The Great Depression 2: Depression Harder

[Chickenman 9]

You'd think that if Bush inherited a sleeper cell economy that waited until the new president was in before imploding, Bush, clearly being a better economic policy maker than Clinton, would have, after eight years, would have either been able to stop the death spiral, or, seeing as it's been eight years even turn it around.

You mean like his and other Republican efforts to fix Fannie May and Freddie Mac in 2003 and 2005, efforts that were blocked by Democrats don't count as attempting to "stop the death spiral"?

I don't know about this particular vote, but I know that a lot of the time, voting against something is disagreeing with the plan by which it would be carried out. Like the anti-Kerry ads that blasted him for "voting against armor for our troops."

Besides, you weigh the entire economic policy of the Republicans against this one vote...the entire economic policy of the Republicans is much more devestating.

Don't know about that particular decision, but I do find it funny that the people cutting taxes are also the ones throwing around tax money we don't have at these incompetent CEOs.

Every single Democrat has run a more successful economy than every single Republican since the Great Depression

Yeah, that Carter malaysie was awesome economically...

Again, I was basing on job creation, which I believe Carter was at the bottom for Democrats, but better than every single Republican.

The Reagan, Bush, and Bush II economoys were absolute dynamos though! If the word "dynamo" meant a hole in the ground that you throw money at.

(I'm basing this off of job creation, though if I could unlazy myself, I'm sure I could find correlating data on other categories)

The Bush is a better President than Clinton, during his term unemployment, until recently had either equaled or been lower than the best years of Clinton and the 90s....using your metrics here.

I'd debate that, but I can't seem to find the source I was using. So I'll give you this one, though I don't agree with you.

By the way, Hoover and Coolidge, the guys we mentioned at the beginning of this post? Not to mention Warren G. Harding before them, often cited as the worst president ever (no offense to Mr. W. Bush)? Republicans.

You're forgetting Carter...Democrat. Arguably the worst President in modern history.

You're forgetting Bush. Arguably the worst President in ever. Of course, there wouldn't be much of an argument against it.

Also Bush I. Ray-gun. Nixon. Ford.

I liked Ike, I guess.

Edited September 26, 2008 by Chickenman

[TheUnknown 39]

For example, Bush inherited a recession from Clinton...it started after he'd been in office for around 2 months

And to use your convenient 8 year cycle, that recession is because of Bush 41. And that, the recession during the early nineties is Reagan's fault, the recession during the late seventies-early eighties would therefore be Nixon's fault, the Great Depression is Coolidge's fault. That would also mean that the economic boom of the mid-1980s is because of Carter, and that the boom of the Roaring Twenties was because of Woodrow Wilson.

[TheUnknown 39]

The bailout bill has failed in the House. The Dow is down 750 points.

[Andy 60]

Yeah I saw that in the paper this morning. I was quite surprised... Bush didn't look too impressed. lol

The article says that they are all blaming eachother for the bill failing. Umm, hello? Who voted? lol

[Radioactive Isotope 29]

am i the only one who's glad the bailout bill failed?

[TheUnknown 39]

No. If you're going for a bailout, bailout on the consumers. Let them pay their bills and put money into the economy.

[Chickenman 9]

Indeed.

Try to get that one past the "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" theory, though. :mad:

[Tsl 7]

What ever possessed these banks to make these loans to people who had no business getting loans in the first place? I realize they were all making a mint off of reselling all the repossessed homes and whatever gov't funds they got from people defaulting, but they should have realized that the inflated real estate market wouldn't stay inflated forever. I mean, I understand (don't agree with, but understand) the banks wanting to make massive amounts of easy money off of the stupid masses, but they had to know this would happen. Maybe they were counting on the gov't to bail them out... Or maybe the heads of these companies just wanted to walk away with whatever massive wads of cash they probably got to keep when their companies failed. Either way the whole thing pisses me off.

[Radioactive Isotope 29]

^ word

No. If you're going for a bailout, bailout on the consumers. Let them pay their bills and put money into the economy.

i like the idea of putting some of that money into the infrastructure. jobs get created, and our bridges and roads get repaired. win-win.

[Andy 60]

But capitalism doesn't cater for ordinary people.

[Tsl 7]

and the system depends on credit and the ability to get and issue it, so....

[Andy 60]

You know... That $700 billion bail-out plan... It's equal to about $5,000 for every tax-paying citizen of the USA. lol

[Radioactive Isotope 29]

don't even get me started on this bailout plan. i am NOT happy AT ALL that it passed. the ONLY way it passed was to add so much pork and other crap and the taxpayers are going to be paying for it in the long run. not to mention, THE MARKETS ARE STILL DROPPING!!!! WASN'T THE BAILOUT SUPPOSED TO FIX THAT!? UBER FAIL!

ok, i need puppy therapy before my brain asplodes.

[Tsl 7]

Don't forget that extra $100 billion in pork barrel they attached to it! lol

[Drake 53]

Mmm...pork is delicious.

[Andy 60]

From the front page of today's Metro:

The day the financial world was offered help worth an

incredible ?288 for every man, woman and child on Earth

Bank Aid

The ?1.9trillion is equivalent to:

• 10,000 times the total raised by Band Aid
  
• 36 times the aid sent by the richest nations to the poorest each year
  
• 190 times the GDP of Ethiopia
  

It doesn't specify how much a trillion is. I assume the paper is using the Americanised trillion (1,000,000,000,000) rather than the traditional British trillion (1,000,000,000,000,000,000). lol

[TheUnknown 39]

Silly Brits don't know what a trillion and a quintillion are. :p

[Andy 60]

Actually it's you lot that don't.

bi means two, tri means three.

Hence a billion equals a million million, and a trillion equals a million million million. :p

[Winters 0]

Is this British logic...?

[Andy 60]

It's technically standard grammar. :p

[Ana 15]

And "million" is from 'mille - thousand' and '-one - augmentative for the proceeding [thousand]', meaning a thousand thousand. Whee for knowing a little etymology.

American calculation applies the prefix only to the 'mille' thousand, instead of to the whole million, as implied by the loss of the 'mi'. If we were going to apply it to the full million, it would be 'bimillion' and 'trimillion'.

Therefore,

Billion = thousand thousand [thousand] = 1,000,000,000

Trillion = thousand thousand thousand [thousand] = 1,000,000,000,000.

[Andy 60]

Well, still. You'd think people would just carry on using the definition that's been around since like the 15th century. :p

[Ana 15]

Oh, so we should probably give up computers then, because hey, paper's been around since 3500BCE. Don't hate us for saying "Wait... this makes no sense!"

[Andy 60]

In a lot of workplaces that would probably be a sensible plan. But you can't have the internet on paper, cos it doesn't work as well.

However, you can still count to a billion if the meaning is different. ;)

[Andy 60]

Apparently the total aid the UK government is handing out is equivalent to ?8000 (around $16,000) for every person living in the UK.

I'm sure if they handed that out to everyone instead of the banks it would help the economy... I could pay off ALL my debt. :roll: