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Mitt Romney: politics or reasonable conclusions?

Mitt Romney had a few things to say at CPAC about the performance of the stock market under Barack Obama, implying that the market loses since his inauguration are due to his policy proposals as opposed to the financial crisis George Bush and Congress left him with.

Listen to Mitt and tell me if you think his conclusions are justified based on the data. For example, does his explanation account for the market loses under George Bush?

For bonus points, answer the question of why this business genius has not volunteered his time and experience like the nations best economists to contribute to the public dialogue with serious policy proposals.

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Comments

Not particularly related to Boston, is it?

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when you see his name on the Chyron, it is usually followed by former Governor of Massachusetts, to be completely relevant to this forum. If you mean that you're trying to forget the brief time he spent using the office of the Governor as his personal springboard to higher office, then I agree with your comment.

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Well, he's lived here for many years and while he's selling the Belmont home, he's buying a condo in the area. Plus he did run for President in 2008 as former Gov. of MA and if he's nominated in 2012 (and I think he may be tossing his hat in the ring again) then yeah, I think it's as relevant as any other Massachusetts politician.

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Yeah, that's a fun game.

IMAGE(http://img394.imageshack.us/img394/1014/funwithcharts.jpg)

Here's a more nuanced look.

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I presume your chart indicates which party was holding the majority in the House and Senate, right? But Romney didn't make a claim about Congress and the markets, he made a claim about Obama and the markets. That said, are you interested in commenting on the Romney's assertions?

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I didn't view the video - I was reacting solely to the chart.

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So what you're saying is that you have no interest in making your comment relevent to the thrust of the post. That's cool.

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I made my comment relevant to the chart that you thrust into the post.

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Where did you get the chart? I've seen it before but that was during the campaign.

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I made it in ms-paint by squashing a Yahoo chart horizontally and marked all the dates myself. Feel free to double-check it for accuracy, because it was pretty Q&D.

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you're lying. seriously, where do you get it?

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Romney reminds me of David Finnegan's remark that Ray Flynn was a "chameleon" because he was always changing political colors. Ray shot back indignantly that Finnegan called him a lizard.

Well, Romney is a chameleon, and therefore a lizard. The day after he was elected governor, he started running around the country and trashing Massachusetts, flipping 180 degrees from the positions that got him elected governor.

I do enjoy watching his futile pursuit of the presidency, though. Na gonna happen, Mitt.

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I'm not lying. The S&P 500 chart ('99 to '09) from Yahoo's Finance page was too wide to include, so I selected it with the rectangle tool in MS Paint and decreased the width by about 2/3 so that it would be similar in size to the other chart. I left the labeled axis alone.

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Talk to any market analyst and they will say that stock prices at that time were "unsustainable". There was such a frenzy, everybody, including your neighborhood bartender and garbageman, was talking about the next hot stock. All that does is drive up prices to a point where the bottom falls out. There were a few corrections even when Clinton was still sitting as president, and eventually, after Bush got in, it crashed - inevitable. Regardless of who was elected president, the crash was going to happen.

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not me and no one here as far as I know.

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I assume that's his point with the chart

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You know what they say about when you "assume"...

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In fairness, the only context you provided for the chart was this "Here's a more nuanced look." so everyone is forced to assume whatever point you are trying to make.

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I don't know that I was really making one specific point other than to show that you could make all sorts of claims from the same data. I'd like to see the other chart that you mentioned you thought that you remembered seeing--the one that you mistook mine for prior to calling me a liar.

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I see. Thanks Dave.

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Romney is 100% correct that the stock market has continued its slide under Barack Obama. There's no way around that fact. The Dow has dropped 3,000 points since Obama's election in November. People are voting on Obama now, and they don't like what they see.

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Investors and traders are making their decisions they way they are (to sell, not buy) because they keep getting new data that shows more people will lose their jobs than already have, and less people can buy things than could before, less people can afford things they have than before, companies are worse off than they reported before, etc.

Those realities are NOT due to Obama's policies. They are things that were happening in November, December, January already. It is during this presidency that all is being laid bare; that more time/money/work will be required to turn things around is becoming apparent, and that is why the market drops- it's only common sense. That doesn't make it Obama's fault or a direct reaction to him. Most of the nation gets this intuitively.

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Kathy, your assessment doesn't take into account the loses between June and November or why loses between November and January should be accrued to Obama. We have one president at a time and at the time, it was "W", the decider.

The market discounts future earnings, usually 6-9 months in advance.

The cause of the market decline has to do with fundamental problems in finance and banking sector caused by leveraging risk to extreme levels in search of profit, and subsequently, after large loses in the real estate market bubble, the finance industries inability to provide credit to the rest of the economy. The economy is drowning. It's being suffocated by a lack of credit and the Fed cannot reduce the cost of money further. It is as low as it goes.

These are not conditions created since January 20th. It took a long time to get here and it will take a long time to get out.

All of the risk bets in the financial sector were premised on expanding US real estate values. We know this becuase real income growth has been stagnant for eight years while corporate profit has risen, and our economy is driven in substantial part by consumer retail, which is(was) 60% of GDP.

The market is voting on the value of banking stocks, manufacturing industry, consumer products while uncertainty and a lack of trust is creating a large market risk discount while the bad news about real financial loses by banks and credit risk holders keep mounting re: CITIBANK, AIG, USBS.

Romney is playing politics nit he same way, as Gov of Massachusetts, he campaigned against the people of this state calling us vegetarians. Fark him, he's an asshole but at least he is not hoping that Obama fails unlike other GOP leaders. Still, shouldn't he be more proactive proposing solutions rather than just criticizing Obama's plans which have been formulating by the likes of Summers, Geitner, Romer and others?

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Mitt hasnt held elected office for sometime now, he is essentially a partisan pundit like Newt Gingrich, not even accountable to the voters. He has spent so long courting the angriest part of the GOP base he probably no longer even bothers to fact check himself. Its not like the guy ever really cared what he said as long as it got him votes.

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