Monday, March 09, 2009

The market hates uncertainty and the President is sowing it


The stock market despises uncertainty. The market is an enormous prediction engine and when government policy is inarticulate, nebulous or downright counterproductive, stock prices generally reflect the discomfort of investors.

Such a time is now.


Consider:

• Obama's Secretary of the Treasury -- once touted as a genius and the only man who could solve the crisis -- appears clueless and inept.

• Obama promises to raise taxes on Americans earning over $250K, half of which are small business owners. Small businesses, the engines of economic growth, are thereby pushed further into turmoil.

• Obama promises to implement a substantial, stealth tax increase on all Americans using a "Carbon Dioxide Cap-and-Trade program" (never mind that Carbon Dioxide represents only a tiny percentage of greenhouse gases and is necessary for plants and humans to survive. And never mind that the Earth has been cooling for the last ten years).

• Obama's stimulus package is an ill-conceived grab bag of "shovel-ready" pork projects that roll back welfare reform, reward trade unions, pay off trial lawyers and provide a first step towards socialized medicine. In other words, it does everything but stimulate. It doesn't put money in people's pockets through tax cuts and it fails to deliver any coherent relief to the credit markets.

• Obama has tripled the national debt in only six weeks time.

• Obama has repeatedly failed to live up to his campaign promises of government transparency, open debate on proposed legislation, killing earmarks and banning lobbyists from his administration.

• Obama has proposed to destroy as much as 25% of charitable giving by removing tax breaks for the despised wealthy (again, those earning over $250K).

As for the results?

• U.S. stocks have lost $1.6 trillion in market-cap since Barack Obama's inauguration, Bloomberg reports.

• The current decline appears to be worse than the 1929-1932 decline.

• Equity markets are in disarray, hemorrhaging value on a daily basis as the rudder of economic policy lies unattended.

And -- rather than calm the markets -- Obama's diminutive Al Capone and his various accomplices in the mainstream media have conspired to wage a public relations campaign against Rush Limbaugh.

Because, apparently, there's nothing better to do.

The phrase "out of his depth" comes to mind.


Update: More Bad News For Obama... Cavuto Points Out That Wall Street Was Right About Reagan & Carter Too. Put simply, the market has judged Obama's socialist policies and they have been found lacking.


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