My guy can beat your guy...

[Lamplighter]

It's the thought that counts.

[classicman]

Obama has to be the best public speaker that I've ever seen. Watching Mitch Daniels afterward was ... well just sad.
And Mitch Daniels is a good speaker as well.
Just not in the same class as O. I can see why many wanted him to run this year.
The other two, three or four still running have very little chance of doing anything.
This is totally O's to lose, and I just can't see that happening.

[tw]

Originally Posted by classicman

This is totally O's to lose, and I just can't see that happening.

Only one president has been reelected when unemployment was this massive. Reagan. Many forget the economic mess when Reagan was reelected.

Most people vote based upon their feelings - ie how wealthy they feel. Therefore, as Clinton said, "its the economy stupid".

Most people, for example, forget a more than five plus years of pain necessary to fix it. Carter had interest rates rise massively to around 20% in the 1970s. Only then did jobs return in the mid-1980s. Most voter perspective is less than one year.

Reagan also kept saying how good things were even when they were not. That message is probably why Reagan is the only president relected when unemployment was massive.

[Lamplighter]

Originally Posted by tw

<snip>

Most people, for example, forget a more than five plus years of pain necessary to fix it.
Carter had interest rates rise massively to around 20% in the 1970s. Only then did jobs return in the mid-1980s.
Most voter perspective is less than one year.

Reagan also kept saying how good things were even when they were not.
That message is probably why Reagan is the only president relected when unemployment was massive.

I've always felt sorry for Carter... so many things were out of his control.
Iran hostages, Oil embargo, S&L crisis, gas prices doubled, 3-mile island.
And so... unemployment and interest rates went up.

Reagan had nothing except and movie-star smile and 2 lines:
"There you go again" and "Are you better off than you were 4 years ago"



.

[bbuilder]

Originally Posted by Lamplighter

I've always felt sorry for Carter... so many things were out of his control.
Iran hostages, Oil embargo, S&L crisis, gas prices doubled, 3-mile island.
And so... unemployment and interest rates went up.

Reagan had nothing except and movie-star smile and 2 lines:
"There you go again" and "Are you better off than you were 4 years ago"



.

That second quote is exactly what I was thinking just now. Brilliant.

[piercehawkeye45]

Plus Walter Mondale did stupid stuff....like tell the truth.

[tw]

Gerald Ford suffered from the same problem. Richard Nixon. Nixon intentionally created economic malaise in 1968 and 1970. Wasting human life and spending money we did not have because (as tapes between he and Kissinger demonstrate), Nixon did not want to lose a war on his watch.

Economic destruction causes massive unemployment that could only be solved by punishing all Americans with diminished standards of living. And by selling off major American assets. But Gerald Ford was not willing to drive interest rates up towards 20%. Carter (and Volker) did that. Therefore the economy and jobs finally returned in the mid- 1980s. That type of economic destruction takes that long to fix.

Those same economic lessons apply today. Obama must do what only Reagan was able to accomplish.

[TheMercenary]

FACT CHECK: Obama pushes plans that flopped before

WASHINGTON (AP) - It was a wish list, not a to-do list.
President Barack Obama laid out an array of plans in his State of the Union speech as if his hands weren't so tied by political realities. There can be little more than wishful thinking behind his call to end oil industry subsidies - something he could not get through a Democratic Congress, much less today's divided Congress, much less in this election year.
And there was more recycling, in an even more forbidding climate than when the ideas were new: He pushed for an immigration overhaul that he couldn't get past Democrats, permanent college tuition tax credits that he asked for a year ago, and familiar discouragements for companies that move overseas.
A look at Obama's rhetoric Tuesday night and how it fits with the facts and political circumstances:

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20120125/D9SFO48G0.html

[SamIam]

Merc, only you could blame the President for the (in)actions of the Republicans in Congress. You're stretching it there, pal.

[Lamplighter]

Obama said:

“It’s good to remember the fact that there were some folks who were willing to let this industry die.”

Bloomberg
Paula Dwyer
Jan 19, 2012
GM Back on Top Among the World's Automakers: The Ticker

Attention taxpayers: Pat yourself on the back.
General Motors Co., one-third of whose shares are owned by you,
sold 9,025,942 vehicles last year, up 7.6 percent from 2010.

No more excuses...

No more excuses

The accomplishment is probably enough to restore GM's place as the king of automakers.
And it's only been two years since you bailed the company out -- to the tune of $50 billion.

NY Times
By Jerry Hirsch
February 1, 2012, 5:53 a.m.

Chrysler earns first annual profit in more than a decade

Chrysler Group earned its first annual profit as an independent company since 1997,
a sign that the Detroit automaker is recovering from its bankruptcy
reorganization and the conflicting strategies of its recent owners.
<snip>
Since emerging from bankruptcy in 2009, Chrysler has spent about $4.5 billion
on its factories and facilities in the U.S. and Canada and added about 9,400 jobs
after a period of steep employment reductions.
It now employs more than 57,000 workers.
<snip>
The company also is building up its cash.
Chrysler had $9.6 billion at year-end, up from $7.3 billion from a year earlier.
In May, the reorganized Chrysler paid $9.2 billion to retire $6.7 billion in loans
and interest owed to the U.S. and Canadian governments.
The payments hurt the company's financial results.
Its net income was reduced by a $551-million loss on the extinguishing of the debt.

No more excuses...

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by SamIam

Merc, only you could blame the President for the (in)actions of the Republicans in Congress. You're stretching it there, pal.

Actually, no.

Anyone who continues to blame the failures of the president after 3 years on the previous president and a super majority of the Demoncratic party for longer is a fool IMHO.

[Lamplighter]

Here's the link to the 17 min documentary about Obama released today.

[tw]

Originally Posted by TheMercenary

Anyone who continues to blame the failures of the president after 3 years on the previous president ... is a fool IMHO.

Richard Nixon spend money in 1968 and 1970 that we did not have. Waged a war in Nam that even he knew could not be won. How long was the economic malaise created by Nixon? Finally Paul Volcker forced interest rates to something near 20% in 1979. The economic malaise began to disappear after Reagan's reelection - mid 80's.

Well, you might blame Gerald Ford for not doing anything. Instead he promoted WIN buttons - as if slogans will fix an economy.

Meanwhile, a disaster created by George Jr's Mission Accomplished is just beginning to be resolved. It will easily take another 7 years. But that is how economics really works when one learns facts from history and ignores extremist rhetoric.

We have the economy that George Jr so gleefully encouraged. And will continue to pay for the $trillions (plural) that have been incurred by that useless war. Money games means those debts need not appear for many years and decades later. We still have to start paying for Afghanistan. How large are those debts? $890,000 per soldier per year. Because George Jr surrendered to the Taliban.

Somehow others blessed with rhetoric know the bills from this year are paid for this year. Nonsense. Obama accurately said the economic disaster created by mismanagement will require at least 10 years to resolve. But then everyone knows that having learned from Deja vue Nam.

You cannot get around one obvious fact. George Jr mortgaged the government and did gross mismanagement that has created our current economic malaise. We all knew he was doing just that. Cheney said, "Reagan proved that deficits don't matter." He forgot to mention deficits only matter seven plus years later. He also forgot to mention that many refuse to learn that reality. We have the economy we wanted when Saddam had mythical WMDs. Do we blame a liar George Jr or a public who all but wanted to be lied to? How many knew “Reagan proved that deficits don’t matter.” Welcome to the reality called Shock and Awe.

[classicman]

[Lamplighter]

Here are a few responses to Obama's State of the Union
by CATO INSTITUTE spokesman, DJ Ikenson,
in the first couple of minutes of Classic's link above.

@0:49 - "...Ford, Honda, Toyota... the other U.S. companies could have reaped the benefits of GM's death"

@0:59 - "A million jobs were never at stake"

@1:38 - "First of all, manufacturing never left. There's no need to be manufacturing back"

@1.51 -" It not the responsibility of business to create jobs in the United States
The responsibility of business is to their shareholders"

I'm sure other viewers can find more examples of the CATO mind set.