biggest donor base in ’08 – isn’t giving to him this year? Wouldn’t they want more of the same? Or is the graph over the last three years due to the comeback from a way-oversold situation before Obama took office?
Good luck with that “Wall Street prefers Democrats as president” meme.
I thought it was “Wall Street prefers 1%ers” meme. Having to do a good job for the 99% is way too much work.
Or maybe it’s
“The economy prefers prefers Democrats as president” or
“Main Street prefers prefers Democrats as president”
I’ve tried this on Rs before. Their answer is that the R Presidents set everything up, and the D Presidents reap the rewards and make it worse just in time for another R to come along and take the blame and fix everything…
11 – And all Clinton accomplished with deficit fighting was to enable his successor to wage recreational wars with embedded pseudo-journalists from Faux News in tow.
It’s time to repost this item from my archives:
From Harding In 1921 to Bush in 2003:
–Democrats held White House for 40 years and Republicans for 42.5 years.
–Democrats created 75,820,000 net new jobs — Republicans 36,440,000.
–Per Year Average: Democrats 1,825,200, Republicans 856,400.
–Republicans had 9 presidents during the period of whom 6 presided over a depression or recession.
–The Dow Average grew 52% more under Democrats.
–GDP grew 43% more under Democrats.
Comparing Clinton to Reagan:
–Jobs grew 43% more under Clinton.
–GDP grew 57% more under Clinton.
–The Dow Average went up 700% more under Clinton..
–The NASDAQ Composite Index grew 18 times more under Clinton.
–Federal spending grew 28% under Clinton, but 80% under Reagan.
–Federal debt grew by 43% under Clinton but 187% under Reagan.
–Deficits grew by 112% under Reagan; Clinton produced a large surplus.
–National income grew 100% more under Clinton.
–Personal income grew 110% more under Clinton.
SOURCES-Bureau of Labor Statistics (www.BLS.gov)
Economic Policy Institute (EPI.org) – Global & World Almanacs from 1980 to 2003 (annual issues)
Anyone: Feel free to update these figures to include the rest of Chimp’s miserable economic record!
The claim that Republicans are better for the eocnomy is, like so many other Republican fabrications, pure myth. That’s why so many super-rich guys like Buffett, Soros, etc., aren’t Republicans.
Bob,
“The graph during Obama’s tenure also looks good. So how come Goldman Sachs – his biggest donor base in ‘08 – isn’t giving to him this year?”
Are you serious? Because they don’t like the new financial institution regulations, obviously.
Or, another way to put it, they donated only to learn that they hadn’t bought him. I’m sure it was a traumatic experience.
“Wouldn’t they want more of the same?”
No…what they want is someone they can buy.
‘Good luck with that “Wall Street prefers Democrats as president” meme.’
That meme seem to be your own. I’ve claimed no such thing.
Wealthy Wall Street can make money betting against the stock market. What they need is the ability to purchase politicians. That gives them access for other causes like reducing oversight and regulation and reducing taxes on the wealthy.
And the non-wealthy are, essentially, putting ideology ahead of rationality, and voting against their economic self-interest.
@15 Incidently, I had a problem posting and sent you an email to inquire about the problem and according to the rejection reply, it wouldn’t go through because your inbox is full.
# 11: Well, you could make the same argument about Carter – the Nixon/Ford administrations kept the economy shuffling along on crutches with temporary strategies (anybody remember Ford’s WIN campaign, or Nixon’s wafe freeze?). Carter ended up taking the blame when the Fed finally put the economy into a recession, and Reagan picked up the benefit thereafter.
But in total, republicans have lots of excuses, some with a tenuous basis in fact, but many without any factual basis at all. For the most part they are counting on the majority of voters (especially Republican voters) to not understand economics and politics well enough to sift through the chaff to get to the wheat.
Among other excuses you will hear is that Democrats held Congress during Republican presidencies, that 9/11 excused everything that happened during the Bush years, that legislation passed in 1977 caused a recession thirty years later, etc.
But it only takes a few minutes of examination to confirm that all of these excuses are so much bunk – the George W. Bush years pretty much proved that point.
Politicians like to claim they did good things for the economy when things are pretty good but blame the other guy when things are bad. It’s human nature to want to take credit for the good stuff that gets you elected and blame others for the bad stuff that gets you un-elected.
In reality, politicians and politics have very little to do with the market. They can affect markets for a while, but markets adjust over time. Earnings, leverage and cash flow are the three critical features to consider when investing in any company. Who’s sitting in Congress or the White House is of only temporary interest for long term investors.
“…Nixon’s wafe freeze…”
Nixon would have been wiser to not do anyting versus trying to freeze wages. He was not very savvy on the economy and even less savvy when it came to law-breaking.
# 18: I would agree that trying to “goose” the economy in the short run is an exercise in futility in the long run. There are some natural rythms and cycles to the economy, and we shouldn’t get too excited about them, and neither should politicians.
But what a President (and Congress) SHOULD do is form a good foundation for economic growth. To me, this involves several factors:
* keeping a level playing field (government treats all players equally, without favoritism based on connections or donations);
* making sure the information investors need is available, and is accurate;
* making sure all players follow the same rules and regulations;
* watching for dangerous/risky practices, such as the bundling of mortgage-backed securities without adequate underwriting controls.
* a tax policy which favors the preservation and advancement of the middle class, thereby ensuring a customer base for businesses for years to come.
I am sure there are others, but that’s all I can think of right now.