Clearly, the Fox Business crew is having a very hard time. They bill themselves as being truly pro-business — not like those leftists at CNBC. But they aren’t really pro-business; they’re pro-Republican. They’d like you to believe that it’s the same thing; but there’s this awkward fact that markets have, you know, gone up under Obama.
And this isn’t just a phenomenon of the last few months. Look back at stock returns under recent presidents, which is easy using a clever gadget at Political Calculations. Taking real, dividend-inclusive annual returns on the S&P 500, I get:
Bush I: 10.16%
Bush II: minus 5.81%
Tax-hiking Democrats are supposed to be terrible for business[...] But the data just refuse to say that — and that’s even if we restrict ourselves to the stock market, never mind job creation, wages, poverty and all that.
So the whole idea of Fox Business is problematic. It’s Fox, which means that it’s basically an arm of the GOP; but that’s a terrible match for business coverage, because the economy just refuses to punish liberals and reward conservatives the way it’s supposed to.
Now, personally I could give a shit about rallies on Wall Street or what Krugman, Jim Kramer or President Obama have to say regarding economic recovery. I'll believe it when advertiser's dollars translate into the reversal of my pay cut, and I can stop worrying about the other shoe to drop. But, in the meantime, I enjoyed that post very much.