You are misinformed and not looking at the whole picture.

Some of you seem to like talking about Presidential history and how it relates to the current economic predicament we find ourselves in but you only like going back 8 years and blaming Bush for everything.

So lets go back a little farther shall we? Everyone pretty much knows this whole thing started with the housing crash. Did Bush cause the housing crash? I don’t think so.

While Bill Clinton was having extra marital affairs with White House interns, they were also forcing banks to make extremely risky home loans and loosen credit standards under the presumption that not enough “poor” people could buy homes.

You know the typical liberal line “It’s not fair that only rich people with good credit can get mortgages” which of course sent people on a home buying spree which of course drove home prices into space. Then congress told the banks not to worry about it because all the loans would be insured by Freddie and Fannie and the banks would be safe.

All through the Bush administration when warnings were given and concerns raised during the famous Freddie and Fannie hearings the democrats in control of congress repeatedly said during those hearings “THERE IS NO PROBLEM” and even accused republications of being on a witch hunt. (btw, anyone can watch the hearings on youtube) Read carefully, it was the Democrats not Bush who said there were no problems before all this mess started. It's the truth, go watch it yourself.

Two years later when people started defaulting on the loans (This by the way was when unemployment was still low about the same as under Bill C.) Freddie and Fannie went belly up along with the banks that made the original loans. After that a chain reaction started in the market and here we are.
So don’t blame everything under the sun on Bush. This started long before he was President.

GW inherited a few things himself, just like Obama did.

How about talking about what Obama is doing today and give some substance instead of just I hate Bush one liners?

Right on, DK...

OK, DK, if you want to rewind, let's go back to Reagan's famous "Trickle Down" theory. Not only did it NOT trickley down, it drowned the middle class! You can bet Katrina on that.

Amen, DK. Reagan policies did work. Clinton was the beneficiary. The economy was on the way up when he took office.

I'm game. I'll see your Reagan and raise you a Jimmy Carter. When Reagan took office from Carter we had double digit inflation, gas lines, 10% + unemployment, 18% home mortgages and our military was in shambles not to mention all the bank failures. That's what Reagan inherited. That's what Obama is going to leave us with again...

I can keep going.

I have a spreadsheet with all the economic numbers by year and by President going back 60 years. The numbers don't work to your favor Chels but it's still meaningless. Give us some substantive commentary on Obama's plans and how it will help our economy and pay down the national debt for our grand kids.

Ya, right! George Bush Senior called Reganomics "Voo Doo Economics" and one of Reagan's key ingredients was to reduce government regulation of the
economy. And you really think that didn't start this tangled up ball rolling???

"Reagan's tax policies were accused of pushing both the international transactions current account and the federal budget into deficit and led to a significant increase in public debt. Debt exploded from 900 billion dollars before Reagan's tenure to 2.8 trillion dollars after his tenure; an increase of over 200%."

Read it and weep.

Your leaving something out. The national debt started rising fairly dramatically going all the way back to Johnson. You are also not taking into account our military was in bad shape when Reagan took office.

He embarked on a pretty sizable rebuild of our military which ultimately won the cold war for the USA. Military spending is the one thing government is supposed to spend money on. One which I gladly pay my taxes for.

You seem to dislike national debt but your current leader is going to quadruple it or more on wasteful pork spending, bailing everyone and their mother out except of course the one's that play the rules, bank takeovers, etc. Bush is not much better quite honestly but Obama’s spending scheme makes Bush look a rank amateur.

Did you realize the Wells Fargo CEO and also one from another large bank just went public and turned down the bail out money because he said they were in good shape and didn't need it or want it? Do you also realize that Obama's Treasury Secretary forced them to take the money anyway? With strings attached of course.

Are you really keeping an eye on what’s going on here?

Originally Posted by chelsea24

News flash! Bush was the major cause of it! And much, much more. No one is giving President Obama a free pass. They are giving him more than 3 weeks to try to cure a very diseased economy that was laid at his feet.

Gotta tell you...a claim like "Bush was the major cause of it! " is so very inaccurate and afar from the facts I would need you to make your case with some validation that Bush was the major cause.

You excuse so very many people over the last years with a statement like that so will look forward to your case to show that ex President Bush was the major cause of our economic situation !!

Nobody is blaming President Obama for the crisis...the criticism is that he is doing things, ramroding would be accurate, spending bills and calling them stimulus without even knowing for sure what is in them...certainly those who voted for it did nt know. You need to be an extremist to blame Bush as the major cause and totally ignore congress the last years along with many many others. You must have a picture of Nancy Pelosi on your wall !!!!

Reagan - Carter - Bush - Clinton - Bush - Obama

In the end, the question is a simple one: Is your standard of living better than your parents, and their parents before them, and their parents before them, and do your kids have more (of everything) than you did at their ages?

If the answer is YES, then all of this political finger-pointing means nothing, because IN SPITE OF all the "help" government has provided, we've done all right.

Will we do better in the future? Most likely YES, again IN SPITE OF the government meddling.

Agree?

I would tend to agree. However the actions we are seeing now from the government is at the very least unprecedented and out of control. And that scares the $#$% out of me.

I guess the bottom line is some see the government as our caretakers and some still wish to take care of themselves. The problem is you can only print money for so long and taking money from producers and giving it to non producers can only last for so long. Once you reach that point we'll turn from a productive society to an entitlement society where government picks the winners and losers. Some argue we are already there.

That house of cards will only hold for so long before the bottom falls out for everyone. How do I opt-out of that program?

I think if you go back to the start of record keeping there are always "recovery" periods followed by a "recession" with the depression being the result of a lack of controls. Recession have historically been 1/2 of the recovery period.
In 2005 and 6 I said (based on history) that we were heading for one heck of a recession and took actions to avoid being hit hard by it.. The reason being that both parties, (Clinton and Bush) embarked on programs to prevent a recession in their time..To do this they did a lot of things to prevent what should have been a natural recession and then back to recovery..At least 2 over the last few years. It was like a baloon being filled with air , sooner or later it will break if some is not allowed to escape and the amount managed properly.
Their actions were so severe that I am not sure how we can get out of it without some serious pain far beyond on what we have been experiencing.
The actions of these administrations have been so compex that simple steps of pumping more moeny into the system will not fix any problem. How will they address the impact of 11M+ people in the system who don't pay taxes but use the infrastructures, NAFTA where the US has become apart of the WW economy and part of the 3rd world systems and its problems (e.g. low labor out of India, etc.), trading with countries that can impact our system with just threats, (e.g. China trade, etc.), a generation that has developed personal habits of spending more than they can afford, (sense of entitlement), a current Government who's response was to borrow more funds, and head towards a socialistic form of government which is easier than addressing the problems by accepting the pain to get through it and save a democracy!
I know a lot of this sounds like doom and gloom which I would like to think and hope is an overstatement?
I hold Clinton or Bush Administrations individually and collectively responsible. I think both adminstrations got us here and unfortunately the current one is taking what is the easy way to look like they are doing something while taking the US to a Socialistic state. (I will not argue this point as each is entitled to their opinion. This is mine.)
At some point citizens will have to act to make the Government get back to being statesmen.

Originally Posted by REH7380

I think if you go back to the start of record keeping there are always "recovery" periods followed by a "recession" with the depression being the result of a lack of controls. Recession have historically been 1/2 of the recovery period.
In 2005 and 6 I said (based on history) that we were heading for one heck of a recession and took actions to avoid being hit hard by it.. The reason being that both parties, (Clinton and Bush) embarked on programs to prevent a recession in their time..To do this they did a lot of things to prevent what should have been a natural recession and then back to recovery..At least 2 over the last few years. It was like a baloon being filled with air , sooner or later it will break if some is not allowed to escape and the amount managed properly.
Their actions were so severe that I am not sure how we can get out of it without some serious pain far beyond on what we have been experiencing.
The actions of these administrations have been so compex that simple steps of pumping more moeny into the system will not fix any problem. How will they address the impact of 11M+ people in the system who don't pay taxes but use the infrastructures, NAFTA where the US has become apart of the WW economy and part of the 3rd world systems and its problems (e.g. low labor out of India, etc.), trading with countries that can impact our system with just threats, (e.g. China trade, etc.), a generation that has developed personal habits of spending more than they can afford, (sense of entitlement), a current Government who's response was to borrow more funds, and head towards a socialistic form of government which is easier than addressing the problems by accepting the pain to get through it and save a democracy!
I know a lot of this sounds like doom and gloom which I would like to think and hope is an overstatement?
I hold Clinton or Bush Administrations individually and collectively responsible. I think both adminstrations got us here and unfortunately the current one is taking what is the easy way to look like they are doing something while taking the US to a Socialistic state. (I will not argue this point as each is entitled to their opinion. This is mine.)
At some point citizens will have to act to make the Government get back to being statesmen.

Good reason to fire at least 75% of all congressional incumbents in 2010, no matter what party they belong to. If you vote for the incumbent, you are only asking for more of the same.