Barack Obama’s disastrous first 1,000 days

I never expected to get all of it back. I think that was wishful thinking. I think I read where if the govt sold all of its stock that it would still be something like a 15 billion dollar loss.

I still think it outweighs the economic hit that would have transpired had GM gone out of business. Something like 1/5 of our economy is tied to the automotive industry so obviously if it collapses then the economy takes a massive hit.

Im no genius, im not gonna claim to know what the better answer would have been. Like the article says, private industry wasnt gonna work because no loans were being given out back then. So unless someone had some scrooge mcduck money sitting in a vault somewhere I think GM would have collapsed and the hit to the economy would have been even greater. So I just honestly dont know what else you could have done to fix the whole mess.

A broader question to ask here, or at least food for thought, is that maybe we need to look into just how big we allow things to get. If GM was so big that its collapse could have serious consequences on our country then that is a problem. Not just corporations, but also government. Freddie and Fannie for instance.

I think Monopolies are seriously hurting this country. I know GM isnt a "monopoly" by the normal definition, but for just one or two auto manufacturers to need that sort of a bail out or else you potentially see another great depression, I mean its just obviously a problem.

 

I gather the irony of the fact you are expressing an opinion on another post and adding nothing to the discussion is lost on you?

 

Hmmmm...

Here we go again, blame Bush. The fact is Owebama said he could fix everything and, at one point, claimed he had. That I think is called lying.

Which "economists" said more needed to be spent for stimulus? Are they the same ones who dismissed warnings about the housing bubble and derivatives? You omit to mention that most of the stimulus money was wasted; it cost somewhere near a half million dollars for each job [at that rate they could have simply handed out cash and done a better job.] And even then the White House tried to claim is was successful, a claim they have now abandoned. That is also called lying.

Who says the auto industry bail out has been a huge success? Especially in wake of the news this week GM did not repay its loan with profits as the White House had claimed, but rather worthless stock. That too is considered lying. And are you aware that Canada's share of the North American auto industry has grown 30% because of Owebama's bail out?

The Iraq war is won? According to whom? Most military observers have said Owebama's end of the year pull out is arbitrary and will lead to another disaster. You also omit the fact that more than two thirds of the US fatalities in Afghanistan have occured under Owebama's watch when he has been commander in chief three out of ten years. You also omit that he has lost several of America's partners in Afghanistan, not the least of which is Canada who were doing the heavy lifting in Kandahar.

And, ignoring some of the lesser stuff, Owebama and the US played an insignificant role in Libya and the death of Gadaffi. The operation was led by France, with Britain and Canada in support...Owebama has merely claimed credit which has severely irritated all three of the major partners.

The myth is that he is great on foreign policy...but he has alienated the French, British, Irealis, and Canada and he has middle east experts shaking their heads. Under him Iran will become a member of the nuclear club and the Palistinian issue is even more in question since his "1967 borders" speach - something that had to be the stupidest foreign policy move in the country's history. In the meantime the Chinese are right pissed at how he's handling them.

Then there is the issue of the business climate. He has created far too much uncertainty with his flip flops on taxation policy, the Boeing hassle and lately the cancellation of the Keystone pipeline. It is no wonder businesses are not investing in the US, they have no idea what he's going to do next.

I too am a student of presidential history, but prefer to follow the political scientists ratings, not the popular ratings. I suspect Owebama will come in somewhere near Carter, 35th or 36th, somewhere in there.

He's a disaster.

 

When did Obama ever claim to have fixed the problems? All ive ever heard him say was that there is more work to be done.

Yes much of the stimulus was wasted. We agree with this.

I already posted a link which gives a pretty good explanation as to why I agree that the auto bailout was successful. I already explained it in great detail in this thread. Yes we will lose money on it, probably not as big of an economic impact as if we just let the auto industry fail.

I dont get your point on Afghanistan. Did he start that war? Clearly that war was handed off to him.

Clearly he inherited a HORRIBLE economy.

He ended the Iraq war. A war that never should have been fought. We are handing over control of the Iraqis. They WANT us out of there, we are leaving, now its up to them. What was the point of that war again???? Wmd's?? Clearly it was time to leave. Mission Accomplished. Now its up to them.

He got Bin laden. Has thwarted numerous other terror attacks.

You are not giving us enough credit for Libya. First the Repubs attacked him for the airstrikes and now he didnt do anything??????


As for the economy being Bushes fault. Of course it is. Was the first recession during Bush's presidency Bush's fault or was it Clintons? It was Clintons, Bush inherited it. And short term he did a good job with it, his policies imploded towards the end of his term and Obama inherited a much worse recession.

As for his place in history.....again its hard to say. If Iraq ends up thriving as a Democracy and friend in the middle east, if the economy gets turned around soon enough, if dont ask dont tell sticks around (as gay rights continue to grow this will be viewed favorably in history) and if Obama care leads to universal health care and it works out then he would be viewed as a mini Roosevelt. Now this is assuming he is a one term president. Say he is only one term, the economy will probably end up being a problem for at least another 2-3 years and so if it gets fixed his predecessor will prob get credit for it. If he gets a 2nd term then who knows. All bets up until this point will be off.

Im guessing he will be in the high 20's. 27,28. Something like that. Again thats after his first term. If he gets a 2nd term, and the economy gets straightened out by the end of his Presidency he will go down as the guy who fixed Bush's economy by historians/Political Scientists. If it continues to struggle he will be known as the guy who possibly even made the problem worse.

But he wont be in the bottom 10 of all time. Look at the names on that list. People who advocated for slavery, committed war crimes, high massive amounts of corruption in their admins....stuff like that. Obama at his worst (and this isnt my viewpoint) took a major lousy situation with a horrible economy and two bad wars, and didnt fix the problems, possibly made them worse.

I dont think history will be too hard on that. The debt is going to be the biggest thing.

 

You are very mistaken, akc814ilv.

Please listen to this video and you may change your mind.

Democrats were WARNED of Financial crisis in 2003 and did NOTHING

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPSDnGMzIdo"]Democrats were WARNED of Financial crisis and did NOTHING - YouTube[/ame]

 

Thanks, Trinnity!

This interview was very good.

Obama says he's not ready to be President ... Then or Now!

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K4yCwqtuv5Q&feature=player_embedded"]Obama says he's not ready to be President - YouTube[/ame]

 

Ha-Ha!

Very true, Never Left!

This discussion was very interesting.

"Since President Obama took office in January 2009, the United States has embarked on the most ambitious failed experiment in Washington meddling in US history. Huge increases in government spending, massive federal bailouts, growing regulations on businesses, thinly veiled protectionism, and the launch of a vastly expensive and deeply unpopular health care reform plan, have all combined to instill fear and uncertainty in the markets.

Is it any wonder that just 17 percent of Americans now believe the country is moving in the right direction, according to RealClear Politics? Or that 81 percent of Americans “are dissatisfied with the way the country is being governed”, according to Gallup? As a series of major Gallup polls have shown, public disillusionment with the federal government has now reached an all-time high, with 69 percent of Americans now saying “they have little or no confidence in the legislative branch of government”, with 46 percent believing “the federal government has become so large and powerful that it poses an immediate threat to the rights and freedoms of ordinary citizens.”

And President Obama’s record on the world stage has also been poor. Despite two high-profile successes in taking out al-Qaeda leaders Osama bin Laden and more recently Anwar al-Awlaki (both upon the foundations of President Bush’s war on terror), US foreign policy under Obama has been a confusing mess. The shameless appeasement of Iran has allowed the rogue state to advance perilously close to nuclear weapons capability, while the naïve “reset” approach towards Russia has only encouraged a more aggressive and assertive Moscow. At the same time, traditional alliances with Great Britain and Israel have been downgraded, and key allies in eastern and central Europe thrown under the bus to feed the Russian bear. While America’s defences have grown weaker, China’s military might has grown significantly stronger, as have the offensive capabilities of hostile regimes in both Asia and Latin America, including Hugo Chavez’s Venezuela.

As Barack Obama approaches the remaining 14 months of his presidency, there is a distinct air of US decline. It is of course a state of decline that can be reversed with the right policies and leadership in place. There is nothing inevitable about the demise of the United States, but its renewal must rest upon a dramatic reversal of the most Left-wing agenda of any American presidency since 1979. As Gallup’s polling has emphatically demonstrated, Americans are overwhelmingly rejecting the Big Government agenda of the Obama presidency, which has spectacularly failed to create jobs, generate wealth, and instill economic confidence.

The biggest failure of this administration, and there have been many, has been its central belief that government knows best, and that the way to prosperity is to spend ever greater amounts of taxpayers’ money on the backs of hard-working Americans. As a result, the United States is a nation on a precipice, facing towering debts and the threat of a double dip recession at a time when 14 million Americans are already out of work. Ultimately, it is economic freedom, minimal government intervention, and greater individual liberty that can put America back on its feet, rather than endless bailouts, higher taxes and suffocating government regulation, all hallmarks of the Obama experiment. Ultimately, the world needs a powerful United States that is a beacon of hope to the world, rather than a basket case of failed liberal policies".

source: http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/ni...rst-1000-days/

 

Well, enough hair splitting we'll deal with the main points. Owebama claimed HIS stimulus package would keep unemployment below 8% and said repeatedly at the beginning it was working. The White House only stopped making the claim it was working earlier this year...

No one "won" the Iraq war. If anything all you can say is that it's over.

As to Afghanistan, two thirds of ten years worth of fatalities in three years? And you don't get the point?

No he didn't start it, so what? He supported it and poured more troops into it...and ended up killing more American soldiers than his predecessor.

No one ever heard me criticizing Owebama for bombing Libya because the US didn't. In fact the US was muscled out of the way by France, Britain and Canada....you are aware that the chief commander of NATO right now is Canadian? You are aware that the pressure to get involved came from France?

 

http://www.politicalforum.com/curre...taxpayer-losses-gm-bailout-going-massive.html


this is what you call a success?

Has anyone ever tallied how many jobs were lost permanently in the GM deal? We keep kind of ignoring the fact that GM is now a fraction of the size it was, that several thousand people were thrown into the street...

That, to any reasoned person is not success, but management by crisis.

 

Well the link I posted was someone who reports strictly on the auto industry and by their estimations it saved something like 1.4 Million jobs.

So who has the better links? lol. Im not asking you to compare our links, im just simply saying that who do you believe? Who is right and who is wrong?

I most definitely see the financial windfall you are talking about. It is a lot of money. No doubt about it. How bad WOULD it have been without it? What if those 1.4 Million jobs all turned into people needing unemployment benefits, the hit to the economy, that many more people in the job market, that many more people not spending money etc etc etc.

I get your point. I do. I just simply dont agree with it. Im sure some people did lose their jobs, I simply think it would have been much worse were it not for the bailout.

Should Obama have let them fail? That is my question to you. Im not asking this question in any sarcastic way I legitimately want to hear your answer to it and what your explanation would be.

And did you support the Wall Street/Big Bank/Freddie & Fannie bail outs that Bush did?

I think that given the state that the economy was in, letting an industry that is approx 1/5 of our economy die would have been an absolute disaster. I absolutely believe that. I am willing to hear why you think it would have been better to let it fail. My mind is an open mind. Keep in mind though that with the financial melt down, nobody was really giving out any loans, so I just dont see how private industry would have gobbled it up.



As far as Iraq. Ok, whether you want to say it was a win or just over, the fact of the matter is that it is over. We are no longer going to be putting our troops in harms way over a war that never should have even been started in the first place. Its hard to have a clear definition of a "win" when you dont even know what you were fighting for.

As for Afghanistan.....This President was forced to commit more troops because we were losing ground to the Al Qaeda forces. Again, he was thrust into this war, Bush had 6 years or so to do SOMETHING about this war, and instead he committed the bulk of our troops to Iraq. Obama was left trying to compensate for this. Many have died, and as someone who spent two tours in Iraq my heart is broken for them. But.....what should he have done?

My personal opinion? Pull them all out of there and come home. This crap isn't worth fighting for. I highly doubt that his Generals are telling him to do what I suggested though. I imagine the Generals called for more troops. This "surge" is no different than what Bush did in Iraq.

The Libya issue isnt worth debating. We were involved. That is a fact. Yes I do understand we didnt play a huge role. Its just not worth debating whether he deserves credit for it. I think he does, you dont think so. So be it.

 

Very true, FearandLoathing.

Hovever, Toyota and Honda picked up the slack and now have more U.S. workers making their cars than when GM was much larger than it is now.

 

You are indeed correct, bacardi.

This review was very good.

"The biggest failure of this administration, and there have been many, has been its central belief that government knows best, and that the way to prosperity is to spend ever greater amounts of taxpayers’ money on the backs of hard-working Americans. As a result, the United States is a nation on a precipice, facing towering debts and the threat of a double dip recession at a time when 14 million Americans are already out of work. Ultimately, it is economic freedom, minimal government intervention, and greater individual liberty that can put America back on its feet, rather than endless bailouts, higher taxes and suffocating government regulation, all hallmarks of the Obama experiment. Ultimately, the world needs a powerful United States that is a beacon of hope to the world, rather than a basket case of failed liberal policies

source: http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/ni...rst-1000-days/

 

it amazes me how people can think you can save the housing market by keeping housing too expensive for first time buyers to enter the market! This only benefits sellers and bankers!

 

Or second or third. People forget that for the person who bought homes during the mid 2000's at the inflated prices there were lots of people like me and my wife who said "no way", we stayed in our home paying it down and making improvements. Yeah our "value" went up and then came down, all on paper, we didn't lose anything of real value.

 

Exactly!

Housing booms are caused by new buyers (new money) coming into the market. Without that, all that usually happens is stagnancy - which is what is more or less going on now.
It's simple fundamental economics.
The problem is that Keynesians seem to think that fundamental economics can be gotten around if you just throw enough money at it.

Wrong.

 

I agree with this....

I live in San Diego, CA. I'm not sure how much the average home costs where all of you live, but essentially for a smaller home out here, in a average to below average neighborhood you will easily pay 400,000 even 500,000 for a home.

That is for a single story home. No basement, no upstairs.

Me and my wife both work full time, we are probably classified as lower middle class, and there is NO WAY that we can afford a home out here. So sadly we are throwing away our money on rent every month.

We love it out here, and we aren't the type of people who need a lot of room to be happy. All my wife even wants is one of these small, single story homes. We are even fine owning a Condo or something along those lines. There is no point living in San Diego unless you are outside most of the time, enjoying the sun and the beaches. But still, it would be nice if two hard working adults who did everything right even had the CHANCE at owning a home lol.

 

^^^^^^^
then people like you should lobby your politicians to get out of the way and let housing fall to its natural level......sure some banks will fail and other banks will fill in the slack....the only thing accomplished now is dead housing market, zombie banks and people like yourslef that get left out of the housing market!

 

Of course if we just leave banks alone then what get a repeat of our recession, only it turns into a Depression.

All politicians on both sides seem to think that housing prices being high is good for the economy. Something I disagree with. I think when you shut out millions of middle and low income families it is hurtful. That is a debate for another thread though.

But I dont think that just letting banks stay unregulated helps anything at all. It just opens up a can of worms. We already learned what happens when they are left unregulated.

As for the bank bailout under Bush.....Not sure if I agreed with that or not. We have allowed certain companies to Monopolise certain industries and maybe they were too big to fail. Im confident enough to say that "I dont know" when it comes to certain issues, and I DONT KNOW if I think it was a good idea or not.

 

Have you checked the stock price of Bank of America lately?

The executives who own this stock are getting back their just rewards in spades!

Their shares of stock have really taken a bath this year!

January 2011: $15.00 per share

November 2011: $5.00 per share

 

SD has been THE red hot real estate market for decades. You get zero info about the rest of the nation by looking at the SD market. I've traveled all over the world, SD has the best weather anywhere in the world.

In Florida, the same house that IS $500,000 in SD was $250,000 in Fl. Now its $65,000 to $100,000. You want to own a home?????? MOVE!

 

this is incorrect.....its when you interfere that you develope stagnation as you have now....housing desperately wants to correct but the government wont allow it to. So the end result is a dead housing market for a decade or longer.....and this is the cause of a depression....not the drop in prices.

 

Right on, bacardi!

Obama has given us "crony" capitalism. He has allowed the big banks to "privatize" their profits and "socialize" their losses. "Free market" capitalism would have allowed these bank to fail.

Obama is by far the worst president we have ever had! He has tried to pick winners and losers in today's economy and has failed at every attempt he has made!

 

Well there is the matter of speculation as well...a problem here in Vancouver were the average price of a home [detached, two bedroom] is now $920,000.

The fact is that the Clinton administration tried to drive the economy by driving the real estate market which in turn drives the home building business, which drives everything. Can you say Home Depot?

By removing lending obstacles, the the ability to pay back the loan, the housing market soared.

But, sooner or later the defaults begin...and there you have cause of the '08 crash; exposing the derivative issue etc.

Say what you like, but Canada has one of the strongest banking industries in the world, because it is highly regulated. So too, is the housing market on a national scale. I used to think this was unwarranted intrusion in the market place, but after witnessing the last four years, I have changed my mind.

I now believe the government should dam well stay out of all markets, but regulate where necessary.

 

Well there is the matter of speculation as well...a problem here in Vancouver were the average price of a home [detached, two bedroom] is now $920,000.

The fact is that the Clinton administration tried to drive the economy by driving the real estate market which in turn drives the home building business, which drives everything. Can you say Home Depot?

By removing lending obstacles, the the ability to pay back the loan, the housing market soared.

But, sooner or later the defaults begin...and there you have cause of the '08 crash; exposing the derivative issue etc.

Say what you like, but Canada has one of the strongest banking industries in the world, because it is highly regulated. So too, is the housing market on a national scale. I used to think this was unwarranted intrusion in the market place, but after witnessing the last four years, I have changed my mind.

I now believe the government should dam well stay out of all markets, but regulate where necessary.

 

I do not think Canada's banking system is NEARLY as strong as most people seem to think.

One) There is no great skill to running a bank in Canada - every one of them is practically guaranteed to succeed, almost no matter what they do.
Almost every mortgage they have is covered by CMHC. Something America does not have.

and Two) CMHC had to get bailed out back in '08 to the tune of $75 billion dollars of toxic asset buy-ups.
That would be the equivalent of about $900 billion in America.
And the U.S. was flipping out about TARP which was only $700 billion...and much of that did not even go to the banks (though the Fed did have a large toxic asset buy up).

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=12007

So the Canadian taxpayers got the bill for the banks incompetence.


And the Head of the Bank of Canada has said over and over that Canadians are WAY too much in debt. And Canada is primarily a commodity based country. And when the world economy tanks again (which I am quite sure it will soon) - Canada's economy will tank right along with it.

And my understanding of Vancouver real estate is that much of it is being pumped up by Chinese and other emerging markets - just like it did in the late 80's/early 90's.