Of 1929 and 2012

Friday’s column noted that $10,000 invested solely in those years from 1929 to the present when a Republican held office would have grown to not quite  $12,000, versus $415,000 if invested only under Democratic administrations.

Some wrote in to say it was unfair to start the comparison in 1929, just before the crash.  (The Times graphic does show a still-stunning difference even if you remove Hoover from the comparison.)  But note this: the eight years of increasing inequality and speculation leading up to the crash and the Great Depression were also years of Republican stewardship.

Sound familiar?

Instead of George W. Bush it was Warren Harding and Calvin Coolidge.

I favor the Party that invests in the future and puts people to work and believes billionaires should pay a higher proportion of their income in taxes than their secretaries.  I favor the Party under whose leadership over a lifetime $10,000 grows to $415,000, not $12,000.

If you’re a business guy, or any other kind, why wouldn’t you?

Here’s one who doesn’t:

UP IS DOWN, DAN LOEB STYLE

Dan Loeb: “…U.S. consumers and business owners alike [are] frustrated by the Obama Administration, which is openly hostile to most businesses and unable to articulate or implement policies to spark growth and reduce unemployment.”

Such nonsense. This “hostile” environment for business has seen the Dow double from three years ago and corporate profits as a percentage of GDP reach a record 11%.  How record-breaking a share of GDP do profits have to reach before Mr. Loeb would call the current environment something other than hostile?

And the President was more than able to “articulate policies to spark growth and reduce unemployment” — he did so with complete clarity addressing a joint session of Congress last year when he called for passage of the American Jobs Act — “right away.”  Loeb is right that he was unable to implement that policy – the Republicans have blocked anything that, by helping the economy, might hurt their chances to take back power.  But that would seem to me a knock on the Republicans, and reason to vote them out of office, not the President.