So BO campaigned on knowing "what the problems are & how to fix them". He conned a lot of people into falling for his slogans & platitudes. Where has this gotten us? Unemployment keeps rising...gas prices have doubled...the new debt he has added is pushing us to the brink...home values are tanking even more. What else could go wrong? How many of you BO supporters wish you had a do-over, knowing what you helped get elected?
Home prices have almost leveled off since he took office. Look at 2006 to January 2009 and see what has happened since Jan 2009. Calculated Risk Chart Gallery And unemployment has pretty much leveled off since he took office compared to what happened under Bush's last year in office. United States Unemployment Rate Obama's deficits have been pretty close to Bush's deficit for his last year in office so I would say that is pretty much a leveling off too. But you are correct that gas prices have pretty much doubled since he took office. So, has he improved the situation a lot since he took office? I would have to say not really. Has he stopped the downward spirals and leveled off the falls? I would have to say yes for a lot of things. At least compared to the last year of the last President. So, do I give him some credit for stopping the free fall we were in during the last year of Bush...yes, I would say I do. DO I think he has turned things around and they will get better from here on out? Probably not. I think we are mostly stagnated.
Oil companies are making huge profits. If Obama tried to curtail gas prices, David would be going nuts shouting ''Socialist!''. Hang in there old sport. Just 17 more months to go. You made it this far with out his disastrous blunders effecting you too much, right? I mean youre going to Hawaii instead of placing that disposable income in a safe place so youre children wont be so encumbered paying for the debt this Prez has accumulated. That was one of your main concerns regarding national health care, yes? ''Pushing this country to the brink''. What a drama queen.
Hmmmm...never heard him make a speech promising stagnation. According to NBC yesterday, home values are actually at their lowest level since 2002! Unemployment? Me thinks we're being bamboozled on this one. Apparently BO's administration was forced to issue "revised" numbers for Q1 that painted a bit more dismal of a picture (but I guess that's just politics to the left, huh?). So I wonder how many folks would go back & change their vote if they had the benefit of hindsight?
Okay, okay...I got weak & actually read one of craigs 'posts". Would I be bothered if BO tried to takeover another legal business? Yep! Hey, craig, just a little bit of info for you here...everyone else knows it but I guess you missed it..the best opportunity fo us in regard to the gas price situation is to have a president who doesn't vilify our natural resources. Oil companies are bad guys, coal kills, etc etc. You've been duped again. We all saw this coming. BO hasn't stated publically that he believes $4.00 gas is necessary to help reduce consumption but he stops there. He fumbled on his pledge to pursue alternative sources. And as far as my disposable income? You don't have to worry about me...I'm set & my kids are set. In fact, I'm in my early 40's and semi-retired. I've worked hard, studied hard & made responsible decisions. As long as BO doesn't nationalize my 401k or confiscate my land, assets and other savings I'll be fine. Heck, Hawaii...NYC...several dive trips to the Caribbean and maybe Europe in the fall? My 2 kids are perfectly okay.
Sure you got weak. Believe me I wasnt worried. You were the on making a big stink about your kids having pay for Obama's debt. Not me; you. If y'all are so set, what was the big deal about your kids future? You remember saying that right? So as you say, youre all ''ok''. So why are you whining all the time about this President? Apparently his actions dont affect you.
Dunno. Never heard the last President say he was going to send everything in the dumps his last year either. Which is basically where it was at the end of the last Presidents term. I am just going off of what happened the last year of the last President's term vs the term of this one. The free fall ended. Not me but then again I didn't vote for him.
I want them to be able to do what they wish to do with their money, not be forced to pay for BO's folly with it. That just doesn't seem to be a concept that's difficult to grasp (but I forgot who I was dealing with here, sorry).
But arent you and all of us paying for past Presidential follies? I mean you arent tax exempt. What difference who's folly they pay for?
So you are blaming Bush for the collapse of the real estate market. I wasn't aware that he was writing sub-prime mortgages during his 8 years in office. Or are you blaming him for deregulation?
"If houses get too expensive, people will stop buying them" "Economies should cycle." - George Bush 2006. I blame him for not caring enough to do anything or not being smart enough to see what was really happening. Pick one. Pretty much sums up his Presidency. Crap all over everything and leave it for the next guy. Domestic and foreign.
So you blame him for deregulation. That quoted comment, while simplistic, is a summary of how a free market economy works. After all, he is the one who made Paulson his Secretary of the Treasury.
It is not really a free market when you are manipulating one side (the buying side) to heights the free market would never allow while letting the other go unregulated and unwatched (the lending side). It is quite simple. Bush encouraged irresponsible home ownership. He forced the government to enable irresponsible home ownership. He encouraged banks to give risky loans to enable irresponsible home ownership which helped lead to the risky investments that brought the banks down. He basked in the political glow of the housing market bubble while it went up and, as that quote shows, was too stupid to care if it burst. And when all of his actions resulted in the crap storm that we are still suffering from, he couldn't figure out how we got there.
No, stu, you're dead wrong. It was in the period between 1992-1994 that the gov't policy became home ownership was a right & it was basically forbidden to ask for income verification or to compute debt ratios. In the 90's everyone got mortgages & in the 2000's the banks came up with creative ways to keep people in their homes. It was then the financial institutions began hedging because a bursting bubble was looming on the horizon.
No David. You are dead wrong. And so was Bush. And we are still paying for his policies. Bush pushed the government and the lenders to enable a totally irresponsible housing market for political gains. He enabled people to get houses who never would have been able to afford them in a 'Free Market' with government funds and pressure ont he lending industry. It was part of his platform the entire time of his presidency. And he was too stupid to care or realize what the inevitable consequences were when they came.
This will be much too much for you to actually read but let me expand upon my earlier post and teach you to fish while I am at it... Like I said, it is quite simple. --- From his earliest days in office, Mr. Bush paired his belief that Americans do best when they own their own home with his conviction that markets do best when let alone. He pushed hard to expand home ownership, especially among minorities, an initiative that dovetailed with his ambition to expand the Republican tent — and with the business interests of some of his biggest donors. But his housing policies and hands-off approach to regulation encouraged lax lending standards. It was June 17, 2002, a day Mr. West recalls as “the highlight of my life.” Mr. Bush, in Atlanta to unveil a plan to increase the number of minority homeowners by 5.5 million, was touring Park Place South, a development of starter homes in a neighborhood once marked by blight and crime. Mr. West had patrolled there as a police officer, and now he was the proud owner of a $130,000 town house, bought with an adjustable-rate mortgage and a $20,000 government loan as his down payment — just the sort of creative public-private financing Mr. Bush was promoting. “Part of economic security,” Mr. Bush declared that day, “is owning your own home.” So Mr. Bush had to, in his words, “use the mighty muscle of the federal government” to meet his goal. He proposed affordable housing tax incentives. He insisted that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac meet ambitious new goals for low-income lending. Concerned that down payments were a barrier, Mr. Bush persuaded Congress to spend up to $200 million a year to help first-time buyers with down payments and closing costs. And he pushed to allow first-time buyers to qualify for federally insured mortgages with no money down. Republican Congressional leaders and some housing advocates balked, arguing that homeowners with no stake in their investments would be more prone to walk away, as Mr. West did. The president also leaned on mortgage brokers and lenders to devise their own innovations. “Corporate America,” he said, “has a responsibility to work to make America a compassionate place.” And corporate America, eyeing a lucrative market, delivered in ways Mr. Bush might not have expected, with a proliferation of too-good-to-be-true teaser rates and interest-only loans that were sold to investors in a loosely regulated environment. “This administration made decisions that allowed the free market to operate as a barroom brawl instead of a prize fight,” said L. William Seidman, who advised Republican presidents and led the savings and loan bailout in the 1990s. The housing market was a bright spot: ever-rising home values kept the economy humming, as owners drew down on their equity to buy consumer goods and pack their children off to college. “No one wanted to stop that bubble,” Mr. Lindsey said. “It would have conflicted with the president’s own policies.” "If houses get too expensive, people will stop buying them" "Economies should cycle." - George Bush 2006. Then his Treasury secretary, Henry M. Paulson Jr., told him that to stave off disaster, he would have to sign off on the biggest government bailout in history. Mr. Bush, according to several people in the room, paused for a single, stunned moment to take it all in. “How,” he wondered aloud, “did we get here?” --- So, yes, I stand by my statements: I blame him for not caring enough to do anything or not being smart enough to see what was really happening. Pick one. Pretty much sums up his Presidency. Crap all over everything and leave it for the next guy. All this kind of information is on the internet. Go fish and you will find it. The following is an interesting read and quite at odds with the revisionist history being spouted by his apologists today. The Reckoning - Bush’s Philosophy Stoked the Mortgage Bonfire - Series - NYTimes.com
And here is a graph of housing prices over the last 40 years. Real Estate Charts: Graphs of inflation-adjusted, historical housing prices. Notice how there are small peaks and valleys in the inflation adjusted graph all the way up to Bush's reign? And then a huge spike and fall? I am sure previous administrations tried to fuel the housing market. In fact, we probably would have started a normal correction about the time Bush entered office. And then he pushed and pushed it higher by pushing for more and more irresponsible home ownership. So the bulk of the blame - not all but the majority, for sure - goes to Bush and his policies of letting the thing go to nu-cu-lar levels before the inevitable crash.
Unfortunately you started reading the book about half way through. Prior to Clinton-era mandates, mortgages were actually underwritten & scrutinized. Once home ownership was deemed a "right" everyone & their brother obtained mortgages whether they could afford them or not. This rush of home buying gave birth to the "bubble"...and we know how that worked out.
