@JTT,
By the way JTT, I notice it has been several days and you still haven't presented your picture evidence of the hole in the Pentagon being the size you claimed it was. I wonder why that is.
@parados,
Can you point to one war criminal president that has been held to account, parados?
@Brandon9000,
You've probably forgotten about the Great Recession:
The crisis resulted from a combination of complex factors, including easy credit conditions during the 2002–2008 period that encouraged high-risk lending and borrowing practices without assessing default-risk; international trade imbalances; real-estate bubbles that have since burst; fiscal policy choices related to government revenues and expenses; and approaches used by nations to bail out troubled banking industries and private bondholders, assuming private debt burdens or socializing losses.
Quote:The U.S. Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission reported its findings in January 2011. It concluded that "the crisis was avoidable and was caused by: Widespread failures in financial regulation, including the Federal Reserve’s failure to stem the tide of toxic mortgages; Dramatic breakdowns in corporate governance including too many financial firms acting recklessly and taking on too much risk; An explosive mix of excessive borrowing and risk by households and Wall Street that put the financial system on a collision course with crisis; Key policy makers ill prepared for the crisis, lacking a full understanding of the financial system they oversaw; and systemic breaches in accountability and ethics at all levels.“
My parents net worth was cut in half and it was a mercy that my sister was able to help them until they passed.
Oh and we're talking about the period of 2000-2008...Wasn't a Bush in the White House?
It's now wonder many baby-boomers won't retire 'til they're 75.
@parados,
parados wrote:
Saving is a lifetime project. It takes 40 years to save for retirement if you do it right. Obama has not been in office for that length of time or 20 years or 10 years. Your statement was ridiculous and ignores reality since families and saving should have been going on long before Obama took office.
Having a feasible retirement depends on more than just personal discipline. Sometimes people save less because they make less, or have had periods of unemployment. Sometimes governments have programs which make retirement saving easier. At the moment, job availability, by which I mean full time employment in a job commensurate with a person's training and abilities is bad, government stats notwithstanding, college is too expensive for many people to afford without incurring massive debt, home ownership is beyond the reach of many people, and the wealthiest individuals possess an indecent fraction of the wealth. No matter what how the government whitewashes their performance, the standard of living sucks. Of course, none of it is the president's fault. After all, he's only had six years. Everything is the fault of president Bush or the Republicans in Congress. The president is a helpless witness to all of the conservative wrongdoing. Why should he be responsible for conditions during his presidency? Why would anyone think that Obama was supposed to have improved the economy?
@Brandon9000,
Obama has tried to raise the standard of living but House inaction has consistently thwarted all his efforts.
Not to speak of 50 attempts to revoke ACA which is already helping so many Americans.
re Brandon:
In point of fact, the economic collapse happened before Obama was in office. No way to blame that on him. However, since he has been in office, the stimulus packages and the "too big to fail" program, and the jawboning that restructured GM and Chrysler and saved them and the jobs of their workers and all the ancillary businesses that depend on them, did in truth bring us out of the Great Recession, and the Second Great Depression that were looming on W. Bush;s event horizon. Whilew the EU applied conservative economic principles and continues to flounder, Obamaand well-proved (and now re-proved) economic principles did indeed save the economy. Unemployment is below when he took office, the stock markets have improved strongly. Business profits are uip, housing starts are up. Obamanomics has worked. There are a number of structural problems in the econmony, for which business, not Obama, is responsible, which have (and Republican policies), which have impeded the recovery to a degree, true, but you can't blame them on him.
@panzade,
panzade wrote:
Obama has tried to raise the standard of living but House inaction has consistently thwarted all his efforts.
Not to speak of 50 attempts to revoke ACA which is already helping so many Americans.
Sure. Nothing on his watch is his fault, no matter how long he's the president. It's everyone else's fault and he's a helpless witness.
Anyone living in the real world knows that the standard of living has gone down and that things which most people with decent jobs could once afford are becoming unreachable. I don't remember hearing about college loans putting people in debt that would take years to pay off when I was younger. His watch, his responsibility. He's been in office a long time.
@Brandon9000,
A couple of things come to mind about you.
You're definitely one smart guy.
I enjoy your science posts immensely.
But it seems as if you don't approach politics and history the same way, with an open mind.
You dislike Obama; it's personal and all the info Jack and I toss out here isn't gonna change your mind because you read our posts to reply, not to comprehend.
That's OK....I'll see you on the Science threads....
@Brandon9000,
Having a feasible retirement depends on more than just six years.
Quote: Of course, none of it is the president's fault. After all, he's only had six years. Everything is the fault of president Bush or the Republicans in Congress.
I love your straw man argument. Make sure you beat the stuffing out of it. When you get down, you can address your original red herring if you want.
@coldjoint,
Yes, it was ridiculous because anyone that is relying on six years of savings as the means to retire is not going to have a good retirement.
@parados,
Can you point to one war criminal president that has been held to account, parados?
The economy is in crappy condition generally on his watch, worse than it used to be. It doesn't take an Einstein to hold him at least partially responsible.
@Brandon9000,
Where is the economy worse than it used to be?
I'm just curious how you judge the economy.
@parados,
So many ways. For example, the poverty rate has been 15 percent for three consecutive years, the first time that's happened since the 1960s. The administration tries to tout a reduced unemployment rate, but a true picture of the situation is revealed by the fact that more than 9.5 million people have dropped out of the labor force since the president took office. Plus all of the other things I mentioned in my last few posts.
@Brandon9000,
Quote:So many ways. For example, the poverty rate has been 15 percent for three consecutive years, the first time that's happened since the 1960s.
In 1967 the poverty rate was 27%. Are you suggesting we need to increase the government support which is what reduced the poverty rate from that 27%. Yes, the lower part of the economic ladder isn't doing well but that is really a small part of the economy as a total.
Quote:a true picture of the situation is revealed by the fact that more than 9.5 million people have dropped out of the labor force since the president took office.
A true picture would allow for the fact that there are 4 million more persons 65 or over from 2008 to 2012 according to US Census which means we have about 1 million retired persons per year dropping out of the labor force. But your number is a little odd in that the current labor force is the largest it's ever been at 156 million compared to 154 million in 2008.
http://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/surveymost
So, you must be simply doing the percentage of population over 16 and then subtracting if it was the same. Not a very accurate measure as told by the additions of person over 65.
According to the US Census 15- 64 year old population grew by 5.56 million from 2008 to 2012.
http://factfinder2.census.gov/faces/tableservices/jsf/pages/productview.xhtml?src=bkmk
So the reality is that the working age population (15-64) has not seen 9.5 million people drop out. It has seen 3.5 million drop out. Yes, that is a drop but almost 1/3 of your number.
What we are seeing is a how numbers can be manipulated to create a picture that may not be true.
@parados,
parados wrote:
Quote:So many ways. For example, the poverty rate has been 15 percent for three consecutive years, the first time that's happened since the 1960s.
In 1967 the poverty rate was 27%. Are you suggesting we need to increase the government support which is what reduced the poverty rate from that 27%. Yes, the lower part of the economic ladder isn't doing well but that is really a small part of the economy as a total...
Glancing at the poverty rate graph at census.gov, it looks like the poverty rate has gone up or held steady in every year of Obama's presidency. Do you call that a good record?
@coldjoint,
The Pink Prevaricator wrote:
I never said anyone was relying on six years savings. I said people or families starting out under the Obama joke cannot save anything because they make nothing. Stop twisting my words.
I didn't have to twist your words. Most families just starting out save little for retirement. They are young and have other priorities. It's hardly a new thing you can blame on Obama.
Do you think families just starting out make the median income? Or was that just red herring thrown in to try to avoid what you were really saying?
