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ven though this question risks replies from some college freshmen and sophomores who have one or two macroeconomics classes under their belts and therefore should be running the Treasury Department, I want to ask it.
A buddy of mine who has a degree in economics, but hasn't really used it for quite some time now in his current profession stated that the President really doesn't have all that much control over the economy.
Bush really isn't to blame for the downturn since it was third-party forces outside of his control. His biggest blunder with the economy was the appearance of his mishandling, but he's not really to blame.
Same with Obama. Obama can't snap his fingers and cure everything. His biggest blunder, too, is the appearance that he's not trying to fix it, and is instead focusing on other non-economic issues.
So, is this assessment accurate?

This assessment is partially correct.
the president can't fix the economy any better than the soviet union could centrally manage theirs successfully, it is not possible to reach economic prosperity by having someone with a gun telling everyone how much to produce of everything.

the way modern economies work today is broken.
the main problem is that we no longer have free markets, mainly because central banks try to centrally control the amount of money and credit in circulation by setting an arbitrary interest rate, instead of letting the market decide what the interest should be.
the president could in theory abolish the central bank, and stop the commercial banks from conducting fractional reserve lending, and stop propping up failed businesses, which is why he is somewhat responsible for this mess.

If the president made it his top priority to cut government spending and reduce regulations, I believe he could greatly affect the economy in the long run.

The president also has certain powers that could reduce costs & at the same time show his resolve in cutting spending. For instance, he could give a full pardon to every person in prison on a drug charge, state he will continue to pardon all drug charges the rest of his term, and that would be the end to the war on drugs (at least at the federal level).

Of course, all of this is moot. The goal of presidents is to increase federal power, regardless of the cost to the economy.

President Andrew Jackson used all the political capital he could muster to eliminate the central bank. He risked his entire political legacy on this battle, and he won. He eliminated the central bank, and over the next 75 years or so the United States experienced the greatest period of economic growth ever seen in history prior to that time. It wasn't until 1913 that the central bankers were once again able to dig their claws into the U.S. economy. Since the establishment of the Federal Reserve in 1913, the value of U.S. currency has lost 95% of its value.

Presidents do have considerable opportunity to affect the economy either positively or negatively. Unfortunately many implement policies that harm the economy more than help it.

If the president were to "stop the commercial banks from conducting fractional reserve lending" then he would be interfering with the free market.  Are you taking "fractional reserve banking" to include fraud where banks pretend that they are actually engaged in deposit banking?

Yes, i am.
fractional reserve banking is a form of fraud.
the fact that the market should be free does not mean that there is no rule of law to prevent fraud.
if a bank wants to loan a client's money it needs to ask the client to loan it to the bank first.

Not as much as people blame/praise them for it. Certainly less than what the current president falsely promised he can do - or clearly on purpose implied he could do. "Let me be clear..."

But by liberal logic, bush was in complete control of the housing markets and obama is only being 'obstructed' by......everything else that is not their cup of tea.

I think your education can clearly tell you which conclusion is the more logical one. Just as you may not blame the current lack of significant progress fully on the empty suit, you cannot fully place blame on the previous downturn as brainchild of bush jr. Economics have a life of their own.

We are even now relatively a free market society. People who are just waking up to the intricacies of the weave between politics, money, and influence based institutions have no right to screech and wail that present system in US is something they can criticize - in other nations they are taken for granted that it is that corrupt.

President has small slice of the pie in terms of economic influence. His sphere of influence is mainly centered around soft influence in domestic matters + executive power of the state to command the armed forces and intelligence organs who can deliver the pain to those who need killing. Any further influence on economic spheres of influence can be considered 'extracurricular'.

Now if you were to discuss IF those 'extracurriculars' are actually like so in these times, that's another matter all together. But certainly in US president's main sphere of influence lies in areas of political and military control.

president can write or influence laws that can effect the economy

Ok.  I agree that free market does not imply the freedom to commit fraud.

I don't include "fraud" in my definition of "fractional reserve banking"; I see it instead as a form of gambling.

He personally doesn't have that mich power, it is the people behind him in the shadows that pull the strings. The Federal Reserve obviously has major power over the country and basically owns it.

From the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy:

The President has some control of the financial/budget policy (with the Congress), but almost none on the monetary policy. The FED made much more for the recovery of the Economy than the President. Just see the mess in which Europe is. The only difference is the conservative monetary policy of the ECB (only now, to late, starting to change).

I just added Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy to my "must read" list. It appears to contain a great deal of wisdom about political power.

On a scale of 1-10, how much do you think the president actually even wholeheartedly cares about the economy vs. just wanting to make sure that everyone is paying taxes?

They do care for the Economy. All studies show that people vote taking in account their pockets. If they are empty, they vote against the president.

The fed isn't part of the US government. They merely wield the authority that congress granted them. So now we pay interest on currency we could print debt free.

A president could have a great deal of influence over the economy. He could do what Kennedy did and return the power to print debt free currency to the treasury where it belongs and short circuit the fed. Then he could decide NOT to drive around dallas in a convertible.

If you vote against the current president, you still have to vote for the other candidate, who will end up doing the exact same thing. 

There are independent candidates, even if they haven't a chance to win.
Anyway, I see some differences between republicans and democrats.

Absolutely! One of the parties pretends to be pro gay rights.

Voting has no effect on the continuous march of one world government/collectivism. If it did it'd be banned.

...

OP asked:

"How much control does the President truly have over the economy?"

OROBTC responds:

It depends.  .gov or the President can mess up the economy very quickly with bad decisions, but to build the economy back up takes time and determination.  The populist (= pandering) solutions usually work out poorly... 

Free enterprise / Liberty / Capitalism have a bad popular taint to them now as concepts, but that is how America became great.  Now we have filthy banksters and corrupt politicians who have hijacked the USA.

"Our debts and our sins are greater than we think."
-- Wm Shakespeare

Here's the thing, politics is like WWE wrestling. They pretend to hate each other and focus on all their differences, but behind closed doors, they are all buddies, playing golf and smoking cigars together.

The big crash of 2008 could have been avoided at the cost of a smaller crash about two years earlier. Without some of the Bush-era stimulus policies, there would have been a crash in housing several years earlier, but it would have been about the size of the savings and loan debacle of the 1980s. There was a mindset, fully endorsed by Alan Greenspan at the Fed, that rising house prices were a good thing and a source of wealth. Greenspan really didn't believe that someday there had to be a crash in housing. ("Houses can only go up!". Wrong.)

A big problem was the earlier elimination of Glass-Stegall, the law which kept commercial banks from getting into the stock market. While brokerages were separate from banking, a Wall Street crash didn't take down the banking system. That separation was put into place in 1933 because of the 1929 crash. It was repealed in 1999. Trouble soon followed.

Deregulation happened during Clinton administration

Must watch:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1232207/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=232qaFGyzwQ

you cant blame only the president for this mess, you have to blame the whole government from this mess, since the time they started taking loans from banks and printing more money, and these caused the USA to lose there rating from owing not only banks but other countries as well.

Well if we say Obama has control over the economy, we have to acknowledge that the US economy is controlled by minorities under 29, who make less than 50k a year, since they placed Obama into power through their overwhelming support of Obama :o     
 
       

so if they put him there, your saying he had only minority votes is kinda being naive dont you think, There were educated who put him there and middle class that made over 50k a year.  Celeberity support also they surely dont make underneath 50k a  year

Actually the most powerful economic weapon is fiscal policy. Though it depends on whether it's used correctly.
So the President (and gov't as a whole) does theoretically have significant control over economy. The problem is that he hardly uses his weapon correctly.

We're having the same problem now because of Bernanke.  There was the idea that they could use the "threat" of QE, and then QE itself, to prevent a downturn in the market and weakening of the economy.  There have ALWAYS been business cycles in the modern economy and the Fed is trying to get rid of them.  It seems a bubble has been forming AGAIN because we didn't take our medicine after the last 2.  I mean, interest rates are so freakin low already and they used QE and are still using QE, meanwhile we are due for another recession pretty soon (maybe it's happening now) so what the heck is the Fed gonna do if things get ugly now? 

I don't care if some jerk off celebrity voted for him.  The point is he was elected basically from Hispanic votes in swing states.  His support stems primarily from "minorities" that make less than 50k (because if I say black and hispanic; people will have a shit fit.)  He also dominated the population of voters under age 29. 

The point was just to comment that if you think the president controls the economy., then these are the people that control the economy.  I don't believe that, but than again maybe that's part of why the US is in the predicament it is in.

The fed is out of weapons. All of their tampering with free markets, manipulation of interest rates, looting of savers, encouraging obscene public and private debt levels, it's all to keep the dollar ponzi running a little longer.

Listen just because the american people put him there doesnt mean that people voted for him had anything to do with his failures and it goes for all the presidents before him.  The ones who put the strings is the ones he owes favors for.

He is a puppet of people with money.

Naturally. In this case owned and operated by goldman sachs.

look at the china president...they have the power to make what they want!

It's well known that the candidate that gets more money usually wins. But to be fair, Obama gets most of his money from small contributions.

Sorry, but puppets has no power.

Cut government spending? That means they'll recieve taxes but don't spend it on education, healthcare, maintenance of infrastructure, etc.

Great idea.

The economy is in the hands of the federal reserve and the large banks, not the presidents and other rulers or nations. They should completely rebuild the financial system but I doubt anyone has that power.

they control the money supply so it's fully control.

not only Gold man Sachs Was RGB and other wall street firms that threw him parties to promote him, I worked at one of them and they threw him a event. 

Sure, there are lots of rich guys barry owes a bj to. I was just going by largest corporate bribes campaign contributions. Goldman also gave the controlled opposition lots of "contributions".

If Goldman Sachs controls the american state and hence the world, I guess the 550 millions it paid in fines to the SEC in 2010 was a political donation (http://www.sec.gov/news/press/2010/2010-123.htm)
Or the 416 million fine it paid to EU last month (http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-04-02/goldman-sachs-to-nexans-fined-by-eu-for-power-cable-cartel.html)

The president is not accountable to anyone that gives him money. He runs for election at most two times and as unfrequent enough intervals so that as long as he manages the country sufficiently people will donate money to his campaign.

The president controls the economy via regulation and economic policies. He cannot crash it nor can he make it boom but he can nudge it in either direction based on how well he manages it.

In the United States the power of the President is very constrained regarding the economy, in many ways much more than prime ministers in other systems.

If you look historically probably the most influential president at trying to move the economy was FDR and even his new deal was almost derailed by the US Supreme Court, e.g. minimum wage law, that was actually passed by Congress was illegal according to the court until the next year when it wasn't.  Other presidents, Ford, Carter, even more pathetic.

So while the president can sometimes set the tone, either willingly or otherwise, outside of their appointment of the Chair of the Federal Reserve, not a lot they can do, assuming good will.

The president can influence what laws that congress at least proposes.

The president can regulate via the various government agencies (EPA - obama has used the EPA a lot, SEC, DEA, DOJ, HHS, OCC).

The president can put pressure on Congress to get certain law passed (he is not always successful, but always can start a public debate)