Ex-President Barack Obama (D) said that in his Friday speech at the University of Illinois.  I agree with him, but not for the reason he might think.

President Donald Trump might have triggered our economic recovery with lower taxes and reduced regulation.  He might have begun restoring our nation’s position around the world with his firm rhetoric regarding responsibilities and his refusal to apologize—indeed, his willingness overtly to celebrate—American uniqueness and greatness.

But his election, and his performance in office, are symptoms of the malaise under which our nation labored during eight years of Obama’s economic failures, constant apologies for our nation’s historic successes around the globe, and timidity in enforcing even the most glibly offered red lines.

A recent Wall Street Journal article concerned the duration and potential durability of our current stock market bull run.  The bull has lasted

3,453 days since the S&P 500 hit its low of 666 on March 9, 2009. Since then, the broadest US blue-chip index has more than quadrupled in price terms….

What’s interesting to me, though, is this graph that was presented early in the piece.

Notice the gray line, which represents the Shanghai Composite Index.  The People’s Republic of China’s index representing the PRC’s stock market, such as it is, bottomed out some months earlier than did our market and those of Europe (Stoxx) and Japan (Nikkei)—and since then it has never really recovered, rising only slightly since that bottom.