Dow Jones Surges Under Obama

The table below reveals that President Obama's first two years mark the biggest two-year increase in the Dow Jones Industrial Average since FDR. Obviously, the increase has much to do with the shit pile Bush handed to Obama, just as the huge increase under FDR had much to do with cleaning up after another reckless Republican. Some of the increase was inevitable and would have happened regardless of who was in the White House.

Yet even if people have different views on how much Obama should be credited for the surge, the least credible argument that conservatives can make is that he has been bad for business. Naturally, that is the one they try to make. If a Republican had presided over this stock market recovery, the conservative press would have insisted that everyone tattoo words to that effect on their arm. They would have repeated it on Fox News until it became an article of faith.

 

The problem, of course, is that the stock market is but one indicator of our economic health. The Dow Jones is not terribly relevant, its rise not very helpful, to those unable to invest. Yet the conservative investor class was very happy when stocks went up under Bush the Lesser. They were quick to suggest it was because markets trusted Republicans. Many financial elites, the same ones who bitched endlessly that Obama would ruin us all, have benefited enormously under two years of Obama, having got back most or all of what they lost after their toxic shit hit the middle class fan during Bush's last year.

Yeah, I know; there was a bunch of neo-liberals like Rahm Emanuel, Peter Orszag, Larry Summers, Robert Rubin, and others who were in on it as well. Democrats mostly, they worked in the Clinton Administration, the Obama Administration; some in both. They have mostly moved on to enormously enrich themselves on Wall Street. They promoted Wall Street's perverse dominance with the worst of the Republicans.

Good riddance to all.

Orszag Cashes In

Obama said he was going to change the way Washington works. Like more bipartisanship. OK, so he has tried to get along with Republicans who publicly admit they intend to obstruct everything they can. It's like trying to pet a rabid dog and constantly having your hand bit. Republicans have gnawed Obama's hand down to the wrist, but he keeps sticking it out there.

But other things in the current White House are far too familiar. The President loaded up his administration with neoliberals--the heart of the financial establishment--people whose interests, efforts, and expertise are devoted to Wall Street. These guys have Obama's ear just like they had Bush's and Clinton's. And those that moved on after serving in government almost always went to, or back to, Wall Street, where they invariably enriched themselves.

So it not really a surprise that White Houe Budget Director Peter Orszag has departed and is now at Citigroup as Vice Chairman of Global Banking. He had brief stints as a Distinguished Fellow at the Council of Foreign Relations and as a contributing columnist for the New York Times. Those positions were just a prelude, a decent interval, to the position at Citigroup, one for which he had been auditioning since day one at OMB.

Hey, he earned it. He may have headed OMB, but on occasion looked more like a Citigroup lobbyist, working to ensure that Citigroup received taxpayers largesse. In return, Orszag now has a plum job reportedly worth several million per year. Not bad for a few months of government work.

James Fallows wants to know why there is so little backlash on this. Conflict of interest anyone? Featherbedding? He knows, of course, and so do the rest of us. Society now accepts this kind of corrupt "descent from heaven," as the Japanese call it. American scolds will still shake their head and wag their fingers when they see it in China, or with some tin-pot dictator in Africa, but shrug their shoulders when it happens at home.

America has become irretrievably corrupt.