Two Very Different Views of Economics

You will be reassured to know that the stock market's disastrous performance during the past two months -- it's dropped 25 percent of its value -- is really just "fits and starts" that should be ignored by the government in devising long-term economic policy.

We have the word of our Economist-in-Chief Barack Obama.

WASHINGTON (AP) - President Barack Obama is comparing the stock market to the daily tracking polls used during campaigns, saying that paying too close attention to Wall Street's "fits and starts" could lead to bad long-term policy.

Obama spoke to reporters Tuesday after meeting in the Oval Office with visiting British Prime Minister Gordon Brown. Obama said he is not measuring policies against "the day-to-day gyrations of the stock market," but by whether lending is flowing more freely, businesses are investing and the unemployed are going back to work.

He said he is "absolutely confident" that those things will happen. But the president also said it will take time for the mistakes of the past to work their way through the system.

How long will it take for the "mistakes of the past" to become the "mistakes of the present" in the minds of Obama and his people? Today's Wall Street Journal wondered the same thing:

As 2009 opened, three weeks before Barack Obama took office, the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at 9034 on January 2, its highest level since the autumn panic. Yesterday the Dow fell another 4.24% to 6763, for an overall decline of 25% in two months and to its lowest level since 1997. The dismaying message here is that President Obama's policies have become part of the economy's problem.

Americans have welcomed the Obama era in the same spirit of hope the President campaigned on. But after five weeks in office, it's become clear that Mr. Obama's policies are slowing, if not stopping, what would otherwise be the normal process of economic recovery. From punishing business to squandering scarce national public resources, Team Obama is creating more uncertainty and less confidence -- and thus a longer period of recession or subpar growth. [SNIP]

So what has happened in the last two months? The economy has received no great new outside shock. Exchange rates and other prices have been stable, and there are no security crises of note. The reality of a sharp recession has been known and built into stock prices since last year's fourth quarter.

What is new is the unveiling of Mr. Obama's agenda and his approach to governance.[SNIP]

The market has notably plunged since Mr. Obama introduced his budget last week, and that should be no surprise. The document was a declaration of hostility toward capitalists across the economy. Health-care stocks have dived on fears of new government mandates and price controls. Private lenders to students have been told they're no longer wanted. Anyone who uses carbon energy has been warned to expect a huge tax increase from cap and trade. And every risk-taker and investor now knows that another tax increase will slam the economy in 2011, unless Mr. Obama lets Speaker Nancy Pelosi impose one even earlier.

Meanwhile, Congress demands more bank lending even as it assails lenders and threatens to let judges rewrite mortgage contracts. The powers in Congress -- unrebuked by Mr. Obama -- are ridiculing and punishing the very capitalists who are essential to a sustainable recovery. The result has been a capital strike, and the return of the fear from last year that we could face a far deeper downturn. This is no way to nurture a wounded economy back to health.

Listening to Mr. Obama and his chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, on the weekend, we couldn't help but wonder if they appreciate any of this. They seem preoccupied with going to the barricades against Republicans who wield little power, or picking a fight with Rush Limbaugh, as if this is the kind of economic leadership Americans want.

The WSJ editorial writers fear it may be two or three years before Americans wake up to the real reasons behind our economic problems. I hope they're wrong, and we awaken before then.