The Republicans must be in a panic. The economy is not tanking and the public still supports the President.
For the first time since he became president, a significant number of Americans are expressing disapproval of Barack Obama’s actions in a specific area: His handling of the AIG bonus situation.The public is right. President Obama could have done a better job dealing with the AIG mess:
Despite the middling reviews for his handling of the bonuses, however, the president continues to get high marks overall for his job performance and his handling of the economy.
Forty-two percent of those surveyed disapprove of the president’s handling of the AIG bonuses, while roughly the same percentage - 41 percent - approve. Another 17 percent don’t know or aren’t sure.
Yet President Obama’s overall job performance rating appears unaffected by the AIG fallout. Sixty-four percent approve of the president’s performance, roughly the same as last week.
And ratings for the president’s handling of the overall economy are actually up slightly: Sixty-one percent now approve, up from 56 percent last week.
The poll numbers can be explained in part by the fact that most Americans do not think there was much the Obama administration could have done about the bonuses. Only 12 percent think the administration had a lot of control over the payouts, while more than half say the administration had little or no control.
Even so, 56 percent of Americans say the administration ought to have found some way to stop the bonuses from being paid out. Thirty-four percent said it should not have.
And we don't think that Geithner is the problem:
While Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has been much-criticized in Washington for his handling of the bonus situation, that criticism is not shared by most Americans. About half express confidence in Geithner’s overall ability to deal with the nation’s economic crisis, though only 13 percent have a lot of confidence in him right now.
The President not spending enough time on the economy? It is the Congress that needs to spend more time on the crisis. And the media should stop hyping the AIG mess:
Nearly half of Americans say President Obama is spending the right amount of time dealing with the bonuses, and the rest are split on whether he is paying too much attention (24 percent) or too little attention (21 percent) to the issue.
Meanwhile, a majority of Americans - 53 percent - think Congress is spending too little time trying to solve the nation’s broader economic problems. And 40 percent believe the media is too focused on AIG and that they should be spending more time focused on other issues.
More bad news for the Republicans:
U.S. home prices rose 1.7% in January compared with December, the Federal Housing Finance Agency reported Tuesday. It was the first monthly increase in a year.
Home prices are down 6.3% in the past year and are down 9.6% from the peak in April 2006, the agency said. In December, the year-over-year decline was 8.8%.
Falling home values have helped to plunge the global financial system into chaos because of mortgage-backed securities. Homeowners have lost trillions of dollars of wealth.
The "unexpected rise" in January was partially due to stronger sales in some markets, FHFA said. The FHFA index attempts to control for such changes in sales patterns, but the adjustment is not perfect, the agency said. The agency warned that its estimate was uncertain and subject to large revisions.
December's index, originally reported as a 0.1% increase, was revised down to a 0.2% decline.
"While this is certainly good news, in our view it is too soon to call a turnaround in the cycle," wrote Charmaine Buskas, a senior economist for TD Securities. "We will have to see several consecutive months of improved prices before a true turnaround can be called, and a significant inventory overhang remains."
Prices rose or were flat in eight of nine regions in January; only the Pacific states registered a decline, down 0.9%. Prices rose 3.9% in the East North Central region, which includes most of the Great Lakes states. Prices rose 3.6% in the South Atlantic region (from Delaware to Florida).
In the past year, prices are down in all nine regions, led by the Pacific with a 21.1% decline. The smallest price decline has been the 0.4% drop in the West South Central (which includes Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Louisiana).
Rush must be dejected:
Sales of existing homes jumped 15.6 percent in the Northeast last month, according to a new report from the National Association of Realtors.
On a national level, existing home sales were up 5.1 percent in February, the report found.
1 comment:
CNN reported that their poll of polls has the President's job approval rating at 63%. Which is higher than the last 4 President's poll numbers at same point in their First terms.
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