With this past week’s events, the long primary season finally comes to an end with our two national political parties apparently deciding the respective candidate that we voters will now decide our next president. I’m reminded of what the famous English author, Samuel Johnson, once said, “Mankind have a great aversion to intellectual labor: but even supposing knowledge to be easily attainable, more people would be content to be ignorant than would take even a little trouble to acquire.” When one juxtaposes Johnson’s comments against others as it relates to this aversion, then one should have expected the savant perpetrators to be out in full force as we now get ready for the general election this fall. As for me, the three issues that concern me the most are the Iraq War, National Health Coverage, and the economy. Of the three, it should be obvious that the economy will be the key issue and overriding factor for any of these to be resolved for our nation.
So I really wasn’t surprised this week to hear the financial pundits and talking heads on the various businesses programs start lamenting that the sky would fall and that any sane person should know that Wall Street would react negatively and violently to a Democrat winning the presidency. Each of them avowing and certifying that the Republican Party is the party for economic and financial growth on Wall Street. The drum beat and staccato pounding of this mantra only grew as the week progressed, and even into Friday when the stock market dropped nearly 400 points and there were the talking heads blaming this swoon on the fact that now the Democrats had decided on their
Anti-economic and wealth candidate!
As I listened to this yelling from the roof tops -- The sky will fall! -- The sky will fall! I reminded myself of what Johnson had said when he lived in the 1700’s and then I thought of what Adolph Hitler said -- “The great masses of the people – will more easily fall victims to a great lie than a small one.” And then the words of Franklin D. Roosevelt came to my mind -- “Repetition does not transform a lie into a truth.”
How does one go about verify the economic and financial growth in our country? There are so many formulas and data collections for one to choose from, so I decided to use the longest running and most venerable source that is quoted in the daily newspapers and on the various business channels as the leading daily indicator as to how our financial markets are performing…that being the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) that originated back in the 1800’s.
So to find out more about this phenomenon that related to the ‘sky falling’, and it being assured no differently than the sun will come up each morning in the East, and not wanting Johnson’s sage pronouncement being dropped on my ignorant head, I decided to review the data that the (DJIA) would offer. I wanted it to reflect more than just a narrow range of time, so for this reason I selected to look at the past 90 years that the Democrat presidents had brought so much havoc to our national economic and wealth growth.
This is what I found, and anyone can verify it by merely going to the website provided by the Dow Jones Company. And let me point out that Dow Jones is owned by Rupert Murdoch’s corporation, News Corporation. The same corporation that owns Fox News, the cable channel that gives their listeners a daily dose of the dastardly deeds being foisted off on them by the deceitful Democrats.
The (DJIA) began trading in January, 1918 from a starting point of 74.38. In the ensuing nearly 90 years and the closing of 12209.81 on June 6, 2008, the (DJIA) has grown by 12,135.43 points. A healthy growth by anyone’s record-keeping, I would say!
Over this span of nearly 90 years the break-out of which party controlled the White House:
• Democrat---- 42 years
• Republican---47 ½ years
So the first observation should be that this really isn’t going to be a contest because the Republican Party has had 5 ½ years more to show their mastery of our economic system. Right!
Before I get to the main point of my article, look at some individual and quirky data:
• Greatest (DJIA) Daily Point Gain of All-Time(3-16-2000) 499.19 points and the person sitting in the White House….President William Jefferson Clinton (DEM)
• Greatest (DJIA) Daily % Gains of All-Time (3/15/1933) 15.34%--President that day, Franklin Delano Roosevelt (DEM)
• Greatest (DJIA) Daily Point Losses of All-Time( Let me be gentle and kind-- of the Top-20, there were 7 of them when a Democrat held the White House, and the number one daily decline was when a Republican sat in the Oval Office, as they did on the other 12 historical dates for this category.
But we should return to the break down of the data for the 12,135.43 gain in the (DJIA) over the 90 year time span, keeping in mind that the Republicans start with an obvious advantage. To arrive at my figures I added up the gains for the years when a particular party held the White House and deduct the amount if it was a yearly loss to arrive at my net gain for the respective political party:
• Democrat –42 years, a net of 8,002.14 or 65.9% of the total gain for this 90 year period.
• Republican –47 ½ years, a net of 4,133.29 or 34.1% of the gain for this 90 year period.
But of all the punditry that I heard this past week, the most puzzling was the constant wish that we could get back to the Reagan era of economic wizardry. What bizarre wishes these Wall Street pundits have for our nation….the President that first lead us from being the bankers to the world to being an indebted nation, resulting in today a country that has the largest foreign debt of any nation on the planet. If we were forced tomorrow to pay off the nation’s debt that “WE” owe, each citizen of the United States of America would have to ante up approximately $30,000.00…and all this time you have been told over and over again that you have been getting a tax break these past 7 ½ years. And I thought Hitler was dead!
By using my criteria, let’s look at the fabulous job that Ronald Reagan performed for our nation during his 8 year term in the White House.
• In Reagan’s eight years in the White House, the (DJIA) grew by 1,204.58 points. Representing an appreciation of 9.9% of the last 89 1/2 years of growth.
Now let’s add in the 11 ½ years of the Bush’s Dynasty growth in the (DJIA) to the Reagan growth:
• George H. Bush and George W. Bush’s growth in the (DJIA) comes to 1,753.83 points, or 14.4% of the 90 year increase in this economic gauge.
When you combine the data for the Bush’s 11 ½ years to the 8 years for Reagan you will find the following:
• Their combined 19 ½ years represents 21.7% of the 89 ½ years in my analysis period.
• A combined amount of 24.3% gain in the (DJIA) for 19 ½ years of their leadership, or a 2,958.41 point gain in the (DJIA)
• Another way to look at this data is to point out that for 19 ½ years they increased the (DJIA) an average of 1.24% a year. And never forget that George W. Bush wanted to turn your Social Security benefits over to Wall Street with no guarantee of any adjustments for inflation. I dare anyone to tell me that over the past 19 ½ years that they have see the cost of bare necessities like food and gasoline increasing less than 1.24% a year. (To be fair, let me point out that in my calculations I haven’t adjusted for any dividend income for the stocks in the (DJIA), but most of them pay paltry amounts anyway.) The point is, would you prefer what has been a historical performance delivered by one political party as compared to the other party --- (65.9% vs. 34.1%)
The Wall Street ilk has pounded me daily with their desire for me to keep my voting sanity and get us back to the good old days of Ronald Reagan by falling in-line with my support for John McCain, who has avowed he will continue the economic programs of George W. Bush and his forerunner fellow Republican. With this constant refrain for my intelligence to not falter and be taken in by Democratic hyperbole, then surely there couldn’t have been even one Democrat president that could match the record or even come close to the Reagan and Bush economic legacy! Or could there be such a president?
So let me start with the most recent President that was a Democrat, with that being William Jefferson Clinton:
• On January 1st, 1993, the month that Clinton became President, the (DJIA) stood at 3301.11. On December 31st, 2000, the last full month of Clinton’s presidency, the (DJIA) had climbed to 7,485.74 for a gain of 126.76%.
• So in 8 years a Democrat delivered a 126.76% increase while the last three Republican’s in 19 ½ years delivered a 24.3% growth in the (DJIA).
• Reagan and the two Bush’s gave us a yearly average of 1.24% growth and Clinton gave us 15.85% on an average annual basis.
• Reagan made us a debtor nation, and George W. Bush has borrowed more money than the combined 42 presidents that preceded him. William Jefferson Clinton left office with a balanced budget, now each citizen owes the government $30,000.00 to balance the national budget. William Jefferson Clinton left the office with unemployment running at 3.9% and as of June 6, 2008 and 7 ½ years into his 8 year term George W. Bush has delivered an unemployment rate of 5.5%, or a 41% increase since he took over from Clinton.
We are a nation with nearly 50 million of our citizens having no medical insurance coverage, while we fight a war in Iraq so the newly formed Iraqi government could write a constitution that guarantees every Iraqi, government fully supported health and retirement benefits. There are nearly 28 million Americans that are dependent on food stamps that barely provide enough food for them to eat. We have untold thousands of young military veterans returning from multiple tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan, with them suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). We enticed them with TV ads to enlist and to be prepared for a civilian career when they were discharged from their military duty. We now know, with certainty, this will not apply to over 4,000 of them and the list climbs nearly daily as to their names are added to the death toll. For those lucky enough to return, they are finding that for military veterans the unemployment rate is running at about 10%, as compared to the overall rate of 5.5%. What employer would want to hire a military veteran in which the odds are about 25 out of every 100 applicants that they will eventually suffer from (PTSD) and drive up their company’s health insurance cost….never forgetting they fought in Iraq so the Iraqi people could have a government sponsored health and retirement program?
The infrastructure of our roads and water systems are nearly broken and beyond repair, our jobs are being moved overseas to countries like Viet Nam….you remember the country that we invaded in the last protracted war that we got involved in and lost. Our transportation and airline industry teetering on the abyss of a total collapse, while we can’t even protect our children from being poisoned by tainted imports of food and something as mundane as a toy!
So I guess this leaves me with only one thing to ponder and that is how many people on election day in November will buy hook, line and sinker the words of George W. Bush –“See, in my line of work, you got to keep repeating things over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda.”
On election day you can’t take another person into the polling booth with you to perform your duty as a citizen, however, this doesn’t preclude anyone from taking the words I have quoted from Samuel Johnson, Adolph Hitler, Franklin D. Roosevelt and George W. Bush with you, on a piece of paper. When you get in that booth, read each of their words and prove to Samuel Johnson that you are a United States of America citizen and that he was wrong! |
