Sigma 40 Blaster
New member
Interesting question -
For me the answer is No, the past 8 years have not been bad, they have been pretty good. I think it's funny that people attribute success and failure to the US Government, namely the president.
Gas prices are up because we rely on foreign countries who think we are evil.
Grocery prices are higher, namely I attribute that to gas. And increases in minimum wage if I recall correctly.
Home values are down because so many foreclosed homes are empty on the market. This is because greedy developers were building as many cookie cutter homes trying to sell them for 150% of what they were really worth AND unscrupulous lenders were issuing variable loans and to people who really didn't qualify who would default when the interest rate increased their payments by 50%.
Katrina was mishandled horribly. I'm not sure anyone would have done better, it looks like lessons were learned (Gustav) as a result and I doubt anything will be as mis-managed as it was before. Then of course you have Iraq.
Clinton is credited with "saving the economy" when the real reason was this new thing called the world wide web. In fact I believe his NAFTA garbage hurt us way more than it helped us to this point. I don't think Bush has been the best president, or even a decent one but I think it's so easy to scapegoat him that he's getting credit for things he didn't screw up. Overall considering the number of national disasters (Katrina and 911) I think his presidency has been the toughest for at least the last 20 years or so.
For me the answer is No, the past 8 years have not been bad, they have been pretty good. I think it's funny that people attribute success and failure to the US Government, namely the president.
Gas prices are up because we rely on foreign countries who think we are evil.
Grocery prices are higher, namely I attribute that to gas. And increases in minimum wage if I recall correctly.
Home values are down because so many foreclosed homes are empty on the market. This is because greedy developers were building as many cookie cutter homes trying to sell them for 150% of what they were really worth AND unscrupulous lenders were issuing variable loans and to people who really didn't qualify who would default when the interest rate increased their payments by 50%.
Katrina was mishandled horribly. I'm not sure anyone would have done better, it looks like lessons were learned (Gustav) as a result and I doubt anything will be as mis-managed as it was before. Then of course you have Iraq.
Clinton is credited with "saving the economy" when the real reason was this new thing called the world wide web. In fact I believe his NAFTA garbage hurt us way more than it helped us to this point. I don't think Bush has been the best president, or even a decent one but I think it's so easy to scapegoat him that he's getting credit for things he didn't screw up. Overall considering the number of national disasters (Katrina and 911) I think his presidency has been the toughest for at least the last 20 years or so.