Stop Listening to Wall Street

Obama should pay no attention at all to stock prices.

By Daniel Gross
Posted Saturday, March 14, 2009, at 7:20 AM ET

---

Investment professionals and econo-pundits claiming to speak for Wall Street have been blaming President Obama for the recent run of losses in the stock market. In their view, investors around the world are giving a daily thumbs-up or thumbs-down to the administration's manifold policy initiatives. "Obama's Radicalism is Killing the Dow," read the headline of a Wall Street Journal op-ed by Stanford economist Michael Boskin, a former official of the first Bush administration.

On March 3, Strategas analyst Dan Clifton noted that "with the S&P 500 off close to 8.5 percent since the budget was introduced, it is clear that equity investors remain skeptical of the government's plan to lead us out of this financial crisis." Even CNBC's James Cramer, who supported Obama during the presidential campaign, has turned on the president, calling him a "wealth destroyer."