Here are a couple of charts that illustrate the trump Economy vs the Obama Economy. And includes some comparisons across past Presidents.
I am using the S&P 500 stock market index as a simple indicator of the economy. Dividends are not included, so the charts do not accurately reflect total return, although dividends plays a minor role.
The first chart shows the S&P 500 Index change across Presidential terms since Reagan. Things to note -
- Clinton and Obama stand out against the rest.
- The market had a negative return during George Bush’s presidency.
The chart below shows the same data as above for the first 2 years of the presidency. What stands out is -
- The wide gap between the Obama vs trump S&P 500 Index values.
- At this point, the stock market has lost most of the gains during the trump presidency.
- The stock market return is negative so far for 2018 (-10%).
- Across the entire 2 year period, the trump economy is nowhere close to the Obama economy, even though trump has been boasting/lying every day about the stock market under his presidency.
- Even if we ignore the recent sharp drop in markets, Obama did better than trump across the board, except during the first few months, when the economy was tanking when Obama first took office.
- Obama started in a deep hole (thanks to the great recession caused under the George Bush presidency) while trump had a booming economy to start with (thanks Obama).
- Obama was saddled with a Republican Congress whose primary mission was to make Obama fail, damn the economy and the country.
- trump and the GOP provided a massive tax break to corporations for 2018 onwards. In spite of that, the S&P 500 is down 10% for the year. Corporate after-tax profits are up, the 1% got big bonuses while the middle class saw their next eggs shrink and the Federal deficit has ballooned to close to a trillion dollars.
The chart below shows the S&P 500 Index value change since 1981. Of note -
- The stock market did exceedingly well under Democratic Presidents — Clinton and Obama.
- Under Republican Presidents, not so much.
Notes
- The data source for all graphs is Yahoo Finance.
- S&P 500 value for Dec 27, 2018 is from around 11:30 a.m. EST.
Related Expert Opinion
Follow the twitter chain below to see how much tax revenue could be raised with some simple new sound economic policies -
Epilogue
Granted, there is lot more to the economy than the S&P 500 Index, but these simple charts illustrate some simple truths — Democrats generally govern with sound economic polices and a steady hand, and the markets respond accordingly. Republicans tend to wreck the economy with Ayn Rand abandon which Democrats do the repairing and fixing. The conclusion may be simplistic but there are underlying reasons why Democratic policies are likely to work better for the entire economy than Republican ones.
And we need to keep reminding people of the simple truth that Obama (and Clinton) saved the economy, grew it and raised people’s 401k balances, while trump and the GOP are wrecking it, even if the conclusion is a bit simplistic for our taste.
And I have no clue what 2019 will bring for the economy, besides more incompetence and chaos from the WH.
What do you think?