US: Economy vs. President

you mean generally across all time or specifically today?

cz erm the NEW DEAL is an answer in ref the past

also when gore invented the internet!! (gore = president in tad's heart)

Tax policy -- who and what gets taxed, at what rate and when (timing is key in many tax-oriented questions). Plus how much money the IRS and the Treasury get to enforce the tax laws.

To the extent the President sets tax policy, he affects the economy.

Two things: A) Go to war. B) Act in control to inspire confidince.

Well, here's another hypothetical question: had Clinton been allowed a third term and won it, and all events happened as they did, would the U.S. economy still be in the shits? If so, why? If not, why not?

Wall Street is in the toilet these days because companies have been announcing less-than-pleasing quarterly earnings. In the wake of 9/11/01 Bush did what he could by encouraging people to go out and spend money, but any resulting increases in consumption don't appear to have helped the stock market.

Bear in mind that if Gore had been elected or Clinton had been able to serve a third term, the collapse of the dot-com bubble still would have sent tremors throughout the economy.

j.lu and Sterling OTM per usual

Oh, no doubt that this dot com bombshell would have happened no matter who was president.. but do you think that if Clinton were president, the market would have behaved differently since? (I realize for anyone to answer this question, he/she has to fill in what he/she thinks Clinton would have done, which isn't easy... which is why I'm asking... ;) )

Actually, I don't think the markets are reacting to the White House as much as they are to the Enron fallout and similar financial scandals. Dubya did fulminate for the cameras about corporate crime and stupid accounting tricks, but companies were already working over their financial statements, for fear of appearing to have something to hide, and ensuing bad publicity. I can't picture these companies reacting to the same circumstances differently if this had happened during a Clinton or Gore administration.

(I suppose this does present Dubya with a potential "Nixon in China," the opportunity to lead serious reform against crony capitalism. But I'm not holding my breath.)

opposite to what Republicans say, massive government spending is very positive for the economy(and could probably even raise the tax rolls to cover the debts incurred).
The halcyon 1950s that Republicans dream of regressing to would not have happened without the Interstate Highway Program, for instance.
As for the effect of the President, the cynic would say that the perceived health of the economy is tied into the ability of the president to create believable "spin" that would cover any crises. If one argues that Clinton would have done a better job than Bush, the above is the reason why.

Something else to chew on.

government spending is not productive though, japan has built thousands of opera houses and freeways and they are in far worse shape than the us still. government projects don't reward efficiency and are politcially targeted so often times the projects are not actually needed and do not stimulate further commerce so their benefit is only temporary. the 50s largesse happened because there was no competition for us industry, the rest of the industrialized world was in ruins. tax policy is not all that important unless rates change behaviour and confiscatory policies often do this, things like high capital gains taxes make people sit on their money resist investment. the president can try to talk up the economy but it rarely works, people that try to credit clinton for his economic miracle can never actually provide a single program he supported or initiated that led to economic prosperity, the key was gridlock in washington, the split government meant there was less done to mess things up. the market is still overvalued even at its current levels, the bubble burst around the time the first microsoft suit was filed.

Read recently that if counting options as corporate expenditures like they should be instead of hiding them in funny places, the economy has been in contraction since mid-late 1997!