Someone Notices: Stocks Just Happen to Go Up as Democratic Agenda Crashes and Burns

Former troll Poon always liked to point out we were having a bear-market rally.

Isn't that wonderful?

Well, bear-market rallies are no big thing, first of all. A market which debates itself whether the future outlook is "very poor" or merely "poor," oscillating between 8000 and 9000, doesn't fill me with confidence.

Secondly, though, the rally just happened to occur as it became clear that Obama's biggest wealth-destroying initiatives -- cap and tax and Department of Motor Vehicles HMOs-- were in serious trouble.

In response, the market revised its opinion from "the future looks black" to "the future looks like a shade of gray." What shade of gray? Charcoal, Fletch answered.

Brian Gardner, an analyst with Keefe, Bruyette & Woods, explains that when markets cratered in March, investors worried the Obama administration would nationalize the country’s banks, impose punitive rules on credit card issuers and allow judges to lower the principal and interest payments on mortgages. They saw ever-widening deficits and buckets of debt set to increase with massive healthcare legislation.

Since then, the bankruptcy bill has fizzled and nationalization talk has died out. President Barack Obama did sign a credit card bill into law, but its provisions were much weaker than the industry feared.

Separately, healthcare reform has slowed while a climate change bill imposing taxes on businesses that emit pollutants has stalled in the Senate.

...

“It’s very much a factor in what’s driving the market over the last couple weeks,” Gardner said of the slowed agenda in Washington.

Did I Say Two Biggest Wealth-Destroying Measures? I meant to mention "And Card Check is looking in bad shape too."

So bad it won't be undertaken this year.

Obama's big success consists of being a poor enough executive such that his ability to further damage the economy has been sharply limited.

Yay, Obama...? I guess.

posted by Ace at 03:09 PM

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