Well, everyone has to be good at something.
The emerging narrative of Barack Obama, the one that actually comports to reality, is that he is a rare political talent but a disaster when it comes to actually governing. The list of his failures is nothing short of staggering, from shovel-ready jobs that weren’t so shovel ready to the failures of healthcare.gov to the VA debacle. But it also includes the president’s failure to tame the debt, lower poverty, decrease income inequality, and increase job creation. He promised to close Guantanamo Bay and didn’t. His administration promised to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed before a civilian jury in New York but they were forced to retreat because of outrage in his own party. Early on in his administration Mr. Obama put his prestige on the line to secure the Olympics for Chicago in 2016 and he failed.
Overseas the range of Obama’s failures include the Russian “reset” and Syrian “red lines” to Iran’s Green Revolution, the Egyptian overthrow of Hosni Mubarak, and Libya post-Gaddafi. The first American ambassador since the 1970s was murdered after requests for greater security for the diplomatic outpost in Benghazi were denied. (For a comprehensive overview of President Obama’s failures in the Middle East, see this outstanding essay by Abe Greenwald.) The president has strained relations with nations extending from Canada to Germany, from Israel to Afghanistan to Poland and the Czech Republic to many others. All from a man who promised to heal the planet and slow the rise of the oceans.
But that’s not all. The White House response to everything from the VA and IRS scandals to the seizure of AP phone records by the Department of Justice is that it learned about them from press reports. More and more Mr. Obama speaks as if he’s a passive actor, a bystander in his own administration, an MSNBC commentator speaking about events he has no real control over. We saw that earlier today, when the president, in trying to address the public’s growing outrage at what’s happening at the VA, insisted he “will not stand for it” and “will not tolerate” what he has stood for and tolerated for almost six years. His anger at what’s happening to our veterans seems to have coincided with the political damage it is now causing him.
Yeah, that’s pretty much the only thing that really upsets him. I hope the Democrats are proud of what they foisted on the country.
[Update a few minutes later]
How Obama because the superhero of excuses.
From Ron Fournier, who isn’t exactly part of the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy.
I hope the Democrats are proud of what they foisted on the country.
I am. Obama & co. rescued the economy from calamity, wound down two wars, and took big steps forward in health care, education, gay rights, immigration, criminal justice reform, and the environment. There have been failures aplenty, but on the whole his record is very positive. If he could run for re-election in 2016, he’d be the odds-on favorite.
You mean the calamity foisted upon us by the democrats in congress, who ignored Bush’s warning that the housing market was overheating? You mean the financial problems foisted upon us by Dodd and Frank?
I admit the republicans before 2006 also contributed to the problem. That’s where we differ. I am not partisan like you.
The collapse was something that could only have been averted by the executive and the federal reserve, but that said I don’t put much blame on the Bush administration. As with 9/11, they were the only people in a position to stop it, but it wasn’t easy to see coming.
Once it happened, though, a rescue was needed — we could have been looking at a total collapse of our banking sector, and 25% unemployment a la the Great Depression. Bush did respond eventually (with help from Democrats in Congress), but most of the credit has to go to Bernanke and Obama’s people, and to Democrats in Congress for passing the Recovery Act. Maybe McCain would have done as well, maybe not, but Democrats can certainly be proud of Obama’s performance.
The collapse was something that could only have been averted by the executive and the federal reserve, but that said I don’t put much blame on the Bush administration.
Yet you blame Bush. Nice doublespeak.
But who sets the budget? Congress. Democrats could have made changes to Fannie and Freddie. They could also have made home loans more stringent.
but most of the credit has to go to Bernanke and Obama’s people, and to Democrats in Congress for passing the Recovery Act.
It’s nice how you justify all that debt on a “recovery”. First, there has been no recovery, as much as you’d like to believe. Second, where did all that money go? What percent of the stimulus actually went to infrastructure?
But who sets the budget? Congress.
The budget had nothing to do with the crash.
Democrats could have made changes to Fannie and Freddie.
Fannie and Freddie had little to do with the crash.
Fannie and Freddie had little to do with the crash.
If Fannie and Freddie had imposed more sensible downpayment requirements, instead of forcing banks (through their monopoly on re-purchases) to eliminate them, the crash wouldnt’ have occurred.
What’s it really like in la-la land?
If Fannie and Freddie had imposed more sensible downpayment requirements, instead of forcing banks (through their monopoly on re-purchases) to eliminate them, the crash wouldnt’ have occurred.
Says who? Fannie and Freddie weren’t involved in most of the risky loans, and if they’d had tighter requirements they’d have had an even smaller role.
Fannie and Freddie weren’t involved in most of the risky loans.
Yeah, and Obama told us he would close Gitmo and we could keep our plan. He said it enough times, but it was still a lie. Fannie and Freddie initiated the conditions that changed the industry as Democrats wanted. The result was an artificial economic market in which people, who ordinarily wouldn’t have entered the market did so, without the capability or desire to support their purchase. The same thing is happening today in higher education with Sallie Mae. The interesting thing is these are all Government Sponsored Enterprises, which is the same type of state intervention of industry as practiced by Benito Mussolini.
Fannie and Freddie initiated the conditions that changed the industry
No, they didn’t. It was private lenders who did that when they figured out that they could bundle risky loans — loans that Fannie and Freddie were forbidden to buy — into investment products that could be (incorrectly) rated as low risk and sold on Wall Street. Fannie and Freddie were followers, not leaders, and the crash would have happened with or without them.
Fannie and Freddie were followers
Uh huh, you wrote it again, still not true. Freddie had leveraged its assets to capital at 70:1 when the government took it into conservatorship in 2008. That’s a big lead over what other traditional lenders do. They still own nearly 50% of the single family mortgage debt in this country, and Jim wants us to believe that are just followers.
Crickets chirping…
Jim will be here all week, folks. Try the borscht!
Does this count as “rescuing” the economy? http://i.imgur.com/W870SWt.png
The job market is still shrinking relative to the labor market size, median real household income is still in freefall since the financial crash.
P.S. If running away with our tail between our legs from Iraq while exercising “drone diplomacy” by intervening in the Yemeni civil war and letting al qaeda and their cohorts operate with impunity in Libya, Nigeria, Somalia, Kenya, Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon counts in your books as good geopolitical maneuvering then Obama is definitely your man.
Obama will always be Jim’s “man.” Jim will always be at the fore to fellate him, if necessary, to carry on the progressive cause, just as Nita Burleigh was willing to do so in gratitude for Bill Clinton keeping unqualified abortion legal.
Is it really so hard to talk about politics without descending into this sort of juvenile sexual name calling?
It’s a very useful and accurate analogy.
You left out “completely destroying the rule of law”.
If Obama were deliberately trying to destroy America, what exactly would he have done differently?
Democrats, Obama included given his voting record during his short stint in the US Senate, CAUSED the economic calamity.
Please. Rescued the economy from calamity? Most of the emergency rescue was under Bush. After that, well, most recession come to an end on their own. This one has dragged on and on; we have about the same percentage of Americans working as we did when it started, only many have dropped out of the work force permanently. Only the Great Depression can match it in this century for longevity, and possibly for the same reason: Democratic administrations that were strangling business with over-regulation in the name of saving it. No one has any way of knowing what would have happened if the administration had just stayed out of the way, and it might well have been better.
Wound down two wars? No clue what you mean by this. Iraq was wound down; the US didn’t need to do anything more, though they have been unhelpful when they are needed. President Bush wound down Afghanistan early on; he had accomplished his objectives there. President Obama wound it back up, and for nothing. We have no further goals there, never did, and haven’t done one bit of good for anyone with our continuing presence. Probably you didn’t mean Libya, since he started that one, without consent of Congress – an impeachable high crime and misdemeanor in my book. The result there was to replace a garden-variety thug with a government of Islamic fascists, good job. Egypt? Russia? Israel and Palestinians? It’s hard to point to a place that this administration left better than they found it.
Health care? Most Americans agree with me and not with you – they want to go back to before ACA started. It will kill more people than it saves.
Etc. On most of your list I don’t even know what you’re referring to. Education, criminal justice reform, education, environment, immigration? Nada.
Most Americans agree with me and not with you – they want to go back to before ACA started.
No, polling consistently shows only minority support for repeal.
On most of your list I don’t even know what you’re referring to. Education, criminal justice reform, education, environment, immigration? Nada.
There’s obviously a difference between Democrats and anti-Democrats on what issues they consider important and pay attention to, and what sort of policies they want to see. I’m not arguing that I expect Republicans to look at Obama’s record and be so impressed that they decide to switch parties. Rand asked if Democrats were proud of putting this man in office, and I’m arguing that they should be.
They should be proud of the Race to the Top school reform efforts, and the billions that were freed up by reform of the student loan system and put back into student aid. They should be proud of the DOJ’s work on sentencing and prison reform, and that it’s backed off (somewhat) on the pot part of the drug war. They should be proud of all the investment in clean energy technology, the higher car mileage standards, and the soon-to-be-announced EPA climate regulations. They should be proud of the changes in immigration enforcement that let people who were brought here as children avoid deportation. Those are all things that Democrats wanted, and Obama delivered. And of course there have been many, many more.
Obama supporters should also be proud of NASA’s Commercial Crew program, but commercial space isn’t a high priority for many Democrats, or for many non-Democrats.
They should be proud of the Race to the Top school reform efforts, and the billions that were freed up by reform of the student loan system and put back into student aid.
Have test scores increased? No. Has federal control over our educational system increased? Yes. Has paperwork for teachers increased, diminishing class time for teachers? Yes. Has parental influenced decreased? Yes.
So now the US gov’t is in control of the student loan program. Yippie. If you’ve been following the tuition rates over the last 4 decades you’d know this is a silly argument.
Obama supporters should also be proud of NASA’s Commercial Crew program, but commercial space isn’t a high priority for many Democrats, or for many non-Democrats.
Finally, something we can agree on. Why isn’t he statist with NASA, I wonder? For whatever reason, I don’t care.
My question to you is: If commercial crew is a good thing, why isn’t commercial medicine, commercial Anything but Crew a good thing?
Because the world isn’t as simple as commercial good, government bad. Sometimes commercial is better, sometimes it isn’t. Where expanding humanity’s presence in space is concerned, at this point in time, commercial is better.
“No, polling consistently shows only minority support for repeal.”
A majority support repeal or changing Obamacare yet the Democrats will not allow any legislative changes while Obama dictates endless changes, like a new bailout for losses insurance companies will face before the next presidential election in exchange for not raising rates. Democrats are so committed to not allowing any legislative changes that they shut down the federal government and then days later after the country was all “wtf is this monstrosity” instituted the same things Republicans wanted by a series of executive dictates, which were then largely blown off by the insurance companies.
A majority support repeal or changing Obamacare
Which is another way of saying that less than a majority favor repealing Obamacare.
the Democrats will not allow any legislative changes
Both parties want legislative changes, but currently neither party will allow changes favored by the other, so the matter is deadlocked.
instituted the same things Republicans wanted
Now you’re just making things up.
Now you’re just making things up.
Actually, wodun is absolutely correct. And the insurance companies are right to blow off Obama, since the bill Obama signed clearly has dates that he thinks others should ignore. It is just another example of Obama’s incompetence.
I didn’t say repeal; repeal has all kinds of other impacts. I said they want to go back to before, they’re unhappy with the law being passed. They think they’d be better off without it. Polls consistently show this.
The same is pretty much true for everything on your list. Your calling everything “reform” doesn’t mean it’s better than what’s before; pretty much every one actually made things worse. Unless, as many liberals do, one assumes that any increase in government control is better by definition.
I didn’t say repeal; repeal has all kinds of other impacts. I said they want to go back to before
They want time travel? I’m afraid that isn’t an option. Of the options that are actually possible, putting the law back the way it was — repeal — is opposed by a majority.
” If he could run for re-election in 2016, he’d be the odds-on favorite.”
BUWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Put the Crack Pipe down Jim. If you could simply re-run the 2012 election again next week, you would have President Romney. You are delusional.
I’m glad to offer amusement! But the #1 predictor of election outcomes in peacetime is the state of the economy, and the economy’s doing better today than it was in 2012. On top of that, the demographics have moved a bit further towards the Democrats. If he could run again, Obama would be the favorite to win.
Here’s the truth on the unemployment rate:
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2014/05/nonfarm-payrolls-288000-unemployment.html
In a nutshell:
Last month, weather-related effects were taken back and then some. This month we see a return to the divergence between the household survey and the establishment survey. +288,000 vs. -73,000 is massive. So is the decline in labor force of 800,000. That is the only reason the unemployment rate declined. All things considered, this was not a good report.
Read more at http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2014/05/nonfarm-payrolls-288000-unemployment.html#cWuAFkkkKPuUbCC5.99
I wouldn’t put much weight on any single jobs report, but overall we’re doing much better than we were when Obama took office.
I love how you dismiss an analysis with a simple, flippant response. The School of Soros teaches well. Do you mind if do the same to you?
Example: I wouldn’t put much weight into a single IPCC report, but overall, we’re doing much better since the late nineties, temperature-wise.
Regarding the unemployment reports, they’ve been studied for years. Didn’t you know that? This isn’t the first month an unemployment report has been published.
Additional facts:
The ACA has pushed more people into part-time employment so companies don’t have to get into Obamacare.
Boomers are retiring and that is distorting the unemployment rate.
Such nuances are lost on you
To quote John McCarthy, “He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.”
The analysis you linked to is of a single monthly jobs report. Those are often wildly wrong (the margin of error is about 100,000 jobs), and I wouldn’t read much into any single one. But averaged out, and with post-report adjustments, it’s clear that there are more jobs today than when Obama took office, despite his taking office in the middle of a crisis that was costing us hundreds of thousands of jobs a month. By comparison, there were fewer people working when Bush left office than when he came in.
The ACA has pushed more people into part-time employment so companies don’t have to get into Obamacare.
That myth has been debunked.
“That myth has been debunked.”
You link to a single jobs report. You probably shouldn’t rely on it for sweeping declarations about Obamacare’s effects on the economy.
You link to a single jobs report.
I link to an article that links to another article that looks at over three years of jobs reports. By contrast, you and Jon have offered exactly zero evidence that the ACA has pushed more people into part-time work.
you and Jon have offered exactly zero evidence that the ACA has pushed more people into part-time work.
When Obamacare first rolled out, employers did start lowering hours. You can see the sharp rise right there in the graph at the “debunked” hockeystick article. But since then, the Obama administration realized that small business was serious about avoiding additional costs; so they changed the rules. Now the IRS will count total hours worked, divide by some number they consider full time, and if that number exceeds 50 FTEs, then the business will be taxed under a law originating in the Senate. In other words, a business can have a staff of just 48 full time employees, and if those employees tend to work 5% over whatever the IRS considers fulltime, then the IRS will claim that business has over 50 employees.
So Jim’s right, there is no longer a drop in part time workers. Rather there are 47% of the unemployed giving up hope ever to find a job. That’s the hope and change Obama brought us. 47% of able body people wanting to work but unable to find any of the shovel ready jobs they were promised. But hey, they get subsidized healthcare with high deductibles, so yeah!
Dude, whatever lets you sleep at night…..rock on!
Printing up a bubble does not a strong economy make. The next president is going to have a very tricky situation to unwind.
And you have a very low threshold for what constitutes ‘Rescued’ as well. Ask most people if they feel ‘Rescued’.
Heh, the recession ended two months into Obama’s first term and here we are five + years later and still treading water.
By any honest definition, the US has been in a depression since 2007. This whole business of “recovery summer” and so on is pure unadulterated bovine excrement.
And golly, that ten trillion in debt we’ve handed to our grandchildren really got the economy booming. That boondoggle cannot be spun by Jim.
History will remember us for that, unfortunately.
Are you under the impression that the debt has increased by $10T while Obama’s been president? To quote John McCarthy, “He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.”
You’re right, I meant 7 trillion.
My argument is the same. Obama called Bush unpatriotic for that much spending.
When Bush took office there was a surplus; when he left the annual deficit was $1.3T. When Obama took office the deficit was $1.3T; it’s expected to be $514b for fiscal 2014. Obama inherited a huge deficit and brought it down despite a financial collapse; Bush inherited a surplus and squandered it on tax cuts and foolish wars.
If the debt is your top priority — and it shouldn’t be — you should be much happier with Democrats in power.
When Bush took office there was a surplus; when he left the annual deficit was $1.3T.
Say a lie long enough and it becomes the truth. The economy was beginning to tank in 2000, before the election. Much of Clinton’s revenues came from capital gains, which evaporated when the stock market collapsed.
“If the debt is your top priority — and it shouldn’t be — you should be much happier with Democrats in power.”
Presumably you meant to say ‘you should be much happier with a Republican Congress’, since they brought about the ‘surplus’.
Of course, there never really was a real, actual surplus at all. If I remember correctly, the last year the US government debt went down was in the 1960s, and the best year when Clinton was President the debt increased about $40,000,000,000. But neither side wanted to point that out, because both wanted to take the credit for your fake ‘surplus’ while they continued to increase the debt.
You’re bragging about a $514B deficit projection? The largest deficit during the Bush administration was less than $500B, and you leftists told us then that he was bankrupting the country!
It’s the old Henny Youngman joke: when evaluating any situation or policy, the first question is “compared to what?” $515B is a lot of money, but it’s a manageable deficit compared to the size of our economy, and it’s less than half the size of the $1.3T deficit Obama inherited.
Obama can thank fracking for the increase in revenue but what does it say that his biggest success came about despite his best efforts to destroy the industry that gave him that success?
Obama can thank fracking for the increase in revenue
Do you have any statistics to back that up? How much tax revenue did fracking bring in last year, and how does that compare to the overall increase in revenue?
Oh Jim, I am sure the QE bubble is also adding to it.
Any word on those fracking revenue numbers? Or did you just make that bit up?
“When Bush took office there was a surplus; when he left the annual deficit was $1.3T. ”
When Bush took office there was a projected surplus and when he left an annual deficit was $1.3t. The actual deficits under Bush were far below $1.3t.
Bush ended the recession for Obama and Obama squandered the recovery.
While Democrats keep pounding their chests over the cost of Iraq, $1t over ten years, they ignore Obama printing almost $1t a year and giving the money at near zero interest rates to his campaign donors.
I think you mean that Ben Bernanke, a Republican appointed by George Bush, printed lots of money. You’ll have to explain exactly how Obama got Bush and Bernanke to organize this plot to help Democratic donors.
Now you’re just being silly.
Did you miss the part where Obama reappointed him?
Did you miss the part where Obama reappointed him?
No doubt that was all just part of the grand scheme.
The economy contracted last quarter. If by two wars being round down, you mean Iraq and Libya, then your correct. Ukraine is still ramping up, and by incompetence we managed to avoid Syria. Afghanistan is still going with a higher US casualty rate under Obama than Bush. There is no objective evidence healthcare has been improved, and if your an US veteran, it definitely has not. Common Core is a failure that even students can recognize. Gay rights improved starting with ending policies enacted by Clinton. Criminal justice is definitely reformed as the DoJ just releases criminals and fails to prosecute successfully if at all federal crimes. Most of the time, Obama’s AG is telling state AG’s not to prosecute their laws, so yep that is reformation. I have no idea what Obama has done for the environment other than paying EPA officials to watch porn while claiming their is no more cuts that can be made in the federal budget. If that’s what you call a positive record, your expectations were lower than mine.
by incompetence we managed to avoid Syria
If avoiding expensive, bloody, pointless wars that leave our country weaker is incompetence, let’s have more incompetence.
Since you missed it, he was saying that a disaster (that Obama was pushing for) was avoided because the Won got had by Putin. I’m personally happy about that, as there really aren’t any good guys to route for in Syria. Still, if Obama had had his way, it would have been another goat fornication.
Exactly. But things change quickly, now Obama has introduced US forces into Chad, because apparently diplomacy and terrorist negotiation via twitter failed. Instead of getting OurGirlsBack, the local citizenry armed themselves and killed 200 Boko Harem attackers. Can’t have people getting uppity, owning guns, and defending themselves from criminals, much less terrorists. So Obama is sending in an overwhelming force of 80 troops. Maybe he’s armed them with iPads loaded facebook and twitter apps? Hopefully they won’t need a QRF.
“If avoiding expensive, bloody, pointless wars that leave our country weaker is incompetence, let’s have more incompetence.”
As is usual for you, you’re missing the point.
No one wanted to get involved in Syria. That’s not the argument.
The problem is that Obama damaged us by FIRST setting down a red line….(hugely stupid if you didn’t want to get involved)
then ignoring it…. (huge damage)
then relying on Russia to bail us out……(US the laughingstock)….
by creating a chemical weapons “agreement” which was no agreement at all but a bandaid to try and come out smelling like a rose……
…but which is being ignored and is failing miserable further increasing the damage done to the US as well as emboldening the bad actors.
You could see this if you’d pause on your fellating of Obama but I doubt either will ever happen.
It was stupid for Obama to draw a red line. It was lucky that he still got Syria to give up some chemical weapons, without firing a shot.
The situation in Syria is terrible, but it’s hard to see how Obama could have made it any better, and easy to see how a president with a different foreign policy outlook (e.g. John McCain) could have made it much, much worse. “Avoided making a huge mistake” isn’t a particularly rousing claim, but it’s nothing to be ashamed of.
“It was stupid for Obama to draw a red line. It was lucky that he still got Syria to give up some chemical weapons, without firing a shot. ”
Syria gave up nothing.
“The situation in Syria is terrible, but it’s hard to see how Obama could have made it any better, ”
Are you like…..willfully dense? Do you go around dialing up the Dense-o-matic on your skull?
Can you not understand the written word? I didn’t say anything about what Obama could have done to make the situation in Syria better. THAT is a whole other topic – and one that further discredits Obama.
No, what I referenced is what he DID. And how THAT made things far worse in the world.
Every move Obama made in the recent Syrian war was a monumental cluster-F.
And since neither he nor anyone else WANTED to put boots on the ground there, your statement that he kept us out of having boots on the ground is a complete strawman.
There’s plenty for Obama (and others in his administration) to be ashamed of if you merely consider the actions he DID take.
Syria gave up nothing.
As of April 27 it had destroyed 90+% of its declared stockpile. That isn’t everything one could hope for (we don’t know how much of an undeclared stockpile there is), but it certainly isn’t “nothing”.
“As of April 27 it had destroyed 90+% of its declared stockpile. ”
What does Obama have to do with that? Russia made that offer in order to keep Obama from going to war. It almost didn’t work. Obama was minutes away from announcing another unilateral war on behalf of Islamic militants.
““Avoided making a huge mistake” isn’t a particularly rousing claim, but it’s nothing to be ashamed of.”
Are you forgetting that Obama wanted to go to war in Syria? Obama didn’t pull back from war because he thought war was wrong. He pulled back because he got out maneuvered by Russia and Syria.
Syria didn’t turn out the way Obama wanted but you are trying to claim he planned the whole thing lol.
What does Obama have to do with that? Russia made that offer
Russia is also the verifier of the destruction. Russia is also a seller of military hardware to Syria. But hey, Russia kept Obama from going to war with Syria, and for payment, they got Crimea for little fuss. If only Russia could keep Obama out of Chad.
Russia is also the verifier of the destruction
No, that would be the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, an international organization. Do you just make this stuff up?
Do you just make this stuff up?
Nope. I just don’t buy fantasy bullshit and notice what is actually happening in the real world. Russian troops are now “guarding” Syrian chemical weapons from “the rebels”. Russian estimates of Syrian chemical weapon stores has always been lower than US/European estimates. Russian forces “guard” the destruction of the chemical weapons. When the UN security counsel claimed Syria was still using chemical weapons just last month, Russia denied it, and when the UN Security Counsel tried to pass a resolution condemning Syria’s use of chemical weapons, Russia and China vetoes it. And now Kerry is running around claiming not all the chemical weapons were destroyed, and Russia, with its consistently lower count of weapons, claim they are all destroyed.
Tell us again knave what bullshit agreements you made up and how they are actual verification.
“If avoiding expensive, bloody, ”
Syria is incredibly bloody and Obama’s handling of the situation has contributed to it. More civilians have died in Syria than in Iraq in 10 years.
I personally think that we should have just sat back and watched our two enemies kill each other but Obama was minutes away, according to himself, from launching another unilateral war fighting on behalf of Islamic Militants. Even now, Obama is arming and training Islamic militants. It is like he learned nothing about the Libya debacle or anything else about the Middle East and Northern Africa during his two terms.
“let’s have more incompetence.”
The problem here is that while incompetence kept us out of the war, it also made the war worse. Obama’s incompetence is also not confined to waging war, it infects every foreign and domestic policy he has. The abuses at the IRS, DOJ, EPA, VA, and on and on are all due to how terrible Obama is as a President. Of course we can’t blame everything on incompetence, we also have to blame malice because a lot of his policies are designed to intentionally hurt people he doesn’t like.
Obama was serious when he said he was going to punish his enemies.
Fannie and Freddie had little to do with the crash.
You really don’t understand history, do you? Bad loans were made because the banks knew that they’d be reimbursed by Fannie and Freddie.
Do you understand moral hazard? Or isn’t that in the progressive playbook?
Bad loans were made because the banks knew that they’d be reimbursed by Fannie and Freddie.
Most of the bad loans were made without any involvement by Fannie and Freddie.
The budget had nothing to do with the crash.
As I said, spending for Fannie and Freddie made took away the banks moral hazard.
Explaining economics or economic history to Baghdad Jim is like trying to explain the syllogism to Chris Gerrib.
The banks packaged risky loans and made a bundle selling them as supposedly safe investments. Fannie and Freddie had nothing to do with that.
Fannie and Freddie created the market for subprime mortgages. It was there primary reason for being.
Where do you get this stuff? Fannie and Freddie weren’t even allowed to buy non conforming loans until 2005, by which point the subprime boom was well underway.
Where do you get this stuff?
In 1995, President Bill Clinton’s HUD agreed to let Fannie and Freddie get affordable-housing credit for buying subprime securities that included loans to low-income borrowers.
Ah hell Jim, that’s 1995, not 2005. I guess you are going to have to do some homework to prove you’re not a liar. But wait, there’s more:
The agency neglected to examine whether borrowers could make the payments on the loans that Freddie and Fannie classified as affordable. From 2004 to 2006, the two purchased $434 billion in securities backed by subprime loans, creating a market for more such lending. Subprime loans are targeted toward borrowers with poor credit, and they generally carry higher interest rates than conventional loans.
Gee Jim, even the WaPo agrees with me that Freddie and Fannie created the market. Further, they mention purchases in 2004, so I’m thinking that 2005 number of yours is BS about now. But don’t believe us, here is an economic scholar: The Nature and the Origin of the Subprime Mortgage Crisis Pull quote: Because Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac made a market for subprime mortgages the lenders did not have to worry about of the soundness of the mortgage contract they wrote. Thus the lenders could write the mortgages as adjustable interest rate mortgages knowing full well that an upturn in the interest rates could easily throw the borrower into insolvency. Get this Jim, the scholar references non-other than the New York Times in 1999 with a quote that reads: The action, which will begin as a pilot program involving 24 banks in 15 markets — including the New York metropolitan region — will encourage those banks to extend home mortgages to individuals whose credit is generally not good enough to qualify for conventional loans. Fannie Mae officials say they hope to make it a nationwide program by next spring.
Damn Jim, that’s 1999 from the New York Times. When you make shit up Jim, you go big!
Obama has the midas touch of sh**.
I wouldn’t invite him to a bridge opening for fear the bridge would collapse.
Baghdad Jim (predictably) says; “Obama & co. rescued the economy from calamity . . . ”
Want to take us step by step how they did that, BJ? Or is this the “post hoc propter hoc” fallacy that “liberals” used during the Clinton years? (“Clinton was president during some boom years, therefore Clinton caused those boom years.”) I know on the Red-Sun planet you inhabit, statist economics actually produce prosperity, but how did this work on Earth One?
” . . . took big steps forward in health care, education, gay rights, immigration . . .”
Translation: “Dear Leader took us further down the Road to Serfdom, and since I love having the Iron Heel on my back, that makes me all a-tingle!”
and took big steps forward in health care, education, gay rights, immigration
Because the world isn’t as simple as commercial good, government bad. Sometimes commercial is better, sometimes it isn’t. Where expanding humanity’s presence in space is concerned, at this point in time, commercial is better.
Your pretense to such rationalities is pathetic. Where was it in 2009? You democrats refused to listen to the republican side on obamacare because it wasn’t about practicalities, it was about power. You wanted to build the state so that you could have more control over people. There was no intention on helping people.
Democrats are corporatists a la the Italians of the 1930s.
That myth has been debunked.
I wouldn’t put much faith in that.
Says who? Fannie and Freddie weren’t involved in most of the risky loans, and if they’d had tighter requirements they’d have had an even smaller role.
Says any person who looks into the history.
Yes they were involved in the loans because they guaranteed loans. How hard is that to understand?
They didn’t guarantee most of the risky loans that went bad. Are you under the misimpression that Fannie and Freddie guaranteed every mortgage in the U.S.? They weren’t even allowed to buy non-conforming subprime loans until 2005. They got into subprime because the private lenders were running away with the business. They didn’t create the problem, they just foolishly followed after.
I link to an article that links to another article that looks at over three years of jobs reports. By contrast, you and Jon have offered exactly zero evidence that the ACA has pushed more people into part-time work
I’ve given you plenty of information. Why should I give you any more? You just twist and malign everything we all say. You never answer most of the questions, you cherry pick our answers and throw out red herrings.
You should have been a lawyer. You’re already a scheister.
Jim (and all members of the democrat party):
You have denied our right to property by blatant theft. You have taken our savings and reduced it or eliminated it in order for you to pay less in health insurance. Rather than creating laws that would have reduced the price of health insurance, you have rigged the system to benefit those in power. That is called theft. And you are a thief.
You have made millions of Americans debt slaves by encouraging college then raising tuition to the point where alumni will be forced to pay back their loans for decades after school. This denies these students a chance to not only save, but to have an opportunity to buy a home, thus denying them their rights to property.
You have denied our right to liberty. Your claim for gay marriage rests on the right to free association, yet you have denied our own rights to association by forcing us into unwanted contracts with health care providers.
A powerful defense an American citizen has against tyranny is the right to bear arms. You are taking away that right.
You have denied our right to the pursuit of happiness. By forcing us into an incompetent school system run by greedy and powerful unions, you are training us to be passive automatons with no sense of individuality. By allying with greedy university administrators you have made even the most practical vocational degrees too expensive. By rigging the system through the accreditation process, these students are forced to pay for certification, which denies them a chance to build a future and pursue happiness.
You have denied our rights to free speech. By politically correct dogma, we are not allowed to voice our opinions in the marketplace nor in the school system. You have taken us back 300 years.
You have denied our right to life. By distorting the marketplace of health care, you have forced us into rationing. You have eliminated doctors and increased bureaucratic costs. People will die. Simply look at the death of veterans caused by the incompetence of the Veterans Administration and you will see the future of American health care.
You have taken away our right to religion. You are forcing Catholics to provide contraceptives-a direct violation of their religious principles-which is, in essence. the dictates of a State Religion. In this case, the religion of secularism. Your attempt to build a secular religion is premised on the idea that our rights come from a power outside of government. If you can remove that power, you can remove our natural rights.
You have taken away my right of unreasonable search and seizures by NSA spying.
Life, Liberty, the Pursuit of Happiness, Property, Free Association, Free Speech, Freedom of Religion, Bearing Arms, Unreasonable Searches and Seizures. These are the rights of an American citizen that are denied by the democrat party.
Jon: “Life, Liberty, the Pursuit of Happiness, Property, Free Association, Free Speech, Freedom of Religion, Bearing Arms, Unreasonable Searches and Seizures. These are the rights of an American citizen that are denied by the democrat party.”
Baghdad Jim: “Bah! You have no rights! Your ‘rights’ are what we allow you! Dear Leader knows what is good for you–he will tell you what your ‘rights’ are! Submit or face the consequences!”
Jon: “Life, Liberty, the Pursuit of Happiness, Property, Free Association, Free Speech, Freedom of Religion, Bearing Arms, Unreasonable Searches and Seizures. These are the rights of an American citizen that are denied by the democrat party.”
Baghdad Jim: “Bah! You have no rights! Your ‘rights’ are what The Hive allows you! Dear Leader knows what is good for you–he will tell you what your ‘rights’ are! Submit or face the consequences!”