Are things better than 4 years ago? You Betcha!

[Darkwind]

Is a bigger hole better?

I guess its all a matter of perception and who you talk to.

That is just the thing. The water isn't as deep because the hole is much, much wider (and deeper too!).

We'd already be back into a good economy (Like the other 80% of Bush's term) if Obama had just left things along.

 

[Too Tall]

Remember the dark days of start the Bush Depression?
Remember how people were worried they were gonna lose EVERYTHING?
There was talk of bank closings. Panic on Wall Street.
700,000 jobs lost in the month prior to Obama taking office.
People were freaking the hell out!

Look at today.
Complaints that the markets haven't recovered FAST enough yet.

I'd say, considering where BushCo left us, we're not doing so bad.
God knows, if "the fundamentals of our economy are sound" old man McCain would have gotten in there, who KNOWS where we'd be today. Probably waiting in a bread line.

I remember when the Democrats took over Congress in 2006 that the economy tanked.

 

[thereisnospoon]

Things are looking eeerily similar to the Summer of 2008 right now to me.
By end of the summer?

In the financial world there are definitely some parallels. But I do not believe the financial system is as flat-footed as it was in 2008. The governments and central banks around the world have been facilitating some astronomical carry trades so the financial houses can accumulate enough cash to write off their losses. This is happening at the expense of every saver in the Western world. The common man is still being robbed six ways to Sunday but remains only tangentially aware. Thus the neverending undercurrent of anger in every conversation.

The Euro crisis is just Phase II of the great financial derivatives fiasco of the 21st century. And so the financial houses will incur yet more losses that will require yet more facilitating by the central banks to help them muddle through. The Other Side is still a ways off. We are still very close to the abyss and can be shoved over the edge by an unrelated war or conflict or just sheer irrational herd panic over a bad thunderstorm one day.

Keep your wits sharp, your fingers crossed, the prayer candles burning, and your rifle loaded.

The Euro crises is fully the fault of the out of control costs of socialism.

 

[Too Tall]

Is a bigger hole better?

I guess its all a matter of perception and who you talk to.

Imagine how much worse it could have been without Obama spending $5 trillion.

8.3 unemployment although the highest in 60 yrs is quite an accomplishment.

For the first time in this country's history we can't expect that our children will have a better life than we had. But who cares. Bring on another Greek economy and hope somebody likes us enough to bail us out.

Doesn't the House control spending? I don't believe the President can authorize any spending, in fact. He can only approve or veto it.

The House has passed several budgets but the Senate votes them down and refuses to send them to a conference committee for amendments. This has been going on for almost three years. Obama's 2012 Budget proposal was voted down in the Senate 97-0.

The government operates on one continuing resolution after another. It is that or shut down the government, or have the Senate pass a budget for the President to sign or veto.

 

[LeftofLeft]

Remember the dark days of start the Bush Depression?
Remember how people were worried they were gonna lose EVERYTHING?
There was talk of bank closings. Panic on Wall Street.
700,000 jobs lost in the month prior to Obama taking office.
People were freaking the hell out!

Look at today.
Complaints that the markets haven't recovered FAST enough yet.

I'd say, considering where BushCo left us, we're not doing so bad.
God knows, if "the fundamentals of our economy are sound" old man McCain would have gotten in there, who KNOWS where we'd be today. Probably waiting in a bread line.

Pitch all you want.....better hope the swing voters buy it.

 

[Avatar4321]

So we were on the brink of economic recession in 2008. Now we are still in recession and on the brink of global conflict.

This is better?

 

[Too Tall]

I'm talking about this mythical $5 Trillion you keep blaming on Obama: he can't spend any money! Blame Congress. And start with the House.[/QUOTE]

Yup. It's mindless to hyper-focus on Obama when it's Congress, who are paid handsomely by the lobbyists, to do exactly what they are told. [/QUOTE]

The House passes budgets and they get voted down in the Senate. Then the Senate does not present a budget and we operate on a continuing resolution. I say blame the Senate.

 

[LoneLaugher]

What a bunch of assholes.

 

[Too Tall]

Definitely better...out if Iraq, getting out of Afghanistan, bin Laden dead, DADT repealed, stock market double what it was, 22 straight months of job gains, stem cell research, Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act passed, no discrimination for pre-existing conditions and the ability to provide HC to children to age 26...just to name a few. WAY better.

My four 'children' grew up and went to work by the time they were 21 and bought their own HC. I didn't consider them children when they turned I8, since children aren't allowed to vote.

 

[Rozman]

Well for gay people it's been faaaab ulous.
For the rest of us I would say not so good.
But we do have another Summer of recovery at hand.

 

[Luddly Neddite]

Yes, much better.

Four years ago was before the bush crash and we were still losing jobs at the rate of THREE QUARTERS OF A MILLION EVERY SINGLE MONTH.

Since President Obama took office, we've gained jobs every single month and the economy has shown growth every month. And, Wall Street has doubled!!

Sorry, rw's but your party has not added even one job in more than ten years.

 

[hortysir]

Remember the dark days of start the Bush Depression?
Remember how people were worried they were gonna lose EVERYTHING?
There was talk of bank closings. Panic on Wall Street.
700,000 jobs lost in the month prior to Obama taking office.
People were freaking the hell out!

Look at today.
Complaints that the markets haven't recovered FAST enough yet.

I'd say, considering where BushCo left us, we're not doing so bad.
God knows, if "the fundamentals of our economy are sound" old man McCain would have gotten in there, who KNOWS where we'd be today. Probably waiting in a bread line.

You're RIGHT.

The Republican House has done a wonderful job!

 

[blackhawk]

The millions of unemployed including those who have dropped out the workforce or quit looking who we don't count in the unemployment numbers might disagree.

 

[Papageorgio]

This is a stupid thread. 4 years ago, the market hadn't crashed, and Hillary was thought to be a lock for the Democratic nomination.

The question is if you are better off today than you were in January, 2009. That's when people were having their credit cards cancelled, and the stock market was down to 6,000.

Good point, I had a job and made over 100k a year, today...unemployed.

Obama is a train wreck.

NOBAMA IN 2012!

 

[Synthaholic]

This is a stupid thread. 4 years ago, the market hadn't crashed, and Hillary was thought to be a lock for the Democratic nomination.

The question is if you are better off today than you were in January, 2009. That's when people were having their credit cards cancelled, and the stock market was down to 6,000.

Good point, I had a job and made over 100k a year, today...unemployed.

Obama is a train wreck.

NOBAMA IN 2012!

I guess you shouldn't have become the town drunk, then.

 

[Papageorgio]

This is a stupid thread. 4 years ago, the market hadn't crashed, and Hillary was thought to be a lock for the Democratic nomination.

The question is if you are better off today than you were in January, 2009. That's when people were having their credit cards cancelled, and the stock market was down to 6,000.

Good point, I had a job and made over 100k a year, today...unemployed.

Obama is a train wreck.

NOBAMA IN 2012!

I guess you shouldn't have become the town drunk, then.

Lol! Better than being a politician, those guys drink me under the table.

 

[francoHFW]

So we were on the brink of economic recession in 2008. Now we are still in recession and on the brink of global conflict.

This is better?

The recession started 1/2008, as BOOOSH finally announced in September- By October it was the SECOND cronyism/corruption GREAT DEPRESSION/ABYSS, dumbass. And you want to do it again..

 

[Synthaholic]

Good point, I had a job and made over 100k a year, today...unemployed.

Obama is a train wreck.

NOBAMA IN 2012!

I guess you shouldn't have become the town drunk, then.

Lol! Better than being a politician, those guys drink me under the table.

John Boehner begs GOP congressmen to stop partying with pretty lady lobbyists

The House minority leader tells his members it's not appropriate to attend after-hours lobbyist parties



The New York Post’s “Page Six” reported last week that Minority Leader John Boehner is telling GOP congressmen to please stop getting drunk with lobbyists — especially young, pretty, female lobbyists — because, let’s face it, it just doesn’t look good. “Page Six” had spotted Rep. Lee Terry “in close conversation with a comely lobbyist at the Capitol Hill Club in DC.” “Why did you get me so drunk?” Terry is reported to have said (among other things) to the “giggling woman.”

Lobbyist Glenn LeMunyon, a former Tom DeLay appropriations staffer, holds well-attended fundraisers and “after-hours parties” at his Capitol Hill row house. Missouri Republican Sam Graves was photographed dining at D.C.’s finest beer bar, Brickskeller, with a blond woman who turned out to be a lobbyist for the Patriot Group, where she “represents health care systems, financial institutions, utilities, technologists, tort reform coalitions, oil and gas interests, and human rights causes at the state and federal level.”

Roll Call advances the story today with a piece on how Boehner “has been working behind the scenes to address the issue for at least the past year and a half.”

What is “the issue”? According to Boehner, the problem is the appearance of impropriety. And Roll Call names names:

Several Republican lobbyists said the Terry incident is part of a larger concern involving a group of House Republicans and lobbyists, including Glenn LeMunyon of the LeMunyon Group, who regularly party with female lobbyists.

“On the Hill, there’s a lot of older men that just go home when they’re done with votes,” said the longtime Capitol Hill Club member who overheard Terry’s remark. “Then you have a smaller group that likes to knock back a few and have a good time.”

Among them are GOP Reps. Bill Shuster (Pa.), Sam Graves (Mo.), Chris Lee (N.Y.) and Duncan Hunter (Calif.), several sources have confirmed. None of the Members have been accused of any improprieties.
​

Being a congressman is like being in college, basically — you’re far from home with no parents, and a lot of free time — so obviously members enjoy going out and getting drunk and “hooking up,” like the kids do.


*snip*

 

[Synthaholic]

That was then. This is now:

 

[Dick Tuck]

Things are not better yet. There are still more unemployed than when the President took office. Some partisan hacks would have you believe Obama is to blame for all 6 or 7 million people who lost their jobs, retroactively applying some weird time travel culpability beam. Or something.

But the fact remains there are something like 1.8 million more people unemployed than when he took office. And until the economy is back on track and everyone is back to work, no one can say things are better to those people's faces.

We also have a whole new entitlement program which is going to bankrupt not only the federal government, but also all 50 state governments. Forget about just taxing the rich more, we are going to have to tax your wife and children and your fricking dog and pet goldfish to pay for ObamaCare.

And then there was that whole State invading the Church thing. A real fuckup, that was.

The stock market is certainly better off than when Obama took office. It is much, much, higher. So the rich are still getting richer. Good for them.

On the foreign policy front, the war in Iraq is pretty much wound down. That's better.

Things in Afghanistan haven't changed much.

Osama bin Laden is dead. And no matter what my fellow right wing hacks have to say about, all glory to Obama for that one.

I also believe Obama is following a very careful roadmap to some kind of military action against Iran. Whether or not that is his actual plan, he is taking exactly the right steps toward that end. I have no doubt if a Republican were in the White House he would be doing exactly the same thing, and no one on the right would raise even the slightest bitchy little peep of disagreement over this current course of action. All the i's are being dotted and all the t's are being crossed. The United States of America has learned a thing or two from the last two conflicts and is now making all the right moves about Iran.

And I believe Iran knows this and will eventually make concessions because of it, making war unneccessary.

So all in all, I think Obama is a pretty good foreign policy President, but a really shitty domestic policy President.


See, when Ronald Reagan asked, "Are you better off now than you were four years ago?" there were no gray areas. We were clearly worse off. And that is why he won in a landslide.

Then, four years later, when he asked again, we were clearly better off. There was a stark contrast between Then and Now. And so he won in an even bigger landslide.

Well, Obama won because Bush completely fucked us in the ass. We were clearly worse off, and anyone with an R after their name had no chance of winning the Big Chair.

But we are not clearly better off now. The stark contrast just isn't there. And Obama is lucky the pain of ObamaCare has not yet hit us, or he'd be asking the mountains to fall on him and protect him.

Fair assessment. As far as ObamaCare? Why do you think it was designed not to hit until after the 2012 election?

Parts of it have already hit. Parts of it needed to give employers and citizens time to adjust. It's already doing wonders for people who might have preexisting conditions, and may have been forced into other insurance pools. It also helps private insurance companies. They no longer have to play by 50 sets of rules.