Lakhota
Diamond Member
My choices: FDR and Obama.
More: By the Numbers: The Economy Under Reagan vs. Obama
Posted June 26, 2012 4:39pm by Bob Deitrick
Barack Obama inherited the worst economic disaster of any president since FDR acquired the debacle from Hoover as he entered the White House in 1933. One of Obamas first acts as President was to sign the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. The Stimulus, as it is called, established a floor for the financial markets so they wouldnt decline further. Many forget that in the last 17 months of George Ws tenure, the stock market saw an historical loss of 58% from peak to trough. This was worse than any rolling 17-month period during the Great Depression.
Under President Obamas tenure, to date, we have seen an impressive recovery in the equity markets,making up most of the losses accrued under Bush. Today we stand only 877 points from the highpoint of the DOW of 14,156.53 set on October 9th, 2007.
Barack Obama surpasses his 13 predecessors, including Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan, relative to the stewardship of our financial markets and most economic indicators. The average annual compound returns for the Dow, S&P500, and NASDAQ have been 17.2%, 25.3% and 31.7% respectively in Obamas first 3.3 years. This compares to Reagans first term results (for the same indices and time period) of 6.86%, 6.16%, and 7.02% respectively.
As for months of recession in their corresponding first terms, Reagan presided over one of the longest recessions (16 months) in our history. In contrast, the recession under Obama lasted five months in 2009. We have seen positive job growth for 26 consecutive months under President Obama, and although it has been painful, one needs to realize we are crawling out of a very deep hole. For ten of the 16 months in the Reagan recession, the unemployment rate exceeded 10%, reaching a high of 10.8% for two months in late fall of 1982. The highest unemployment rate under Obama was one month of 10% in late 2009.
More: By the Numbers: The Economy Under Reagan vs. Obama