2017-01-25

No, The Economy Wasn't Good Under Obama

Obama supporters are not too bright when it comes to investments and they only solidified this perception the way they argue about the economy.

A couple of things to consider and keep in mind about Obama and the future.

The U.S. economy was not, to put it mildly, a success during the last eight years. If you want to (dubiously in my view) argue that's because he "inherited a mess" and "prevented" a depression be my guest. There's no way to prove it either way and leaves us vulnerable to counterfactuals.

All the measures - from saving GM (which taxpayers lost $9 billion and secured creditors were raided to cover the unions) to high stock markets (thanks to low interest rates. There's nowhere to go but stocks. It's the lesser of all evils. Little old ladies are over exposed to equities the cost of borrowing is that low) and low unemployment (which doesn't consider an aging population and the young simply no longer looking for work thus pumping up the labor participation rate; not to mention of an economy that's gone part-time as evidence by the decrease in non-farm labour hours thus driving down productivity manifesting itself into low GDP rates. Of which, 21% of it was debt while collecting only 17% of revenues. Let that sink in) Obama's economy was simply meek at best)- upon inspection simply don't add up to the real underlying metrics.

I guess I just went over the underlying figures in parentheses!

Anyway. Where do people come off saying it was a good economy?

Look at it this way. Obama put up a great storefront but when you went in you saw there was little inventory stocking the shelves. Why, it's almost like a communist smoke and mirrors game!

And this is the real reason why Trump won.

It's the economy stupid and it's really not that hard to see.

As for Canada - a resource based economy - we just caught a major break from Trump signing the Keystone Pipeline executive order. In a growth environment this is important for the economy. But here's the issue they may face. Trump is an economic nationalist and as such we don't have much leverage. This is where Canadians will learn 'elections have consequences'.

With May and Trump now in power, the 'feel good' and empty platitudes of Trudeau are not going to serve this country well. The party hasn't shown it's ready to slug it out on behalf our interests.

This is why O'Leary may very well win the Conservative leadership. God save us all. I would prefer Bernier but I digress.

Anyway. Keep this in mind when looking to invest moving forward.

The economy - and foreign policy - were not successes under Obama. Blaming Bush for it was tolerable for a period of time but after eight years, what did Obama do to improve things?

In my view, very little.


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