Presidents and the Economy

President Obama’s critics complain that he has not revived the economy from its recent recession. Unemployment hovers at 9 percent. Job creation is minimal compared to the number of new jobs needed for available workers. Never mind that the U.S. economy enjoys: good business profits, corporations with hefty cash assets, robust securities markets, building permit gains, and other positive indicators of economic health; President Obama is deemed by his critics to be personally at fault for a tepid recovery. Besides the critics, plenty of pundits, pollsters, professors, protesters, and politicians ascribe power over the economy to the President. Truth is: the President alone has no power over the nation’s economy, let alone the global one. Actually, the domestic and the global economy’s condition is the result of complex economic actions by a multiplicity of entities engaging in a multitude of behaviors, not the singular policies or practices of the “leader of the free world”. Sadly, the myth of Presidential power to rule the economy for better or worse is accepted as gospel. Let’s dispense with this falsity. Instead, we should acknowledge shared responsibility for the economy’s health and not saddle any President with an impossible burden.