When Plunging Stock Prices Are Good

Jonathan Chait:

[Jim] Cramer assailed Obama for "destroying the profits in health care companies (one of the few areas still robust in the economy)." The United States has the most expensive, least efficient health care sector in the advanced world. The flipside of that inefficiency is massive profits in the health care sector. Anything that reduces waste necessarily reduces that profit. Cramer naturally sees this as a disaster. But why should the rest of us care?

Why We Need Reporters

For perspective. Honesty. Irony. Memory. Sheer joy in the paradoxes of politics. For instance, the AP's Tom Raum and Jim Kuhnhenn, reporting on the Obama administration's overdue but welcome optimism offensive:

On Friday, the president called on Americans to keep "focused on all the fundamentally sound aspects of our economy." The phrase had a familiar ring. During the heat of the presidential campaign last September, Obama ridiculed rival John McCain when he declared, "The fundamentals of our economy are strong."

It's hard to avoid the impression that the President realized that as a barometer of the national mood, he was running three days behind the stock market.

Obama's Be-Like-Nixon Report Card

A stock authority on how well 44 is doing channeling 37:

Yesterday, Gary Weiss blogged that President Obama needs to "channel Richard Nixon" and make a strong statement about his confidence in the long-term future of the U.S. stock market.

In 1970, President Nixon proclaimed: "Frankly, if I had any money, I'd be buying stocks right now," in the middle of a recession. The market jumped on the expression of confidence. A few hours after Gary Weiss wrote that Obama should do the same thing, Obama said -- in his usual mild-mannered, carefully hedged way -- that stocks represent a "potentially good deal" for long-term investors. OK: not exactly the rah-rah cheerleading we were hoping for, but it's a start.