What HAS Barack Obama Done?

reply to post by TheMindWar


uh "..Harrison J.Bounel" actually...

“Harrison J. Bounel” was actually used with Barack Obama's social security number and his address
of 5046 S. Greenwood Avenue, Chicago, IL 60615.

fellowshipofminds.files.wordpress.com...

Originally posted by macman
reply to post by MrXYZ

 

Just to be fair to you, input from someone outside the US, on US issues is just someone meddling in our affairs.

You are not here, you do not see what American's see.
I am sure you are highly tuned to the goings on in Switzerland.

I am not even going to go line by line, not worth my time to discuss this with a foreigner.

As an American, in America, I would say MrXYZ is fairly accurate and I second his statements. So now you can discuss it without the blatant xenophobic nationalism as cover.

Originally posted by greeneyedleo

The Mission Accomplished was actually an accomplished mission....the mission of THAT SHIP was accomplished. Yet the liberals and media, just like the "I see Russia" comment was taken out of context and grossly misinterpreted.

Good Lord. Really.

Good Lord. Really????????

The first words out of Pres. Bush's mouth in that speech on "THAT SHIP"...back in 2003

Admiral Kelly, Captain Card, officers and sailors of the USS Abraham Lincoln, my fellow Americans, major combat operations in Iraq have ended. In the battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed.

Don't believe me? Maybe read the transcript?
articles.cnn.com...:US

Where are you getting your spin?? Rush? Honestly...it is a hobby of mine to figure out where egregious BS originates.

What about that opening remark was confusing to you? He declared that "Combat operations in Iraq have ended".

This Obama Christmas Carol video tells you what he did. He's done more damage than a rabid pit bull at a bunny farm.

Obama Christmas Carol

I think everyone in my email contacts is getting this one.

He increase the national debt more than any president --- ever.. from $10T to $15T+ an astounding 50% .. he's actually the first Democrat to do so (popular beliefs aside) since Carter.

reply to post by macman

Traveling here does not equate to living here.

I spent over a third of my life in the US

I have no say in what goes on in your Country. I would appreciate the same, thank you very much.

No one's stopping you, it's a public forum...and if you want to comment on Swiss or UK politics, be my guest. The reality is, sadly, whoever becomes your president also affects large parts of the world. Ask the Iraqis if having Bush elected affected them. As I said, if you want to discuss Swiss politics, be my guest...I just don't see the point as it really doesn't affect the rest of the world.

And last I checked, you're entitled to voicing your opinion on a PUBLIC forum. Who are you to decide who gets to post and who doesn't?

Back on topic: How about you refute any of the points I made? Because so far, you haven't...and my guess is you won't, because you simply can't. My guess is, you'll come up with some laughable "you're a foreigner, I don't need to discuss with foreigners" excuse...but that would of course just prove that you don't have any real counter arguments

Originally posted by MrXYZ

I spent over a third of my life in the US

That's nice and all. It still sounds like your experience is very much disconnected from the reality of living here.

Originally posted by MrXYZ


No one's stopping you, it's a public forum...and if you want to comment on Swiss or UK politics, be my guest.

What stops me from doing so it knowing that I don't live in the other country, am not involved with said country and thus don't meddle in the affairs of other countries.

Originally posted by MrXYZ
The reality is, sadly, whoever becomes your president also affects large parts of the world. As the Iraqis if having Bush elected affected them.

Not my problem.

Originally posted by MrXYZ
And last I checked, you're entitled to voicing your opinion on a PUBLIC forum. Who are you to decide who gets to post and who doesn't?

Ok then.

Originally posted by MrXYZ
Back on topic: How about you refute any of the points I made? Because so far, you haven't...and my guess is you won't, because you simply can't. My guess is, you'll come up with some laughable "you're a foreigner, I don't need to discuss with foreigners" excuse...but that would of course just prove that you don't have any real counter arguments

They were already refuted, by myself in response to others and other people as well.

Please, don't be lazy. Just go back and look.

reply to post by MrXYZ

1) High unemployment: A result of reckless deregulation since Reagan...and it was Bush with his damn housing speech who put the nail into the coffin of the US economy.

Has nothing to do with regulations or even housing. It has to do with Globalism and the manufacturing base leaving the country since the 1970's .. everything can be traced back to that. In attempts to keep wealth moving in the country we further embraced globalist trends to increase corporate profits for entities based in the US to show positive GDP growth even though the actual wealth generating aspects of the corporations are elsewhere.

2) Huge Deficit: The largest single policy contributor to the deficit are the BUSH tax cuts. And the bailouts were started under Bush too. Without them, both unemployment and economic growth would be A LOT worse now.(FYI, I still think the bailouts were short sighted...but objectively, we would still be worse off right now if they hadn't gone through with them).

Fact, Obama inherited $10T in debt, we have since then added $5T and the most severe monetization policies ever conducted by the United States (displaces the currency allowing targeted inflation of consumer goods to show economic growth in a void of growth, raising the cost of living. Also known as "taxation without representation) The Bush tax cuts (which also effect the Middle Class) as well as the numerous new credits (which mostly effect the poor and middle class) spur economic growth by increasing the Real Wage of workers and thus consumption power. All of which was eroded under the Monetization acts of Quantitative Easing 1 and 2, as well as the inflation methods used to monetization corporate debt and liquid infusions of Capital.

3) Vacations: He took a FRACTION of the vacation Bush (or Bush Sr) took. Didn't see you complaining then

Presidents never really vacation, they work where ever they go.. Bush for instance hated DC and worked a lot from Texas.

4) Poverty levels: What do you expect if you allow companies to systematically rape the work force and/or ship jobs off shore? That's not a new thing, Bush did the same...

We never recovered from the 1999 recession that lasted through 2001 (really ending in 2003) however the financial steps taken by the Government in the 90's and Bush's admin were focused at increasing, at the very least, the perception of wealth even if there was a void of wealth generation.. Since 2008 however monetary policy has been incredibly detrimental to the financial and psychological well-being of the populace.

5) Wars: Who got us into those wars in the ME???? Yup...Bush & Co

Which effectively ended the longest recession since the 80's Savings and Loan crisis. We needed the war to increase the GDP base by supplementing a nonexistant manufacturing base. Wars are bad for government debt, good for the economy.. think of the war as a stimulus plan.

6) TARP: Again, BUSH started those...and without them, unemployment would be a LOT higher today.

True, however thanks to them the Real Wage of workers in this country has collapsed into a serious deficit.. our country has now stared in the face 3 separate Deflationary Spirals (death throws of an economy) because the Government has focused on saving the Corporate entities of the country instead of the Economic Fundamentals that run the economy.. they sacrificed the citizens to construct Zombie Corporations and it's proved inefficient at saving the economy. We can only inflate the economy by monetary displacement for so long.

7) Solendra: ...is a tiny fraction of the total investment package...and they made it up (and then some) with the successful investments. If you were an investor, you'd know that not every investment works out

Still it was blatant, obvious, corruption on a very large scale.. if two private entities were involved in the transactions instead of 1 and the government it would have been an illegal act and people on both sides would have been prosecuted.

In the end, they're all bought. Bush, Obama, Reagan, Clinton, EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM. They all work for corporate America and NOT the people anymore

True.

reply to post by macman

What stops me from doing so it knowing that I don't live in the other country, am not involved with said country and thus don't meddle in the affairs of other countries.

How on earth is commenting on foreign politics on a PUBLIC forum "meddling in the affairs of another country"???

If I head over to some Russian politics forum, am I "meddling with Russia" too? Because I don't want them to come after me

Not my problem.

You're entitled to that opinion, and can voice it on this forum...so can I

Yay for freedom, right?

They were already refuted, by myself in response to others and other people as well.

Please, don't be lazy. Just go back and look.

Your entire "refuting" consists of:

1) Obama continued TARP

Yes, he did...because to prevent a prolonged recession you had to provide more bailouts. I honestly believe the bailouts were even larger than people think, and that includes those handed out during Bush's time. Most people don't realize how much money those financial institutions have, and what them going bust would mean for the economy.

I HATE the bailouts. I think if something goes bust, it should go bust and start new. The problem is, this whole thing has been allowed to grow to crazy proportions. That monster is no so large, that letting it go bust is political suicide. I mean, people worry about that $15 trillion deficit, or a $2 trillion bailout. BofA alone just made the taxpayer liable for $75 trillion of risky derivatives investments!!! That's 1 bank alone, and they did it LEGALLY. Why is that possible?

Because for one, politicians were simply paid of for short term gains. But the other waaaaaaaaay worse reason is that those politicians know that if those banks go bust, they will drag the entire economy down with them. The downside of not letting the banks go bust is that their mistakes...their debt...is now the citizens debt. The same thing is happening in Europe. And that's the very reason why I HATE the bailouts, and it doesn't matter for me where they are. People shouldn't have to pay for mistakes of companies they are not associated with. But the consequences of letting them go bust would have been VERY painful in the short to medium term. If you complain about the unemployment rates now, you would jump off a high rise if those bailouts wouldn't have happened. I mean, we're talking 50% unemployment or more for longer periods. No debt (even less than now), no investment, no income, no consumption...it would be a vicious cycle.

The bailouts were a medium term fix on the backs of tax payers. They did prevent a total collapse of the economy, and while Bush started it, Obama went on with it. Why? Because the strategy to go with a fix over total collapse had been taken by Bush, and not going on with it would have resulted in a total loss of the first bailout package, and still a total collapse of the economy because the bailouts wouldn't have been enough to at least prevent a total collapse.

Actually he has taken 61 days of vacation so far.
All funded by the tax payer.

Look, it's a fact Bush is the ultimate leader when it comes vacation days...but as you say correctly, he shouldn't be setting the bar. The fact of the matter is, even if a president is on vacation, it's not as if the entire operation stops. They're still working just like most CEOs are still working during vacation. Hell, I work during my vacation too sometimes, and I'm no CEO. If he's on a tiny island on the pacific, he will still have a direct link will everyone he needs to. And yes, the taxpayer pays for it...which makes sense if you know what happens to people in high pressure jobs if they don't at least get some off time. Doesn't matter how good they are, eventually, they crack.

By the way, unless I'm pretty sure he works a ton on weekends too

The paying part is obviously annoying if they go over board, but you really can't complain given we not only pay for our prime minister, but also that royal tourist attraction. I saw Prince William ride a Ducati 1198 Corse...and I have to admit I thought "damnit, I paid for that!!" to myself

Personally, I think Obama was pretty horrible, and his recent "detain anyone forever without trial" laws are plain out scary. His financial "reform" is a complete joke too, and he didn't push hard enough there. Not surprising though, he's just as bought as the rest. However, blaming all our current problems on him is just plain wrong. It's not a "Bush did it", or "Obama did it" issue...they are ALL bought. It doesn't matter who's in power.

Politics everywhere (lol Russia) are like that. And the fewer parties there are, the easier it is to distract the people. That way, they don't see the real issues

reply to post by MrXYZ


So your retort is basically a rehash of what I stated, just watered down a bit.
Except, the idea that TARP/TARP2 or bailouts were needed.
That too big to fail and Keynesian economics view does not fly.

Ok then.


And why do I not meddle in the affairs of other countries, because if I did, I would be a hypocrite.
I don't care what happens abroad, so long as I am not affected.
I worry about the issues in the US.

Originally posted by oneness86
reply to post by TheImmaculateD1

 

id say more like dethawed bin laden

LOL! Bin Laden is no more dead than Ken Lay. Bin Laden was our Emmanuel Goldstein in the flesh. Someone that they could put a face on as something for us to hate, a reason to spend crazy coin w/o having ways to generate the coin!

I digress, what has Obama done? He's run a middle right presidency that said "yes" to every request of our Corporate masters while appearing to care for the common man. That in itself is a gift, the only Republican of memory that could do that was GHWB, the others were far too eager to take that Corporate Phallus.

Derek

reply to post by Rockpuck

Has nothing to do with regulations or even housing. It has to do with Globalism and the manufacturing base leaving the country since the 1970's .. everything can be traced back to that. In attempts to keep wealth moving in the country we further embraced globalist trends to increase corporate profits for entities based in the US to show positive GDP growth even though the actual wealth generating aspects of the corporations are elsewhere.

"Globalism" is nothing but the rest of the world catching up. After WW2, Japan and most of Europe's industrial capacity was toast. That gave the US a MASSIVE advantage, one they were able to draw upon for decades.

So now a lot of countries that weren't really competitors of the US now are. That's a fact, and something that won't change unless you bomb all those countries to hell. Please don't go that route, ok?

So yeah, the manufacturing base left because other countries were more competitive. Sometimes, that competitiveness comes at a heavy price. For example, the US could produce lead paint dolls cheaper than China if they hired 4 year olds and old people who worked for $1.5 per day and no benefits. No regulations either, so you could save more money...you'd also pollute the river others drink from further down stream, but who cares, you'd be more competitive. But at what price? And how would that work with so called morals and ideals?

Either way, it doesn't matter. Even when the US industrial output was at its highest, it was still 5 times lower than BofA's derivatives investments alone. That's just one bank!!! And just one type of investment!! Do you see why in today's economy the industrial output really doesn't matter all that much in terms of money amounts?

Fact, Obama inherited $10T in debt, we have since then added $5T and the most severe monetization policies ever conducted by the United States (displaces the currency allowing targeted inflation of consumer goods to show economic growth in a void of growth, raising the cost of living. Also known as "taxation without representation) The Bush tax cuts (which also effect the Middle Class) as well as the numerous new credits (which mostly effect the poor and middle class) spur economic growth by increasing the Real Wage of workers and thus consumption power. All of which was eroded under the Monetization acts of Quantitative Easing 1 and 2, as well as the inflation methods used to monetization corporate debt and liquid infusions of Capital.

I largely agree, the bailouts weren't fair for the people. The problem I have is that I don't think people realize what would have happened without bailouts. If they think our current crisis is bad...well...no bailouts would have DESTROYED the economy. Right now, it's bleeding in some curb...and it's trying to get back up. But without bailouts, it'd be shot, burned, and beaten to death.

Eventually, it would have forced politicians to come up with a sustainable way to rebuild from the ground...so I would have preferred that not only in the US, but also now in Europe. But that's political suicide for any president/premier announcing they will let those banks go bust. The resulting economic destruction would ensure he'd never every work as a politician (and probably most companies).

Presidents never really vacation, they work where ever they go.. Bush for instance hated DC and worked a lot from Texas.

Agreed...that's why pointing it out as a criticism in the first place isn't all that clever

We never recovered from the 1999 recession that lasted through 2001 (really ending in 2003) however the financial steps taken by the Government in the 90's and Bush's admin were focused at increasing, at the very least, the perception of wealth even if there was a void of wealth generation.. Since 2008 however monetary policy has been incredibly detrimental to the financial and psychological well-being of the populace.

There's a whole other level to it. The US is under A LOT of pressure because Russia, China, Europe, and a ton of other groups want to replace the US dollar as the world's reserve currency. They want to do that because this crisis made it clear that if whatever country holds the world's reserve currency has an economic crisis, it drags everyone else down. So eventually, this will happen. The US is still the uncontested military super power, but economically, the world is now ruled by several countries and groups. And money rules the world

So eventually, this will happen, the US dollar will be replaced...probably by a basket of currencies (best case scenario for the US). Last time this happened, it was the Sterling, and it crashed by 80% in value. Now if they replace it with a basket of currencies which will for sure contain some % of US$, the loss might "only" be 40%.

reply to post by Rockpuck

Which effectively ended the longest recession since the 80's Savings and Loan crisis. We needed the war to increase the GDP base by supplementing a nonexistant manufacturing base. Wars are bad for government debt, good for the economy.. think of the war as a stimulus plan.

Over 100k dead, 66k of which were civilians. And yes, wars stimulate the economy (in the short term), but at what cost??? Not sure I like your smiley face!

What about putting those $1.3 trillion into education, tax cuts for start ups, and so on??? That would benefit the economy too, maybe even more so. After all, which industry did benefit from the war? Tourism sure didn't, that's a massive chunk that got hurt badly. And the weapons industry gets such massive tax breaks, and doesn't employ that many people, the impact isn't that massive.

Either way, the cost is too high.

True, however thanks to them the Real Wage of workers in this country has collapsed into a serious deficit.. our country has now stared in the face 3 separate Deflationary Spirals (death throws of an economy) because the Government has focused on saving the Corporate entities of the country instead of the Economic Fundamentals that run the economy.. they sacrificed the citizens to construct Zombie Corporations and it's proved inefficient at saving the economy. We can only inflate the economy by monetary displacement for so long.

We agree here. Look, I already mentioned I'm against the bailouts. But if they went along with them, they should have at least made sure what caused the crisis can't happen again. The financial reform act is a complete and utter joke, and nothing in there ensures what happened can't happen again. Hell, like I said, BofA alone made you guys liable for $75 trillion of their investments just a few weeks ago. Better hope those risky derivatives investments or BofA doesn't go bust. It's a horrible spiral. On one hand you want to let them go bust, on the other hand, the alternative is pretty brutal. But that's probably what's needed to wake up politicians and FORCE them to do the right thing. Won't happen though, going down that route, letting those companies fail is political suicide given the amounts involved.

Still it was blatant, obvious, corruption on a very large scale.. if two private entities were involved in the transactions instead of 1 and the government it would have been an illegal act and people on both sides would have been prosecuted.

I'm not saying it was right...but it was one investment, and they made it back and then some with other similar investments. If you think the amount involved is large in the grander scheme of things, or if you believe worse isn't happening day in day out, I dunno what else to say

By the way, the reason solar isn't profitable right now is that they have a relatively long payback time. So you need to get good long term loans to make it worth it...but you can't do that right now because the economy's in the crapper. That hurts the industry like mad because they don't have a cartel like oil where they can just fix prices to set ranges and be done with that. But that's besides the point...the investment clearly failed, but the amount involved was tiny compared with all investments.

reply to post by MrXYZ

"Globalism" is nothing but the rest of the world catching up. After WW2, Japan and most of Europe's industrial capacity was toast. That gave the US a MASSIVE advantage, one they were able to draw upon for decades.

No.. Globalism is a new concept never before used in this World, it defies Classical Economics an any other economic theory. It takes the manufacturing capabilities of a corporation(s) and uses labor overseas. Through free trade programs exports are sent to company of original origin (the USA in this case) and the goods sold to Americans.. corporate profits kept in America.

Example:

Plastic Crap INC makes plastic Crap. They pay their workers $15/hr employing 200 workers (non admin), and sell each plastic Crap for $5, making 10,000,000 pieces of plastic Crap year exporting 20% of their goods. This supplies a community with 200 jobs and $5.76m in salaries that in turn get spent on other consumer goods within the local economy as well as taxation on all levels. The company produces from raw material $50,000,000 in products which then sells into the economy and exports $10,000,000 worth of goods.

After Globalism the same corporation:

employs no workers (on admin) and makes no goods in the USA .. They employ 500 workers in China paying .50 cents an hour, they produce 30,000,000 units a year and sell for $2 a piece and import all but 10% to the USA to sell in local markets.

Labor costs are a mere $480,000
From raw material the company produces $60,000,000 in products.
The income is kept in the foreign subsidiary, but the actual profit is recorded as an American profit. The now unemployed factory workers still buy the goods, but their new jobs at McDonalds only pay $5/hr and they use Credit to buy their Plastic Crap at walmart.

Hardcore economic fact here: Globalism DESTROYS the economy that exports the jobs.

Globalist doctrine is entrenched in the American psychy.. we simply cannot understand where our wealth went, and we are determined we deserve the same quality work. So the Globalist have this awesome idea: Mexicans! .. hire illegals at ultra cheap wages, this drives down the wages of everyone in unskilled and specialist trade careers. Still it's not enough .. so we continue exporting to cheaper economies and importing even cheaper labor..

I largely agree, the bailouts weren't fair for the people. The problem I have is that I don't think people realize what would have happened without bailouts. If they think our current crisis is bad...well...no bailouts would have DESTROYED the economy. Right now, it's bleeding in some curb...and it's trying to get back up. But without bailouts, it'd be shot, burned, and beaten to death.

reply to post by MrXYZ


What would have happened: Every major bank would have collapsed. Investment accounts decimated. Corporations going out of business.

Then, after a few years, once regional banks fill the gaps, and monetary policy focusing on fair economic values are put in place allowing the economy to regenerate from a foundation on wealth production (manufacturing) as well as new corporations replacing those so burdened by debt.

In other words: A natural business cycle is allowed to reciprocate the economy.

But no .. what are we stuck with? A slowly dieing economy with zombie corporations consuming what equity this nation had.

There's a whole other level to it. The US is under A LOT of pressure because Russia, China, Europe, and a ton of other groups want to replace the US dollar as the world's reserve currency. They want to do that because this crisis made it clear that if whatever country holds the world's reserve currency has an economic crisis, it drags everyone else down.

Russia wants to see the USD decline for the sake of seeing the USA decline. Habits are hard to break. China does everything in it's power to make sure their currency stays weak, and France was the only country in the Eurozone to try and compete with the USA as a Reserve .. hence France raging at the USA when we invaded Iraq (who was switching to the Euro) while the rest of Europe watched the episode shaking their heads. Damned Frenchies. A Reserve Currency in an economy like the Eurozone would drastically increase their currency without the capabilities to monetize the growth like the USA can .. in other words.. like to much pressure in a balloon it would pop. The USA has the Federal Reserve, a pressure release system of inflationary policies Europe cannot perform.

So eventually, this will happen, the US dollar will be replaced...probably by a basket of currencies (best case scenario for the US).

Unlikely. It's the Globalist dream, no doubt, but it's unlikely to ever happen .. they struggle enough already to keep the currencies in relative worth, some countries like Japan and the Eurozone simply lack to the tools to keep severe fluctuations from happening, this in turn effects the value of SDR's.. makes it to complicated.

Over 100k dead, 66k of which were civilians. And yes, wars stimulate the economy (in the short term), but at what cost??? Not sure I like your smiley face!

Just imagine the next war, you'll look back on Iraq and indeed, smile. The size of contracts for construction, movement of goods, supplies, uniforms, etc etc etc with a LOW lifespan, that is, the goods wear and tear very fast, there is no stimulus plan in the World as good as WAR. The next nearest thing would be massive manufacturing and at the end of the assembly lines destroy the goods and rebuild them.

reply to post by Fitch303


He did authorize and commandt he assault taking a huge political and national risk in doing so. He also redirected us resources away from other matters to focus on Bin l laden so he earned a huge amount of credit for the succesful kill o Osama.

reply to post by Vandettas



I think he vacationed in all 57 states...

2nd line is obligatory 2nd line.

I really liked the (mostly) great debate. The original post was about what he did do though.

Like someone said, he did get a dog

Unfortunately the president doesn't do much more than make executive decisions. So in reality he sat behind a desk and read from a teleprompter.

Spent 6 trillion dollars
Fast and Furious and Gun Walker
Sent troops into Uganda
Sent troops to Syria
Killed Pakistanis
Killed Yemenese
Killed Brown people all over the Middle East
Obama Care
Bailed out Unions and Big Banks and Corporations
Infringed on state rights of Arizonia,Alabama and a myriad of others,
Expanded the Patriot Act and the NDAA.
Killed American citizens abroad.

No wait this guy was a Democrat not a Republican he has done a lot of crap none of it good for the country just good enough so he can keep playing Furher.

All hail the most glorious wonderful fearless leader of the left how has all that hope and change worked out?