First, from Rasmussen Reports:
Thirty-one percent (31%) Strongly Disapprove to give Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of +8.
That’s the lowest approval rating yet for President Obama. Also noteworthy is that on the day of his inauguration, 40% of the population was “in the middle.” Today, that number has dropped to 30%. I can tell you that folks aren’t moving to the “Strongly Approve” category!
Then, there’s this, also from Rasmussen Reports:
Investor confidence has fallen to a new all-time low as expectations of future economic performance continue to decline.
while:
The assessment of current economic conditions fell 28 points between the collapse of Lehman Brothers and the inauguration (from 89.6 to 61.7). It has fallen another nine points since then to 52.3.
Seventy-five percent (75%) of investors now say the economy is getting worse. That’s an increase from 58% since Lehman Brothers collapsed last September to begin the financial industry meltdown. On the day that President Obama was inaugurated, 63% of investors thought the economy was getting worse.
So the current assessment has dropped by 9 points but the despondency over the look into the future has increased 12%. Somebody want to argue again how at least in investors eyes, President Obama isn’t making matters worse?
And finally, you know it’s bad when American Pravda begins to question who owns what part of the problem:
Although the administration likes to say it “inherited” the recession and trillion-dollar deficits, the economic wreckage has worsened on Obama’s still-young watch.
Every day, the economy is becoming more and more an Obama economy.
Yes, yes it is.
As Allan Sinai, chief global economist for Decision Economics, a Boston-area consulting firm notes in the AP article, we clearly have the right President and administration to handle our economic challenges:
At this stage, there is no easy answer, no easy way out. It’s a question of how we fumble through.
It would be hard to identify a single action the Obama administration has taken that has improved the lives of the people they were elected to serve. However, if excellence in fumbling will determine how we will come through the economic turmoil than I for one, will rest easy. Nobody knows how to run the fumblerooski better than Obama!
Update 9:08 AM – Hmmmm, I won’t take one day as a given however, President Obama’s approval rating acheived a new low in this mornings Rasmussen daily tracking poll. Any one day is subject to a myriad of issues. A high one day could be a low the next and vice versa. However, the trend is not PEBO’s friend at this time.
As Ritholtz points out, “confidence” is a symptom, not a cause. While the confidence numbers support a conclusion that Obama is bad for everyone’s future, “Confidence” or the lack thereof follows economic signals–they do not precede them.
Can’t disagree Dad. What I read into this is that contrary to Obama’s notion that his actions are some how separate from what is happening in the market, investors are looking at what he is doing, deciding they have no confidence (the result) and are projecting that into the future. Of course, optimism works the same way. People will evaluate their view of circumstances and project that into the future as well.