Krugman: Fox Business not pro-business, but pro-Republican

New York Times political and economics columnist Paul Krugman argues that Fox Business Network is more of a pro-Republican network like Fox News than it is the pro-business network it purports to be.

Krugman writes, “To make their point they bring on such market experts as … John Bolton. As Wolcott writes, ‘It takes more than a market rally to pull the wool over Bolton’s mustache.’ (Now that’s writing!)

“But seriously, sort of, there’s a broader moral to be drawn from this.

“Clearly, the Fox Business crew is having a very hard time. They bill themselves as being truly pro-business — not like those leftists at CNBC. But they aren’t really pro-business; they’re pro-Republican. They’d like you to believe that it’s the same thing; but there’s this awkward fact that markets have, you know, gone up under Obama.

“And this isn’t just a phenomenon of the last few months. Look back at stock returns under recent presidents, which is easy using a clever gadget at Political Calculations. Taking real, dividend-inclusive annual returns on the S&P 500, I get:

Reagan: 10.08%
Bush I: 10.16%
Clinton: 14.35%
Bush II: minus 5.81%”

Read more here.