toldailytopic: Is Obama really THAT bad?

[Ecumenicist]

What policies?:rotfl:

He was from a Kansas mother, unknown father, raised in Hawaii, chair of the Harvard Law review where he was more familiar with conservatives, then learned to be "African American" in Chicago. He lacks the center you my have and accredit him as having. He thinks other people thoughts, not his own. Shall I say it? He is the first president looking for his head.:sheep:

Along with Bush, averted another great depression.

Stood up against his own party in the interest of national security in Afghanistan.

Realized that closing gitmo and civilian trials for enemy combatants is very difficult, willing to make adjustments to his efforts in the best interest of the country.

Healthcare reform.

Banking reform.

Starting to work on immigration reform.

He knows what he wants to get done and he's doing it, and he's smart enough to adjust his approach to problems as needs require.

 

[Ecumenicist]

There's not much left to destroy after the Reagan Republicans decided to make sure our living wage structure would be destroyed by illegal aliens and pushing jobs abroad.
Oppressing workers in their wages is one of the things which God judges.

Some of the ways God judges His people for breaking covenant are below.

When He has forgiven someone who does not pass the grace on, He turns that person over to torturers.

God on social programs: (Hint, oppressive decrees are laws that
take away social benefits, not laws that provide them. God supports social programs that help people.)

Isaiah 10:1-4

1 Woe to those who make unjust laws,
to those who issue oppressive decrees,

2 to deprive the poor of their rights
and withhold justice from the oppressed of my people,
making widows their prey
and robbing the fatherless.

3 What will you do on the day of reckoning,
when disaster comes from afar?
To whom will you run for help?
Where will you leave your riches?

4 Nothing will remain but to cringe among the captives
or fall among the slain.
Yet for all this, his anger is not turned away,
his hand is still upraised.

 

[Ecumenicist]

You do many of us a disservice with those comments. I believe it is a backlash against the excoriating treatment which was dished out to President Bush by liberals during his term in office. President Obama was elected with a sizeable majority, that would include many people representing the other half of his color!
This country is in trouble. We either work together or we fall apart! peace, bybee

Oh, yeah, I remember all those protests with signs depicting Bush as Hitler and a witch doctor, accusing Bush of wanting to kill off old people. And oh, the hate filled emails that circulated accusing him of not being a citizen, and being a fascist, and a closet Moslem! Wait a minute, no, no I don't remember those, because they didn't happen!

Bush deserves much of the criticism he has received, but he also deserves some credit which he does not get. Like attempting immigration reform, and reacting quickly to the banking collapse.

And he deserves credit for kindof admitting the war in Iraq was a mistake, but staying the course because pulling out would have made things worse. And although the war in Iraq was wrong and false and stupid, he was right in going into Afghanistan, because that's where the 9/11 perpetrators plotted and trained.

 

[Trumpetfolker]

Obama had to have access to the only money that can provide a guy with a viable candidacy. Every president has been.
That money needed to get concessions from America that the white guy could not get.
Simple.
Every four years, the voters get played..

 

[Trumpetfolker]

Obama had to have access to the only money that can provide a guy with a viable candidacy. Every president for decades has had to have the same access.
That money needed to get concessions from America that the white guy could not get.
Simple.
Every four years, the voters get played.
There are only two ways you (the person without trillions of bucks) can change a nation: you can organize militias with axes and scythes, or, you can just move out of the economy.
Jesus taught the second. When people do the first, you don't wanna be any where around.

 

[WandererInFog]

The problem is everyone seems to forget we nearly went into great depression

A relatively small number of economists made predictions that extreme, the more common comparison was that we headed into a recession comparable to the one experienced in 1981-82 but more international in scope. News media got a lot of mileage out of the phrase "worst economic crisis since the Great Depression", but often they used it in a misleading manner. When economists used the phrase, they said "worst international economic crisis since the Great Depression", which is absolutely true. All of the other major downturns of the 20th century were more narrow in scope internationally. Still, the phrase seems to mislead people as, for whatever reason, they process "since the Great Depression" to mean "as bad as the Great Depression", which it doesn't.

And Obama spent a great deal of money without actually fixing any of the underlying problems, so that in another year or two we're going to be right back where we were in late 2008 and early 2009. Only this time with a radically higher debt and deficit.

number 2. I don't think the bailouts were handled in the best manner, but I think something like that was necessary. Letting go of the economy and banking system in the middle of such a disaster would have sunk us even more than our current debt problem.

Short term? Quite possibly. Long term though we've simply assured the bankruptcy of the US federal government. Now, I suppose, by further delaying the inevitable at least more bankers will have time to move more of themselves and their assets overseas. So I guess it helps someone at least...

And our debt is 99% not Obama's fault. Bush added to it massively during a time of prosperity rather than a time of crisis. I don't understand how people are so blind to this fact.

He's already responsible for a lot more than that. At the end of 2008 the gross federal debt sat 9.9 trillion at the end of 2010 it's estimated it will sit at 14.4 trillion. If we're going to hold Presidents responsible for the debt accrued during their tenure, then by only midway through his term, Obama will already be responsible for a full third of the federal debt.

I used to believe Republicans were actually FOR fiscal conservatism, until Bush showed me what complete liars they are. Looking back at the recent history of the US debt, Republicans increase debt, while democratic administrations seem to reduce it.

Well, the present one certainly hasn't, and if you're talking about Clinton, in his first two years in office he continued to increase the debt as well. I could say that the only reason the deficit was reduced from '94-'00 was because of the election of a conservative Republican congress, but while it's technically true, I think that's as misleading as painting Clinton as some sort deficit reducing crusader. The reality is that deficit only went down when the America public demanded that it go down and were willing to cast their votes accordingly. Until that attitude becomes pervasive again, neither party can really be trusted to be fiscally responsible.

 

[Ecumenicist]

A relatively small number of economists made predictions that extreme, the more common comparison was that we headed into a recession comparable to the one experienced in 1981-82 but more international in scope....

'81/'82 Recession didn't threaten the banking industry, i.e. run on the banks, i.e. the true comparison to the great depression.

Well, the present one certainly hasn't, and if you're talking about Clinton, in his first two years in office he continued to increase the debt as well. I could say that the only reason the deficit was reduced from '94-'00 was because of the election of a conservative Republican congress, but while it's technically true, I think that's as misleading as painting Clinton as some sort deficit reducing crusader. The reality is that deficit only went down when the America public demanded that it go down and were willing to cast their votes accordingly. Until that attitude becomes pervasive again, neither party can really be trusted to be fiscally responsible.

The dotcom bubble may have been part of the reason for the US's ability to pay down the debt under Clinton. Back then, profits were taxed. When the bubble went away, so did the revenue to pay down the debt. The banking bubble didn't do anything for the debt because Bush lowered taxes for the richest in the country (i.e. the banks and bankers.) Oh yeah, and then there was that war thingy...

Either way, the debt was 121% of the GDP in 1946, was as low as 32% in 1981, and is projected to be at 94% for 2010.

Scary numbers, but we've been here before and gotten out of it. We can do it again.

Here's a pointer to where these numbers come from:

http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/federal_debt_chart.html

 

[Cracked]

Wow...delusional toad.

What Granite said is quite truthful - the republicans lost the last presidential election (largely) because of Bush. Now we see, once again, that the alternative is not much better.

In 2012, I'm voting for Cthulhu! http://cthulhu2012.com/

 

[Granite]

What Granite said is quite truthful - the republicans lost the last presidential election (largely) because of Bush. Now we see, once again, that the alternative is not much better.

In 2012, I'm voting for Cthulhu! http://cthulhu2012.com/

Always been a Nyarlathotep man myself!

 

[PlastikBuddha]

Always been a Nyarlathotep man myself!

I'm voting for the Azathoth/Shub-Niggurath ticket.

 

[GuySmiley]

Well that could play a part in it, sure, but there's little doubt in my mind that plenty of Americans hate Obama for who and what he is, not what he's done (which is really next to nothing). And Bush II deserved a lot of the criticism that he got, just as Obama does...although in Obama's case I notice that very few people criticize him about anything substantial. Maybe that's just the state of affairs in our political milieu.

We're in trouble, all right, but I don't see us coming together as one any time soon.

There's plenty of evidence that Americans also love Obama for who and what he is and not what he's done. Politics have become just another major league sport in America. Actually that's wrong. People pay more attention to the details of sports. I really believe what people (the masses) want from a politician is for them to just go away. Be president and stay off the TV.

 

[WandererInFog]

Either way, the debt was 121% of the GDP in 1946, was as low as 32% in 1981, and is projected to be at 94% for 2010.

You might want to take a deeper look at exactly how that was possible. From '46 on the actual debt never declined, the GDP just grew faster. Following WWII there was essentially a perfect storm of factors that allowed the US economy to undergo unprecedented growth that can't be replicated in this era. We had built up a massive manufacturing base that once the war was over could be turned to the production of civilian goods at a time when the rest of the industrialized world was in ruins, and behind all of that was cheap, readily available oil to fuel the process.

There's nothing even remotely comparable to that on the horizon presently. Soon, likely before the end of this decade, we're going to face a choice between either defaulting on our debt or hyperinflating our currency to pay it off, and the actions of the present administration are what has made that inevitable. That doesn't mean it's solely their fault by any stretch of the imagination, it took decades of mismanagement to get us to this point. It's simply that the actions of the present administration have sped up the process considerably and will likely end up being when the debt finally passed the point of no-return.

 

[Ecumenicist]

You might want to take a deeper look at exactly how that was possible. From '46 on the actual debt never declined, the GDP just grew faster. Following WWII there was essentially a perfect storm of factors that allowed the US economy to undergo unprecedented growth that can't be replicated in this era. We had built up a massive manufacturing base that once the war was over could be turned to the production of civilian goods at a time when the rest of the industrialized world was in ruins, and behind all of that was cheap, readily available oil to fuel the process.

There's nothing even remotely comparable to that on the horizon presently. Soon, likely before the end of this decade, we're going to face a choice between either defaulting on our debt or hyperinflating our currency to pay it off, and the actions of the present administration are what has made that inevitable. That doesn't mean it's solely their fault by any stretch of the imagination, it took decades of mismanagement to get us to this point. It's simply that the actions of the present administration have sped up the process considerably and will likely end up being when the debt finally passed the point of no-return.

We're in the process of making up lost ground in the GDP, that will work to our advantage. If we can reduce the debt and increase productivity, we can get out of this.

We don't have the raw materials processing in the US that was here after WWII, but we have end product mfg and in theory higher profits for corporations manufacturing overseas with lower labor rates.

Of course, we'll go nowhere with the right wing "can't won't" attitude blocking all attempts at recovery and health cost control. The post WWII mentality was much more "can-do." If we want to get through this, we need to adopt "yes we can" as a national attitude, and get our troops out of the middle east - that's a huge cost burden all by itself.

 

[WandererInFog]

We're in the process of making up lost ground in the GDP, that will work to our advantage. If we can reduce the debt and increase productivity, we can get out of this.

No, we can't. All the positive thinking you can muster up won't change reality. At the end of this year we will have $14 trillion in debt. Not million, not billion. Trillion. That's $14,000,000,000,000.

That's such a number that it makes it nearly impossible to grasp in real terms, so let me break it down for you in a way that helped in getting my mind around just how bad the problem is.

As of 2010 there are 309,162,581 people in the US, that a debt of $45k per man woman and child in the US. And that's assuming we all cut a check at the end of 2010 and cease all deficit spending.

We don't have the raw materials processing in the US that was here after WWII, but we have end product mfg and in theory higher profits for corporations manufacturing overseas with lower labor rates.

Manufacturing now only accounts for roughly 12% of the US GDP. There's not going to be some magic boom there that's going to save us.

Of course, we'll go nowhere with the right wing "can't won't" attitude blocking all attempts at recovery and health cost control. The post WWII mentality was much more "can-do." If we want to get through this, we need to adopt "yes we can" as a national attitude, and get our troops out of the middle east - that's a huge cost burden all by itself.

If someone is walking face first into a concrete wall over and over, the answer is to quit doing it, not to chant "Yes we can" in the hopes that the wall will magically disappear if they just do it enough.

 

[Ecumenicist]

No, we can't. All the positive thinking you can muster up won't change reality. At the end of this year we will have $14 trillion in debt. Not million, not billion. Trillion. That's $14,000,000,000,000.

OK, so big numbers are scary. Scales expand over centuries, that's why percentages are all that really matter.

That's such a number that it makes it nearly impossible to grasp in real terms, so let me break it down for you in a way that helped in getting my mind around just how bad the problem is.

As of 2010 there are 309,162,581 people in the US, that a debt of $45k per man woman and child in the US. And that's assuming we all cut a check at the end of 2010 and cease all deficit spending.

Its bad, no doubt about it. Numbers are scary, but they would have been scarier in 1946 based on average income and population. Ratios really matter.

Manufacturing now only accounts for roughly 12% of the US GDP. There's not going to be some magic boom there that's going to save us.

If someone is walking face first into a concrete wall over and over, the answer is to quit doing it, not to chant "Yes we can" in the hopes that the wall will magically disappear if they just do it enough.

The economy has shifted, but we're the engineers and marketeers and distributers now. Companies are making larger profits by manufacturing overseas. It sucks for the skilled trades-person but it works for the companies and for the economy overall.

We quit the concrete wall thing when we got Republicans out of the presidency. Now we can.

 

[kmoney]

As the OP points out, Obama HAS fundamentally changed this country. And he's not done yet.

Where did the OP point that out? :squint:

He's an infected pimple on the buttocks of America.

You're an infected pimple on the buttocks of TOL. lain:

who protected your ungrateful, unpatriotic butt for 7 years after 9/11, Obama is an egomaniacal dictator.

And if Obama goes through these 4 years without a major terrorist attack are you going to say that he protected us? lain:

No, we didn't have any attacks since 9/11 but that's not necessarily due to Bush. Or to Obama now that he's president.

Um, who presided over the worst terrorist attack in US history? Bush didn't protect those three thousand very well now did he?

I hope you don't actually blame Bush for that, and instead you are just saying that in response to rab's ignorant post. Bush wasn't responsible for those attacks. Unless he planned them himself. :noid:

The problem is everyone seems to forget we nearly went into great depression number 2. I don't think the bailouts were handled in the best manner, but I think something like that was necessary. Letting go of the economy and banking system in the middle of such a disaster would have sunk us even more than our current debt problem.

I think all the bailouts did was just maintain a fundamentally flawed system. The props will break eventually, in my belief. So, I probably would have preferred to let the economy crash more instead of putting a band-aid on the problem. The change we need won't come until we're broken.

I just read an article the other day about how Americans had actually started to save more over the past couple years, in the midst of the economic crisis. Household debt was dropping fast. Guess what's happening now? A few signs of recovery and people are back to their old spending habits. The saving rate is on the decline again. It's sad, I think.

Everybody should take a Dave Ramsey course. :chuckle:

 

[Alate_One]

I hope you don't actually blame Bush for that, and instead you are just saying that in response to rab's ignorant post. Bush wasn't responsible for those attacks. Unless he planned them himself. :noid:

No, I don't really BLAME him per se but he was just as blind as any other politician (perhaps more) to potential threats to the country. Then when he responds in a way, any other politician would to the threat, somehow he's magically some brilliant savior/protector of the country. It's nonsense. Nevermind all the death that happened to Americans not on US soil during the Bush administration.

I think all the bailouts did was just maintain a fundamentally flawed system.

I agree with you though I'm hoping the banking reform legislation will change that at least somewhat.

The props will break eventually, in my belief. So, I probably would have preferred to let the economy crash more instead of putting a band-aid on the problem. The change we need won't come until we're broken.

I trend to agree with you that its only a real problem that spurs good legislation but I really don't think any of us wanted to get into the situation of an economic crash. I think its been so long since anything like that has happened to the U.S. that we've forgotten how bad they can be. I think bailouts of a sort were necessary as a band aid - though I think ultimately they were not run in the most helpful manner.

I just read an article the other day about how Americans had actually started to save more over the past couple years, in the midst of the economic crisis. Household debt was dropping fast. Guess what's happening now? A few signs of recovery and people are back to their old spending habits. The saving rate is on the decline again. It's sad, I think.

Everybody should take a Dave Ramsey course. :chuckle:

The problem is the economic growth of the US has been driven by consumer spending for a very long time. The only thing that drives said spending is people spending what they don't have. I'm not sure what will change that . . .perhaps an . .economic crash? :chuckle:

That said I really don't want to live through one, I already know how not to run up huge credit card debt . . .

 

[The Barbarian]

BTW, guess who said "deficits don't matter." Just saying...

 

[Nick M]

Obama's style and skin color makes him easier to hate than most but the idea that he's somehow worse than what came before is a total joke. The hatred is just a backlash; a delayed reaction that's been winding up and looking for an outlet ever since Clinton left office.

His skin color has nothing to do with it. I hate Jimmy Carter and you just as much. In fact, I did vote for a black man, just not that man. More evidence that granite is, well, stupid.

 

[Nick M]

And Reagan is a great President, and proof that we don't have to settle on the one issue candidate. His mistake was making a deal with Tip O'Niel think that no good democrat would keep his end of the bargain and reel in discretionary spending.