Business Week Says ‘Obamanomics’ is working

It's never easy to separate politics from policy, and the past 18 months have only increased the degree of difficulty. The U.S. has been through a historic financial crisis followed by a historic election and a series of historic federal gambles — from bailing out AIG and GM to passing a $787 billion stimulus and a $940 billion health-care reform bill. All that risk has made policy more complicated and politics more fraught ("You lie," "Baby killer").

A Bloomberg national poll in March found that Americans, by an almost 2-to-1 margin, believe the economy has gotten worse rather than better during the past year. The Market begs to differ. While President Obama's overall job approval rating has fallen to a new low of 44 percent, according to a CBS News Poll, down five points from late March, the judgment of the financial indexes has turned resoundingly positive. The Standard & Poor's 500-stock index is up more than 74 percent from its recessionary low in March 2009. Corporate bonds have been rallying for a year. Commodity prices have surged. International currency markets have been bullish on the dollar for months, raising it by almost 10 percent since Nov. 25 against a basket of six major currencies. Housing prices have stabilized. Mortgage rates are low. "We've had a phenomenal run in asset classes across the board," says Dan Greenhaus, chief economic strategist for Miller Tabak + Co., an institutional trading firm in New York. "If Obama was a Republican, we would hear a never-ending drumbeat of news stories about markets voting in favor of the President."

Little more than a year ago, financial markets were in turmoil, major auto companies were on the verge of collapse and economists such as Paul Krugman were worried about the U.S. slumbering through a Japan-like Lost Decade. While no one would claim that all the pain is past or the danger gone, the economy is growing again, jumping to a 5.6 percent annualized growth rate in the fourth quarter of 2009 as businesses finally restocked their inventories. The consensus view now calls for 3 percent growth this year, significantly higher than the 2.1 percent estimate for 2010 that economists surveyed by Bloomberg News saw coming when Obama first moved into the Oval Office.

The U.S. manufacturing sector has expanded for eight straight months, the Business Roundtable's measure of CEO optimism reached its highest level since early 2006, and in March the economy added 162,000 jobs — more than it had during any month in the past three years. "There is more business confidence out there," says Boeing CEO Jim McNerney. "This Administration deserves significant credit."

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/36322393/ns/business-businessweekcom/

that we will see the end of Reaganonomics as a serious threat in the near future. Its over baby.

First, I know someone will point to the current high unemployment rate to argue that the economy has not begun to turn around. However, unemployment is never a leading economic indicator. The employment rate typically improves on the tail end of the recovery from a recession, and the economy has reversed itself and begun to grow under President Obama:

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The best you can hope for is for the unemployment rate to start coming down as the economy begins to improve, though this has NOT happened in the last two recessions where unemployment lagged the overall improvement in the economy:

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Indeed, this trend appears to be holding true as the unemployment picture has dramatically reversed itself and improved under President Obama following the carnage of the Bush administration:

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Now, the Business Week article is a surprisingly objective piece that notes the general effectiveness of President Obama's economic policies, particularly when one considers how deep of a hole we were in when he took office. The banking system was on the verge of collapse. The U.S. auto industry was in danger of cratering. If President Obama was a Republican, the mainstream media would be hailing him as an economic genius 24/7.

Perhaps you can get Wall Street and The Pentagon to canvass and work the phone banks for the right-wing corporate democrats?

First, I know someone will point to the current high unemployment rate to argue that the economy has not begun to turn around. However, unemployment is never a leading economic indicator. The employment rate typically improves on the tail end of the recovery from a recession, and the economy has reversed itself and begun to grow under President Obama:

<>

The best you can hope for is for the unemployment rate to start coming down as the economy begins to improve, though this has NOT happened in the last two recessions where unemployment lagged the overall improvement in the economy:

<>

Indeed, this trend appears to be holding true as the unemployment picture has dramatically reversed itself and improved under President Obama following the carnage of the Bush administration:

<>

Now, the Business Week article is a surprisingly objective piece that notes the general effectiveness of President Obama's economic policies, particularly when one considers how deep of a hole we were in when he took office. The banking system was on the verge of collapse. The U.S. auto industry was in danger of cratering. If President Obama was a Republican, the mainstream media would be hailing him as an economic genius 24/7.

economics the employment ratesare ALWAYS the last thing that rebounds. That is unfortunately the way the cycle works.

I can tell you that in the Seattle area and some of my friends I have seen that landscaping businesses are starting to rehire and hire workers, it's small but it is significant. Job recovery will be slow.

this country would already be in a handbasket in hell.

rate this year. Employment will increase early this summer and continue to do so strongly through next year.

Marks predictions.

mark