Headlines continue to poor salt in our wounds as we are reminded that the markets ended February with a burst of selling, establishing a new 12 year low. Our market pundits have taken this new low to remind us that the stock markets' February results rivaled those of the great depression year of 1933, the record holder for the worst performing February.
With that as a reference lets take a look at 1933. In March of 1933 a new President, Franklin Roosevelt, took office. In the following 100 days ten major pieces of legislation were enacted, including a few that are still around and couple that were found unconstitutional. The changes proposed were massive, but were all geared toward pulling our economy out of the Great Depression and getting the American people back to work.
Of all the actions President Roosevelt took in those first 100 days, the one that turned everything around was his first, The Emergency Banking Act. The day after his inauguration he called a special session of Congress and closed all the banks in the United States for four days as they worked through the details of the Act. On March 9th, the Act was passed and within four days banks began to re-open. On the fifteenth, a surge of banks were allowed to reopen and the Dow Jones Industrial Average set a one day record performance that still stands today, a gain of 15.34%. The action taken by President Roosevelt was dramatic and certain. For a few days everyone in the country had to survive on the cash in his or her pocket, but it completely turned around the feeling of despair into hope in a single short week.
Last week President Obama sent Congress a Budget Proposal that reflected his promises made during his campaign. These promises included a fair and balanced tax code, his promise to bring down the cost of health care, his promise to reform our educational system, the promise to free us from the grip of foreign oil and finally his promise to keep our American Dream alive. The current response to these promises is nothing more than a heightened level of fear and uncertainty regarding our future.
We need more than promises; we need decisive action to restore faith in our economy. Once we believe that tomorrow will be better than yesterday our economy will begin to recover. Without it we will continue to be disappointed. No more promises Dear President, what we need is action.
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