{"id":2553,"date":"2009-11-12T17:04:29","date_gmt":"2009-11-12T21:04:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/?p=2553"},"modified":"2009-11-12T17:33:03","modified_gmt":"2009-11-12T21:33:03","slug":"krugman-the-agony-of-fox-business","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/2009\/11\/12\/krugman-the-agony-of-fox-business\/","title":{"rendered":"Krugman-The Agony of Fox Business"},"content":{"rendered":"

In his 11 November 2009 NY Times blog post, The Agony of Fox Business<\/a>, Paul Krugman writes<\/p>\n

Clearly, the Fox Business crew is having a very hard time. They bill themselves as being truly pro-business \u2014 not like those leftists at CNBC. But they aren\u2019t really pro-business; they\u2019re pro-Republican. They\u2019d like you to believe that it\u2019s the same thing; but there\u2019s this awkward fact that markets have, you know, gone up under Obama.<\/p>\n

And this isn\u2019t just a phenomenon of the last few months. Look back at stock returns under recent presidents, which is easy using a clever gadget at Political Calculations. Taking real, dividend-inclusive annual returns on the S&P 500, I get:<\/p>\n

Reagan: 10.08%
\nBush I: 10.16%
\nClinton: 14.35%
\nBush II: minus 5.81%<\/p>\n

Tax-hiking Democrats are supposed to be terrible for business; I mean, Norman Podhoretz whines that Jews should be conservatives because Republican policies are better for the economy. But the data just refuse to say that \u2014 and that\u2019s even if we restrict ourselves to the stock market, never mind job creation, wages, poverty and all that.<\/p>\n

So the whole idea of Fox Business is problematic. It\u2019s Fox, which means that it\u2019s basically an arm of the GOP; but that\u2019s a terrible match for business coverage, because the economy just refuses to punish liberals and reward conservatives the way it\u2019s supposed to.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Looking back further, the “S&P proof” is not ironclad but it sure tends to support Krugman’s contention:<\/p>\n

Annualized Rates of Return with Dividend Reinvestment and Adjusted for Inflation<\/u><\/p>\n

Eisenhower (1\/53-1\/61) 13.85%
\nKennedy (1\/61-11\/63) 9.29%
\nJohnson (11\/63-1\/69) 7.10%
\n[Kennedy & Johnson together (1\/61-1\/69) 7.87%]\nNixon (1\/69-8\/74) MINUS 7.74%<\/strong>
\nFord (8\/74-1\/77) 11.63%
\n[Nixon & Ford together (1\/69-1\/77) MINUS 2.40%<\/strong>
\nCarter (1\/77-1\/81) 1.25%
\nReagan (1\/81-1\/89) 10.08%
\nBush I (1\/89-1\/93) 10.16%
\nClinton (1\/93-1\/2001) 14.35%
\nBush II (1\/2001-1\/2009) MINUS 5.81%<\/strong><\/p>\n

Obama (1\/2009-9\/2009) 31.91%<\/span> (and that’s just thru Sept!)<\/strong><\/p>\n

Looking over the longer periods, by the S&P 500 measure:
\nThe laggards are: Nixon and Dubya.
\nThe big winners are Clinton and Ike.
\nAnd the biggest winner so far is … you know who.<\/p>\n

Hey, Barack. You’re looking good!<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In his 11 November 2009 NY Times blog post, The Agony of Fox Business, Paul Krugman writes Clearly, the Fox Business crew is having a very hard time. They bill themselves as being truly pro-business \u2014 not like those leftists at CNBC. But they aren\u2019t really pro-business; they\u2019re pro-Republican. They\u2019d like you to believe that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[167],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2553","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-richardhsposts","7":"czr-hentry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2553","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2553"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2553\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2557,"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2553\/revisions\/2557"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2553"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2553"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2553"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}