Jim Cramer, former Obama booster, goes farther in an Op-Ed in The Street:
Basically, Cramer is saying that the fear of this administration’s policies on Wall Street is so strong that many are now secretly cheering for the economy to do even worse in the short term, because it will increase the probability of damage to the Obama administration’s agenda.
He says this isn’t a Republican view - it’s the view of ex-Obama supporters on Wall Street.
This matches my perception as well - businesses aren’t investing because they perceive Washington as being hostile to them. The non-stop flood of regulations, proposed regulations, proposed taxes, and other interventions by the Obama administration, coupled with the constant-anti-business posturing of Obama, has shaken their confidence and made it impossible for them to know what the future business environment will look like.
That’s a major reason why the U.S. economy has stalled while the rest of the world is recovering.
Quarter 2 of 2010 was slightly worse for the US compared to other 1st world economies, but Quarter 1 for the US was better. The US did better than most other G8 countries in the first half of 2010, but in reality they were basically equivalent.
Let’s start off with some evidence that these guys were “strong Obama supporters”. And you might want to check on the speechy thing for MZ. You’ll find that he claimed to have written a speech, but then retracted that when called on it.
I’ll help you out with Otellini, because I know him. Not well, but I’ve met him a few times. He’s not a Democrat, and he supported McCain in 2008. He was one of the few notable Silicon Valley heavyweights who did not support Obama.
While I love to see Sam’s OPs fall apart, I did a little poking around and found this article from 2009:
So it’s not entirely silly to say he was an Obama supporter.
But personally, I have absolutely no interest in anything Cramer has to say on financial matters, not after he made himself look the fool with the Daily Show’s help.
I’ll say this, if Obama’s harsh critics are Mort Zuckerman and Jim Cramer then I wish to god 2012 would hurry up so I can vote for Obama again.
Mort Zuckerman was caught in a self-aggrandizing lie about writing a speech for Obama. Suddenly it just became “Oh, we had a private conversation, and something I said I’m sure influenced some speech given at some time.” Right.
Sam Stone, please become a U.S. citizen if you actually care so much for our sociopolitical future . As it is, it’s like you’re following the United States on Twitter–you hear a few blurbs, but context is utterly lost on you.
Zuckerman’s article is hardly “unleashing” on Obama, despite the sensationalist title. He basically says that Obama is in a long line of, Clinton aside, presidents who oversee the bloating of the federal budget. He even all but advocates allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire. As commentaries go, it’s not that harsh.
Is the CEO of Intel saying that all of these taxes and regulations came about during the time of Obama’s administration or even since Democrats took control of Congress in 2006? Not likely. And the unstated part of this conclusion is that corporations are moving to countries such as Malaysia, Indonesia, and others whose laws and other protections for labor and working conditions are lax or virtually non-existent. These factories aren’t being re-located or built in Western Europe, Australia, or Japan.
He’s not an Obama supporter. And it’s clear that **Sam **was talking about supporter in the sense of “backed him in his presidential bid”.
But let’s think about your line of reasoning. Ted Kennedy supported No Child Left Behind, which was a major effort by George W. Bush. Clearly Ted Kennedy was a strong Bush supporter.
Intel knows how to create jobs. You bribe companies to not use your competitors products or delay the launch until you are competitive. I remember when Intel was led by men with honor.
Zuckerman claimed to have helped write an Obama speech. I had no idea the claim was false. In any event, he was an Obama supporter. So was Cramer. I thought the CEO of Intel had been as well, but perhaps I was conflating his support for the stimulus with support for Obama himself. So let me modify: two former Obama supporters and a supporter of the stimulus wrote harsh editorials this week.
Yes, I can see how that changes everything. Why, it renders the whole OP moot. I wouldn’t worry about those Op-eds at all.
But it is nice to see the return of the personal atracks and the ‘you have no right to speak about this, Canadian’ argument. Because Lord knows, foreigners should never speak out about Obama unless they’re ready to kiss his ring.
Mods, feel free to close this thread. I won’t be posting in it again.
You offer up a factually incorrect OP including lies, mischaracterations, and a Wall Street apologist complaining that new rules regulating his actions that nearly took down the country are unfair aren’t very compelling.
I don’t see the business community doing any handsprings right now. Housing is dead, foreclosures are rising and a trillion dollars was magically converted into future debt with nothing to show for it.
If you intended to accurately quote Lord Acton in the first part of that attempted jocularity, it should be “Power tends to corrupt” (italics added).
No thanks needed.
Hey Sam! I need to find out what we’re supposed to be debating. That Obama’s key supporters are deserting him in droves and defecting to the G.O.P.? That the Obama Administration’s propping up Wall Street and key businesses has been more than canceled out by regulatory changes? That Jim Cramer, Mort Zuckerman and Paul Otellini are people I should have heard of?
It’s usually a good idea to follow basic economic news if you want to criticize somebody for not knowing the facts, treis. The Q2 GDP growth in the U.S. was revised downward after the page you referenced was created.