Pleasurepays

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123690358175013837.html

Polling data show that Mr. Obama's approval rating is dropping and is below where George W. Bush was in an analogous period in 2001. Rasmussen Reports data shows that Mr. Obama's net presidential approval rating -- which is calculated by subtracting the number who strongly disapprove from the number who strongly approve -- is just six, his lowest rating to date.

Overall, Rasmussen Reports shows a 56%-43% approval, with a third strongly disapproving of the president's performance. This is a substantial degree of polarization so early in the administration. Mr. Obama has lost virtually all of his Republican support and a good part of his Independent support, and the trend is decidedly negative.

A detailed examination of presidential popularity after 50 days on the job similarly demonstrates a substantial drop in presidential approval relative to other elected presidents in the 20th and 21st centuries. The reason for this decline most likely has to do with doubts about the administration's policies and their impact on peoples' lives.

There is also a clear sense in the polling that taxes will increase for all Americans because of the stimulus, notwithstanding what the president has said about taxes going down for 95% of Americans. Close to three-quarters expect that government spending will grow under this administration.

Recent Gallup data echo these concerns. That polling shows that there are deep-seated, underlying economic concerns. Eighty-three percent say they are worried that the steps Mr. Obama is taking to fix the economy may not work and the economy will get worse. Eighty-two percent say they are worried about the amount of money being added to the deficit. Seventy-eight percent are worried about inflation growing, and 69% say they are worried about the increasing role of the government in the U.S. economy.

When Gallup asked whether we should be spending more or less in the economic stimulus, by close to 3-to-1 margin voters said it is better to have spent less than to have spent more. When asked whether we are adding too much to the deficit or spending too little to improve the economy, by close to a 3-to-2 margin voters said that we are adding too much to the deficit.

Support for the stimulus package is dropping from narrow majority support to below that. There is no sense that the stimulus package itself will work quickly, and according to a recent Wall Street Journal/NBC poll, close to 60% said it would make only a marginal difference in the next two to four years. Rasmussen data shows that people now actually oppose Mr. Obama's budget, 46% to 41%. Three-quarters take this position because it will lead to too much spending. And by 2-to-1, voters reject House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's call for a second stimulus package.

While over two-thirds support the plan to help homeowners refinance their mortgage, a 48%-36% plurality said that it will unfairly benefit those who have been irresponsible, echoing Rick Santelli's call to arms on CNBC.

And although a narrow majority remains confident in Mr. Obama's goals and overall direction, 45% say they do not have confidence, a number that has been growing since the inauguration less than two months ago. With three-quarters saying that they expect the economy to get worse, it is hard to see these numbers improving substantially.

There is no real appetite for increasing taxes to pay for an expanded health-insurance program. Less than half would support such an idea, which is 17% less than the percentage that supported government health insurance when Bill Clinton first considered it in March of 1993.

While voters blame Republicans for the lack of bipartisanship in Washington, the fact is that they do not believe Mr. Obama has made any progress in improving the impulse towards cooperation between the two parties. Further, nearly half of voters say that politics in Washington will be more partisan over the next year.

Fifty-six percent of Americans oppose giving bankers any additional government money or any guarantees backed by the government. Two-thirds say Wall Street will benefit more than the average taxpayer from the new bank bailout plan. This represents a jump in opposition to the first plan passed last October. At that time, 45% opposed the bailout and 30% supported it. Now a solid majority opposes the bank bailout, and 20% think it was a good idea. A majority believes that Mr. Obama will not be able to cut the deficit in half by the end of his term.

Only less than a quarter of Americans believe that the federal government truly reflects the will of the people. Almost half disagree with the idea that no one can earn a living or live "an American life" without protection and empowerment by the government, while only one-third agree.

Despite the economic stimulus that Congress just passed and the budget and financial and mortgage bailouts that Congress is now debating, just 19% of voters believe that Congress has passed any significant legislation to improve their lives. While Congress's approval has increased, it still stands at only 18%. Over two-thirds of voters believe members of Congress are more interested in helping their own careers than in helping the American people. When it comes to the nation's economic issues, two-thirds of voters have more confidence in their own judgment than they do in the average member of Congress.

Finally, what probably accounts for a good measure of the confidence and support the Obama administration has enjoyed is the fact that they are not Republicans. Virtually all Americans, more than eight in 10, blame Republicans for the current economic woes, and the only two leaders with lower approval ratings than Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi are Republican leaders Mitch McConnell and John Boehner.

All of this is not just a subject for pollsters and analysts to debate. It shows fundamentally that public confidence in government remains low and is slipping. We face the possibility of substantial gridlock along with an absolute absence of public confidence that could come to mirror the lack of confidence in the American economy that the Dow and the S&P are currently showing.

BlackCrayon

Regardless of what he does or how he is actually doing, ratings will drop as long as the economy doesn't improve.

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kane

Is that period in 2001 after 9/11? I would bet it is. I think it is a little unfair to compare the popularity of a president that has been in office for 2 months to the president who was in office right after an attack on the country when most of the country was scared and angry and rallied behind him.

Also to say that there is a bitter divide in this country is nothing new. In 2000 the democrats were the ones that hated Bush because they felt he just stole the election. If you remember they had to clear the protesters from the streets so they could hold Bush's inauguration parade. The democrats were the minority and they were so angry they fought tooth an nail over most of the Bush's cabinet nominees.

Sure the republicans don't like him. Most of the republicans left in the house and senate are from the dark red states and they are very conservative christian types so the president represents is the polar opposite of what they believe. It is no big news that they don't see eye to eye.

One last thing is this quote from the article: "and the only two leaders with lower approval ratings than Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi are Republican leaders Mitch McConnell and John Boehner." Why are the republicans so unpopular? Well, I don't think Obama is to blame for that. I would guess that it has something to do with the actions of the republican party and who was their leader for the last 8 years?

Pleasurepays

Republicans deserve to be unpopular. They've earned it. The problem in all this is that Republicans have became the smoke and mirrors and scape goats and the "obstructionists" in this new era of "hope and change" and people went from being extremely critical of one president and his administration and everything that happened to being totally accepting of anything tossed their way. "just give him some time..." But massive decisions that will affect the economy for the next 10 years or more aren't even being scrutinized by the same people who couldn't wait to blame their split ends on Bush.

While everyone was bitching about AIG... something happened that didn't even make the news. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...&type=business

People don't even have the slightest interest anymore of asking a question. Our President proposed a 3 trillion dollar budget that the CBO says will be well over 4 trillion. We are spending trillions on bailouts/stimulus packages and he has shown no signs of backing down from social programs and that agenda all while telling people he's going to cut the deficit in 1/2 in 2 years.

I never imagined this level of insanity would come from all this. I never really thought people would get together and say "well... lets just print trillions and trillions of dollars to fix everything" as if there are no direct and obvious consequences to printing money like that... and at the same time, keep making promises about lowering taxes etc etc etc etc and everyone just saying "yep... sounds good"

Nancy Pelosi just gave a speech calling the arresting and deportation of ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS "un american" - wow.

pornask

Most, except from the very, very slow one already understand that Barack Obama is a complete joke and they got owned by giving him their votes.

tony286

I hope it all works out and I would feel that way if John Mccain was now our president. Because what the sheep dont realize unless your independently wealthy. If who ever is in now fails . We all fail, we live in a world that's all connected to some degree. So as a business person in these rough to hope the president fails is not thinking like a business person. its the middle class working people that buy the memberships remember that.

DaddyHalbucks

The bottom line is Obama is eroding confidence in the markets which will cause us all to suffer.

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kane

I guess I am a little confused by this thread then. It seems you started it off with the point being that Obama isn't as popular or that he doesn't have as high of approval ratings as the media (or his administration) would like us to believe.

Now it seems to have morphed into "Obama is destroying the world."

In response to this post I will say this: I have always thought that most people don't vote for president based on economic reasons and once the president is in office they don't worry to much about economic policy. The reason is most people feel no matter which party it is they are going to get screwed. I think a like of people look around at their lives and if they have a decent job and a decent house and a decent car and they have a decent outlook on the future they don't give a damn what our leaders do as far as the economy is concerned. This is why things like guns and abortion are such big issues. People vote on issues they feel will directly impact them.

Most people don't understand exactly how the economy works (myself and 99% of GFY included) so they tend to not try and not worry about it as much as possible until it effects them. And now it has. A lot of regular people got their 401K statements and saw how much they lost over the last couple of years and they are pissed and they want Obama to take action. They don't know what the correct action is, they just want it.

If McCain had won and took a completely different action there is a decent chance there would be reasonable support for it. Most people have no idea exactly what is happening or how to fix it so when they see the leadership taking steps to fix it they feel better.

Maybe the steps will work. Maybe they won't. We can make all the predictions in the world and until the time passes and things play out we won't see if we were right or wrong.

Reak AGV

I have to agree on this one

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kane

It seems to me Obama kind of made the same mistake that Bush did in 2000. Bush ran basically on a platform that there was a coming recession and his tax cuts were the only wa to fix it. He scared the hell out of people and had a very difficult time getting their confidence back. Obama basically did the same. He talked a lot of about how the economy was collapsing (and it was) and how ugly things were getting. So he drilled fear and trouble into everyone's head and now he has the uphill fight of trying to get them back to being confident and spending money.

Pleasurepays

i was just watching the news and pondering the newest plan for the Fed to pump money into the system that almost completely escaped the attention of the media.

i understand that no one is going to be happy about any decision thats made and thats the nature of politics.. however, in this case.. its the financial markets that matters. its their opinion that matters. its all the foriegn holders of US debt that matter. its the price of gold rising that matters. and in spite of the obvious reactions to these "plans" it all gets worse.

...but this whole thing of borrowing money to spend our way to prosperity is bizarre beyond description.... and all begs the obvious question.. "why don't we just print money and spend it like this all the time if thats what helps the economy"... i am very much a fiscal conservative and believe strongly in the market to recover. i say that as someone who lived in russia through its transition and witnessed first hand how quickly wealth can be created against all odds.... against the absence of a functioning court system, banking system, tax system etc. there is no such thing as a company that's "too big to fail" - if you believe that.. then you've never actually seen an entire banking system and currency collapse and stood there on the street and watched how fast people pick up the pieces and grow the economy again.

kane

I agree that the idea of the fed buying up a bunch of out debt is probably not a good idea. Spending to get out of this may not be the way either. But it might work.

I think the basic idea behind the Obama plan is that they want to "prop up" the economy for a few years in hopes that during that time the private sector will rebound and create jobs. Then those who are working on stimulus based jobs can transition into private sector jobs. Once the economy has rebounded we can start to worry about dealing with the deficit and all the debt.

It is a risky proposition that could fail miserably. The alternative is ugly too. It is like picking between eating a shit sandwich and eating a shit sandwich that has mayonnaise on it.

Without a bailout and stimulus companies like AIG would fail. They would bring a ton of banks down with them. The banking system in this country would nearly (if not completely) collapse. Sure your local little independent banks my survive, but they won't have the money to loan to companies or business or even people who want to build a house or buy a car. Job losses would be enormous and all of this could very easily lead us into a depression that could last for years and years. Then again we could bounce back rather quickly and rebuild and make things strong again. If we do bounce back and don't then put some form of regulation in place we will be looking at this problem again in another 15-20 years.

With the bailout and the stimulus plan it is an effort to ward this off. Maybe it isn't the best solution. There is a lot about it that I don't like, but if you can avoid having people lose everything and having the county go into a depression (or at least a very deep and ugly recession) I think it is worth a try. Maybe it will work and maybe it won't. If it fails and we could end up in a depression, but it looks like we were probably headed there anyway.

There are economist who say the stimulus plan will fail. Some of them fail because they say it is not big enough. There are some economist who say it will work. There are some who don't know. We haven't really been down this road before so it is a new situation.

Personally I would rather see us go down swinging and trying to fix the problems then just letting it all cave in and rebuilding from scratch. That said, it is only worth preventing the problems if we take steps to help make sure these things don't happen again.

Pleasurepays

my basic problem with that is that letting shitty companies collapse and then everyone rebuilding, forces everyone to learn the lessons, to change, to adapt etc (consumers, wall street, banks... everyone) ... and forces everyone to be a little more responsible going forward having learned some painful lessons. and the other way, we create a bigger problem, prolong the recession/depression and everyone has learned that no matter how bad and irresponsible they act... government is obligated to bail them out at the direct expense of people who act responsibly.

WarChild

No. I'm pretty sure that means that same period, in this case the first 50 days of office. It's not yet September.

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mozadek

Bush's high rating in 2001 was because of 9/11 and the rally around the flag effect.

notoldschool

We arefucked. I give it a year and the dollar is history.

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WarChild

They're talking about the first 50 days, BEFORE September 11.

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Jakez

STILL, is it even really comparable? The state of the country Bush was handed is nothing compared to what Obama must deal with..

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Killuminati

Vexes

The bottom line is if the government
raises taxes on successful businesses
to bail out failed businesses you break a basic tenant
of capitalism and undermine the entire system.

Sly

The system has been undermined... and it has been long before this. We do not have capitalism. We have some weird mix of capitalism and maybe some sort of socialism.

Businesses need to crash and burn if that's what they deserve. That's how capitalism works. Propping up business models that do not work just does not make sense or cents. These companies that run their businesses properly and treat their employees right... they need to be rewarded. These companies that run their businesses into the ground and treat their employees like shit... they need to be fed to the dogs.

We keep prolonging this crash by instituting new programs or new ideas... so instead of taking one big crash all at once so we can start rebuilding, we have this long drawn out 3-5 year crash. They keep saying "it will get better"... yes, it will, now let it crash and fizzle out so we can start moving forward again.

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Vexes

Sly you are correct.
I think it is a form of social mercantilism.
Privatized profits for the connected who have lobbyist and lawyers.
socialized downside for the rest of us smucks.

pocketkangaroo

It's capitalism for profits and socialism for losses.

Biggy

Agreed, the only thing analagous with that time comparison is time itself. The country is in a totally different position.

kane

I do agree that there a good lessons to be learned in this recession and the things that are coming from it. For example that video that was in another thread about a guy who was making 750K a year and is now delivering pizzas. He has a million dollar home and hasn't paid the mortgage in 2 years. They have over 100K in credit card debt. He tried to start a hedge fund and didn't do it. He drained his savings and 401K in the effort and he and his wife both admit they lived the high life while he was making all that money. They had country club memberships and expensive vacations. It sounds like the spent every penny that came in and then some so when it came to an end he was screwed. He should have paid off his house and set aside enough money to guarantee that they had a solid future then used the excess to start a business or play around with.

But people don't act responsibly. They spend every cent they get and don't feel bad about it. They buy things they know they can't afford and don't bat an eye at it. Maybe some of this will change that, but I really doubt it.

nation-x

This is a much bigger issue than how any of you are describing it and it's certainly not a matter of market confidence. Anyone that prescribes to that mentality is just narrow minded and ignorant of the facts.

FACT: The Bush Administration raised the leverage limit for financial institutions from 10X capital to 40X capital.
FACT: AIG failed because they added a new layer to their business - trading in derivatives (including credit default swaps which are UNREGULATED)
FACT: The housing crash caused trillions in losses... a HUGE percentage of which were derivatives investments - READ ABOUT DERIVATIVES
FACT: The current derivatives market is roughly $513 Trillion
FACT: The value of Real Estate for the whole US is about the same as GDP @ $14 Trillion
FACT: The Bush administration (via the SEC) suspended the uptick rule in 2004 (Uptick Rule) that allowed traders to drive the price of Mortage Based Securities down through Short Selling and caused huge losses in Mortgage Security based derivatives... which caused Mark to Market changes... which caused margin calls and the bankruptcy of these investment banks.
FACT: 40% of the economic growth that was reported by the Bush Administration was based on growth in the financial markets... all of which turned out to be paper only growth... with no real value. You don't hear alot about it... but this was a derivatives trading bubble.
FACT: AIG does business in 130 countries. The US Government provides direct financial guarantees for US based companies that do business internationally.
FACT: Obama inherited this mess and is really doing the only thing he can do to fix it... pay the debt.
FACT: Wall Street is freaking out because they know that the day of redemption is nearing and that the shady financial instruments that have been making them money for years are now going to face huge scrutiny.

It's not Obama's fault that this mess happened. As a matter of fact you can point your fingers directly at Wall Street for selling faulty investments AND the Bush Administration for allowing it to happen. I think it's funny that people are pointing their fingers at Frank, Dodd, Fannie May and Freddie Mac... first of all... Frank and Dodd are politicians... not Treasury Secretaries... secondly... Fannie May and Freddie Mac were victims of the derivatives market... the same as AIG, Merryl Lynch or any other bank but didn't participate in the actions that the investment banks were taking... specifically investing in the derivatives market. Their sole purpose is to guarantee loans and sell mortgage backed securities... which were slaughtered by the derivatives market.