Steve Corrick: If You Need to Vote Your Pocketbook, Vote Obama

A BUZZFLASH READER CONTRIBUTION
by Steve Corrick

The three great stock market crashes (1929, 1987, and 2008) have happened at the end of long periods of Republican presidencies. 1929 happened at the end of eight, 1987 after six, and 2008 after seven years of Republican rule. So it's hard to argue that Republicans have some magical touch when it comes to the economy. 

The problem, as former Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan acknowledged recently to Congress, is that banks and investment houses don't automatically act to ensure the safety of their investors. So, with regulation loosened or missing as it has been during several Republican presidencies, some financial institutions exploited public trust with greedy and fiscally unsound schemes that worked only for salespeople and corporate officers -- like, oh, say, $516 TRILLION in outstanding derivatives worldwide.

On the other hand, since WWII, Democratic Presidents have presided over the greatest increases in Gross Domestic Product, jobs, personal disposable income, industrial production, and hourly wages. Democrats also achieved the lowest misery Index (lowest inflation + unemployment.), lowest inflation, and the greatest reduction in the Federal Budget Deficit -- as political economist Arthur Blaustein recently pointed out in an article in Investment News.

Democrats are also much better for workers and wages. Princeton's Larry Bartels points out that from the late 1940s onward, unemployment has been almost one-third higher under Republican Presidents -- 6.3 percent to the Democrats' 4.8 percent. A final dagger in the myth of Republican economic superiority is that Middle Class incomes have grown almost twice as fast under Democrats during that time, and, for lower income Americans, incomes have grown almost six times as fast under Democrats as Republicans.   
 
So, on Tuesday, if you're voting to protect the economy, vote Democratic.

A BUZZFLASH READER CONTRIBUTION

Steve Corrick 
Missoula, MT