And yet, he's pretty popular even to this day.
Carter will always have a special place in my heart for being the only Georgian president, somehow...
-
We have updated our Community Code of Conduct. Please read through the new rules for the forum that are an integral part of Paradox Interactive’s User Agreement.
Carter will always have a special place in my heart for being the only Georgian president, somehow...
Talk about twisting history and logic. The imploding housing market and sub-prime lending disaster championed by Barney Frank, Christopher Dodd and a host of other liberal democrats was far more responsible for the recession and economic collapse toward they end of his second term than anything GWB did by defending America. Bush tried multiple times to reform disastrous programs like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and was stonewalled by the democrats every step of the way. They are the real culprits of the economic collapse. History will be a lot kinder to GWB as the truth is revealed and historians finally get it right. GWB is nowhere near the bottom of the presidential list as stated in this ridiculously liberal hit piece.
On the other hand there is already ample evidence to firmly put Barack Obama at the very top of the list of the worst presidents in history. You also left out the 2nd worst ... Jimma Carter, but that's typical for a liberal.
On the other hand there is already ample evidence to firmly put Barack Obama at the very top of the list of the worst presidents in history. You also left out the 2nd worst ... Jimma Carter, but that's typical for a liberal.
Ah yes, clearly it was the impotent minority party that made all the bad decisions. Just because republicans controlled all three branches of government for 4 of the past 8 years before the crisis and two and a half branches of government for the other four doesn't mean we should think they had any control on national policy. The democrats had a lock on things which is why republican ideas like tax cuts were so dead on arrival in congress.
Clearly anyone who doesn't blame the minority party is wearing partisan blinders.
- 1
well, Georgia did have that one VP of the Confederacy...And yet, he's pretty popular even to this day.
Carter will always have a special place in my heart for being the only Georgian president, somehow...
The law doesn't change if both houses of Congress don't authorize it.
The problem is as I understand it GWB's reforms wouldn't have fixed the problem. The real issue revolved around the culture in our financial institutions. Removing the regulatory requirements that forced the loans down the banks' throats wouldn't have fixed the wildly speculative antics they got up to that led to all the setbacks the banks experienced and kicked the financial collapse off.
Give GWB credit for trying I suppose, but ultimately he presented us with a nonsolution to the real underlying problem which was the corruption within the banks themselves -- neither party had an effective solution for that.
As for Obama's legacy, he will be remembered as a decidedly mediocre President, not the best, not the worst, not even that interesting -- remembered mostly for being the first nonwhite President and for a klunky, awkward health care reform that I honestly think was designed to fail so that a single payer system will be seen as a preferable alternative later on. Not much of a legacy.
Give GWB credit for trying I suppose, but ultimately he presented us with a nonsolution to the real underlying problem which was the corruption within the banks themselves -- neither party had an effective solution for that.
As for Obama's legacy, he will be remembered as a decidedly mediocre President, not the best, not the worst, not even that interesting -- remembered mostly for being the first nonwhite President and for a klunky, awkward health care reform that I honestly think was designed to fail so that a single payer system will be seen as a preferable alternative later on. Not much of a legacy.
- 1
That's giving him credit for more then he did...
Laws aren't supposed to be written by prescient legislators. Congress isn't supposed to predict in 1995 exactly what real estate markets will look like in 2005. If Bush was sitting in the White House in 2005 and there is evidence of widespread problems in housing markets then he is supposed to be the one directing the DOJ to keep a lid on things. Instead the DOJ went to sleep for 8 years. If Bush didn't think he had enough legal power to do something then he should have taken his case to congress, both branches of which were controlled by republicans. It is an astounding abication of duty to act like the president wasn't allowed to do anything about a problem.
You can make the case that the crisis was too hard to predict. I think it's wrong but it's not objectionable. What is objectionable is people who try and change the record, act like the Bush administration wasn't trumpeting the surging markets before the crisis, act like Barney Frank and poor people (i.e. gays and blacks) were to blame for what happened.
It depends on whom you ask. If you were to ask the average Keynesian socialist whether 'increasing aggregate demand' is a good idea when an economy is in a bust they would certainly say yes. At the same time, if you were to ask the average American voter whether Russia is a direct threat to American interests abroad, i bet the majority would say yes. But let me rephrase, it is in the President's individual interest to do what the majority of Americans perceive to be in their individual interest.
And no, I am not saying politicians practicing individualism is a good thing.
If the President had an obligation to foreigners he would have honoured the alliance. As it happened the President decided he did not have an obligation so he tore it up, as it was in the interests of his people to do so.
No one would elect a President who would needlessly commit their sons to war over a scrap of paper; there always must be material benefit, even dictators realise this.
- 1
In the payment of the interest of the publick debt, it has been said, it is the right hand which pays the left. The money does not go out of the country. It is only a part of the revenue of one set of the inhabitants which is transferred to another; and the nation is not a farthing the poorer. This apology is founded altogether in the sophistry of the mercantile system, and after the long examination which I have already bestowed upon that system, it may perhaps be unnecessary to say any thing further about it. It supposes, besides, that the whole publick debt is owing to the inhabitants of the country, which happens not to be true; the Dutch, as well as several other foreign nations, having a very considerable share in our publick funds. But though the whole debt were owing to the inhabitants of the country, it would not upon that account be less pernicious. ~ A SmithSo would pretty much any mainstream economist.
I think the Father of Economics knows a fair amount about the subject.
But anyway, that the (alleged) majority of economists believe raising public debt is a good thing only strengthens my point that the President will do what the people perceive to be in their best interest. Public debt or the Franco-American alliance, it makes no difference.
So would pretty much any mainstream economist.
The majority of economists tend to believe things that are taken radically out of context by ideologues. So the expert opinion wont do much to bring people around.
- 1
Umm no. No no no no, that's never how the Presidency has worked. It's the job of the President to be Presidential. He's the chief executive, and he needs to be following his own head. If a President is sure a thing is the right thing to do, even if it is unpopular, it's his job to do it. The popular check on federal authority has always been Congress and specifically the House.
The federal government is in fact designed to be heavily insulated from popular whim, the Framers didn't really trust the masses very much and in my opinion they were right not to.
The Presidency was designed to be an impartial position whose sole duty was the national interest.
However, individualism always triumphs. As such, the President almost always does what it is in his individual interest to do.
- 1
From my point of view, as a Polish, the worst was FDR. Stalin's puppet who sold half of Europe to commies. No coincidence he was highly respected (we got streets in many cities named after him) and hold up as example how US-USRR relations should look like
- 1
So instead we should have done what? Start a decade long war against a nation that was on the cusp of being nuclear armed and had no compunction about losing soldiers by the hundred thousand to accomplish an objective? Fail to learn the lesson of history by starting a land war with Russia? Refuse to cooperate with the Soviets and risk the cold war being a hot war? Those aren't very good options.
I feel deeply sorry for what history did to Poland in the 20th century, but I'm honestly at a loss to see what the West could have done. Any step towards salvaging Poland would have meant war with the USSR at a time when we were already heartily sick of war, and probably would have meant that Poland would be liberated by means of the nuclear bomb, which I think you'll agree isn't even a good thing for Poland.
- 1
Yeah FDR was a very bad President also, he very nearly handed all of China, Japan and Europe to Stalin on a plate.
- 2
Fannie and Freddie should have been allowed to go under. GWB bailing them out was perhaps the biggest step towards socialism America has experienced.
What should he have done? Declare open war on a Maoist-Stalinist coalition? Do you realize how long and bloody a war that would have been? Do you realize what it would have cost us? For starters we would have had to have propped up the old European empires just to have friendly bases to fight, as well as turn Germany and Japan around to join the anti-Communist coalition, and even if we succeeded at that.. LAND. WAR. IN. ASIA. Not a great idea at the best of times and especially not with Russia and half of China as direct enemies.
With the weakness of the old Empires, the strength of resurgent Red-aided anti-Imperialist movements in the colonies, the weakness of Chiang and the strength of Mao, and Russia sitting secure behind its satellites able to fuel and arm the whole mess, we could have entered a situation very easily where all of Asia was one giant Vietnam.
It might surprise some people to learn that there are things even a superpower can't do, but stopping the spread of Communism into Asia and Eastern Europe might have been barely within our means even if we used the nuclear bomb, and once the Soviets got nukes of their own, it was beyond our capability entirely.
- 1