You aren’t hearing anything because it is a lot easier to criticise and pick fights than to think and write up a decent response…
[quote]Jeff_with_a_G wrote:
I know people that are still in, or who just got out, consider people like me “against the troops.” Actually, I wish every one of them could come home tomorrow. I’ve been to the Middle East (in Gulf War I), and I don’t think we have any business sending our boys and girls over there unless we have no other friggin choice. Afghanistan definitely qualified. Iraq didn’t. Not one single Marine or soldier should have died in the last 2 1/2 years over Iraq. The “war on terror” is in the 'Stan, and it should have stayed there. [/quote]
I agree with this wholeheartedly. Nice post.
[quote]Jeff_with_a_G wrote:
I asked this question a while back and haven’t gotten one single response. So I’ll ask it again, because I’m being asked by you guys to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that Bush isn’t a moron.
For those of you who think “Bush is smart” or “Bush is doing a good job”, I’d like to hear SPECIFIC reasons why you think so. I hear a lot of “ra ra ra” but very little substance. The only attempt was to mention that he graduated with an MBA from Harvard. That’s nice, but so what? I’ve met a lot of so-called “edumacated” people who had trouble tying their friggin’ shoes. If the fact that Bush didn’t even know what “arbusto” meant is irrelevant (when he named his company that for a very specific reason), then what the hell does a piece of paper prove?
[/quote]
I gave you my reasons. 1. Educatiuon. 2. Two terms as Governor of Texas. 3. Being elected President for two terms.
It is not a stupid person, nor a moron that can achieve all of this.
What is so hard to understand about this? He is a smart guy with a lot of ambition.
Now please quit dodging and ducking, anrd tell me why he is a moron, or stupid. And please leave the “his daddy paid for everything” on the porch. His dad may very well have paid for everything, but how does that make him stupid?
I agree with Thunder - you suck at this game.
[quote]vroom wrote:
You aren’t hearing anything because it is a lot easier to criticise and pick fights than to think and write up a decent response…[/quote]
We’ve been dealing with refuting what amounts to garbage arguments being posted. Soon as we clean all the trash up, we can get on with a good discussion about Bush’s record.
But until we can get past the “Bush is dumb and stuff”, I suspect we won’t make much headway into that.
Jeff_with_a_G wrote:
“And no one mentions the fact that this “war” is the only one in our history that didn’t create an economic boom. It’s actually destroying our economy. Or the way it’s being handled is destroying our economy. Either way — I think it’s an interesting point. All other wars brought us out of a recession, and this “war” prolonged one.”
Welcome to the arena!!!
First order of business: Don’t bring it weak with the unsubstantiated talking points.
Here you go:
WASHINGTON (AFP) - The US economy created 215,000 new jobs in November, the Labor Department said in further evidence of the recovery from devastation of hurricanes Katrina and Rita.
The official unemployment rate held steady at 5.0 percent. The non-farm payrolls growth figure was slightly ahead of the 210,000 expected by private economists and President George W. Bush hailed the strength of the US economy.
Strong gains came after tepid growth in October of 44,000 jobs – a figure revised down from the initial estimate of 56,000. In September, revised figures showed a gain of 17,000 jobs instead of a loss of 8,000, with employment growth hit by Hurricane Katrina.
The report showed the best job growth since July and put the labor market on a more normal growth track after the destruction and disruptions from the hurricanes.
“The economy has shrugged off the impact of Katrina and is creating jobs at a solid pace again,” added Joel Naroff at Naroff Economic Advisors.
The president said the new figures showed the economy has “strength and momentum.”
“Good old-fashioned American hard work, productivity, innovation and sound economic policies of cutting taxes and restraining spending our economy continues to create strength and momentum,” Bush said.
“We’ve added nearly 4-1/2 million new jobs in the last two and a half years. The third quarter growth this year was 4.3 percent. That’s in spite of the fact that we had hurricanes and high gasoline prices.”
Bush said the unemployment rate of 5.0 percent in November is “lower than the average for the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s.”
Welcome to the forum!!!
JeffR
P.S. You have a good name, but an embryonic grasp on politics.
[quote]rainjack wrote:
Manufacturing is up. Personal income is up. Almost everything is up. This is not a paper boom like we had under Clinton. I’m not sure of the illusion you are blaming this on. The global economy is on fire. Japans index closed at a 5 year high. China is a freaking furnace, the Dow is closing in on 11,000. If this is an illusion - Bush and Co. can hardly be called stupid, or morons. Evil genius wold fit him better.
1939 - 1941. All government sponsored job growth. Translation? TVA, WPA, etc. were all governemt work progams designed to get people back to work. WHo was pauying these wages? Paying for the programs? Deficit spending and taxes. The gorwth was unsustainable, because it was not real growth. It was exclusively a result of the Fed spending shitloads of money.
1942 - 1945. All attributable to the war effort. Little if any domestic real growth. People were actually rationed on what they could consume. So who paid for all of this growth? One entity - the Federal government. How was it financed? Debt. But I though debt was a bad thing - that’s what you are contending about our current boom, aren’t you?
1946 - 1960. Housing boom. Manufacturing boom. Baby boom. All the soldiers came home got married, went to college, bought homes, had tons of kids, and went into gasp debt to buy their homes. Who paid for their college? The Fed. Who gave them home loans - or at the very least guaranteed them? The Fed.
I think you are being very selective in what you are blaming for slow growth. Do you not remember the horrendous tech bubble that burst sucked the life out of the stock market in 2001? That was a paper boom that caused a real bust.
You are conveniently leaving out most of the years that Greenspan has been running the Fed. He has engineered the money supply so that we will rarely top 8% growth. He seems to prefer slow, steady growth of around 4%. And in that time we have not seen anything even approaching double digit inflation either.
Are you changing your tune? You said:
Vietnam wasn’t financed on war bonds (someone correct me if I’m wrong), but the defense industry was so overwhelmed by defense orders that they had to ask other private industries to help — which further boosted the natonal economy.
Now you are saying that it was shit because of historical drops in production in post-war years.
Which is it?
That is not true. Gold is up a whopping 11.52% over the last 52 weeks. The Euro is down the exact same amount over the same period. Coincidence? I don’t know - but blaming Bush for the rise in gold prices because of debt financing is more than a little myopic.
SO the numbers mean nothing. It is your contention that things are so bad that people are just giving up and dropping off the radar? I would be willing to bet a significant amount of cash that there are more people dropping off the radar due to self-employment than there are poor out of work saps that give up and quit.
If you base the weakness of the economy on unsupported theories and twisted logic - you are the one barking up the wrong tree.
[/quote]
Manufacturing is up—almost totally connected to the housing boom which is almost exclusively debt financing.
Personal income is up? According to who? I do know that we recently, as a nation, went into NEGATIVE spending. That is, regardless of what people make, they’re spending more than they make. Deficit spending on a national scale. That’s good.
Of course, Japan is growing. They’re recovering from a period of massive deflation. Their economy has a long way to go before they get back to break even.
This is not a paper boom? Considering that everyone, the government and private households alike, are buying everything on credit I’m not sure what else you’d call it?
The global economy is in the black due almost exclusively to the growth in Asia. China, specifically. The problem is that China isn’t buying anything from us. They’re gobbling up raw materials and selling it to us. How the hell does that do us any good? All of our money is going out. Our trade deficit is downright frightening.
I remember back in 1999-2000 when the Dow was over 11,000 and the Nasdaq was over 5000. Now we’re approaching 11,000 AGAIN. Woohoo.
Like I said, WWII was financed on war bonds. Private people, like our grandparents, bought bonds from the government. So, the people financed the war. It wasn’t real growth? The entire country was engaged in one thing—building shit. You seem to think that manufacturing is the holy grail of growth, so there you go.
My original point was that “all prior wars created economic booms.” And WWII definitely did. Of course, it was due to government spending, but they were spending it HERE. No one besides domestic companies were profiting. Everything was made right here.
I said the late 70’s and early-80’s were shit. Vietnam ended in '75. The economy was up DURING the war.
And I don’t blame Bush for debt financing. I do, however, have a problem with him taking credit for “a great economy” when what growth is taking place has nothing to do with him and is growing in spite of him and his monumental deficit spending.
If you think I base my opinions on unsupported theories, then I’ll have to tell my Econ professor that he’s full of shit.
[quote]Jeff_with_a_G wrote:
I asked this question a while back and haven’t gotten one single response. So I’ll ask it again, because I’m being asked by you guys to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that Bush isn’t a moron.
For those of you who think “Bush is smart” or “Bush is doing a good job”, I’d like to hear SPECIFIC reasons why you think so. I hear a lot of “ra ra ra” but very little substance. The only attempt was to mention that he graduated with an MBA from Harvard. That’s nice, but so what? I’ve met a lot of so-called “edumacated” people who had trouble tying their friggin’ shoes. If the fact that Bush didn’t even know what “arbusto” meant is irrelevant (when he named his company that for a very specific reason), then what the hell does a piece of paper prove?
[/quote]
Check out the link i posted a few posts ago. The good rotten people got his good SAT scores…and some about how well he did while in college , MBA school. It actually lists a period where he first ran for governor , he came across as an overeducated quiz kid kind of guy. Somebody here said that he 's dumb like jessica simpson, dumb like a fox.
“fahd wrote:
If it wasn’t for his daddy’s buddies, theres no way someone like Bush could’ve gotten in Harvard.”
Proof please.
If you have none, back under your rock.
JeffR
Jeff_with_a_G wrote:
"You trying to tell me that Kerry couldn’t have gotten 5 college deferments like Cheney did? He could have chosen to hide in college by getting two more degrees or some shit, but he didn’t. His choice not to pursue a deferment (which a rich boy like him would have been granted in a heartbeat) means he volunteered.
Regardless of which post he wanted, he didn’t use his Daddy to hide him in the Texas Air Guard by jumping him to the head of a line with a 3-year long waiting list. Anyone ever wonder why Bush Senior tried so hard to get him in a unit with such a long waiting list and managed to do so in less than a week? You guys that overlook that bullshit crack me up. That unit was never going to Vietnam and all the rich Daddy’s in Texas knew it."
Do you and your hand-wringing pals ever stop to wonder why the overwhelming majority of current and former Service members voted for W?
JeffR
Hey Celticwolf,
I’m inclined to think that the most ignorant President in history would be buchanan.
What a disgrace.
Oh, he was a democrat.
JeffR
Also if you want direct evidence, his dad is smart as heck. George the first was awesome. He was a philosophical thinker if you’ve ever heard him speak, practical which is a value that i like, he had a technical aptitude or at least enough to understand the mechanics of flying when he was in WW2 , and i think George Bush also went to a good college and did well.
Also, GWB in the rotten like i gave, took an IQ test while in the Army , and did BETTER than Kerry. As much as i dislike his personality, his policy, he’s a far cry from dumb.
Oh, jeff,
Did you catch the fact that your candidate, john “I’ll use your dnc support to pay my parking tickets” kerry scored LOWER than W.?
What does that say for you who likes to throw stones?
JeffR
Okay. For the sake of a good discussion, I’ll concede that “Bush is not a moron.” I’ll go forward with the premise that he’s of at least “average” intelligence backed by great ambition and connections. So, now let’s hear all about Bush’s great record.
-
He went to Harvard. I’m still waiting to hear what that has to do with anything. He obviously graduated, so what has he done with it. I guess a series of failed business ventures can be overlooked. Especially for an MBA.
-
He was governor of Texas for 2 terms. I already described what he did to the education system there. Also, I would think that most governors would want everyone to know what a great job they did by having access to their records. I guess that’s why Bush went to such great lengths to have his sealed—forever.
If any of you are able to get access to them, you let me know. And by the way, he got elected in his home state where his family has had political connections since WWII. I can see where his personal attributes had a lot to do with that one.
- He was elected President. Okay. Good for you, George. Economy came out of a recession and ticking along at historic averages. Neutral, cuz he can’t take credit for it. War in Afghanistan. Pulled 40,000 troops out of theater before achieving victory. Verdict=still ongoing. War in Iraq. 2100 dead, 15,000+ injured.
Electricity, water and oil production still below or only at pre-war norms—which were achieved by Saddam under U.N. sanctions and with a badly decaying infrastructure. Verdict=nice job for a superpower.
I’ll let all of the Bush experts take it from here. I’m all ears.
I love it:
When Bush has success: MBA, elections…“It’s due to his father.”
When he loses: “Oil and Rangers” It’s GW’s fault.
Fantastic logic!!!
Oh, I’ve yet to get my kickback for voting for W.
Would you please call GHWB and tell him to get on the ball.
JeffR
[quote]Jeff_with_a_G wrote:
I asked this question a while back and haven’t gotten one single response. So I’ll ask it again, because I’m being asked by you guys to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that Bush isn’t a moron.
For those of you who think “Bush is smart” or “Bush is doing a good job”, I’d like to hear SPECIFIC reasons why you think so. I hear a lot of “ra ra ra” but very little substance. The only attempt was to mention that he graduated with an MBA from Harvard. That’s nice, but so what? I’ve met a lot of so-called “edumacated” people who had trouble tying their friggin’ shoes. If the fact that Bush didn’t even know what “arbusto” meant is irrelevant (when he named his company that for a very specific reason), then what the hell does a piece of paper prove?
[/quote]
Well if you would care to actually go educate yourself some more on the recent (last hundred years) middle eastern history maybe you would be able to comprehend exactly why invading Iraq was not only the smart move, but the only move. I don’t have time nor the patience to educate people that really think they know something when they really haven’t a clue.
Freedom is worth fighting for. Even if it is for someone else.
Saddam Hussein is an evil man, the world is a better place not having him in a position to fund suicide bombings in Israel, and perpetuate oppression through out the region. He has on multiple occasions lashed out at both his Arab and Israeli neighbors, and his own people with violence and savagery that is legendary. Saddam Hussein was a threat to world security, and he was a sponser of international terrorism. In case you missed it we are in a global war on terror.
To allow such evil to reign unchecked is truly a failure of civilized society. The most volitale region in the world is the middle east. It will always be so if drastic measures aren’t taken to change the way politics and power are distributed in the region (Thank you Brits and Frenchies).
The choices we had were:
-
Leave it alone, allow this evil to perpetuate and grow stronger. This would not have been a policy change but a continuation of the status quo. A status quo that was failing miserably at containing this evil. This is the cowards way. Despite how Liberals think, doing nothing is doing something (and in this case the wrong thing).
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Do something about. Free the people of Iraq, and lay the foundation for a strong democratic government, to set an example in the region that yes even Arabs can rejoice in liberty. Eventually this will show other moderates in the region (such as Jordan), that there is a better way. Paving the way for normalized relations in the Middle East, and the extension of freedom that everyone on this board enjoys, to millions of oppressed peoples.
One choice is cowardly, and undoubtably the path you prefer.
The other is bold, shows the courage and vision to do what needs to be done to make the world a better place.
Reminds me of the parable of the talents, maybe you should go dig yours up and invest it more wisely.
As for your earlier comment of withdrawing soldiers from Afghanistan, that was completely justified. Afghanistan is taking care of their own much better now, and it shows that we are not an occupation force. We dont need 40k excess troops to hunt down a now insignifigant terrorist. A waste of money and resources. Especially given the thousands of terrorists that need killing in Iraq.
[quote]Jeff_with_a_G wrote:
Manufacturing is up—almost totally connected to the housing boom which is almost exclusively debt financing.[/quote]
Just like it was in the late 40’s and on into the 50’s.
http://www.businessweek.com/investor/content/dec2005/pi2005121_4986_pi035.htm
News hit that U.S. Personal Income rose 0.4% in October after a 1.7% surge in September. Personal Consumption Expenditures rose 0.2% following a 0.5% increase in September. The core PCE price deflator was up 0.1% on the month after a 0.2% increase in September, while the year on year rate slowed to 1.8% from 2.0%. The data results were in line with expectations.
I think consumer debt is a huge problem. I have never said otherwise. However, governmental debt is vital to the stability of our country.
[quote]
Of course, Japan is growing. They’re recovering from a period of massive deflation. Their economy has a long way to go before they get back to break even.
The global economy is in the black due almost exclusively to the growth in Asia. China, specifically. The problem is that China isn’t buying anything from us. They’re gobbling up raw materials and selling it to us. How the hell does that do us any good? All of our money is going out. Our trade deficit is downright frightening.[/quote]
I used the global boom to show that Gold prices are not tied exclusively to wht the U.S. does. You said that gold spiked as a result of the U.S.'s horrendous debt. I called bullshit on it and gave you some other possible reasons for the rise in gold.
[quote]
I remember back in 1999-2000 when the Dow was over 11,000 and the Nasdaq was over 5000. Now we’re approaching 11,000 AGAIN. Woohoo.[/quote]
Yet you forget about the dot-com bust of 2001, and a little thing called 9/11/2001? That’s very interesting.
[quote]
Like I said, WWII was financed on war bonds. Private people, like our grandparents, bought bonds from the government. So, the people financed the war. It wasn’t real growth? The entire country was engaged in one thing—building shit. You seem to think that manufacturing is the holy grail of growth, so there you go.[/quote]
What do you think bonds are? War bonds, peace bonds, savings bonds, junk bonds - all DEBT. You had to have known that.
When the only customer of manufacturing is the Federal Government - it is not real growth. Nor was the spend-a-thon to get us out of the depression.
[quote]
My original point was that “all prior wars created economic booms.” And WWII definitely did. Of course, it was due to government spending, but they were spending it HERE. No one besides domestic companies were profiting. Everything was made right here.[/quote]
You make no sense with this. Who besides domestic companies are profiting from our current growth period? Please clue me in as to the relevance of this.
[quote]
I said the late 70’s and early-80’s were shit. Vietnam ended in '75. The economy was up DURING the war.[/quote]
It might have been up - but you are stretching it to say that the 60’s were a boom decade.
[quote]
And I don’t blame Bush for debt financing. I do, however, have a problem with him taking credit for “a great economy” when what growth is taking place has nothing to do with him and is growing in spite of him and his monumental deficit spending.
If you think I base my opinions on unsupported theories, then I’ll have to tell my Econ professor that he’s full of shit.[/quote]
President’s get the credit for the economy when it is good, and the blame when it is bad. That’s just part of the job.
If I remember correctly, Clinton did the same thing, and did absolutely nothing but leave the economy the hell alone, after the Republicans reduced Federal spending in 1995-1996.
DO either deserve the credit? probably not. Well - I think Bush deserves some credit because of the tax cuts. But overall - the President has little effect on the success or failure og the economy.
And I still have no idea how this all proves that Bush is stupid, or a moron.
I don’t know who the dumbest modern President is but I suspect it isn’t Bush.
I see a lot of people mixing fact, half-truths and fiction into a bitter anti-Bush stew.
I suspect many of the anti-Bush posters may be his intellectual inferiors based on the poor arguments posted.
When i started this post i meant that he was stupid in his actions. LBJ definitely qualifies for being the dumbestfor starting the vietnam war arguably. We lost i dont know how many lives, killed many many more. All to stop communism. When i was in a college history class my professor told us about the " domino theory " where the people in the 60’s beleived that if one country fell to the commies all the others would as well. So they were f’kin paranoid over any kind of victory that the commies could muster.
GWB, i think should have had a better understanding of the consequences of going into a stupid war. He grew up in the vietnam era, he was probably sweating bullets over not being selected until he found out that he got to slip through the cracks. Even before we went in, i read all kinds of articles that the CIA was trying to say as publicly as possiblethat they did not beleive that Iraq had WMD’s.
Saddam was being a belligerant guy, after 9/11 we wanted weapons inspectors to come in and he refused. Curtly. So, what is a slightly-bruised super power to do? Invade !
GWB : stupid is as stupid does even gump got that one. Look at the Harvard MBA thats screwing us all over and angering the arabs into terrorism.
LBJ didn;t start Viet Nam. He escalated it. We had ‘advisors’ therr for several years before LBJ. I think the real blame for not getting out of Nam should be placed squarely at the feet of Kennedy.
[quote]thabigdon24 wrote:
GWB : stupid is as stupid does even gump got that one. Look at the Harvard MBA thats screwing us all over and angering the arabs into terrorism. [/quote]
How is he screwing you over? I dang sure don’t see where he is screwing me over. He gave me a tidy little tax refund, he increased my Section 179 deduction to 100K, and gave me a lot more room wrt estate taxes.
I think the Cole bombing, the first WTC attack, as well as a couple of other attacks directy on U.S. properties were executed under the Clinton administration. So who angers the arabs into being terroists?
I’d really like to see you connect the first ATC attack to GDub.