Oct 10, 2008 9:30 pm US/Eastern
Critics: When President Bush Talks, Markets Tumble
WASHINGTON (AP) ―
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President Bush. (File)
Jim Watson/Getty Images
President Bush on Friday offered reassuring words to stop the hemorrhaging on Wall Street, but once again the stock market fell.
Bush has spoken about the economic chaos on 21 of the last 26 days as the market has been rocked by turmoil. After seven days of massive losses, the Dow Jones industrial average closed down a relatively modest 128 points Friday at its lowest level since April 25, 2003.
The White House pushed back against suggestions that when Bush talks, the market tumbles.
"If he wasn't talking all the time, I can guarantee you the questions from the media would be to me, `Why is the president not talking? The markets have gone down everyday; the president needs to get out there,'" said White House press secretary Dana Perino.
"We're trying to strike the best possible balance that we can," she said. "President Bush recognizes that as the leader of this country, when ... Americans are facing probably more anxiety than they've ever felt in their lives, that it is important that they know that the leader of the free world has his full attention focused on helping solve this problem. That's the purpose of our communications."
Bush made an appearance in the Rose Garden on Friday and said the government's financial rescue plan was aggressive enough and big enough to work but would take time to fully kick in.
"What we're trying to do is stop the bleeding, strengthen the markets ... return people's confidence," Perino said. "Because what happens is, we have a vicious cycle -- there's anxiety, which is causing the uncertainty, which causes the market to go down, which produces further anxiety."
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