Text 12148, 131 rader
Skriven 2008-03-09 19:28:44 av Jeff Bowman (1:229/500)
  Kommentar till text 12147 av Ross Cassell (1:123/456)
Ärende: Re: Economy (was Bush vetoes Waterboarding Bill)
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> Anyone could have been President during the 1990's and these things still
> would have happened.
 
I simply don't agree.  The public's perception of having a good or bad leader
affects the country, regardless of any decisions made by the lower branches. A
bad leader makes people more afraid of economic change and other such negative
things, which directly affects how people do business, from top tier things
like stocks, to just an average Joe buying a home. 
 
Clinton could have fought tooth and nail with the Republican congress like Bush
has tried to do, but he didn't.  They made it work for the most part, and
thanks to him, they got things going pretty well.  I do give Clinton credit for
that, just like I give Bush blame for what's going on now.  And Bush even had a
free ticket to whatever he wanted to fix things, back when his party controlled
everything.
 
 
> Well he signed NAFTA which his parties candidates seem to be bemoaning
> now, even his wife.
 
Nobody's above making a bad decision, no matter what party you belong to.  We
could talk about No Child Left Behind or any of those other band-aid programs,
too.
 
 
> You can give him credit for presiding over such prosperity but nothing he
> did triggered it, unless of course you believe his Vice President really
> did invent the Internet.
 
I akin your dismissal of Clinton's role to our economic improval to saying the
same thing would have happened with 9/11 and Iraq had someone else been
president now.  Again, this is simply not true.  It's already been proven that
evidence was ignored by the Bush administration which could have possibly
prevented 9/11 from the very start.  Yet we get Bush lackies like Condoleezza
Rice standing up there giving us a bunch of blatant falsehoods to make it sound
like it wasn't their fault, and that they "hate our freedom".
 
Of course, that's not to mention the boatload of mistruths we got about Iraq.
I'm pretty sure had there been a different president, that would have never
been the case.
 
 
 
> Including the recession that Bush inherited as a result of the bubble
> burst?
 
He didn't inherit any true recession, he and his administration caused one.
 
 
> Oh yes, that tax rebate that drove many liberals insane.
 
> Guess you dont have a opinion on the rebates we are fixing to get since
> it had alot of liberal hands in it!
 
I do have an opinion, I think the rebate is a silly attempt to make people
think the government is really trying to help everyone and that there's no
recession.  It's a morale booster for people who are tired of the current
administration, that's all.  The money would have been better spent on
education or healthcare.
 
 
> I'll agree with you there that up til recently, Bush never met a spending
> bill he didnt like.
 
Which is one of the reasons I tire of hearing how it's just liberals wanting to
raise our taxes and spend everyone's money on big government.  Republicans have
always been guilty of it too, just in different areas.
 
 
> It doesnt take a Clinton.
 
Agreed, but another Bush wouldn't improve things.  That's why if it weren't for
McCain being so war hungry, I might actually give him some consideration for
president.
 
 
> However, putting the Iraq war aside, the so called surplus was spent
> before 2003 as funds were diverted to 9-11 recovery, Afghanistan and all
> the infrastructure they put in place as a result, such as TSA, DHS et al.
 
While I think 9/11 could have been prevented altogether had people been doing
their jobs, I have no problem with money being spent to help Afghanistan, rid
it of the Taliban, and to put programs in place to improve the government and
our safety.  I think many of those programs are crap and completely misguided
thanks to Bush, and the Taliban are apparently reasserting themselves in
Afgahnistan since it's the forgotten war, but that's all another story.
 
 
> Still ignoring Iraq, Katrina didnt help.
 
Another avoidable situation, but not the upper level government's fault so
much.
 
 
> Acknowledging Iraq, yes a big part of this deficit.
 
I'm not crying that Saddam is gone.  I was glad that we did what we did, even
after we found out that our reasoning was all bull.  But now look at the almost
inescapable situation we're stuck in, and we have people like Bush and McCain
wanting to keep us there forever.  We just simply can't afford it, and it's
making people hate us, which only makes things worse.  Not to mention, you get
people in the Republican party and administration using it as their own
personal bank account, having ties to the companies sent to rebuild and protect
the place.
 
 
> Will you concede that it wasnt Bush that took the dollar off of the gold
> standard?
>
> The National Debt has been around since I have existed, I turn 45 this
> September, I do not expect it to go away as an issue in my lifetime and
> neither should you in yours.
 
I'll be 29 come June, and I'm optimistic that with the right circumstances and
the right people, we could turn everything back around.  I don't think any of
the current Republicans nor Democrats are those right people, however.
 
The country itself as well as the average citizens are going to have to learn
the hard way that casually living off of credit is not the way to succeed,
whether it's borrowing billions from China for wars or spending a few hundred
dollars you don't have on a credit card.  Creditors are a huge part of our
economic failing, because people just can't/aren't paying it back, and then
interest eats them alive.  At least, until they file bankruptcy, then nobody
gets their money.  But that doesn't stop these companies from scheming on how
to convince people to sign off on the next super high interest rate loan or
credit card.  And thus the cycle continues, because collective America tries to
live too high on the hog these days.

--- D'Bridge 2.98
 * Origin: FyBBS (1:229/500)