__________
#17 | Posted by catdog at 2025-01-07 09:43 AM
The S&P 500 gained more than 23% this year after rising 24% in 2023. The back-to-back gains of over 20% is the best performance for the benchmark index since 1997 and 1998, according to data from FactSet. The S&P 500 is up by around 53% over the past two years, after a poor performance in 2022 that saw the index fall 20%.
The S&P 500 was up approx. 66.8% during the reign of Dotard I. During Diamond Joe Biden's presidency, the S&P is up 73.5%, even with a drop of 20% in 2022. Somehow that's bad.
Fantastic facts and NUMB3RS! Which point out exactly the follies of Bidenomics - money went "from the bottom up and from the middle out" / i.e., "rich got richer, poor got poorer" (see my previous post about how money flows in the demand-side/"trickle-up" and the "industrial policy" inflationary economies) and why less than two upper quintiles (people like "us"!?) could feel good about THEIR economy (i.e., people falling behind on their bills, credit, especially ones "on fixed income" who can't keep up with inflation but, with people living longer, are increasing in number, and they vote).
Also, as you pointed out the "market" had a huge downturn right after wasteful bi-partisan 2021 $1.2T Infrastructure bill (and "manufacturing" hasn't recovered since), until October 2022, - that's when OpenAI made a ChatGPT announcement and sparked Mag7 "irrational exuberance" of market bubble... Exactly what did "Dark Brandon" (who, as every President, wants/gets the "credit") have to do with that "market cycle"? Where would this market (and the "economy") be without "AI"?
Also, despite this wonderful market, what was consistently swept under the rug by "mainstream" media and ignored by Dem campaigns, that for a long time at least two out of three people (in the lower quintiles) thought the country was "on the wrong track" and the "economy was in recession" and that Biden's negative "job approval/disapproval" ratings
As you well know, "the market is not the economy" (especially "cap-weighted indexes" like SPX) and in recent decades has been more and more divorced from, or even inverse to, the economic realities... because of the Fed and interest rate considerations. "QE forever" has conditioned the market dependency on lower interest rates. Often, what's bad for the economy was deemed good for the market, because, e.g., the Fed's policies and interest rates are tied to perceptions of economy and "weaker economy = lower interest rates", which are good for the market etc. So "weak" economy is good for the market, "strong" economy is good for the market - "heads you win, tails you win."
That's why "Are you better off than you were 4 years ago?" in the last few weeks of the campaign resonated so well with the less-affluent class, while Harris campaign was having glam-time with entertainment celebrities and giving interviews to friendly media that "nobody" cared to watched.
Remember Covid? The unemployment rate went up a little more than a lot. It's now at 4.2%, which is close to full employment.
Unemployment (U-3) rate, as flawed a NUMB3R as it is (much better range of indicators of job market conditions exist), obviously, came down pretty much everywhere else in the world since COVID. Yes, all Presidents claim credit for "low" #s, and blame "others" for "high" #s. Hell, in Russia it's 2.3% (along with inflation of 9% and CB rate of 21%) -
Obsessing about / comparing against COVID (un-)employment rates is just another example of "lying to yourself" - the sooner Dems stop doing that to themselves (and the rest of us), the faster they can start forming new, centrist, leadership that works for the people, not just know-nothing spoiled privileged brats.
__________
