# President Obama



## Kurtfr0

So I was wondering how everyone felt about him?

I personally wanted Mccain, but in the end I don't thing Change will happen unless you put a man or woman whos lived in poverty, and struggled with most problems today, in the position. 

Also they say the first 100 days will show if hes going to make GOOD change? Do you agree?

Also, what about bush? I don't think he's great or bad, I think people look past the fact how people were getting killed, burned for no reason in Iraq Ect. I mean wouldn't you want someone to save you? 

Found Or not found weapons of mass destruction (conflicting reports) I personally think we did good in Iraq, I mean people can actually walk in the streets now.

Also I think he messed the economics up. But I do like how he actually did SOMETHING about school reform. I've personally seen the 'no child left behind' In situations. I think it needs to be ironed out but its got a good motive.

Well Shoot your opinions. :fun:


----------



## Fishychic

To be honest, I'm so burnt out on politics right now.

The only thing that is really annoying is the media and how extremely biased they are.


----------



## TheOldSalt

Alright, I'm gonna say this once, and only once, and after this it's your own fault if you blow it.

Now that he is the sitting Prez, he has certain legal protections in regard to what we like to pretend is free speech.

Echelon and other keyword sifting programs are constantly searching every forum board on the web for things that certain folks with absolutely no sense of humor would find objectionable.
If some idiot says something remarkably stupid, that person can wind up in a lot of legal trouble, and more importantly, so can FishForums. 

Anyone who says anything here on this thread, or on this forum, that would be sure to attract unwanted hostile attention will very likely be banned on the spot.

I am not kidding. There will be no other warnings. This is it. I don't want to hear a bunch of crap about it, either. This is how the world really works. Get used to it.


----------



## darkstar

> Alright, I'm gonna say this once, and only once, and after this it's your own fault if you blow it.
> 
> Now that he is the sitting Prez, he has certain legal protections in regard to what we like to pretend is free speech.
> 
> Echelon and other keyword sifting programs are constantly searching every forum board on the web for things that certain folks with absolutely no sense of humor would find objectionable.
> If some idiot says something remarkably stupid, that person can wind up in a lot of legal trouble, and more importantly, so can FishForums.
> 
> Anyone who says anything here on this thread, or on this forum, that would be sure to attract unwanted hostile attention will very likely be banned on the spot.
> 
> I am not kidding. There will be no other warnings. This is it. I don't want to hear a bunch of crap about it, either. This is how the world really works. Get used to it.


haha well there's us told...
I think perhaps you're slightly more paranoid that you need to be...saying you like Barrack or not is not going to get you into any trouble. 

I for one, think it's great he's got into power. Good luck to the guy, I think/hope he'll do a great job for both the USA.


----------



## Sea-Agg2009

I like his foreign policy. I think Bush did a pretty good job with Iraq and Afghanistan in the beginning, but it has become a pretty nasty subject. The news doesn't even talk about it anymore. If anything, I think Obama will clarify some objectives to make them more obtainable. I also like that he wants to talk to countries that we haven't gotten along with in the past, like Cuba. Does it mean we are going to be the world's stepping stone? No. I also don't think he is going to let other countries threaten us and get away with it. I didn't like the old motto of "We're the US, so you have to do exactly what we say". Right now we are "the big stick" militarily, but we don't have the upper hand with anything else, especially now that our economy is going down the drain. Eventually, there will be other countries that can over-power us, believe it or not. When that day eventually comes, I would not like to be the asshole, and would like to have some friends out there. 

I am not a fan of the democratic health care concept. If you genuinely need it, then I think it's fine to give the poorest people medical insurance. The problem is that so many people will abuse the system, and drain our pocketbooks. There are people in my family that do it already. Sure they could work, but why the hell should they when well-fare is going to take care of them? I would not be as opposed to the national medical insurance if they first past the work-fair concept he talked about. If I knew that people were working for their living, I wouldn't mind giving them free insurance.


PS. I hated Aretha Franklin's version of My Country Tis of Thee. She is 66. She needs to quit. I know she is the queen of soul, but there is a time and a place.


----------



## Fishychic

TheOldSalt said:


> Alright, I'm gonna say this once, and only once, and after this it's your own fault if you blow it.
> 
> Now that he is the sitting Prez, he has certain legal protections in regard to what we like to pretend is free speech.
> 
> Echelon and other keyword sifting programs are constantly searching every forum board on the web for things that certain folks with absolutely no sense of humor would find objectionable.
> If some idiot says something remarkably stupid, that person can wind up in a lot of legal trouble, and more importantly, so can FishForums.
> 
> Anyone who says anything here on this thread, or on this forum, that would be sure to attract unwanted hostile attention will very likely be banned on the spot.
> 
> I am not kidding. There will be no other warnings. This is it. I don't want to hear a bunch of crap about it, either. This is how the world really works. Get used to it.


Doesn't that sound like communism? ;-):lol:

What about bush? Did this happen while Bush was in office?


----------



## shev

EDIT:

This is exactly what I'm talking about. Why would you DO the very thing you shouldn't in an effort to demonstrate what you shouldn't do?
Seven day ban


----------



## emc7

I want to wait and see. Lets see how he does in 100 days while he still has "political capital" from the election. I hear a lot of "how could he possibly be any worse". But things can always get worse. Expectations for the new pres. are really too high. Even if he does great, people will be disappointed. 

History will judge W. It will be a relief not to listen to bashing anymore. 

I am afraid of higher taxes (national health care and the rest of his wish list won't come cheap), but I think they will take it slow to avoid stalling the economy entirely. 

I think its great that this country can have "regime change" with an election and a party. As expensive as they are elections and inaugurations are much cheaper than wars.


----------



## FlatLine

Who knows, I have a been a strong believer it doesn't matter who holds the seat of the Presidency. The President can do very little "change" on his or her own while in office, things can be set in motion for later on down the road, but up front, there may be some quick "fixes" congress can push through now that there is a different person with veto power. 

I give him best of luck, just as I have any President, I don't want their job, even if it were offered.


----------



## shev

Well, I typically defended his plans, but I didn't vote for him. Who wants to guess who I voted for? I'll give a hint, I live in Montana and spend too much time on the internet. I figured there was a slim chance for mccain, except in Montana, so I could afford to throw away a vote for ideological reasons.


----------



## trashion

No offense, Salt, but are you sure you're not being paranoid? I'm not trying to attack you, but I've said things on boards that certainly could be misconstrued, and I've had no problems.


----------



## Plecostomus

ooo. I just remembered a funny George Bush story. I'm pretty sure this actually happened. Ok, so President Bush was in his fancy car going somewhere, and his car started to pass up a school bus full of Elementary school children. The president waves, and all the little kids wave back.The bus driver however, didn't like Pres. Bush and flipped him off. The bus was pulled over and the driver was fired, not for flipping off the president, but for being a bad influence to the kids on the bus!


----------



## shev

Actually, I take it back. He might have been talking about Obama's "Truth Squad." Back in 2000 Gore pretty much lost the election by trying to "be the bigger man" with Bush's smear campaign, Mccain also lost the primaries in 2000 to Bush the same way. That's how the "truth squad" started,to fight a smear campaign. Unfortunately, despite noble intentions, they did try to silence some radio shows bashing Obama. i don't think they got anywhere with it, but I can see where people are coming from when they hesitate to let the truth squad "silence" anything. Fact or not, people still have the right to say it, unless it's legal slander, which might have been what they were accusing it of being. Not sure about that part.

edit: in which case, there's no way they care what a small private forum thinks or says. Even if they did, they couldn't do anything.


----------



## Ghost Knife

I just wanted everyone here to be prepared for gas prices to skyrocket once again thanks to Obama. He signed an executive order this morning banning all offshore exploration/drilling of oil. So I hope all of you enjoyed $4 a gallon gas this past summer because it's coming back. One more reason to cheer Obama on.


----------



## darkstar

> So I hope all of you enjoyed $4 a gallon gas this past summer because it's coming back.


Sounds fine to me, you're only catching up with the rest of the world anyway...i'd just be grateful you had it so good for so long.


----------



## Ghost Knife

darkstar said:


> Sounds fine to me, you're only catching up with the rest of the world anyway...i'd just be grateful you had it so good for so long.


Come on now. We all know that the reason the U.K.'s products are so expensive is taxes. You have a tax for absolutely everything and then there are taxes on the taxes, which I can understand that because you have to get your healthcare somehow. To me though it just doesn't all fit quite right.


----------



## mrmoby

Ghost Knife said:


> I just wanted everyone here to be prepared for gas prices to skyrocket once again thanks to Obama. He signed an executive order this morning banning all offshore exploration/drilling of oil. So I hope all of you enjoyed $4 a gallon gas this past summer because it's coming back. One more reason to cheer Obama on.


Curious as to where you found this nugget. Maybe provide a link?


----------



## darkstar

> Come on now. We all know that the reason the U.K.'s products are so expensive is taxes. You have a tax for absolutely everything and then there are taxes on the taxes, which I can understand that because you have to get your healthcare somehow. To me though it just doesn't all fit quite right.


HAHA that would be a fair point other than the fact that if you'd ever experienced healthcare in the UK it would be plainly obvious no-one has invested any money in it. Most of our petrol cost is tax, true, but it certainly isn't used to fund the NHS lol...I think some of the money might be used to buy knives for our countries teenagers so they can stab each other whenever the opportunity arises (and other such worthwile investments).


----------



## Ghost Knife

mrmoby said:


> Curious as to where you found this nugget. Maybe provide a link?


http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/11/11/obama.executive.orders/index.html

It's not done yet, but it is expected to be done very soon because he has begun reviewing these today.


----------



## emc7

NSA computers "sniffing" or "sifting" the net is real. Thats why they want to shut down every effective encryption that doesn't have have a "back door" way in for them. A house burned downed here yesterday near the old home of the KKK. The owner was blaming whoever threatened her over her Obama election signs. I thought "what a lame excuse for a nut-case couldn't even get a bus ticket to Washington". 3 million people on the mall must've been a juicy target. Since nothing happened, I think we'll be ok for awhile.


----------



## darkstar

> NSA computers "sniffing" or "sifting" the net is real.


No-one is disputing that but anyone who really thinks they'd take action on some of the comments potentially made in this thread needs to reduce their medication.
They have far more important things to worry about then some random fishkeeper telling the world he hates Obama.


----------



## mrmoby

Ghost Knife said:


> http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/11/11/obama.executive.orders/index.html
> 
> It's not done yet, but it is expected to be done very soon because he has begun reviewing these today.


Not only does the article make no mention of signing an executive order regarding offshore drilling, the only drilling referenced in the article is in Utah, no where near any offshore oil fields.

There were a number of offshore restrictions allowed to expire in the past few weeks.

Everyone is hot to drill, drill, drill, without any consideration for the environment, just so long as they can have cheap petroleum. The problem is, not only will that come back to bite us in the end, is that it is not likely to help anything. There are a lot of experts who contend that even if every restriciton were lifted this instant, it would be 10 to 20 years before we saw any fruits of that. Beyond that, do you really think the oil companies are going to be generous with their finds?

We are paying the price now of industrialization, where people dumped anything and everything into the land, water, and air without any regards to what would happen in the future. Drilling with reckless abandon isn't going to help anything.

I'm not a tree hugger by any stretch of the imagination, but there has to be some control over the drilling situation. If you leave the oil comapnies to themselves, we will have nothing, and get nothing out of it.

God forbid we would spend money on alternative energy, drillers don't want to hear about that. We have the minds to put at us at the top of a growing field. Maybe even enough to put the U.S. auto industry back in the drivers seat in the world market.


----------



## Sea-Agg2009

That article is from December 4th. It's all plans, just like his ammunition tax, and several others people have misconstrued and over-exaggerated to scare people. None of it has gone through yet. He said he is going to explore options, which means radical decisions like that aren't going to be on the table for a while. 

I agree with darkstar about everyone elses prices. I remember Australia was paying the equivalent of $5 a gallon 3 years ago, back when we were down below $1.50. Most of it comes from taxes. They have lots of programs that I think are very excessive.


----------



## shev

Reinstating offshore drilling isn't going to magically keep prices this low. First off, just because it is drilled in the U.S. does not mean the U.S has any special ties to it, it still is subject to the entire world's demand. The current prices of oil aren't because the world is drilling so much more oil, it's because the bubble burst. The price was so high because there was a bust of investment in future oil. They are trading barrels of oil that haven't even came out of the ground yet. It was speculation that drove the oil prices up. A recent figure was 27 barrels of oil traded for one barrel consumed. So yeah, it all collapsed on itself. During Katrina I'm sure destroyed refining plants did have an effect on gas prices, but the speculation magnified it 10 fold.


----------



## Fishychic

mrmoby said:


> God forbid we would spend money on alternative energy, drillers don't want to hear about that.


Spend money on SEARCHING for an alternative energy? 

or

Spend money using an alternative energy? If the latter, what alternative energy are you suggesting?


----------



## emc7

I get TOS's warning, though. If you post something that would obviously lead to second look if anyone happened to be paying attention, its easier for the board to delete the post and ban you for life than to wait for a subpoena and risk having to deal with government paperwork. The same goes for p o r n and other stuff that violates the "terms of use".


----------



## fishboy

Fishychic said:


> Spend money on SEARCHING for an alternative energy?
> 
> or
> 
> Spend money using an alternative energy? If the latter, what alternative energy are you suggesting?


I read somewhere that by searching for and developing useful alternative energy and energy based/green technology the soon to be huge demand for such things from the rest of the world will allow america to make it into a lucrative industry. As a tree hugger I hope that this will turn the gears in coming up with greener technology


----------



## funnythingis

He hasn't even been in office a week yet and people are already condemning him, I say give him a chance and complain later.


----------



## FlatLine

I do hope we see more of a move with alternative energy. I'm tired of being tied to oil, as cliche as it is to say such a thing. I'm really striving to move off the grid when I build my house, problem is, it's so damned expensive, I spend the same amount of money in a lot of cases. Unfortunately our society is based on dependency of something, greed, resources, information, what have you.... It takes a long time to change.


----------



## Fishychic

I believe a lot of products out on the market that are made for consumers who want to go green are full of crap. For instance, a very common item that is supposedly be environment friendly is the compact fluorescent light bulbs. 

Here's a link. 

http://www.naturalnews.com/021907.html


----------



## smark

I still believe there are ways to go green without buying all the bad things that are available. LED lighting is a great way to produce light but should be made more affordable to consumers. Hydro power and Wind power, Thermo power and solar power should be made more available. I also believe in using gasses produced from land fills to produce energy. Not that land fills are a good thing but if they are there use them. If something is good for every one, odds are its going to cost more and that’s just wrong.


----------



## Kyoberr

I just wanted to say that having Obama win was win-win for me.

I wanted McCain to win but he didn't.

So if Obama is a good president then I'll be very very happy and happy to admit I was wrong.

If Obama isn't such a good president I'll be able to basically say 'I told you so'.

And had McCain won then I would have been happy too because I wanted him to win.

So, ya


----------



## Kurtfr0

I remembered I had the post. 

31 replies? hehe.

Well thank you ALL for your perspectives. I love seeing new ones.

Also, the 'sniffing' I think were alright, who in the right minds going to care what a fishforums say? I don't think were a threat.. Intill we train our fish.. but anyways.

I think he ruined his media love, by the 2nd oath. the media was @$#@$)(%#%*#

Also, I Have a link explaining why my reasons which go very unnoticed and explains why bush was a pretty darn good president.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123258532378704477.html?mod=rss_opinion_main


----------



## Kurtfr0

Also, TheOldSalt. Don't be afriad to post your opinion. worst comes to worst we all got your back. Also, I'm pretty sure if you phrase it respectfully, they wouldn't do anything.

Then again just erase your message after a few days, if it concerns you.


----------



## Knight~Ryder

Fishychic said:


> To be honest, I'm so burnt out on politics right now.
> 
> The only thing that is really annoying is the media and how extremely biased they are.


Do you watch other news sources, other then the regular ones you see? I have seen news sources from all over the world. I watched Aljazeera as well. If you really want to see one sided, watch them! Or you could even read www.presstv.com Have fun with that one.

Fact is, there is crap everywhere we look. We will never find our saviour for all our troubles if we keep looking in the world to find him. It's sad to see that many are mesmorized by this man

But hey, I need to look at myself too and see what mesmorizes me on a daily basis before I can point in judgement.


----------



## Fishfirst

certain cabinat choices are very very stupid... such as the treasurer who made a huge mistake on his taxes... or the Animal Rights activist running the White House's Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs Cass Sunstein... In my opinion... he's going to be run over by his liberal friends and turn this country away from prosparity.


----------



## Fishfirst

closing gitmo was a huge mistake as well... you are letting terrorists go or putting them in our already overwhelmed prison system.


----------



## COM

Fishfirst said:


> In my opinion... he's going to be run over by his liberal friends and turn this country away from prosparity.


I agree that Geithner may not have been the best choice given his tax situation and his employment of domestics with questionable immigration status. But how can turn us AWAY from prosperity? That would suggest that we are prosperous now, which we're not and haven't been for about ten years.


----------



## Kurtfr0

THat Geithner guy wasn't very good at his old regulation job :X.

Also I think this is NOT true but it suprised me

My racist friend pointed out hes middle eastern, he DID get money from untracable accounts and hes realesing terrorists... 

Kinda weird. lol.


----------



## Fishfirst

turning us away from prosparity is a phrase that means our goal IS prosparity... but he will lead us to a worse depression just like hoover and rosevelt did


----------



## COM

It's "prosperity," first of all.

Hoover didn't have a clue. He speechified about "A chicken in every pot," etc. etc., but his economic policy was actually very W-ish: trickle down. Trickle down does not work. It has never worked. Didn't work with Hoover, didn't work with Carter, Reagan. Didn't work with TARP. In TARP, those greedy banker took taxpayer money and shored up their balance sheets.

Roosevelt spent the country into tremendous debt with the "alphabet soup" of the Works Progress Administration. It was kinda sorta beginning to work a little bit, (hardly), and then World War II showed up with the shot in the arm that we needed. War mongering is always a good business practice, unfortunately. We got lucky and we were able to leverage the busted boom of our industrialization to feed the war-torn world. It was an unfortunate but necessary convenience.

As for the current economic crisis, IMO this is so severely worse than anything we have seen before that the past lessons may not really apply. I don't blame W for this. He certainly didn't help, but his actions definitely did not delay the onset of this mess or do anything to aid those who will really suffer: the unemployed, the uninsured, the middle-aged and under-educated, and the children of all of the aforementioned.


----------



## FlatLine

The on thing that has concerned me more about this election than any other, is how shady everything was, and how Obama was propped up like he was the Messiah. Oprah in tears, "Champion of Change", posters everywhere, you name it... Nothing was really questioned about him, except the lack of finding a credible birth certificate, un-paid taxes and the fact he had renounced his citizenship to study abroad... All of that stuff was quickly swept under the table.


----------



## COM

Obama never renounced his citizenship and never studied abroad. I don't know where you got that notion. When he was a small child, his mother married an Indonesian man who she met while he was studying at the University of Hawaii and she took Barack with her for a few years, but before his teen years he was back in Hawaii with his grandparents.

As for posters everywhere, it's called an election. He was a popular candidate with a sizeable campaign war chest and a good PR firm. That is what an election is supposed to look like in a democracy, not the usual red, white, and blue logotype that we are used to.


----------



## FlatLine

I just did some quick research, as I hadn't yet... It seems as though all of those allegations have no proof behind them, only real credibility to them is that no documents have surfaced to prove otherwise. Which is a very small amount. 

I dunno, like I've said, I think he'll make a decent President. I just found this election more odd than others. I've never seen a candidate held this high, it was like he was some Rock star. That strikes me as a problem. Throwing the concepts of the red, white, and blue logotype out the window as it was so put... Marketing makes the worst person look like a saint, and I'm hoping that's not what happened here. Time will tell, I'm ready for change.


----------



## TheOldSalt

Oh, we'll get change aplenty, have no doubt.
Change isn't always good, though...


----------



## Againsthecurent

It would be nice if the press would just give us the news. The bias makes me sick. I get tired of hearing the Bush bashing and how he is the worst president of all time. I didn't care for many things he did, but the worst president. Here is a little history article I found interesting.

*history lesson lest we forget *

Profile In Incompetence: The Worst President In American History. We still pay the price. 


Jimmy Carter became our 39th president at the young age of 52. He was a one-term governor from Plains, GA, where he managed the family peanut farm and taught Sunday school. He was also a graduate of the Naval Academy and served seven years in the Navy, leaving as a lieutenant. 

He came to power in the aftermath of the Vietnam War and the resignation of President Nixon. The public wanted change and someone new, and Carter was an ambitious, hands-on politician who promised better days. As good as his intentions were, however, the things he tried were not successful. In fact, he created far more serious problems than he ever solved. 

The centerpiece of Carter's foreign policy was human rights, and he did achieve one noble success -a peace treaty between Egypt 's Anwar Sadat and Israel 's Menachem Begin.Unfortunately, that later led to Sadat's assassination at the hands of Muslim radicals. 

Many people felt Carter was a good man who worked hard and meant well. But he was naive and incompetent in handling the enormous burdens and complex challenges of being president. He wrongly believed Americans had an 'inordinate fear of communism,' so he lifted travel bans to Cuba , North Vietnam and Cambodia and pardoned draft evaders. He also stopped B-1 bomber production and gave away our strategically located Panama Canal. 

His most damaging miscalculation was the withdrawal of U.S. support for the Shah of Iran , a strong and longtime military ally. Carter objected to the Shah's alleged mistreatment of imprisoned Soviet spies who were working to overthrow Iran 's government. He thought the exiled Ayatollah Khomeini, being a religious man, would make a fairer leader. 
Having lost U.S. support, the Shah was overthrown, the Ayatollah returned, Iran was declared an Islamic nation and Palestinian hit men were hired to eliminate opposition. 

The Ayatollah then introduced the idea of suicide bombers to the Palestine Liberation Organization, paying $35,000 to PLO families whose young people were brainwashed to kill as many Israelis as possible by blowing themselves up in crowded shopping areas. 

Next, the Ayatollah used Iran 's oil wealth to create, train and finance a new terrorist organization, Hezbollah, which later would attack Israel in 2006. 

In November 1979, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and other Iranians stormed the U.S. embassy in Tehran and took 52 Americans hostage for 444 days. Not until six months into the ordeal did Carter attempt a rescue. But the mission, using just six Navy helicopters, was poorly executed. Three of the copters were disabled or lost in sandstorms. (Pilots weren't allowed to meet with weather forecasters because someone in authority worried about security.) Five airmen and three Marines lost their lives. 

So, due to overconfidence, inexperience and poor judgment, Carter undermined and lost a strong ally, Iran , that today aggressively threatens the U.S. , Israel and the rest of the world with nuclear weapons. 

But that's not all. After Carter met for the first time with Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev, the USSR promptly invaded Afghanistan . Carter, ever the naive appeaser, was shocked. 'I can't believe the Russians lied to me,' he said. 
The invasion attracted a 23-year-old Saudi named Osama bin Laden to Afghanistan to recruit Muslim fighters and raise money for an anti-Soviet jihad. Part of that group eventually became al-Qaida, a terrorist organization that would declare war on America several times between 1996 and 1998 before attacking us on 9/11, killing more Americans than the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. 

On Carter's watch, the Soviet Union went on an unrestrained rampage in which it took over not only Afghanistan, but also Ethiopia, South Yemen, Angola, Cambodia, Mozambique, Grenada and Nicaragua. 

In spite of this, Carter's last defense budget proposed spending 45% below pre-Vietnam levels for fighter aircraft, 75% for ships, 83% for attack submarines and 90% for helicopters. 

Years later, as a civilian, Carter negotiated a peace agreement with North Korea to keep that communist country from developing nuclear weapons. He also convinced President Clinton and Secretary of State Madeleine Albright to go along with it. But the signed piece of paper proved worthless. The North Koreans deceived Carter and instead used our money, incentives and technical equipment to build nuclear weapons and pose the threat we face today. 

Thus did Carter unwittingly become our Neville Chamberlain, creating with his well-intended but inept, unrealistic and gullible actions the very conditions that led to the three most dangerous security threats we face 
today: Iran , al-Qaida and North Korea. 

On the domestic side, Carter gave us inflation of 15%, the highest in 34 years; interest rates of 21%, the highest in 115 years; and a severe energy crisis with lines around the block at gas stations nationwide. 

In 1977, Carter, along with a Democrat Congress, created a worthy project with noble intentions-the Community Reinvestment Act. Over strong industry objections, it mandated that all banks meet the credit needs of their entire communities. 
In 1995, President Clinton imposed even stronger regulations and performance tests that coerced banks to substantially increase loans to low-income, poverty-area borrowers or face fines or possible restrictions on expansion. These revisions allowed for securitization of CRA loans containing subprime mortgages. 

By 1997, good loans were bundled with poor ones and sold as prime packages to institutions here and abroad. That shifted risk from the loan originators, freeing banks to begin pyramiding and make more of these profitable subprime products. 
Under two young, well-intended presidents, therefore, big-government plans and mandates played a significant role in the current subprime mortgage mess and its catastrophic consequences for the U.S. and international economies. 

Hardest-hit by the mortgage foreclosures have been the citizens that Democrats always claim to help most-inner-city residents who fell victim to low or no down payment schemes, unexpected adjustable rates, deceptive loan applications and commission-hungry salespeople. 

Now we're having to bail out at huge cost Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the very agencies that were supposed to stabilize the system. In time, this should improve the situation. But the party of Carter and Clinton that midwifed our mortgage mess now wants to be trusted to take over and have the government run our entire system of health care! 

Don't forget his "incompetent" interventions in the elections of Nicaragua (Daniel Ortega), the elections of Venezuela (Hugo Chavez) and his "stupid" 
decisions with Cuba (Fidel Castro). 

And everyone is blaming Bush for our current problems.


----------



## emc7

Carter is a much better ex-pres than he was a pres. Stag-flation is something no one want back.

I still don't blame government for the mortgage mess. Sure they let it happen, but like Greenspan, i expected institutions to show some self-interest and actual look into the risk in their portfolios. But since their executive get billions even if their bank goes under, I guess they didn't have any reason to. Both parties were looking the other way when the warning signs were flashing. No politician wanted to bring up a potentially looming economic meltdown when they could (re)elected by being pro- or anti- gay marriage. I'm sick of the finger pointing, its everyones fault. 

This idea of "too big to fail" drives me nuts. If they are too big to fail, they are too big to live. Its past time for a Sherman Anti-trust style bust up into manageable-size pieces.

Bush seized power for the executive branch to "make us safer" and then failed to protect us from economic problems that, you are right, were building before he took office. He may be a victim of timing, no one liked Hoover, either. But I will never believe he was good for this country.


----------



## COM

Bush inherited a bubbling stew of economic turmoil. The fact is that American industry began declining a few decades ago. If you want proof, look at Flint, MI or Buffalo, NY. In Flint, the auto plants all closed in the mid-80s and early 90s. In Buffalo, the steel industry collapsed as it did elsewhere. In both places, like in most of the "rust belt" that is the Midwest, nothing ever came in to replace these industries, at least nothing that offered the type of employment and compensation that the factories did. I don't really have much emotionality towards this issue. It is simply a case of companies moving work elsewhere as is their right and people in the places they left refusing to adjust, being stupid, naive, or lazy.

Clinton promised us a new "service economy." We went to work opening up call centers, building new homes, providing technical support for computers and back-office operations for banks, writing software code and the like. But these jobs are now transferring to India, China, Singapore, even parts of Africa. This happened during Bush's presidency. He didn't do anything to stop it or slow it down, but one must wonder that if he had done so, wouldn't it just have delayed the job losses?

Bush made a lot of policy mistakes. We're going to be paying for them for a long time to come. Calling him the "worst prez" is probably a bit reactionary. Although I'd rank him in my top three: Carter, Nixon, Bush, in no particular order.


----------

