An astute reader reports that every time President Obama makes a speech about his plans to have Big Government “save” the economy, the Dow Jones Industrial Average takes a nose dive. The stock market starts to drop, the reader states, even before the speech is over. There have been many articles written about how the President can “talk down” the economy. There is apparently much evidence to support this notion.

Now, you can argue that the nose dive is just coincidence – or float the idea that it would have been much worse without the President’s actions –  but it does lead one to some thoughtful analysis. If this is in fact true, why would it be true?

Look at your own personal budget. Look at the budget of your business. When you are running short on cash, would you ever think that the solution is to simply spend, spend, spend record amounts of money that you do not even have on investments that you know to be failing? I would suggest that responsible businesses and individuals would more likely try to find ways to save, economize and restructure while spending less.

Now imagine that you – as a responsible business or individual – heard that through a new law, you are being forced into making bad investments. You will now be required to pay for what you consider to be a bad idea. During your own times of economic hardship, you are now being forced by the Federal Government to pay for businesses less successful than your own or risk not only legal penalties, but being called greedy as well.

If it is a fact that the stock market drops every time the President makes a speech, perhaps this is part of the reason. In any case, is there much surprise that investors in businesses, demonized for being successful, are skittish when they hear about how they will be forced to spend their money?