Meister -
The global eonomic problems Reagan faced were undeniably tough (I remember those years myself), but they can hardly be compared with the challenges we all faced in August 2008.
At no stage did Reagan face the potential meltdown of the entire global credid system, or collapses like we saw at GM, AIG, Lehman Brothers or Bear-Stern. To find a comparison for that we'd have to go back to 1932.
The economy 'flourished' under Reagan, and your level of debt rose 190%.
Your home economy can also flourish if you go out and buy a new home, car, TV and a new wardrobe and whack the whole thing on credit cards.
My, we do have a selective memory! Obama had already been in office for the better part of 3 years on Aug 4, 2011, when S&P became the fourth NRSRO (Nationally-Recognized Statistical Rating Organizing) group to downgrade the overspending done in Obama's first 2 years as a warning to Congress to get the debt and deficit under control, not to mention the warning in May 2010 the Weiss group gave NRSROs to downgrade the AAA Rating. Even in Mid-July when they did lower their opinion, they rated it one notch above junk. Others downgraded it only one notch, but they also did a second downgrade a few months later when Obama continued printing money for his pet rock projects rather than stop spending.
S&P Not First
And, Sorry, the 2008 situation is not a campaign issue 4 years later. Blatant overspending and in particular on taxpayer thefts masquerading as 100% government backed loans for Nancy Pelosi's beneficence to her family members' investments in Green companies that had already proven nonviability by concerns that they would go bankrupt immediately. The half billion for one of the companies and the 1.3 billion (plus other quid-pro-quo friendship free loans) for other greeniess that resulted in laying off thousands of Americans from their jobs on a non-announced lockout one morning when they showed up for work to find a blanket dismissal posted on the locked doors.
Money managers all agreed in August 2011 the downgrade would be a campaign issue for Democrats to stop the crazy spending spree. But instead, the Democrats demanded that only their strengths would be addressed in the 3 presidential debates, and the downgrade got the least attention, whatever.
So the elephant sits in the living room, the smug leftist press and even smugger DNC operatives thinking they pulled a fast one on the American public, who would be confused by the most important issue facing America's integrity as the world dynamo that enforces peaceful ways in the world.
Obama's world view requires total chaos on free enterprise and world trade for its proliferation.
Americans who value America's integrity and endless giving to bringing peace through strength are not seduced by Obama's fancy words and the theatrics of the leftist lockstep press that has an agenda for destroying America's good influence because it's "bored" and wants "excitement."
Republicans only want to restore responsibility and a good self-introspection in going about waging peace through strength in the world rather than risk being destroyed by radical Muslim theologies that demand submission to jihad, not to mention the destruction of Israel, all financial trade organizations, and in particular, Christian nations like the United States of America.
It's not words, it's whether America remains a free Republic, governed by complex but workable framework that grants approbation to winning profitable ideas and not losers-take-all ones like our binding engagement with companies that are already headed for bankruptcy when Congress gives them half a billion apiece to squander a year before they actually do go bankrupt. When you divide 535 million that Solyndra received from the DOE for free by the 1100 employes who got sacked in Fremont, CA last year, that's more than $486,000 squandered on each employee if the company had no other receipts from this "stimulus" fiasco.
At $60,000 a year salaries, each employee should have had enough money to stay employed for at least 8 more years if the company received zip for its output. Instead it merely transferred taxpayer contributions to its own big investors, who just happened to be big DNC campaign donors. Can you say Quid Pro Quo? That would be fine with me if Obama had simply decided to take the money away from his enemy bankers and give them to his friends...oh, wait. He was obeying Jeremiah Wright's instructions to "God damn America" in the only way he really could--financial chaos.
Oh, and to refresh your memory, here are the 34 companies that have already gone bankrupt from Obama's generosity of giving good money to already-failed green businesses, who in spite of receiving billions of hard-earned taxpayer money (over $7 billion, in fact, if you do the math) - the troubled recipients' list:
- Evergreen Solar ($25 million)*
- SpectraWatt ($500,000)*
- Solyndra ($535 million)*
- Beacon Power ($43 million)*
- Nevada Geothermal ($98.5 million)
- SunPower ($1.2 billion)
- First Solar ($1.46 billion)
- Babcock and Brown ($178 million)
- EnerDel’s subsidiary Ener1 ($118.5 million)*
- Amonix ($5.9 million)
- Fisker Automotive ($529 million)
- Abound Solar ($400 million)*
- A123 Systems ($279 million)*
- Willard and Kelsey Solar Group ($700,981)*
- Johnson Controls ($299 million)
- Schneider Electric ($86 million)
- Brightsource ($1.6 billion)
- ECOtality ($126.2 million)
- Raser Technologies ($33 million)*
- Energy Conversion Devices ($13.3 million)*
- Mountain Plaza, Inc. ($2 million)*
- Olsen’s Crop Service and Olsen’s Mills Acquisition Company ($10 million)*
- Range Fuels ($80 million)*
- Thompson River Power ($6.5 million)*
- Stirling Energy Systems ($7 million)*
- Azure Dynamics ($5.4 million)*
- GreenVolts ($500,000)
- Vestas ($50 million)
- LG Chem’s subsidiary Compact Power ($151 million)
- Nordic Windpower ($16 million)*
- Navistar ($39 million)
- Satcon ($3 million)*
- Konarka Technologies Inc. ($20 million)*
- Mascoma Corp. ($100 million)
*Denotes companies that have filed for bankruptcy.
