The man was great that goes without saying but really do we need another holiday as if summer trading wasn't already boring enough? My opnion is the less chances that the market can fall apart before election day ... Bush is all for that !!!
I would like to thank the threadstarter, posters and ET for pullingt his holiday notice all together in one thread. This is what traders and a forum is all about... Keep up the good work for this valuable resource. Michael B.
www.nasdaqtrader.com under the head trader alerts say it's closed Fri. www.nyse.com says same thing. It's a crying shame this situation (that the market are closed!)
I get really annoyed when people try to compare presidental quality by comparing them in this way. Clintion inherited a recovering economy, a technological revolution, and relative global stability. His crisis was the Bosnia conflicts. Reagan inherited wild inflation, OPEC, a collapsing S&L, and the COLD WAR. I think he did a good job overall, given his hand. Reagan served his country well, especially with what he was given. He deserves his day of recognition. Clinton had a presidential paradise; we was too busy getting to know his interns to be a true leader.
True but Reagan did quite a lot of bad stuff. Contra wars, attempt to topple governments & shady business which in the public moral view are bad things but I do not really consider those much being that geo politics will be geo politics and in essense are there for good reasons. However, the cheap money spiral that has fueled a 20-year bull market, record trade deficits, record consumer & corporate debt and record budget deficits, is really Reagan's legacy. Both good and & bad, no one will really know how great or horrible Reagan was in that retrospect until the house of cards topples (if ever). Also, you can thank Reagan for the super duper US military of today. I dunno, it's hard to view militarism in a positive light. Regarding this Friday off, well F*CK IT, this market is so damn dead already that Friday trading is nearly non-existent anyway.
Nice comparison. That said, I liked Reagan as a person, despite being rather distant from him politically and even paid a visit to his casket in the Simi Valley Presidential Library. I waited 5.5 hours to get inside the library, but some had to wait even 7-8 hours...
there is only one problem with all your pro clinton charts you posted. the president doesnt control any of the things you claim that were so much better under clinton than reagen. its congress that controls tax policy and spending. the president either has to sign the bill or veto it. clinton was saved by a republican congress. republicans controlled both houses for most of clintons terms. he would basicly bash everything they did but when a good bill was signed he would take credit for it. reagen had to operate under a democrat congress most of his terms. reagen doubled revenue under his term but spending went up even more. i believe now things have changed for the worse. the republicans are weary of being cast as unfeeling monsters every time they propose spending cuts and have learned that it is much more fun to spend just like the democrats. we have lost all spending restraint in washington. even gw bush has never said no to any spending as president. he has yet to veto a spending bill. its hard to imagine how it ever turns around this time. kerry has proposed massive new spending programs if he is elected so no matter who wins the election this time the debt will continue to grow.
lkh - the charts also ignore little things like the hundreds of billions in corporate earnings that were supposedly made during Clinton's tenure but which turned out to be phony and later restated, the tens of thousands of essentially phony/useless jobs created for a few years by the dot bombs at the expense of burning trillions of dollars of investor savings, the substantial differences in the economic situation inherited by each Prez (Reagan inherited rampant inflation, skyhigh interest rates (which means hundreds of billions extra in interest payments on the national debt) economic chaos, and a stripped military - Clinton inherited low inflation, low and declining interest rates (which means hundreds of billions less in interest paid on national debt - making balancing the budget easier, but even then the Reps in Congress had to drag him kicking and screaming to it since the Clinton budgets only showed balancing occuring years AFTER he'd left office), and a robust military (which he then proceded to gut).