Positive Words = Dow Upswing

Just last week the Obama administration was being chastised -- deservedly -- for talking down the economy with dire predictions that nothing short of the end of the US economy was coming. As expected, Wall Street reacted in the form of a freefall.

How desperate was Wall Street for any positive message from the administration? All Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke had to say was that the recession might -- might -- end this year, and the market reacted positively. Add to that an assurance that regulators aren't planning to nationalize banks and you have the Dow Jones up over 230 points.

Let's hope that the President's advisers have convinced him to stop creating panic and instead try to instill the "hope" he ran on. When he addresses the nation tonight, let him find a more optimistic tone than the one he's been using since he was sworn in.

You can see the escalating language of fear that Obama utilized to get his spending package approved:
January 23: “We are experiencing an unprecedented, perhaps, economic crisis that has to be dealt with."
January 24: "A bad situation could become dramatically worse."
January 27: "The statistics every day underscore the urgency of the economic situation"
January 30: "This is a continuing disaster for America's working families"
February 2: "Rarely in history has our country faced economic problems as devastating as this crisis"
February 2: "We continue to struggle through unprecedented economic turmoil"
February 3: "The economy is in desperate straits"
February 4: "A failure to act, and act now, will turn crisis into a catastrophe"

This is not the kind of language that would instill confidence in the future of the US economy and Wall Street responded accordingly.

Anyone with even the most basic understanding of the stock market would have realized the reaction to such devastating predictions and yet Obama continued to heap one on another till the market hit a twelve year low.

Maybe he's learned his lesson -- it's just unfortunate that so many people had to lose so much while the president was still in his learning curve.