| | | Robert, I will respectfully disagree with you as to the power of presidents to influence the economy.
The Fed is the prime influencer of the economy, with the President only involved in that they may pick the leader of the Fed.
An example of this would be Arthur Burns. He was a Nixon flunkie who did what Nixon wanted (inflate away the deficit).
You may think Reagan was the architect of the 80's boom, but it was Paul Volker (a Carter appointee) who slayed the dragon with his massive interest rate hikes that led to 2-recessions and low poll numbers for Reagan in 1982.
If we had a Fed Funds rate of 5% during Trump's reign, I doubt the economy would have been the same.
Biden really has nothing to do with the economy, especially with the death of the Behemoth Bill. There is the infrastructure package, but that was bi-partisan, and Trump tried to pass a version of it during his term.
Presidents can provide confidence in things, and Republicans are better at this the past 50-year than their opponents. However, the business cycle tends to follow its own path regardless of who is in the big chair.
I wouldn't put the 2008 recession on GWB anymore than I'd put the 2012 PIIGS crisis on Obama. The seeds for the 2008 recession were planted by The Committee to Save the World in 1999, with Greenspan and Larry Summers leading the way.
However, the bailouts and Fed backstopping started with the Continental Illinois rescue back in, what, 1984? We've been doing the same since then for every crisis, from the Latin American crisis in 1994, to the Asian Crisis in the late 90's, to Y2K, to 9-11, to the housing bubble and the GFC, and so on. |
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