U.S. President Barack Obama and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner received failing grades for their efforts to revive the economy from participants in the latest Wall Street Journal forecasting survey.
The economists’ assessment stands in stark contrast with Mr. Obama’s popularity with the public, with a recent Wall Street Journal/NBC poll giving him a 60% approval rating. A majority of the 49 economists polled said they were dissatisfied with the administration’s economic policies.
On average, they gave the president a grade of 59 out of 100, and although there was a broad range of marks, 42% of respondents rated Mr. Obama below 60. Mr. Geithner received an average grade of 51. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke scored better, with an average 71.
Maybe they’s have gotten better grades if they’d polled all 58 states?
I believe the figure was 57; same number as nations in the Islamic world, for what that’s worth.
Let’s see…how many of these economists can point to their own calls to back off risky financial instruments a few years ago? Which of these guys predicted Bear Stearns or Lehman? How many of them published academic papers before the crash about how the S&P;bond rating system hid risk rather than assessed risk?
You have to have some credibility if you are inclined to issue a “grade.”
Obama’s crew has made mistakes and will continue to make mistakes, but isn’t it funny that he’s being “graded’ after two months on the jobs by folks whose entire careers in the study of economics ought to be called into question now?
The problem right there Dan is with “Obama’s crew” – he still doesn’t have one, where it counts. Treasury has, what, 2 of 18 deputy/ assistant secretary posts filled? And foreign governments are reporting that calls to Treasury officials are going unanswered because no one has been hired to fill the office yet? Mind you, this is from the administration that made such a show of getting moving because there was a crisis even before the Inauguration, to let everyone know there was no time to lose, and who campaigned upon having a plan and being ready to tackle the crisis from Day 1. Well, events have proven that line to be BS. They’ve no plan and not even a team yet – that is a shameful performance, right out of the blocks.
Well, when your nominees cannot pass your own requirements for reliability…………………………
Elections have consequences. 52% of us believed this team’s bilge and now all of us are living the consequences.
Hopefully, we’ll be a bit more discerning in 2010, 2012 and beyond. Until then, we all get to be active participants in the biggest sociology experiment the world has seen since the Russian Revolution.
As the Democrats kept reminding Bush and the Republicans, 52% is not a mandate! Perhaps Obama should keep that in mind.
#7 – the margin was, in fact, 7% libraryjim, and the difference was fairly large. It was a much greater mandate than George Bush ever had.
#6 – “the Russian Revolution”?
I would note that the Republicans are doing a good job of holding up some of the appointments. And then blaming Obama for the treasury’s problems. Seems that they want them to fail.
the article says “However, economists’ main criticism of the Obama team centered on delays in enacting key parts of plans to rescue banks.” this is because the advice that the US gives everyone else, we are unwilling to take. The US – through the World Bank and the IMF usually demand a nationalization of banks – thats what we required in Korea, in Sweden, and other countries. It is what we need to do here, but Obama is taking the conservative approach.
#8, A couple of rejoinders.
1. 52.8% does not a mandate make. I’ll be happy to let you know when and if he ever gets a mandate.
2. Yes, the Russian Revolution. Or if you prefer I’d be happy to concede comparison to the celebrated accomplishments of Mao, Fidel or Pol Pot if any of those worthies of the Left is more to your liking. BTW, didn’t catch your response to my documentation of Obama’s congruity with the stated aims of the Communist Party of the USA. You can go back to #32 at http://new.kendallharmon.net/wp-content/uploads/index.php/t19/article/20847 to check it out. Or should I just assume you now agree with me.
3. The shortfall in appointments seems to be more a result of Obama being able to find ideologically pure drones who are not laughably incompetent yet also not too closely associated with some evil faction like ‘business’ or ‘banking’ or ‘Wall Street’ or ‘industry.’ Tough to find ‘community organizers’ who know anything about actually running a free market economy – witness our current circumstance for proof.
4. Re your last paragraph, yet Obama seems to have been able to ‘talk’ the market up 10% last week by changing his role to cheer leader from that of the guy in the crowd on the ground yelling “Jump!” up at the poor soul on the ledge on the 7th Floor. Instead, Obama on Friday was telling us it really isn’t so bad as it once seemed. Maybe castor oil isn’t really required after all. Too bad about all that wild and extravagant spending of our great-grandchildren’s money that won’t have the opportunity to fix the problems it was billed to be the salvation of. Oh, well – you can’t have a great revolution of social change unless you are willing to lop off a few heads to get there. Can’t waste a crisis, can we?
5. ‘Failure’. Let me be perfectly clear about this. If by failure you mean that I hope for Obama not to be able to affect the gross social changes he wishes to impose on my country, I stand foursquare in firm support of his most grotesque, humiliating, total and abject failure. I take this stand because I am unalterably convinced Obama’s stated positions will severely damage my country and make the United States a significantly worse place for my family and my descendants to call home.
[i]The US – through the World Bank and the IMF usually demand a nationalization of banks – thats what we required in Korea, in Sweden, and other countries. It is what we need to do here, but Obama is taking the conservative approach. [/i]
The IMF did not demand nationalization in these countries especially Asia – they demanded that all the responsible banks that caused the crisis should fail – certainly not a government bailout. All the countries that followed the IMF recommendation did so badly that 10 years after the crisis, they are still struggling with some of the decisions they made. Malaysia rejected the IMF plan and fared better than the others. And the person who handled the Asian crisis at the IMF is none other than Tim Geithner. [url href=”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1997_Asian_Financial_Crisis”]Wikipedia[/url] and [url href=”http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/obamas-economic-saviour-savaged-as-keating-lets-rip-20090306-8rk7.html?page=-1″]another opinion[/url] provide some details. A really nice paper on the lessons learned from Swedish Financial crisis can be found [url href=”http://www.riksbank.se/upload/3861/970829e.pdf”]here (pdf)[/url] which is similar to Paulson’s original proposal and the handling of the S & L crisis. The failure of those in power to apply lessons learned from financial crisis in other countries and the S & L crisis, and take some hard decisions has contributed enormously to this fiasco.
Heh #9 – Obama’s approval rate is about 62%. that has not been changing, although to some extent his disapproval rates have been decreasing. As I said, Dilbertnomore, it is far more of a mandate than George Bush ever had.
You do mention the communist party. the argument seems to be like so:
The communist party is against racism.
Obama is against racism.
Obama must be a communist.
You are not a communist.
Communists are against racism.
You are not against racism.
You must be for racism.
Dilbert, let me be clear: I don’t think you are a racist.
Communists terrorize their citizens.
Obama is a communist.
He will terrorize the citizens.
Of course, all I need is evidence for that.
#3 – I think I missed something. Who are the community organizers that Obama is hiring? What of Austan Goolsbee? Who has he hired that is “laughably incompetent.” They haven’t paid their taxes, perhaps, but that’s lots of successful rich people.
#4 – This reminds me of the joke: Sun rises, market declines, sun gets blamed. I’m amused you think that Obama is more important than say, Citibank saying things aren’t as bad. If you follow commercial news carefully, there are lots of reasons to sell or buy that have nothing to do with what Obama says or doesn’t say. And if that were the case, it would merely demonstrate the market’s irrationality.
#5 – I hear the “social change” meme a lot. Do you mean that the Republican party will become a minority party? Yes it will. Since civil rights, it has generally used race as a way of establishing its own power (remember Lee Atwater?). I’m not sure what Obama will “impose.”
But if you mean you want your children to live in a third-world country rather than a liberal democracy, then I suppose I would oppose Obama’s plan to keep commercial society functioning. And yes you should be worried. With universal health care, the lower middle class will begin voting Democrat, along with those entrepreneurs who are tired of spending $20,000 a year on health care. It’s self interest….
#11 – i mean his disapproval rates have been increasing.
[blockquote]Obama’s approval rate is about 62%. that has not been changing, although to some extent his disapproval rates have been decreasing. As I said, Dilbertnomore, it is far more of a mandate than George Bush ever had. [/blockquote]
Right as usual, John: “Polling data show that Mr. Obama’s approval rating is dropping and is below where George W. Bush was in an analogous period in 2001.” [url=http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123690358175013837.html]LINK[/url]
Further, do you recall >90% approvals Bush had in the wake of 9-11 and the toppling of the Taliban? Has our Teleprompter Savior ever reached that level?
[blockquote]The communist party is against racism.
Obama is against racism.
Obama must be a communist. [/blockquote]
Except the Communist Party’s position on racism was really only superficial, at best, and irrelevant to its goal of consolidating total power in the hands of the State. Gaining control of banks, industries and all vital economic activity is very high on any communist’s to-do list, and Obama is working diligently on all three.
Oh, and can you point to the section of the Constitution that allows the federal government to take over health care nationwide?