On his final full day as the prez:
Must say this is one that I don't get at all. What exactly did Obama do that causes the intense dislike even hate for him that some have?
Country seems much better off than when he took office, and nothing terribly worse. Which should be the bottom line, no? So by that score what is the reason for the intensity of the dislike for him?
He provided health care for uninsured people. Worse than slavery!
^^^ LOL +1
8 years ago the GOP tried to make him look corrupt by questioning how he bought his house, which turned out to be 100% legal. Trump has so many conflicts of interest with foreign governments it's hard to even list them all...
I get that people don't like black liberals, but in the end we had 8 years of pretty good government. We'll see what the next 4 bring in contrast.
He was born in Kenya and had fake credentials from Columbia and Harvard. Also bogus birth cert.
...other than that, he was fine
Could be because he could never be questioned about decisions or policies without those who were asking being labelled racist. Or because anything negative that occurred was the result of previous administration's, not his.
Could be because he could never be questioned about decisions or policies without those who were asking being labelled racist. Or because anything negative that occurred was the result of previous administration's, not his.
Because politics is no longer a debate on methods and ethics of governance, but rather a team sport where the other team must lose and be regarded as the enemy. As opposed to those with common goals but differing ideologies.
Even though, as we're all finding out, in such a dynamic we (meaning the vast majority of voters) all wind up losing.
There are many many dozens of reasons to hate Obama. They have to do with his political views, his spineless personality, his love for Muslims over his own country, his tree hugging environmental bullshit, his hatred of guns, etc. etc.
People are surprised to hear about this hatred as he leaves office because conservatives are mostly law abiding hard working people who respect the democratic process and aren't much into taking to the streets in violent protest. Unlike the whiny little children who do treat our new president like shit before he even takes office and threaten the democratic process through heir refusal to respect an election loss.
LOL!
Forgot to mention that Obama is secretly a Muslim -- not a good practicing Christian as he claims.
Zero chance Larryfisherman is SlickSpic. Slickspic was funny and knew his stuff, never asked simple questions or looked for validation.
People having trouble naming anything specific?
Okay the move against gun owners was pretty bad, but everyone is allowed on blunder right?
Wish I could dig up the thread @Smith started about sitting next to a smelly Muslim woman. TUSCL classic!!
The list really goes on for pages, but in essence - - No matter how well meaning, Obama did, said, and promised a lot of things that far too many of us disagree with. No matter his intentions, he has not improved the economy. Whatever he wanted to do - the world is a more dangerous place than it was 8 years ago. And worst of all, while it is clear he intended to favor Blacks in this country, the opposite has occurred - - race relations are worse because of Obama, fewer Blacks are working, more Blacks are on EDP and welfare, opportunities for Blacks in this country are fewer than they were 8 years ago.
This zombie theory never dies, no matter how many times it's killed or refuted. Nobody, other than fringe lunatics, believe this.
Dallas: "No matter his intentions, he has not improved the economy. "
Where exactly do you live? Country was in a bad recession which would have gone full scale depression when he took office to the boom we are now in.
^^Lol Nope, didn't happen that way Tx!
Countless articles over the years refuting the role of Fannie/Freddie &government lending in the housing bubble. Here's one of them:
That the financial crises was caused by government lending to the poor is a Libertarian fantasy.
My view is that just about everyone in society contributed to the housing bubble/collapse. The government, Wall Street, idiots who couldn't figure out that the home they were buying was way more than they could afford.
I don't give a shit whether idiots buy a home they can't afford. The problem is that taxpayer money was needed to bail out companies like AIG at the cost of $180B because they were on the rong side of the housing market. Posts like @Dallas infuriate me. We need more government regulation to make sure it doesn't happen again, and the crash was NOT caused by the government forcing loans to low-income people.
Ah, no... The little guy doesn't get to be held blameless in this one and say it was all Wall Street's fault. He's got to take his share of the responsibility.
Also think there is plenty of regulation now as it stands, but Trump will probably take a machette to it. Especially since he doesn't like Warren to begin with. Interesting that GS did a ton of stock buyback last quarter which is probably signalling that.
You don't hear much about it on the news but big banks now allowed to do stock buybacks. shailynn was asking about stock picks for the year... Might want to check some of those out. Trump was talking down the USD/interest rates the other day, so might give a dip to get on.
RandomMember, offering an opinion piece from a liberal magazine is not "proof" that the CRA Dodd/Frank amendment was not a core and proximate cause of the mortgage collapse, and there are certainly are not "countless articles" refuting - at least credibly refuting - the CRA cause. And more to the point, neither I, nor any credible student of the recent economic situation, have said anything about "the financial crises was caused by government lending to the poor." In fact, the evidence clearly points out that a significant majority of the CRA loans were made to individuals claiming household incomes over $72,000 per year. Your claim of the "libertarian fantasy" is a part of the Obama era "blame Bush" disinformation.
The Dodd/Frank CRA IS the proximate and major - but not only - cause of the 2007 - 2009 mortgage collapse. That fact is only disputed by Dodd/Frank supporters and the political disinformation machines, like Atlantic. But to focus on disputing that issue, you simply ignore the point of my response to the original post. Obama is disliked by many for very good reasons - many very good reasons. Among them, his refusal to accept responsibility for his own actions.
I don't hate or dislike him, but I hate a lot of things he did as president. I just think he was among the most inept presidents we have ever had.
For Christ sake @Dallas, this is not an opinion piece. Open your fucking ears.
Here's what I'm trying to point out:
There are some issues like (1) the value of the electoral college or (2) the need for universal healthcare that are moral and/or political. There's another set of issues like (1) climate change or (2) government lending to the poor as a cause of the Great Recession. The second set of issues is factual and not political or moral. There's a right and wrong answer if you have any patience at all to study the facts. And the downturn caused so much misery to the country that you'd think more people would take some effort to understand what happened.
I don't follow the fine details of the regulation but @Dougster's probably right that Trump will machette anything that smells like Dodd or Frank or Warren. I've heard that the Volker Rule is watered-down version of the Glass-Steagall act that separated investment banks from commercial banks. It's there for a purpose..
I despise Obama and most of the left's hypocrisy. John Smith nailed it and Dallas had some great points too.
Pretty easy to grow an economy from the bottom of a business cycle with trillions upon trillions of debt. I still wouldn't call it a booming economy.
dallas702: "That fact is only disputed by Dodd/Frank supporters and the political disinformation machines, like Atlantic."
The only one's I've ever heard advance your CRA hypothesis are mindless Libertarian drones. Everyone else just laughs at this laughable notion.
Every president is hated by the other political side. Nothing new here. That being said Obama ain't even getting 1/10th of the hate Trump is getting now.
I am baffled at the leftists' unwillingness to admit what a colossal failure this guy has been. He said, either in his original campaign or the beginning of his first term, that his administration would be the hallmarks of "transparency and rule of law.". That is the biggest lie of his career. Bigger than "if you like your doctor you can keep your doctor", "health care costs and insurance premiums will decrease by $2500 per household", "Benghazi was not a terrorist act", " ACA negotiations will be broadcast on C-SPAN", well, I could go on and on and on. His has been the least transparent presidency. Most of the ACA negotiations were done in secret to protect the DNCs donor corporations and unions. The domestic spying by the NSA. The secret negotiations with Iran about their nuclear bomb program. The backroom UN dealings to screw Israel. The fewest press briefings by any president in the modern age. Those are just the tip if the iceberg. Let's talk about rule of law. He ignores laws he doesn't like. He didn't like DOMA, so he ignored it. He didn't like the immigration laws, so he ignored them. He couldn't get congress to agree to his budget, so he unilaterally shuttered the government (remember "make it hurt"). And then he has signed more executive orders, and issued more pardons and commutations than any president ever. His mandate to the justice dept was: "there are no white victims". Still think he's a success? The economy : most anemic growth of the modern age. More Americans out of the labor force than ever in history. Historic black unemployment. He has accrued more national debt than all the previous presidents combined. We have had a record amount of terror attacks on our soil. International terror has risen worldwide on his watch. Our adversaries of Russia and China have increased their global influence while our allies no longer trust us. There is simply not enough time to write nor space enough on Founder's servers to list all Obama's failures. Your unwillingness to accept the facts of his failure undermine the credibility of your defenses for him. It has nothing to do with Obama being half-black. It has everything to do with what little character he has being utterly weak and rotten.
"He couldn't get congress to agree to his budget, so he unilaterally shuttered the government"
Think it was Ted Cruz who did that.
Random - I actually did study the facts, and those facts were why I got out of the mortgage security business back in 1999 - when the consequences of the Dodd/Frank CRA were just beginning to show! I wasn't part of the Wall Street "mortgage securities" blow up, or the investment bank idiocy, but I was well informed (then and now) and your, "libertarian fantasy" is - and was - nothing more than one of many cover up stories designed to protect the people who pushed the original scheme, including the Clintons, and Democrat party leaders (like multi-millionaires Pelosi and Reed), who ran around proclaiming Dodd/Frank CRA meant the American dream was within reach for everybody. Fact is, the poor never applied for home loans, and the subprime borrowers were mostly middle income (and a surprisingly large number of "upper" middle income, people with bad credit. Builders loved the government subsidized housing boom. Loan brokers got rich off the scheme. The "poor," including anyone with an income under $33,000 per year, didn't see any benefit.
The markets tanked for multiple reasons, the subprime Dodd/Frank fiasco was only the largest and principle reason. Ramdon, I do not object to people having differing opinions, I don't even object to different perspectives on the same facts. But it does bother me when people ignore facts, make up some alternative reality, and demand I agree. If you want facts LOOK at the actual LAW - look at the House and Senate committee testimony - read the actual statistical analysis of the securitized REMPs - follow the breakdown of the liquidations of the 1,000s of subprime (an alternative name for loans made under the Dodd/Frank CRA rules) loan portfolios. The creation of the subprime market is entirely on the shoulders of Dodd, Frank, Bill Clinton and the Democrats, Those same subprime loans were the real proximate cause of the mortgage loan fiasco of 2007, 2008 and 2008. Facts (actual documented facts) trump liberal opinion pieces, except in "liberal fantasy."
Hold-on, hold-on... I'm having a little trouble following Dallas here. Bush was the president while the subprime bubble was building, but it was the Democrats fault for prior legislation? And Bush simply didn't kill it because???
Did I miss something? The subprime bubble built and collapse when which party was in charge? But somehow that was the Democrats fault?
Dougster, Bush asked Congress to modify the Dodd/Frank CRA three times and was ignored. The first time some Republicans joined Democrats in claiming it was not a problem, but the second two times Democrats controlled Congress and they didn't even bother to respond. By the time Bush43 took office in 2001, the subprime loans totaled more than 700 billion dollars - it is possible that even if the tap was turned off in 2001, the mortgage collapse would have happened anyway.
Bush didn't simply "kill it" because, as President of the United States, he did not have the authority to ignore or override legislation. Something Obama failed to understand - another reason many people have issues with Obama.
That is correct, Dougster. Carter signed the original bill. Reagan defunded it. It was given new teeth and funding by Clinton and his democrat congress. It's the democrat party's fault.
So let me see. Obama was bad because he blamed problems on the prior party in charge. However, the Republicans although they were in power during the build and collapse of the housing bubble can blame it on Democrats who came before them. But it's okay if they blame problems on the prior party in charge.
So if your successor nearly drives the country into a depression it's not their fault can't blame them, because the real ones to blame are the successor to your successor which your successor couldn't do anything about for an unexplained reason.
Makes A TON of sense!
Dougster, you claim to be "baffled" - implying you want the answers, yet you dispute or dismiss the reasons offered. The short version is, Obama failed to fully accomplish anything he promised in either campaign, and he did do a lot of things that angered a lot of Americans. Nothing baffling about that.
Well maybe if the reason made any sense and weren't full of logical inconsistencies. Republican get to blame predecessors for problems, but Obama is bad if he does.
Really good loony alternative history though. Very amusing what you whack-jobs believe.
dallas: " Obama failed to fully accomplish anything he promised in either campaign, "
His big promise was ACA which delivered on. Even though Trump is talking about repealing it he now saying "don't worry everyone will be covered". So he definitely delivered on his biggest promise.
Have to agree with Random's assessment of you that you are just a whack-job who believes what he wants for ideological reasons and facts be damned!
You know, who really fucking cares? America rejected Obama, rejected the democrat party, and in 100 days it will be like his presidency never existed. So fuck off, losers.
Wrong because Trump is saying that the replacement to ObamaCare will cover everyone. So Obama will go down in history for that accomplishment.
And America did not reject Obama. They elected him twice quite handily. Best you say is that, this time around, they rejected the Democrats.
This time around. But the march of history definitely favors liberals over conservatives. Four years in nothing in historical terms. Old conservative will die off and the millennials have a pretty clear prefer the other way. No cold war to scare them that they better not think that way!
The real problem with the hypothesis put fort saying lending to the poor caused the recession is just a bunch of bullshit spewed by the folks that got rich from the preamble to the crisis. The crises was spurred by bundling groups of unidentifiable instruments and trying to create a lie that the loans in the packages were creditworthy. AIG gambled like a blackjack dealer calling insurance anytime there was an ace showing face up. As a result of this craps game the lenders stopped trusting the rating system that increasingly became compromised and stopped lending money to anyone the system froze over than it collapsed. Any one of you guys that understands economics will get that, any one who is going at this from a left-right position will never understand the truth. In other words the foxes feasted uncontrolled in the henhouse.
I'm looking at a chart that shows subprime lending pretty steady from the late 90s up until 2003-2004 when it really took off. Like 25 says due to the new means of securitization. A graph of housing prices also indicates the same.
The United States is less well thought of on the world stage than at any point since 1940. The Obama administration turned its back on our long standing allies and begin its 8 years with its world-wide apologizing campaign around the globe (by the way, with Hillary as SOS).
Race relations in the United States are worse than any time since 1967. Rather than act as the country's leader and defend the rule of law and the noble profession of law enforcement, this administration rode the fence for the past 3 years resulting in BLM vs. LE all over the country -- even areas where no problems existed until Ferguson.
Hillary lost because she ran on continued Obama promises of "Hope" and "Change." After 8 years, little has changed and the country's mood is less hopeful than it was 8 years ago. Trump represents the change du jour. If change is not forthcoming, Trump will be a 1-term president.
"AIG gambled like a blackjack dealer calling insurance anytime there was an ace showing face up. As a result of this craps game the lenders stopped trusting the rating system "
When did they start using cards in craps?
;-)
^^^I was mixing allegories but you sort of get the point don't you.
pensionking: "and the country's mood is less hopeful than it was 8 years ago."
Are you serious? 2009 just about everyone thought the sky was falling and it got pretty close to actually doing so. People I know are very optimistic about the future now. Not sure who these people are whose mood is worse. But if what you are saying is true and give how bad the mood was in 2009, these people must all be on suicide watch now.
It is strange. Even more strange is this idea that Hillary Clinton was the candidate of the rich.
People on TUSCL have said this.
Want to send kids to college? Some TUSCL members seem to prefer that disputes be settled with gun fights.
Want to prop up good wage mid tier jobs? 2% high income tax, as Bill Clinton had set up. Some TUSCL members want the US to go the way of most third world countries, divide into the extreme rich and extreme poor.
Some say that Hillary should have done more to reach the working class in her campaign. What would they have her do, attend a tractor pull? She is a high power attorney, involved in Children's Defense Fund. Then she followed her husband into politics, and she has done very well.
And then likewise, Obama, governed from the center, went more to the left after the 2016 election, but that was just using the bully pulpit, because Republicans controlled the congress. All in all a very reasonable man.
But things got screwy here because of Right Wing Media. What they put out has no relation to reality. 1994 was the Rush Limbaugh election, when Newt Gingrich and the Republicans took over the Congress, and it was from then on guaranteed that Bill Clinton could do nothing.
SJG
Dougster and his friends are driving us towards Ray Kurzweil's Singularity. Will this be like the utopia implied in "Star Trek", or will it be like the dystopia laid out in "The Matrix"?
Capitalism will eat democracy -- unless we speak up | Yanis Varoufakis youtube.com Varoufakis explains about Athenian Democracy
Yanis Varoufakis: Basic Income is a Necessity youtube.com Financialization has created a huge wedge between Capital and Labor, created a new form of Capital, Financialized Capital.
Sherri's Ranch, Pahrump NV sherisranch.com
TJ Street farm4.staticflickr.com
Roycrofters roycrofter.com
Bonus Army youtube.com
"All that remained of the Gold Rush was the savagery born of disillusionment." shermanclay.com
I would argue that things may be better for the 15% at the bottom and at the top. However, the 70% in the middle -- not so much. With a few exceptions, Hillary lost the middle class vote that was solidly Obama 8 years ago.
Doug -- your point about the economic precipice is well taken. The financial markets were at a tipping point in 2008. Financial engineering righted the ship, for sure. But I don't image many middle class citizens would say they are in better shape than they were 8 years ago. Based on how many strip malls are deserted today, Main Street is not any better than it was 8 years ago. If middle class members ARE doing better, it hasn't much to do with anything the federal government has done. If anything, the financial crisis simply discouraged middle class spending and middle class debt is somewhat more under control than before.
That is to say, middle class debt NOT attributable to student loans is more under control. Student loans are at higher levels than at any time in human history.
I still maintain that Obama's dislike is because his mission of hope and change has mostly not materialized.
Don't misunderstand, I'm not sure Trump will succeed in changing hopefulness any more than Obama. Too much bureaucratic bullshit, regulation and red tape. Too much partisan bickering. Too little governing. Too little statesmanship.
@ PensionKing we get it that many of you dislike Obama but an awful lot of people disagree over 60% at this point, I personally think that the hooting and hollering by the rabid right along with their willingness to believe any unsubstantiated half truth or blatant lie contributes greatly to that. BTW I'm not standing for the left they are a bit ridiculous themselves but let's get real much of this is just a lot of hogwash.
If Dougster showed even half as much interest In strip clubs as he does about politics and economics he'd be a great contributor. But I suspect that he has me on ignore. Either that or he is incapable of refuting my arguments.
Obama got his health care passed, whereas Bill Clinton was not able to. That is a monumental accomplishment. But overall, Obama was just doing a rear guard action, fighting against Right Wing Idiots.
And everything is politics and economics, one cannot be neutral.
SJG
So is this another unbranded Deja Vu club? Or is it a club Deja Vu dumped? tuscl.net
Is Athenian Democracy the remedy for "The Matrix" like dystopia which Dougster and his friends are driving us towards by continuing finanicalization? And is advancing technology the problem? youtube.com
@Obergruppenführer Smith: Random Member did a good enough refutation of your silliness. Nothing for me to add.
As for commenting on strip clubs. Won my battles on those subjects years ago. What's to say now? Watching you and your "kid in a candy store for the first time" is mildly amusing but I can only read your shorter posts. Read your longer posts would be comparably bad to dredging through SJG posts.
And no worries. Never been tempted to put you on ignore.
Also looking at the control of the house and senate here and it looks like between 2003 and 2007 the republicans controlled both along with the presidency. So don't get how they couldn't repeal legislation they didn't like??? Somebody help me out here.
With his pen and telephone he has always acted like a petulant child. Unwilling or unable to work with members of his own party much less the opposition. IRS intimidation, press manipulation, secret deals, and graft were his hallmarks. Now he releases a traitorous spy who sold secrets because he/she is transsexual, (what the f... does sexual orientation have to do with selling secrets that get people murdered) and he wonders why the average CITIZEN does not like him. He had complete control his first years and only got the disastrous health care act passed. Yes there are more people insured now than before but how many of those are the 22-26 year old children that would have had their own insurance if they could have gotten a job just shifted from medicaid to government paid insurance. My health care insurance has quadrupled in cost, has more than doubled the deductible, lowered the major medical cap, but at 60+ years old single male with a vasectomy I now have maternity coverage!
Relax Tiredtraveler, we now have President Trump. I still say that in any sane world we would have had Bush v Clinton in the election and it probably would have swung to Bush due to a variety of factors. It would have been a boring election and there would have been no allegations that Jeb Bush pays Russian prostitutes to piss on beds. As much as I like crazy stories I don't want them from my President! :(
But we'll see what happens with Trump. I'm not going to make any predictions other than to say that I'll hope for the best and expect the worst. What else can you do with any President?
And before you accuse me of being liberal (I consider myself moderate) I am not saying this because Trump is a conservative. Because he isn't a conservative. I honestly don't know what he believes or what he'll do. Bush was a conservative. Rubio was a conservative. Trump is a ???? with R after his name! :(
Dougster, I don't think anybody is really in a position to evaluate any presidency until about 10 or more years. I actually think George W Bush will probably be viewed in a positive light soon, although he certainly had flaws. He was also constrained by historical events. I don't want to keep going on, so I'd probably just PM if you're interested.
As for Obama, I think the best short term assessments of likely legacies often come from thoughtful and principled opponents. I generally find Ross Douthat a bit too religious, but I think his assessment of Obama is reasonable: nytimes.com
I'm not sure I agree with everything, but I don't think I could beat somebody like Douthat who is paid to think about the situation in the world and summarize his thoughts! And, no disrespect, I don't think random internet guys can actually be more thoughtful. ;)
After the inauguration can we get back to crazy stories about strip clubs?
As always, no disrespect. I just skip any thread that don't look brilliant to read. As for Dougster, you're more thoughtful threads are typically interesting to read. No disrespect and I'm certainly not going to tell you what to post, but I'll just say that those are the ones I read.
I've gone on too long! Here's to the future and ace stories about tits, pussy, and butthole! ;)
@4got2wipe: Thanks! I've been thinking maybe you guys are right and I should go easier on the RIckyBoy. Not because he isn't a homo, but because, although it took sometime I did pretty much wipe the floor with him here. What's to accomplish there that I haven't already?
My best guess is that conservatives know that the course of history is against them, so they lash out at Obama who demonstrates this, and has said so in so many words. Not a truth they like to hear!