Did Former President Obama Cause the Recent Market Drop?

Did Former President Obama Cause the Recent Market Drop? February 6, 2018

Photo Source: Flickr Creative Commons by Gage Skidmore https://www.flickr.com/photos/gageskidmore/

 

Sorry folks, I can’t resist this.

If you’ve been following the stock market, you know that it’s dropped roughly 10% in the past few days. After claiming, from before he even took office, that the healthy (for some people) economy was due entirely to President Trump, the Trump bot media is now faced with explaining a drop.

Notice, that NOTHING the market does, in their weird world of confabulation, is due to market forces. It’s always something that they claim is due to politics, so that they can spin it to their political advantage. This is yarn-spinning and story-telling, not economic analysis.

Anyhoooo and as I said, the market  is down 10% in a few days. Ten percent is the line in the sand that analysts draw to indicate a “correction.”

All “correction” means (in market terms) is that it’s been bought up too high to support and is now settling back down. These things are not cataclysms. They’re just real-world market forces, slicing the top off the froth on the beer.

The interesting thing is that Trump bots have, by and large, given up rational thinking and real-world analysis. Their whole thingy is to give President Trump credit for every positive turn of events.

As a for-instance, the economy was in the shape it was in when President Trump took office because of President Obama’s policies. President Trump had nothing to do with it for the simple  — to rational people — reason that he hadn’t been in a position to affect it.

That’s what people who are in contact with reality call obvious. However, Trump bots claim that every good thing is due to President Trump, kind of like the proverbial rooster taking credit for the sunrise. So, they — with a straight face — said that the market went up before he even took the oath because it was so happy that he’d won. I kid you not. Trump said that. Trump bot media said that. And little Trump bots the country over believed it.

Now, Mr Market is having its end-of-January tripping up, only it’s deeper than it usually is because the market has been hypered into a bit of a frenzy by the tax cut. Rather than acknowledging that their tax cut may have caused a bit of froth and the froth is now settling, the Trump bots, who believe that everything good is due to President Trump, roll out their alternative universe explanation.

The Trump bot alternative universe explanation for any bad thing that might happen is two-pronged. In their alternative-from-reality-universe the cause of any bad thing is either (a) Hillary, or (b) Obama. Let me repeat and say after me: All bad things are due to either Hillary or Obama.

If you’ve got the flu, either Hillary or Obama caused it. If the sun goes down, either Hillary or Obama did it. Once in a while, they trot out President Clinton’s sexual promiscuity and even — I kid you not — JFK’s affairs from almost 60 years ago, to prove that it’s the moral thing for Christians to excuse sexual assault by a Republican serial sexual predator in one election and child molesting by a Republican child molester in another election. But the rest of the time, all bad things are caused by either Hillary or Obama.

This 10% drop in the stock market is a case in point. The Trump bot band leader, otherwise known as Sean Hannity, has chimed in with the predictable Trump bot explanation, which, I assure you, has nothing to do with market forces or economics. According to him, the market has fallen 10% because of — get ready for this now — President Obama.

You knew it had to be either Obama or Hillary. I guess it was Obama’s turn to take the hit this time.

Here, just for fun and giggles, is my explanation of the recent market drop: The yield curve is not different “this time.”

I don’t think we’re seeing the economic train wreck which the recent restructuring of America’s tax base can bring down on this nation. I think we’re seeing the result of the interest rate hikes, along with just a tiny touch of back-tracking from the recent euphoria. Add to that the simple fact that the end of January and its post holiday economic dip often sees a bit of a market decline, and you get what we’ve got.

The reason for this is simple. The yield curve is working the same way it always does. All claims to the contrary by big-money talking-head “analysts” do not change that.

The reason that Mr Hannity claimed that President Obama was the cause of this sudden flattening back to zero of all the gains the market has made in recent weeks is that he’s a Trump bot. He is not operating from anything that even vaguely resembles honesty and reality. He’s speaking from the world of political hype and brain-washing. He’s a deleterious influence on our society because he has a position of great influence and he uses it to lie, lie and lie again.

My reason for writing this is simple, and it has nothing to do with the recent stock market drop. I want to do what I can to contribute to a return to sanity on the part of my readers.

Stop being duped by lying liars and manipulators. If you support President Trump, that’s ok. But do it within the world of reason and honesty. Stop willfully deluding yourself and stop denying and tamping down your basic moral impulses.

He has done things that I agree with. I think he made a good Supreme Court appointment. I agree totally with his willingness to sign pro life laws, and I am heartened by his move to protect the conscience rights of health care workers.

My only quibble with these things is the fact that, with the exception of the Supreme Court appointment and signing pro life laws, these actions on the part of the president are actions of the imperial presidency. Those things should have been done by Congress. But the fact is, to do them by statute would require compromise, and Congress is no longer willing to practice the fine art of statecraft, which always includes compromise.

We’ve turned politics and governance into a zero-sum game where the point is not to govern, but to make the other guy lose. In that ugly equation, Trump-botism makes a lot of sense.

His big-money supporters know what a mess he is far better than we do. But they don’t care. So far as they are concerned, it’s not about President Trump, or the well-being of We the People, it’s about the power of the office of President and how they can use it for themselves. They like and want an imperial presidency because it’s cheaper and easier to control one man than a whole Congress.

So they lie to us.

And they manipulate us.

And this lying and manipulation has reached the point of absurdity. Anyone who had not been slowly wound into it by years of listening to it and following along behind it would find it crude, obvious and laughable.

That’s what these claims that all bad things are caused by Hillary or Obama are. They are laughable. Anytime President Trump falls on his face, the Trump bot media just picks up their Hillary doll or their Obama doll, shakes it in our faces and yells “It’s their fault!”

The question is, are you going to allow them to get away with this? I ended a previous post by saying that it was our country we were throwing away.

Now I’m saying that it’s your mind, your reasoning capacity, your personal moral will that you are occluding.

Believe the Trump bot media or don’t. Throw away your reasoning capacity or use it. Consent to be brainwashed or think for yourself.

It’s your choice.


Browse Our Archives