According to Rachel Maddow in the clip above — and according to the chart from Jed Lewison at DailyKos below — the stock market certainly is doing well under the socialist jackboot of Pres. Obama's anti-capitalist policies.
As Maddow said, referring to the chart on her MSNBC show last week, if you focus on the line going up after the inauguration of Pres. Obama, "Regardless of how you personally are doing, this part of our nation is living large. Despite what you hear about the economy at home, the stock market is in tall cotton."
Maddow pointed to this article from McClatchy to explain why middle-class families and small businesses find themselves relegated to the short cotton while mega-corporations and the stock marketeers are availing themselves of the tall rows:
Corporate profits grew 36.8 percent in 2010, the biggest gain since 1950, according to Friday's latest report from the Bureau of Economic Analysis. No sign could be more clear that U.S. companies see the so-called Great Recession in the rearview mirror.
The strong profits, however, mask the continued difficult terrain for businesses. Yes, profits are high, but that doesn't mean business is strong…
[Analysts] think several factors are behind the strong profits, which seem to contradict other indicators of an underperforming economy, especially the 8.9 percent unemployment rate. These factors include record low interest rates since late 2008, muted demand for borrowing by companies and a surge in productivity that has allowed companies to do more with the same number of workers or fewer.
Profits aren't rising solely because companies are making and selling more widgets to keep up with customer demand, which would be the case in a healthy, booming economy. Instead, they're more profitable because it now costs less to make the same widget, often because there are far fewer workers needed to make it…
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