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I’ve been reading and watching a lot of news related to the economy. I think that most of us can agree that it is bad shape and that people are hurting. As an educator both in a high school and a college, I interact daily with a large cross-section of the population, and I see the effects that our economy is having on all of us. It may be a child whose parent lost her/his job and can no longer afford to pay the bills, or an adult that has been looking for a job for moonths. One situation that sticks out in my mind is that of a child whose father lost his job and their home went into foreclosure. No longer albe to support his children, they were forced to live with their aunt and uncle, who also had money problems of their own.
I say all of this to ask the question: who should take “credit” for this rotten economy? Does it continue to be the fault of President Bush or has blame now shifted to President Obama after having been president for one year and unemployment continues to rise? I want to know what you the reader thinks. I don’t have an answer to this question although I find myself pondering it from time to time.
Another question might be this: Does it matter whose fault it is anyway?
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{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
I chaulk it all up to greed. The greed of already rich fat cats, corporate greed, stock market greed, and others in the private sector that financially rape private individuals and then fault the government.
Jason, lets first admit that I am a conservative. I do, however, believe bush was a failure. His tax cuts were great, but his spending was shameful. He deserves his share of blame for the current economic situation. Bush’s bailouts were also shameful. In capitalism sometimes it is necessary for enterprises to fail. Consumers were protected by the FDIC and those assets would have been swallowed up by better positioned firms (i.e. J.P. Morgan Chase). The banks were also pressured to accept TARP money. For instance, Chase took money that it really did not need.
Next on the list is Congress. The pressure put on banks to finance mortages for people that had no way of paying it is disgusting. However, there is a little thing called personal responsibilty. If you base your decisions in finance on the theory that the investment will never devalue, good luck!
Finally, let’s talk about Barry Obama. You can blame Bush for the situation, but you can’t blame him for the $787 billion dollar stimulus or the susequent spending bills that have increased discretionary spending 20%. You have to acknowledge that he has matched the deficit number Bush ran in 8 years, in only 2! We were warned that if the stimulus was not passed, unemployment would reach 8%. Oops, it’s now over 10, and some estimate that if you factor in those that have given up the job search, the number is closer to 17%. The notion that funding infrastructure projects would boost jobs was simply laughable. It simply financed state governments and fedral employees. This is clear if you realize unemployment among those in the govt sector is below 3%, but among those in construction it is at 23%. Where is this New Deal construction boom? Worse yet is the outright lies by the adminstration. We were told of the economic rebound that was showing up in an increasing GDP. To most Americans that sounds great. But what is GDP? Simply it is private consumption + gross investement+ govt spending + exports. What could have inflated that number? Maybe govt spending? It’s flat out misleading by those that know better. Wake up America, govt doesn’t create jobs. Every dollar you take out of the private sector is another dollar not spent on capital investement. The time is now for Barry to admit his failures!
I work in the crazy -high powered -dog eat dog world of banking , and I will be the first to admit it really was the banks ; but, can you blame them ? We all knew Uncle Sam was gonna come to the rescue in the end …. Whether a Dem. or Republican took over…. We knew that Capital Hill had our back!