I am the eternal optimist.
You have heard about the little boy, on Christmas morning, looking for his pony in a pile of horse manure?
Well, “that’s me.”
Therefore, it shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone who knows me, that I take delight in every “up tick” in the stock market, regardless of how small or fleeting. You may call me naive. That’s OK.
That I look for every sign that our economy may be recovering from the tragic recession we inherited from the previous administration. Call me naive, again
That I don’t appreciate the pundit-naysayers who look for every possible sign of doom and gloom to “prove” that our economy is not improving.
That I abhor the comments made by a certain talk radio show host:
Not only do I want Obama to fail, I want this package to fail. I want this to blow up in their face. I hope the stimulus bill fails. I hope it does exactly what we know it will do, blow everything to smithereens and not do one thing that has been promised. Apparently, experience is the greatest teacher, and when these poor people who think Barack Obama means a new house, a new car, a new job, when they find out that’s not what Barack Obama means, maybe then they’ll see. So I hope that happens.
Being an optimist, whenever I find a positive sign pointing to our economic recovery, I gratefully and gladly bring it to everyone’s attention.
And, yes, I admit, I neither enjoy nor highlight negative signs or developments.
I realize that this may be disingenuous—and I have been called on this. But in addition to being an optimist, I am also superstitious and I worry about the self-fulfilling prophecy.
Now that I have openly admitted to my shortcomings, I wonder if those who, when it comes to our economic recovery, are on the other side of the coin—the eternal pessimists, the “doom-and-gloomers”—wil do likewise? No chance.
Now, before you start frantically tapping your keyboards, I am not talking about those who present logical, well-reasoned, non-partisan reservations, arguments, and concerns about the administration’s economic and financial policies.
Neither am I talking about those who post on this blog or who disagree with my posts or comments.
I am talking about those “movers and shakers” who influence national public opinion (no reflection on out contributors), who will use every little bit of minor, negative economic news and statistics to clamor that the sky is falling.
A piece in the Huffington Post, titled “The Obama Rally Begins,” refers to some of them.
Here’s Hale “Bonddad” Stewart:
Since early March, the market has rallied over 20%. Yet — for some strange reason — the right wings blogs who professed doom at every opportunity when the market was dropping are now silent. Little Green Footballs — who posted daily articles on the dow dropping — has yet to comment on this rally. John Hawkins of Right Wing News — who wrote an article titled “Is Obama Trying to Crash the Economy — has been strangely silent. Powerline — who are without a doubt economic titans of the highest order — have not said a word. National Review has yet to comment on this rally — even though I am sure they are happy to see it. After all, markets are good, right? Larry Kudlow has commented, but had given all the credit to the Federal Reserve.
Since Mr. Limbaugh made the infamous remarks noted above, I have not been listening to him. But I do remember his earlier gloating every time the stock market dropped, every time our economy tanked further—even when Mr. Bush was still in power. In those days, Limbaugh conveniently blamed our economic woes, first on the possibility that Obama might be elected, then on the fact that Obama had been elected .
And, of course, his gloating reached a crescendo right after the inauguration, and has continued unabated and unashamedly.
Can anyone tell me, if Mr. Limbaugh rejoices, or even mentions it, when the stock market has a good day—as it has, almost continuously, for the past two weeks?
Again, Hale “Bonddad” Stewart:
Here’s the point: there are a host of right wing yahoos who at every turn talked about the market dropping over the last few months. Yet none have said anything about the rally. The reason is simple: they know squat about how the market works. One commenter to a previous story went so far as to blame the then latest drop entirely on Obama but failed to perform the same analysis on the 2007-2008 drop because “Bush did too good a job healing the economy”. Talk about mental gymnastics.
The market was dropping because the economic fundamentals were terrible; all the news was uniformly bad. But the market became technically oversold (actually the market became extremely oversold). And then the market heard about a new bail-out plan that it liked followed by some news that wasn’t as bad as we thought it would be. And we get a nice rally as a result. Yet now the “Dow as the barometer of the economy” method of economic analysis is no longer valid for some strange reason.
So to the right wing blogs, yahoos and commentators who think the Dow is the ultimate arbiter of the economy, what say you now?
And who am I to contradict Hale “Bonddad” Stewart.
But, I am sure, many of my readers will. That’s fine.
Economic Update:
Sadly, the stock market was down today. But, it has had a good week; a good two weeks!
Here are some more good economic indicators:
New orders for long-lasting U.S.-made goods rose in February for the first time in seven months and new home sales rebounded, suggesting the economic downturn might be easing a bit.
Durable goods orders rose 3.4 percent to $165.6 billion in February, the biggest gain since December 2007, after a 7.3 percent drop the prior month.
Non-defense capital goods orders excluding aircraft, a closely watched proxy for business spending, expanded 6.6 percent in February. The prior month was revised to an 11.3 percent drop, previously reported as a 5.7 percent decline.
Sales of newly built U.S. homes rose 4.7 percent to a 337,000 annual pace, the fastest increase since last April, from 322,000 in January.
Sales of previously owned homes rose 5.1 percent in February, while housing starts soared 22.2 percent that month.
Stabilizing the housing market, the main trigger of the current economic slump, is crucial for the economy’s recovery.
In other good news for the housing market and the economy, applications for home loans jumped last week as interest rates hit record lows after the Federal Reserve announced it would buy longer-term U.S. government debt.
And yesterday:
Best Buy, the electronics retailer, climbed 12.6 percent, to $37.67 a share, after reporting a smaller loss during its fiscal fourth quarter than analysts expected. ConAgra Foods also beat expectations with its fiscal 2009 third-quarter results and its shares gained 9.2 percent, to $16.99. Dr Pepper Snapple Group surged 15.2 percent, to $17.87 a share, after earnings beat expectations.
“A company like Best Buy had better-than-expected news and that gets people thinking about consumers coming out again”.
General Motors climbed 14 percent, to $3.41 a share, as the automaker announced 7,500 workers had agreed to a buyout, about 12 percent of its U.S. workforce. It had the biggest percentage gain on the Dow. The automaker, which has already received $13.4 billion in government aid, is awaiting a decision on what kind of additional help it will get.
Also, there was some relief after a Treasury Department auction of $24 billion in seven-year bonds went well, analysts said. Investors had become concerned earlier in the week after bond auctions in both Britain and the United States failed to attract many bidders.
Is the tide starting to turn?
Is the glass half full? Or is it half empty?
Your call.
