Jan 22, 2001...Bush's first day
The Dow Jones Industrials 10,578.24.
The Nasdaq Composite 2,757.92.
S & P 500 1,342.90.
Jan 21, 2009...Obama's first day
Dow Jones Industrials 8228.10
Nasdaq Composite - 1507.07
S&P 500 Close - 840.24
Bush fucked up the market, started two wars and doubled the national debt. I won't even mention the mortgage crisis and the banks failing. Oh yes.....I guess I did. Sorriest goddam excuse for a president this country has ever seen. The biggest honors he had was holding hands with an Arab prince and declaring victory in his war about seven years too soon:
Bush removed the threatening regimes of Saddam and the Taliban from power. Bush launched the surge strategy that finally brought relative stability to Iraq. Obama opposed the Surge but later admitted, "it was a good thing". Then Obama adopted the Bush surge strategy in Iraq for Afghanistan.
As for the economy, I think you need to let these average unemployment rates for Presidents since World War II sink in.
Average Unemployment Rates For US Presidents Since World War II:
01. Lyndon Johnson: 4.19%
02. Harry Truman: 4.26%
03. Dwight Eisenhower: 4.89%
04. Richard Nixon: 5.00%
05. Bill Clinton: 5.20%
06. George W. Bush: 5.27%
07. John Kennedy: 5.98%
08. George H.W. Bush: 6.30%
09. Jimmy Carter: 6.54%
10. Ronald Reagan: 7.54%
11. Gerald Ford: 7.77%
12. Barack Obama: 9.06%
I notice that you conveniently used averages and that takes into account what an administration assumed when they took office. Obama has looked bad because of the miserable mess he assumed. In other words when FDR took over Hoover's 24% unemployment I'm sure he didn't want that averaged in with his WPA, RFD, CCC, TVA etc. hiring:
Each Republican run all the way back to Hoover left a higher unemployment rate than what they assumed. It's a documented matter of record. Don't let the Reagan numbers fool you because G.H.W. Bush came along behind him and his four years ended in recession
Hoover's mess took eight years and a world war to straighten out. He and the banks made the mess and there's little difference in then and George Bush and the banks in 2008. The big difference is Bush gave the banks $800 billion and Hoover couldn't.
Averages take into account EVERYTHING, the good, the bad, and the ugly. 100% objective.
There is no cherry picking involved!
What is used is the monthly unemployment rates from the beuro of labor statistics. In an eight year administration, a lot can happen. Figures will rise, go down, and rise again. If you only used the first month and the last month of an administration your not at all getting a true picture of what life was like while that particular President was in office. If you only use month #1 and month #96, you ignore 94 months of information and conditions that the public experienced while that President was in office.
In order to be accurate and objective, one must consider ALL THE DATA! Cherry picking pieces of data only leads to an inacurate image of what the average person experienced during the time the particular President was in the White House. To say that the only months during the Bush administration that mattered were January 2001 and December 2008 is crazy. Years like 2005, 2006, etc. are just as important in assessing the administration in power as well as estimating what the average person experienced during that persons time in office.
In any event you made to factual mistakes in your post. Reagan left office with 5.3% unemployment which is less than the 7.5% that he came in with, but again, to accurately look at Reagans time in office you need to look at ALL 96 months, not just 2 months.
George Bush Sr.'s time in office DID NOT END IN RECESSION! Here are the real quartally GDP growth rates from Bush Sr.'s time in office:
1989 01 3·8060
1989 02 3.0287
1989 03 3.2091
1989 04 0·8765
1990 01 4.2433
1990 02 1·6004
1990 03 -0.0050
1990 04 -3·4611
1991 01 -1.9204
1991 02 2.7265
1991 03 1·6963
1991 04 1.5782
1992 01 4·4637
1992 02 4.3182
1992 03 4·1919
1992 04 4·2724
Each of the last 4 quarters of George Bush Sr.'s President had the economy growing at a robust 4% growth rate. No other President since George Bush Sr. has had four consecutive quarters of real GDP growth above 4%. The Recession during Bush Sr.'s time in office ended in the Spring of 1991, a year and a half before he faced re-election.
You can find quartely real GDP growth rates from 1947 to 2012 here for the United States:
Quarterly Growth in real GDP at annual rates, Percent
As for comparing Hoover with W, or FDR, there is no comparison. The slide in economic activity at the very end of the Bush administration is nothing compared to what happened during the great depression.
At the end of the day, the fact remains that Obama's time in office has seen the highest average unemployment rates of any President since World War II. I went back to World War II because the labor department only has unemployment rates for EACH month since 1947. Annual estimates before 1947 are available though.
If you included all the Presidents since George Washington, Obama would still rank near the bottom, with only Hoover and FDR having worse average rates.
Average Unemployment Rates For US Presidents Since World War II:
01. Lyndon Johnson: 4.19%
02. Harry Truman: 4.26%
03. Dwight Eisenhower: 4.89%
04. Richard Nixon: 5.00%
05. Bill Clinton: 5.20%
06. George W. Bush: 5.27%
07. John Kennedy: 5.98%
08. George H.W. Bush: 6.30%
09. Jimmy Carter: 6.54%
10. Ronald Reagan: 7.54%
11. Gerald Ford: 7.77%
12. Barack Obama: 9.06%
