Republican presidential candidate Carly Fiorina declared the stock market “has been way too high” because of Federal Reserve policy and is now having a “correction” that is “warranted” on Monday’s “Fox & Friends” on the Fox News Channel.
Fiorina commented on the stock market’s selloff on Friday (the interview took place before the market opened on Monday), saying, “I actually have been expecting a correction for some time. The market has been way too high given the fundamentals. Our economy is not particularly strong, 2% growth is very lackluster. China’s economy has been slowing down for some time. Europe’s economy is in trouble. I think the stock market has hit record highs over and over again because the Federal Reserve has ensured, through its easy money policy, that the stock market’s the only place you can earn a return. And now the Federal Reserve, finally, is going to back off of that easy money policy. So, I think this is warranted, honestly.”
Fiorina also discussed Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s emails, arguing, “here’s one of the reasons I think people are just sick of politics, is because we have all these sanitized soundbites and bumper sticker rhetoric, and people don’t use common sense language anymore. By any common sense definition of the term, she lied, about Benghazi, she lied about her server, and she’s lied about her emails. I think the most effective thing a Republican candidate for office can do, is to continue to throw punches at the other side, because ultimately we’re going to face off against a Democratic nominee. Maybe it’s Hillary Clinton, maybe it’s Joe Biden, whoever it is, I’m going to continue to throw my punches at the Democrat Party and their nominee, because that’s the fight we’re going to have to win in 2016.”
Fiorina concluded by talking about jobs in the context of her tenure as Hewlett-Packard’s CEO. She stated, “I hope people will take a real look at my record at HP. I started as a secretary, and during my six years at Hewlett-Packard, through the worst technology recession in 25 years, we doubled the company, we went from lagging behind to leading in every public category, every market segment. We saved jobs. So, I hope people will take a look at that record. Look, the real job creators in this country have always been small businesses, family-owned businesses, community-based businesses, and farms. I started out typing in a nine-person real estate firm. My husband Frank started out driving a tow truck in a family-owned auto body shop. We are crushing those job creators. It’s small business that creates two-thirds of the new jobs, employs half the people. And we are now, for the first time in US history, destroying more of them than we’re creating.”
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett