Wrong. You made a fourth grade comment in your first post. Typical liberal though, all you can do is resort to name calling. I'm out.
I voted for Obama in 2008.
- Thread starter Patagonia
- Start date
Wrong. You made a fourth grade comment in your first post. Typical liberal though, all you can do is resort to name calling. I'm out.
No, I said that you made of fourth grade comment. You're just not smart enough to be able to tell the difference. Typical for a conservative though.
Why is he not a scientist? Do you have to have a degree to be a scientist. How about a rocket scientist? Real scientist?
He's not a scientist because he's not a scientist. Being a scientist is an actual occupation. You asking why he's not a scientist would be like if I said he's not a wal-mart greeter and you asked why. The reason is because he doesn't work as a greeter at wal-mart. He's not a scientist because he's not employed as a scientist and he doesn't get paid to perform research in any scientific area.
He was a mechanical engineer at Boeing. An aeronautics consultant as well. Are mechanic engineers and aeronautic consultants on the no-scientist list? Is it because his work does not involve those fields anymore? When a scientist retires, does he cease to be a scientist? So many questions.
No offense, but your post is dumb. Here is a definition of a scientist:
scientist is a person engaging in a systematic activity to acquire knowledge that describes and predicts the natural world. In a more restricted sense, a scientist may refer to an individual who uses the scientific method.[1]The person may be an expert in one or more areas of science.[2] This article focuses on the more restricted use of the word. Scientists perform research toward a more comprehensive understanding of nature, including physical, mathematical and social realms.
Basically, a scientist is someone who seeks knowledge using the scientific method (i.e. observe something, develop idea, use evidence to substantiate idea, etc). It's too bad there aren't more people who do the same.
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Yes, I read it and, of course, take issue in part.
First the agreement- Presidents get both too much credit and too much blame for the economic goings on the country and the world for that matter. But what they do does matter.
Three things (list will be too short and simplified but I'll stand by it) kept the financial crisis (I'll argue started by Clinton and guaranteed by Bush) from equaling the Great Depression- The Fed monetary stimulus, the Obama fiscal stimulus (spnding and middle-class tax cuts) and ongoing social programs that this board for the most part hates. The recover has been slow but very steady and is the envy of the world, particularly those countries who went ape over austerity which only served to further cut already crushed aggregate demand- the main driver of any reasonable economy. Obama helped and Keynes won another round.
Yes Obama has blocked some oil and gas proposals but to say the industry has not flourished under his watch is wrong. Production in the US had dropped every year since 1971 until Obama was elected. It has risen every year he has been in office and is now up 72% during his watch. We now lead the world in both oil and natural gas production. He clearly hasn't been behind them on everything they wanted but to say he is their worst enemy is not supported by the facts.
He has been tough on coal (good for him) but to say he has fought oil and gas is like saying because the banks can't do what ever the hell they please means the government has ruined the banks- they are reaping (or raping) record profits as well. Not all regulations and restrictions are evil.
While I'm on the banks- it is pure right wing propaganda that the reason for the crisis was trying to put minorities into homes. Someone put that out there as spin but there was no altruism whatsoever involved in the predatory lending- it was a route to easy money by feeding a ready financial market products that were in short supply.
Finally, any comparison to Carter is silly. We have no idea what Carter might have done. He was hit by stagflation- which technically shouldn't exist. High inflation is supposed accompany booms, not busts and nothing in the Keynesian bag or any other bag of tricks could fight it. The only cure was trashing the economy and letting time sort it out. Well- you could say neither Carter nor Obama started an unnecessary war, so I guess some comparison survives.
First the agreement- Presidents get both too much credit and too much blame for the economic goings on the country and the world for that matter. But what they do does matter.
Three things (list will be too short and simplified but I'll stand by it) kept the financial crisis (I'll argue started by Clinton and guaranteed by Bush) from equaling the Great Depression- The Fed monetary stimulus, the Obama fiscal stimulus (spnding and middle-class tax cuts) and ongoing social programs that this board for the most part hates. The recover has been slow but very steady and is the envy of the world, particularly those countries who went ape over austerity which only served to further cut already crushed aggregate demand- the main driver of any reasonable economy. Obama helped and Keynes won another round.
Yes Obama has blocked some oil and gas proposals but to say the industry has not flourished under his watch is wrong. Production in the US had dropped every year since 1971 until Obama was elected. It has risen every year he has been in office and is now up 72% during his watch. We now lead the world in both oil and natural gas production. He clearly hasn't been behind them on everything they wanted but to say he is their worst enemy is not supported by the facts.
He has been tough on coal (good for him) but to say he has fought oil and gas is like saying because the banks can't do what ever the hell they please means the government has ruined the banks- they are reaping (or raping) record profits as well. Not all regulations and restrictions are evil.
While I'm on the banks- it is pure right wing propaganda that the reason for the crisis was trying to put minorities into homes. Someone put that out there as spin but there was no altruism whatsoever involved in the predatory lending- it was a route to easy money by feeding a ready financial market products that were in short supply.
Finally, any comparison to Carter is silly. We have no idea what Carter might have done. He was hit by stagflation- which technically shouldn't exist. High inflation is supposed accompany booms, not busts and nothing in the Keynesian bag or any other bag of tricks could fight it. The only cure was trashing the economy and letting time sort it out. Well- you could say neither Carter nor Obama started an unnecessary war, so I guess some comparison survives.
Thanks for the reply, but, for the most part, we will have to disagree with one another.
On the stimulus, all of the "shovel ready" projects were not ready. It has been fairly well proven that that stimulus did little to promote growth, particularly in comparison to all of the prognostications of the Administration. I think there is a more rational argument to be made that the moves with the financial institutions prevented our going into a depression. I believe few would support the argument that the stimulus prevented recession. The more socialist, slower growth, European governments didn't achieve the growth levels of a capitalist American economy over the last eight years. That's because businesses were able to find ways to become more efficient and find ways to grow in spite of the anti-business policies of the Obama Administration. If, instead, he had instituted more pro-growth policies, this had the opportunity to be a more normal recovery at a much higher growth rate, rather than the weakest recovery in history (which would have benefited Europe as well).
On oil and gas - I encourage you to research what, if anything, he did to promote the growth of oil and gas. Agree not all regulation is bad. However, in this instance, it was fracking technology that changed the energy markets. It was because gas prices got so high on his watch that enterprising businesses saw that utilizing tracking technology was economically viable at such gas prices. My point was that where government could have supported further expansion of American produced oil and gas, he did the opposite by more often denying leases to oil companies seeking to monetize resources on such land. They thrived on private land where the government could not stop them. And we all know about the Keystone pipeline grandstanding.
Last, on your point on the banks, its fact that policies were implemented by the Democrats with the Freddies that provide government guarantees on loans to encourage lending (vs your conspiracy theory). I think it was led by Barney Frank. Nobody said anything about targeting minorities, by the way; the statement was those who would not otherwise qualify for loans - which could be anyone in any race. I agree that there were terrible lending practices in place. And, Wall Street and the rating agencies exacerbated the problem when they bundled those risky loans into securities with AAA ratings that were destined to default, which they did in massive numbers. One thing that bothers me though is that too few people point out that there was also a lack of self responsibility on the part of many borrowers to borrow responsibly. Other people had the opportunity to secure loans with low initial monthly payments on adjustable rate loans at loan to value ratios that seemed crazy. They recognized that while we could have qualified for such loans in that market, we chose not to assume such financial risk.
And I stand by my Carter comparison. Anti-business policies that create slow economic growth, a weakening of the military, international chaos born from horrible foreign policy moves are common to both. Both will have left us with a much more dangerous world due to a weakened military and inaction from feckless international leadership. I guess we will have to wait another five to ten years to see who is right
. Have a good evening.
