On Jan. 20, 2009, the day President Barack Obama was inaugurated, the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at 7,949. The S&P 500 and NASDAQ closed at 805 and 1,441, respectively. On Sept. 8, 2012, the closing averages ere Dow, 13,307; S&P 500, 1,438 and NASDAQ, 3,136.

That's a pretty good recovery for financial markets under our "socialist" president, who allegedly hates rich people. The recovery is even better if you realize that the markets were in a state of free fall; the Dow bottomed out at 6,547 on March 9, 2009.

Stock markets are thought to do better under Republican administrations because Republican policies are more pro-business, but this is not true. Larry Elliott, economics editor of The Guardian, stated in an Aug. 29 blog: "A team at CMC Markets set out to test this assumption by analyzing stock market returns under every president since 1900. ... (It) shows that as far as Wall Street is concerned, it is better to vote Democrat. The average monthly return on the stock market has been 0.73 percent under Democratic presidents, almost double the 0.38 percent under Republicans."

Elliott goes on to state, "Obama's performance, using this yardstick of economic health, has been above average."

Though unemployment remains unacceptably high, the U.S. has now seen 30 straight months of job growth, resulting in 4.6 million new jobs. That is better than the job growth during the George W. Bush administration of about three million jobs (net) over its eight years.

In a Sept. 6 blog, Rick Newman, US News Weekly's chief business correspondent, wrote, "Bill Clinton is right: The economy really does do better under Democrats." Check it out at www.usnews.com.

Frank Flaumenhaft

Hilton Head Island