CNN Truth Squad: Did Obama destroy the economy?

[DiamondDave]

Duh...blaming Obama for the economy is like blaming your hangover on the guy cleaning up your puke and making you breakfast.

More like the guy who served you the last 7 drinks out of your 14 drink night... which you can blame the hangover on that, just as you can blame a LOT of what is wrong with the economy on Obama's actions

 

[Sallow]

The verdict:

False. The Obama administration's much-criticized efforts to revive the economy may not have lived up to their billing, but statistics show the bulk of the damage was done before he was sworn in.

Say it with me now...."Boooooooooooooooooooooooooooosh"

CNN Truth Squad: Did Obama destroy the economy? - CNN.com

True. Bush put tanked it and put the economy in a hole. Then Obama came along with his heavy duty digging equipment and turned the hole into a canyon...

No he didn't.

Using that analogy..Bush tanked it, put it in a hole, then lied to the next guy about how deep the hole was because he keep covering it with wood planks and some nice potted plants.

 

[Sallow]

Duh...blaming Obama for the economy is like blaming your hangover on the guy cleaning up your puke and making you breakfast.

More like the guy who served you the last 7 drinks out of your 14 drink night... which you can blame the hangover on that, just as you can blame a LOT of what is wrong with the economy on Obama's actions

No you can't.

With the exception of extending the Bush tax cuts..Obama's done nothing to exascerbate the situation left by Bush..and everything to try and fix it.

Unless you hold the "let it meltdown and bust" philosophy.

 

[Sallow]

I don't get the necessary but not sufficient comment. Please explain.

The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act allowed Commercail Banks, investment banks, security firms and insurance companies to consolodate, i.e. to become "to big to fail" and repealed Glass-Steagall's conflicts of interest provisions.

Seems to me the G-L-B Act, along with greed and a complete disregard for our country's economic health is one cause of our economic problems. Failure to regulate and enforce existing laws, cutting taxes and engaging in war, are a couple of others. There is no single cause, no single party or person to blame.

Conveniently, you left out Gov't spending. That's the straw that broke the camels back.

Also conveniently, you throw out the GLB, along with "greed" and other bull shit, that doesn't add up to a hill of beans! In the end, nobody forced the dumbass' to purchase mortgages that they could not afford. I mean come on! It's common sense! Don't sign the dotted line on something that certainly WILL come back and bite you in the ass! Nothing IS FREE!

The bottom line is that DEBT got us into this shit! Debt! Debt that nobody can afford. Spending by the Federal, State, local AND Personal got us into this mess, and it is what will keep us from recovering from it. I don't care how many regulations that are placed on the books, they will never be able to make up for the lack of finacial discipline required to keep a successful economy going.

The bottom line is, you can not afford to spend more than you take in, no matter what!

You're right and your wrong at the same time.

you can not afford to spend more than you take in

that's true.

but who is more responsible...unsophisticated investors/home buyers who are notorious in a consumer culture for buying things they can't afford....or the market creators/sophisticated businessmen/finance gurus whose job it is to know better, not sell to people they don't check out thoroughly, and who create debt instruments that they know are risky?

Sure. The population itself is somewhat to blame...but not as much as the financial sector. You know this, deep down, in places you don't like to talk about at cocktail parties.

Not only did they not check..they did their damnest to goad people into these mortgages.

That included lying to them..and just about everyone else.

 

[BDBoop]

I know they'd love to play "Obama operates in a vacuum" all the livelong day, but it's utter bullshit. He inherited a huge mess, and it's been compounded by the McConnell, Cantor, Boehner trifecta in the Party of No.

 

[Jarhead]

I don't get the necessary but not sufficient comment. Please explain.

The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act allowed Commercail Banks, investment banks, security firms and insurance companies to consolodate, i.e. to become "to big to fail" and repealed Glass-Steagall's conflicts of interest provisions.

Seems to me the G-L-B Act, along with greed and a complete disregard for our country's economic health is one cause of our economic problems. Failure to regulate and enforce existing laws, cutting taxes and engaging in war, are a couple of others. There is no single cause, no single party or person to blame.

Conveniently, you left out Gov't spending. That's the straw that broke the camels back.

Also conveniently, you throw out the GLB, along with "greed" and other bull shit, that doesn't add up to a hill of beans! In the end, nobody forced the dumbass' to purchase mortgages that they could not afford. I mean come on! It's common sense! Don't sign the dotted line on something that certainly WILL come back and bite you in the ass! Nothing IS FREE!

The bottom line is that DEBT got us into this shit! Debt! Debt that nobody can afford. Spending by the Federal, State, local AND Personal got us into this mess, and it is what will keep us from recovering from it. I don't care how many regulations that are placed on the books, they will never be able to make up for the lack of finacial discipline required to keep a successful economy going.

The bottom line is, you can not afford to spend more than you take in, no matter what!

You're right and your wrong at the same time.

you can not afford to spend more than you take in

that's true.

but who is more responsible...unsophisticated investors/home buyers who are notorious in a consumer culture for buying things they can't afford....or the market creators/sophisticated businessmen/finance gurus whose job it is to know better, not sell to people they don't check out thoroughly, and who create debt instruments that they know are risky?

Sure. The population itself is somewhat to blame...but not as much as the financial sector. You know this, deep down, in places you don't like to talk about at cocktail parties.

Vanquish...in the interest honesty...

You must look at it this way.

People did not simply buy more than they could afford as it pertained to the housing issue.

They FIRST had to lie on an affidavit about their income. The mortage application is an affidacvit that specificall ysays (paraphrased)

'I att4est to the validity of the above information to the best of my knowledge'

So the real question is this...

How can you defer ANY of the blame from people who knowingly and intentioanlly lied on a signed affidavit?

Furthermore, those wall street types would never have been able to LEGALLY (albeit unethically) capitalize on anything if people didnt first ILLEGALLY and UNETHICALLY lie on an affidavit.....that they not only sign when they apply....but they sign 4 more copies of it at closing.

 

[Jarhead]

I know they'd love to play "Obama operates in a vacuum" all the livelong day, but it's utter bullshit. He inherited a huge mess, and it's been compounded by the McConnell, Cantor, Boehner trifecta in the Party of No.

He was a senator when the mess developed...so he inherited shit....he was part of making the shit.
He ran on a platform of promising to fix the mess....so enough with the "inherited" crap.

And the rest of your partisan rant about the big bad GOP is just pathetic.

 

[Raoul_Duke]

Duh...blaming Obama for the economy is like blaming your hangover on the guy cleaning up your puke and making you breakfast.

More like the guy who served you the last 7 drinks out of your 14 drink night... which you can blame the hangover on that, just as you can blame a LOT of what is wrong with the economy on Obama's actions

What can you blame on Obama's actions?

 

[DiamondDave]

Duh...blaming Obama for the economy is like blaming your hangover on the guy cleaning up your puke and making you breakfast.

More like the guy who served you the last 7 drinks out of your 14 drink night... which you can blame the hangover on that, just as you can blame a LOT of what is wrong with the economy on Obama's actions

No you can't.

With the exception of extending the Bush tax cuts..Obama's done nothing to exascerbate the situation left by Bush..and everything to try and fix it.

Unless you hold the "let it meltdown and bust" philosophy.

His attempts to 'fix' were wrong, are wrong, and are indeed part of the blame for the situation we are in now... Not everything by your object of your sexual desires is inherently 'good'

 

[DiamondDave]

Duh...blaming Obama for the economy is like blaming your hangover on the guy cleaning up your puke and making you breakfast.

More like the guy who served you the last 7 drinks out of your 14 drink night... which you can blame the hangover on that, just as you can blame a LOT of what is wrong with the economy on Obama's actions

What can you blame on Obama's actions?

Increased government borrowing and spending... Obamacare... stimulus... auto buyouts... proposal of piss poor economic plans that promote more taxation and less private use of earnings by citizens as they see fit... the list goes on of things he has done to not only hurt more, but to scare the living piss out of those who actually drive the economy (and that certainly ain't the government)

 

[Soggy in NOLA]

I know they'd love to play "Obama operates in a vacuum" all the livelong day, but it's utter bullshit. He inherited a huge mess, and it's been compounded by the McConnell, Cantor, Boehner trifecta in the Party of No.

Yeah.. mkay.. keep telling yourself that.

The economy is far worse today than it was under Bush... PERIOD.

And spare us the "oh, but it would have been so much worse" because that is utter horse crap and totally unprovable. Talk about left wing wet dreams...

 

[Vanquish]

Conveniently, you left out Gov't spending. That's the straw that broke the camels back.

Also conveniently, you throw out the GLB, along with "greed" and other bull shit, that doesn't add up to a hill of beans! In the end, nobody forced the dumbass' to purchase mortgages that they could not afford. I mean come on! It's common sense! Don't sign the dotted line on something that certainly WILL come back and bite you in the ass! Nothing IS FREE!

The bottom line is that DEBT got us into this shit! Debt! Debt that nobody can afford. Spending by the Federal, State, local AND Personal got us into this mess, and it is what will keep us from recovering from it. I don't care how many regulations that are placed on the books, they will never be able to make up for the lack of finacial discipline required to keep a successful economy going.

The bottom line is, you can not afford to spend more than you take in, no matter what!

You're right and your wrong at the same time.

you can not afford to spend more than you take in

that's true.

but who is more responsible...unsophisticated investors/home buyers who are notorious in a consumer culture for buying things they can't afford....or the market creators/sophisticated businessmen/finance gurus whose job it is to know better, not sell to people they don't check out thoroughly, and who create debt instruments that they know are risky?

Sure. The population itself is somewhat to blame...but not as much as the financial sector. You know this, deep down, in places you don't like to talk about at cocktail parties.

Vanquish...in the interest honesty...

You must look at it this way.

People did not simply buy more than they could afford as it pertained to the housing issue.

They FIRST had to lie on an affidavit about their income. The mortage application is an affidacvit that specificall ysays (paraphrased)

'I att4est to the validity of the above information to the best of my knowledge'

So the real question is this...

How can you defer ANY of the blame from people who knowingly and intentioanlly lied on a signed affidavit?

Furthermore, those wall street types would never have been able to LEGALLY (albeit unethically) capitalize on anything if people didnt first ILLEGALLY and UNETHICALLY lie on an affidavit.....that they not only sign when they apply....but they sign 4 more copies of it at closing.

I'm saying both are at fault, but one group more than the other. And yes, it's the sophisticated financial sector group.

I'm choosing the PROFESSIONALS over the NON-professionals. I can't put it more clearly than that. Ok. Both groups lied. Your argument is that the non-professionals lied first. But the professionals knew the rules better and had a higher duty to regulatory authorities.

And we have no idea how many times they lied when you think about all that paperwork. Ok. The non-professionals lied 4 times (let's say). How many times did the professionals use, copy, transmit, base agreements, offer in court, offer in settlement, ....etc etc etc those same documents?

And that's just with home mortgages. I'm also talking about exotic financial instruments that leveraged debt into higher rates that they solicited as a fair exchange for taking on riskier debts.

Or let's go back and talk about the now-infamous CDOs, or "collateralized debt obligations," which were a combination of both solid and risky mortgages squashed together into one instrument. They were sold as the "safest of all investments" thanks to their AAA rating, and then were rushed into the marketplace where unsuspecting investors bought them in droves.

Come on. You don't seriously want to hold non-professionals as responsible as professionals in ANY business situation, do you?

EDIT:
I really think, that in some conservatives' minds, if you don't put 100% of the blame on people, y'all think that they'll just escape blame at all. It IS possible to blame 2 groups at the same time. Same principle that my wife uses. She thinks that if I don't accept 100% of the responsibility...that I don't think I have a lesson to learn...or I evade all responsibility. Life isn't like that. It's possible to be wrong...but not 100% wrong. But conservatives are sooo afraid of letting someone off the hook....well, unless it's big business.

 

[Claudette]

My thoughts are that you should do some long hard thinking before you sign on that dotted line.

You don't have to be a professional for that one.

You do however need some common sense.

 

[Vanquish]

My thoughts are that you should do some long hard thinking before you sign on that dotted line.

You don't have to be a professional for that one.

You do however need some common sense.

And I agree with that. Responsibility comes with a signature.

 

[Sallow]

More like the guy who served you the last 7 drinks out of your 14 drink night... which you can blame the hangover on that, just as you can blame a LOT of what is wrong with the economy on Obama's actions

No you can't.

With the exception of extending the Bush tax cuts..Obama's done nothing to exascerbate the situation left by Bush..and everything to try and fix it.

Unless you hold the "let it meltdown and bust" philosophy.

His attempts to 'fix' were wrong, are wrong, and are indeed part of the blame for the situation we are in now... Not everything by your object of your sexual desires is inherently 'good'

Well you might want to offer up something in the way of proof..as to why it was bad to stave off a UE meltdown on a state level. Heck, even Perry used some of the stimulus money to "balance" his budget.

And seriously..my "sexual desires" are none of your fucking business.

 

[Sallow]

More like the guy who served you the last 7 drinks out of your 14 drink night... which you can blame the hangover on that, just as you can blame a LOT of what is wrong with the economy on Obama's actions

What can you blame on Obama's actions?

Increased government borrowing and spending... Obamacare... stimulus... auto buyouts... proposal of piss poor economic plans that promote more taxation and less private use of earnings by citizens as they see fit... the list goes on of things he has done to not only hurt more, but to scare the living piss out of those who actually drive the economy (and that certainly ain't the government)

Completely and utterly wrong.

The "borrowing and spending" came from the Bush administration. The Stimulus was to small and was using numbers provided by the Bush administration that scored how bad both the deficit and UE were..and they turned out to be wrong. In any case, the Stimulus saved jobs, was used on many infrastructure projects and had a stimulative effect on the economy. The "tax charge" is also wrong. The middle class got tax cuts and the "Wealth Extractors" keep their Bush tax rates. The economy was showing growth until 2010. Then the brakes were put on.

Good job boys.

 

[Jarhead]

You're right and your wrong at the same time.

you can not afford to spend more than you take in

that's true.

but who is more responsible...unsophisticated investors/home buyers who are notorious in a consumer culture for buying things they can't afford....or the market creators/sophisticated businessmen/finance gurus whose job it is to know better, not sell to people they don't check out thoroughly, and who create debt instruments that they know are risky?

Sure. The population itself is somewhat to blame...but not as much as the financial sector. You know this, deep down, in places you don't like to talk about at cocktail parties.

Vanquish...in the interest honesty...

You must look at it this way.

People did not simply buy more than they could afford as it pertained to the housing issue.

They FIRST had to lie on an affidavit about their income. The mortage application is an affidacvit that specificall ysays (paraphrased)

'I att4est to the validity of the above information to the best of my knowledge'

So the real question is this...

How can you defer ANY of the blame from people who knowingly and intentioanlly lied on a signed affidavit?

Furthermore, those wall street types would never have been able to LEGALLY (albeit unethically) capitalize on anything if people didnt first ILLEGALLY and UNETHICALLY lie on an affidavit.....that they not only sign when they apply....but they sign 4 more copies of it at closing.

I'm saying both are at fault, but one group more than the other. And yes, it's the sophisticated financial sector group.

I'm choosing the PROFESSIONALS over the NON-professionals. I can't put it more clearly than that. Ok. Both groups lied. Your argument is that the non-professionals lied first. But the professionals knew the rules better and had a higher duty to regulatory authorities.

And we have no idea how many times they lied when you think about all that paperwork. Ok. The non-professionals lied 4 times (let's say). How many times did the professionals use, copy, transmit, base agreements, offer in court, offer in settlement, ....etc etc etc those same documents?

And that's just with home mortgages. I'm also talking about exotic financial instruments that leveraged debt into higher rates that they solicited as a fair exchange for taking on riskier debts.

Or let's go back and talk about the now-infamous CDOs, or "collateralized debt obligations," which were a combination of both solid and risky mortgages squashed together into one instrument. They were sold as the "safest of all investments" thanks to their AAA rating, and then were rushed into the marketplace where unsuspecting investors bought them in droves.

Come on. You don't seriously want to hold non-professionals as responsible as professionals in ANY business situation, do you?

EDIT:
I really think, that in some conservatives' minds, if you don't put 100% of the blame on people, y'all think that they'll just escape blame at all. It IS possible to blame 2 groups at the same time. Same principle that my wife uses. She thinks that if I don't accept 100% of the responsibility...that I don't think I have a lesson to learn...or I evade all responsibility. Life isn't like that. It's possible to be wrong...but not 100% wrong. But conservatives are sooo afraid of letting someone off the hook....well, unless it's big business.

you see...that is why you and I dont see eye to eye on this at all.
Follow me here for a minute.

I am not wrapped up in blame at all...although you took it that way...and I understand it.

But a ture conservative ONLY blames himself. That was the point I was making. IF I lie, then I may get hurt by someone else...which means only one thing......I am the one who created this for myself....personal responsibility.

The left wants to blame others.....think about it. Those that are losing their homes becuase they did not look at ALL possibilities when they took the ARM? The left wants to blame the "teaser rates"...I would blame myslelf (although I was tempted by the teaser rates, I looked at all possibilites and went with a fixed rate refi).

The left wants to blame those creidt card companies for not making the fine print "larger". Me? I say if you cant read it or understand it, dont sign it. Personal responsibility.

Those that are losing their homes becuase they lied on the affidavits? They have only themselves to blame.

Now..in closing...

A consertvative president would have said to the public....

You cant understand or read it? Dont sign it or buy it.

And you know something? The credit card companies would have made user friendly changes in an effort to get the business....no government interference...no class warfare.....free market at work.

But Obama?

You are a VICTIM for signing without reading.

I mean...really?

 

[Jarhead]

My thoughts are that you should do some long hard thinking before you sign on that dotted line.

You don't have to be a professional for that one.

You do however need some common sense.

And I agree with that. Responsibility comes with a signature.

then why do many on the left want to go after the mortgage people who did nothing illegal....

But not a word about the people sho SIGNED a legal document knowing they were lying?

 

[California Girl]

I know they'd love to play "Obama operates in a vacuum" all the livelong day, but it's utter bullshit. He inherited a huge mess, and it's been compounded by the McConnell, Cantor, Boehner trifecta in the Party of No.

He was a senator when the mess developed...so he inherited shit....he was part of making the shit.
He ran on a platform of promising to fix the mess....so enough with the "inherited" crap.

And the rest of your partisan rant about the big bad GOP is just pathetic.

You're wasting your time using reason and logic with people who have no ability to reason or use logic. Seriously. They prefer to pretend it's all someone else's fault. The reality is too scary.

 

[IndependntLogic]

Say it with me now...."Boooooooooooooooooooooooooooosh"

CNN Truth Squad: Did Obama destroy the economy? - CNN.com

True. Bush put tanked it and put the economy in a hole. Then Obama came along with his heavy duty digging equipment and turned the hole into a canyon...

No he didn't.

Using that analogy..Bush tanked it, put it in a hole, then lied to the next guy about how deep the hole was because he keep covering it with wood planks and some nice potted plants.

Okay as an Independent, I can't go with either camp's claim of "Oh it's ALL Bush / Obama's fault!".
Bush tanked us. No doubt. Hell, he did SUCH a bad job, the GOP nominee literally stopped his campaign because of the "Crisis facing our nation" while Bush was still in office. So the BS that he is not culpable is exactly that. Fine.
But after Obama got in, what did he do? Exact same things as Bush. He REWARDED the banks and auto industries for their incompetence! Then he spent the next year and a half of our crisis, passing a health care plan that's so bad, not one Dem mentioned it in their mid-terms - except to say they voted AGAINST it. WTF???
Did he or the Dems introduce legislation that would offer long-term incentives for 100% American companies to hire Americans? Nope.
He's wasted his time and our money. He's a waste.