Economics

IN a recent post on one of my list serves, a guy wrote something about "a political party," he meant the Republicans, which can do nothing but "oppose a black President."  Now I'm not a shill for the Republicans and, esp, the Establishment Republicans.  But to suggest that opposition to Obama stems from him being "a black President" is insulting.  It seemed like his post was incriminating all those who think Obama is a rotten President.  I guess, then, my question would be, "How about those of us, like me, who also think W. Bush was a rotten President?  How are we characterized?"

Someone asked me a short while ago how Obama will be rated/ranked as a President.  I said he'll be "way up there." That surprised my inquisitor, so I had to explain.  As noted, I think Obama has been a bad President.  Look at the lousy economic picture in the US.  ObamaCare has failed miserably.  Note how racially divided our country is, the biggest divisions since the Civil Rights movement.  Foreign policy is in a shambles.  Can we point to the myriad broken promises?  What about the use of federal agencies to attack opponents and then the cover-ups that followed?  The list could go on.

My inquisitor was baffled.  If that's what's happened, how do I explain "way up there?"  The ratings and rankings are done by academics and media-types.  They love Obama.  Any wrong-doings, any failure to recover to greatness, etc. well, that's "Bush's fault."  Even after eight years??????  Yep.  I am not kidding.  I hope I am wrong and that the ratings and rankings reflect reality.

This started out, at least as I initially intended, as a peek at the economic condition of the country.  I know locally, I don't think we have really emerged from the economic recession.  I still see a lot, I mean a lot, of vacant store fronts.  I do a lot of running and you'd be surprised at the number of homes that are still abandoned--and we're out here in Oakland County!  I saw in the local section of the newspaper the other day, a firm is laying off 260 workers.  On that same page, there were stories of sales/profit expectation that were far below predictions.  (Gee, maybe that's why the workers were laid off?)  I don't know if income is up or down, but my suspicions are that, if if they are up, for most people, esp the middle class, the increases have been wiped out by higher health insurance costs caused by ObamaCare.  I know that's the situation here.

I saw today that Obama will be the only President not to have achieved a single year of 3% economic growth.  Even Jimmy Carter managed that.  Talk about "historic!"  I know the President isn't responsible for all of that; of course he isn't.  Like the football quarterback or hockey goldie, whose performances might well depend on receivers or left tackles or struggling defensemen, Presidents don't live in vacuums.  They deal with forces, too, often beyond their control--world influences, Congress, natural catastrophes, etc.  Yet, when times are good, boy, those Presidents are quick to claim credit for them, aren't they?

And the meager growth is even more meager when we consider other factors, including population growth.  (What a minute?  If the US population growth was 5% over the past year, why was economic growth about 2%?  It can't be because some of the growth included people who aren't pulling their weight, can it?)  Toss in that the last quarter's figure, 1.3% growth, has been downgraded to .8%.  This is my point, although it sure took a long time to get there!

Why are the media silent on this?  Why aren't we told about the meager growth over Obama's Presidency?  Why aren't we told that last quarter's figure was far worse than originally reported?

There, if my friend was here right now, is what I'd tell her about Obama's ratings/rankings.  It will take a great deal of digging to find out the truth, reality.  And what academic, fully in the Obama camp, will do that digging??????