Economy Bettering But No Credit for Obama

There's good signs all around in this story. I think the trouble is, as this story states, Obama is not a republican, perceived as being smarter on business and economy, and the American people don't know a lot about the economy, stocks, other than what they see--job losses, money to the banks, AIG, GM. Anyone who's been looking at their stock portfolios or 401Ks lately can see the improvement, but republicans have done such a good job sticking together and undermining the Obama administration altogether. Though their tactics are slimy and deceitful, you really have to hand it to them. They are good at what they do.

The political consensus may be that President Barack Obama’s handling of the economy has been weak. The judgment of money in all its forms has been overwhelmingly positive, and that may be the more lasting appraisal.

One year after U.S stocks hit their post-financial-crisis low on March 9, 2009, the benchmark Standard & Poor’s 500 Index has risen more than 68 percent, and it’s up more than 41 percent since Obama took office. Credit spreads have narrowed. Commodity prices have surged. Housing prices have stabilized.

“We’ve had a phenomenal run in asset classes across the board,” said Dan Greenhaus, chief economic strategist for Miller Tabak & Co. in New York. “If he was a Republican, we would hear a never-ending drumbeat of news stories about markets voting in favor of the president.”
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Since then, monthly job losses have abated, from 779,000 during the month Obama took office to 36,000 last month. Corporate profits have grown; among 491 companies in the S&P 500 that reported fourth-quarter earnings, profits rose 180 percent from a year ago, according to Bloomberg data. Durable goods orders in January were up 9.3 percent from a year earlier. Inflation is tame, and long-term interest rates remain low. Read it all