Nate Silver Has a Question for Many of You

big h/t to Patriot's Quill and Nate Silver:

If you had invested in the Dow on March 3 when Presenident Obama recommend buying stocks, you would have already seen an 11% return on your investment. And the NASDAQ is now at 1483, whereas it was 1484 on Inaguration Day.

And from all of you: crickets.

What lessons can we learn? On the one hand, we could say that since conservatives insisted that the drop in the stock market was Obama's fault, then its recovery must be to his credit.

On the other hand, some of you could have the courage to step up and say "well, no really, what was being said a few weeks ago was absolute rubbish."

Let's recap a few posts from earlier this month - these were just the one I could find quickly, and I made no attempt to find any of the numerous follow-up comments that blamed Obama for the collapse of their 401Ks. (when IS this site going to get a decent search function????)

Mick Stockinger 03/05

a no confidence vote by the financial markets.

ddemilo, 03/03

Obama says he won't base policy on the "gyrations" of the financial markets.

Fair statement, but it only proves Cramer's point: There is no gyration in the markets; it is a freefall collapse. Were that we were seeing gyrations! Two and three hundred point drops wouldn't be so troubling. But the decline, since the election and inauguration, has been steady and strong, especially after Obama policy pronoundements.

If capital is indeed on strike, and stays on strike, Obama's confident words this morning about a 2009 recovery ("I'm certain of it") will come back to haunt him, just as John McCain was quickly haunted by his statement that the fundamentals of our economy are sound. It will be no satisfaction to see, given the suffering that is being inflicted.

idaho conservative, 3/03

Obama's in trouble. If somebody doesn't start investing, if somebody doesn't start making money, and the time for making profits doesn't come in the next few years, America's recovery will come eventually. Obama just won't be the one to preside over it.

ironman 03/02

[The Dow] is poised to open below 7,000 today and few think we've seen the hard bottom quite yet. The Democratic Party had an opportunity to bring in a fresh legislative team to deal with this problem and we had an obligation to the public to force this to happen. The results are rather obvious. I won't belabor the deficiencies in Obama and Geithner's decisions to date; but if there was an opportunity to change market confidence; this opportunity was lost. And replacing the failed Congressional "leaders" would have played a huge role.  There is no confidence in the economy at present; and the erratic behavior of Dodd and Frank have made matters worse. And will continue to do so for the foreseeable future.

I will close with a quote from Nate Silver:

Yes, this is a stupid way to look at the stock market (that's the whole point).