Some DOW Perspective For Michelle Malkin

This afternoon, Michelle Malkin made this statement on her blog:

On Nov. 4, after Barack Obama clinched the White House, the market closed at 9,625.28.

In mid-morning trading today, the day President Obama signs his massive Generational Theft Act into law and a day before he unveils a massive new mortgage entitlement, the Dow dropped to to 7,606.53.

Now, imagine if President Bush had presided over a 2,000-point stock market tumble in the same time period — during the first few months of his presidency.

Great start, O.

Just saying…

Once again, the party of "context" completely leaves said packaging out, thereby releaving the reader of the burden of facts. And Obama's only been President for 28 days. Bush was still president when Obama was elected and the DOW did make a rebound once Obama was elected.

You see, leaving out the facts kind of crushes Malkin's clap-trap, doesn't it?

Here's a little lesson regarding the DOW and Malkin's favorite boy, George W. Bush.

While almost doubling Hoover’s decline in the S&P, Bush trailed the Depression-Era Republican slightly in the blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average, which measures the performance of 30 top U.S. companies. In Hoover’s first 18 months, the Dow fell 24.8 percent. In Bush’s 18 months, the Dow’s drop was 24.3 percent. [NYT, July 22, 2002]

What this means is, since the DOW was hovering around the mid-10,000 range when Bush took office, the DOW lost an average of 469.29471 points each month for a consecutive 18 months.

Then, there's this little nugget of joy that might make Malkin think twice about bashing Obama just yet.

The pace of the stock market crash under Bush also is accelerating. In the 10 trading days since Bush visited Wall Street to promote his economic plans, the Dow has dropped almost 1,500 points or 16 percent. [NYT, July 23, 2002]

While the DOW took about 4 months to lose 2000 points for Obama, it only took 10 days for her man to see close to that type of decline.


So, if you're looking for the "context", here it is.

Bush inherited a bustling economy and sat back while it fell in on itself - largely due to policies that he implemented. Barack Obama inherited a broken economy and is making a fast attempt to fix it.

Also, I'll be the first to admit that I'm not an economist. There are variables within the system that I will never understand.

This is something that Malkin refuses to acknowledge.