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+--- Thread: In case anyone still doubts that Bush was incompetent... (/showthread.php?tid=84440)
In case anyone still doubts that Bush was incompetent... - Ted King - 09-16-2009
Just before giving his speech to the nation explaining the rationale for spending $700 billion to bail out the finance industry; from an article written by a former Bush speechwriter:
http://men.style.com/gq/features/full?id=content_10957&pageNum=5
There was total confusion. It was 5:30 p.m. The speech was in three and a half hours.
After finally getting the speech draft turned around and sent back to the teleprompter technicians, we trudged back to the Family Theater, where the president rehearsed. In the theater, the president was clearly confused about how the government would buy these securities. He repeated his belief that the government was going to “buy low and sell high,” and he still didn’t understand why we hadn’t put that into the speech like he’d asked us to. When it was explained to him that his concept of the bailout proposal wasn’t correct, the president was momentarily speechless. He threw up his hands in frustration.
“Why did I sign on to this proposal if I don’t understand what it does?” he asked.
Re: In case anyone still doubts that Bush was incompetent... - Seacrest - 09-16-2009
Point of fact, Obama voted for that confounded bailout, and still, apparently believes all the "green shoots" bullshit, and "TARP payback with interest" nonsense being bandied about Washington and Wall Street.
Don't get me wrong, he's no Bush -- he at least appears to understand words longer than two syllables -- but he understands as much about these complex financial markets as an Icelandic fisherman*, and his team† are as knee-deep into the financial crisis mire as anyone on the GOP side.
*either that or he's deliberately deluding himself, and the rest of us
†Summers, Rubin, Geithner...
Re: In case anyone still doubts that Bush was incompetent... - mattkime - 09-16-2009
the confounded bailout is why the economy is doing as well as it is.
nobody remembers the doomsday scenarios because they were employed when the economy was hitting the shitter. now the economy is exceeding our expectations but jobs haven't picked up yet. this isn't surprising, jobs are a trailing indicator.
people have short memories and shorter outlooks.
Re: In case anyone still doubts that Bush was incompetent... - Mac1337 - 09-16-2009
If the criterion is that it could be worse then you can't lose. No unemployment figure is too high because it could be higher. Obama can always claim he has saved a million jobs. without adding a single job.
Re: In case anyone still doubts that Bush was incompetent... - davester - 09-16-2009
Wow! After months and months, dakota finally posts something halfway intelligent. That is correct! Obama is a politician with modus operandi like all the others. He and his campaign team will claim success at every possible potentially positive event. I'm glad to see that you finally figured out a tiny bit about how politics works. Does this have anything to do with anything???....NO!! Just like all the positive spin ("Mission Accomplished", anyone) that Bush put on everything, it should be disregarded and only objective measures should be used to judge his success. Oh wait, but you don't do that, do you dakota? You and swampy are simply spin-only people. Objective observations have no place in your world.
Re: In case anyone still doubts that Bush was incompetent... - Doc - 09-16-2009
mattkime wrote:
the confounded bailout is why the economy is doing as well as it is.
So far as I can tell, the bank bailout accomplished nothing for the general public except grant a week or two where people were confused enough to think that it was supposed to help them and didn't riot in the streets. A bailout 10-times smaller would probably have done the same job.
Other stuff like extending unemployment benefits, Cash for Clunkers and Making Home Affordable have been more helpful and are likely to produce greater public benefits throughout the recession and recovery.
Re: In case anyone still doubts that Bush was incompetent... - mattkime - 09-16-2009
>>So far as I can tell, the bank bailout accomplished nothing for the general public
except that we still have banks.
did you know that banks nearly stopped lending money to each other? that creates HUGE problems and essentially signals the shut down of the modern financial system. businesses were getting cut off from lines of credit that they depended on to continue daily operations, forcing them to fire people, etc.
>>A bailout 10-times smaller would probably have done the same job.
I dont think any economists agree with that.\
>>Other stuff like extending unemployment benefits, Cash for Clunkers and Making Home Affordable have been more helpful and are likely to produce greater public benefits throughout the recession and recovery.
We need a banking system and we nearly lost it. Putting money into the hands of individuals would seem small if the financial system no longer existed.
Re: In case anyone still doubts that Bush was incompetent... - Doc - 09-16-2009
mattkime wrote:
So far as I can tell, the bank bailout accomplished nothing for the general public
except that we still have banks.
Far fewer banks. Big ones got cash and bought other big banks. Little ones went out of business. Farmers still can't get loans to plant crops because their local banks went under. Small businesses still can't get rolling loans for payroll. New and usurious credit cards terms are ruining people's lives.
Say again how much that bailout helped.
Maybe if you repeat it enough, someone will believe you.
Re: In case anyone still doubts that Bush was incompetent... - OWC Jamie - 09-16-2009
hearsay and out of context quotes changes my mind
we should allow it in court, too.
Re: In case anyone still doubts that Bush was incompetent... - Spock - 09-16-2009
Doc wrote:
Far fewer banks. Big ones got cash and bought other big banks. Little ones went out of business. Farmers still can't get loans to plant crops because their local banks went under. Small businesses still can't get rolling loans for payroll. New and usurious credit cards terms are ruining people's lives.
I can't think of any bank that has shut its doors and left depositors empty handed. The FDIC has done a very good job of insulating the general public from the worst of the bank liquidity problems and deserves credit for it.