The Democrats Are Better for Business

The Wall Street Journal ^ | October 20, 2004 | ROGER C. ALTMAN

[No Surrender Monkey]

I wonder what Mr. Altman's figures would look like if the democrats had not handed three of the last four Republican Presidential election winners a recession.

[AmericanMade1776]

That article is a load of donkey doo, Guess the author does not remember how Jimmy Carter nearly destroyed the economy, and How Ronald Reagan saved it, and How Clinton inherited a great Economy, and how when Clinton left office, he left an economy in a recession.

[verity]

Isn't Altman a Clinton butt-boy?

[Protagoras]

And we questioned why the U.S. business community, in light of this record and this outlook, remained overwhelmingly Republican.

Nonsense.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

Who can forget 21 1/2 percent interest ? The dollar is worth 25 percent of what it once was, thanks to Jimmah Cahtah.

[MrB]

These are the conclusions you come to when your time horizon only goes as far as the next election cycle.

[midftfan]

Another delusional Democrat.

[No Surrender Monkey]

Mr. Altman, a senior economic adviser to the Kerry presidential campaign, served as deputy Treasury secretary during the first Clinton administration. He is chairman of Evercore Partners.

[jpl]

Gee, I wonder why he chooses to ignore the Reagan years in his analysis and cherry-pick the last 16 years.

And of course he ignores the fact that Clinton was President during the hyperinflated dot-com stock bubble, something that was more due to happenstance than due to any specific policies.

[philsfan24]

are there any intelligent people in this country? why or why do people keep thinking the president has much control over the economy? the thing that worries me the most is the that the economy is going great right now and will continue growing for the next few years. kerry will get credit for this great economy if he wins. so sad... no one in this country has any intelligence.

[Steve_Seattle]

It's bull****. Economic trends do not coincide with presidential inaugurations, and the 1990's boom had nothing to do with any Clinton policy but was caused by the dot.com phenomenon. To blame Bush for the economic events of 2001 is idiotic; his first budget hadn't even taken effect, nor the tax cuts, nor any other of his policies. Also, 9-11 was a massive hit on the economy that can't be blamed on Bush.

[Kidan]

How Clinton inherited a great Economy, and how when Clinton left office, he left an economy in a recession.

Whenever Liberals talk like this they always tend to forget that little fact.

It is a testament to the policies of Reagan and Bush 41 that the 'Clinton' economy maintained its strength as long as it did (that and the Republican Congress, stopping Clinton from his worst excesses).

A more accurate position is that we get a Republican in office to develop and fix the economy, and then we elect a Democrat to screw it back up.

Just another of those stupid forget history/repeat history things.

[No Surrender Monkey]

Unemployment was higher at the end of Clinton's first term.

[Brilliant]

I wonder if his logic holds true if you go back 20 or 25 years. My guess is NO.

It depends on when you start and stop. Reagan had a good economy, so Altman naturally stops before he gets to Reagan. Carter had a bad economy, so Altman certainly doesn't want Carter in the stats. I'll bet that if you go back to Carter, things don't look so rosy for the Dems.

[Steve_Seattle]

About a year ago, I saw a comment by one of Clinton's top aides who admitted that nothing they did had anything to do with the 1990's economic boom. It was an astonishing moment of candor, and I wish I could remember who it was.

[vampire2191]

No, I disagree. Democratic presidents ensure favorable reporting by their lapdogs in the MSM. In 1992, a 3-month-old recovery went unreported during the election of Bill Clinton. The economic news reports are written by predominately Democratic writers. If the news in the reports are favorable to Republicans, you can bet that the headlines and the first 2 or 3 paragraphs will NOT reflect that. If a Democrat is president, a silver lining always seems to magically appear or Republicans in Congress are blamed for missteps. Of course Democrats are good news for Business, because Democrats present the news and because bad news is good for the news business.

[MadIvan]

The only kind of business the Democrats are good for is monkey business.

Regards, Ivan

[johnny7]

Business and political cycles run on separate clocks. The latter always runs fast and the former runs in fits and starts.

Tell Altman to get back to me in four years.

[unbalanced but fair]

Roger Altman:
Former Deputy Treasury Secretary under Clinton
Forced to resign in 1994
College friend of Clinton
Economic advisor to Kerry
Through Evermore owns American Media which owns:
The National Enquirer and The Star
So Kerry's economic advisor is a "tabloid tycoon"

[roaddog727]

Bingo - the economy in terms of presidential performance is, as a rule, a LAGGING INDICATOR.

GWB has shortened the cycle here, and has done a fabulous job in attermpting to make it a co-incident indicator.

I would expect that had the Dems been in office at the time of 9/11, we would be still suffering from a severe recession oif not a full-blown depression.

IMHO.