US Presidents blamed on the bad economy

[das_nut]

Woopsie.

 

[beancounter]

Mod Post
Please remember to play nice.

 

[yakherder]

"E xcuse"? Even ignoring your shaky grasp of economics, at a full 40 hours a week, $3.58 is $622.66/mo.

I think it's rather self-evident that trying to pay rent, transportation, food, clothing, healthcare, and misc expenses on $622.66/mo ain't going to work too well for most people.

We might have to go back to surviving as families or even as communities instead of as individuals, like we've done for all but the last few years of history, and as is still standard in many developing countries. The horror

I too am being somewhat sarcastic. That said, however, I've lived and been happy in some pretty crappy conditions before.

Does anyone remember what point I was trying to make? I sometimes forget when I ramble.

 

[Amy SF]

I've seen articles about the trend of young people moving back in with their parents and older couples moving in with their adult children as a way to economize when money is tight. All these articles are written as if this cohabitation trend is one of the biggest catastrophes of American society. The truth is that it's more in line with other cultures where extended families live with each other and/or support each other, and adult children live with their parents and don't move out until they get married. It's just different here in the US.

(When I moved out of my parents' house into my first apartment, their cleaning lady, who was from El Salvador, expressed sadness and dismay. I wasn't getting married or anything. I just wanted OUT.)

 

[rainforests1]

My understanding is we're adding a lot of part-time jobs, but not many full-time ones. Is that correct? If our economy is still doing poorly when Obama steps down, will he be considered a major failure?

 

[Mischief]

My understanding is we're adding a lot of part-time jobs, but not many full-time ones. Is that correct? If our economy is still doing poorly when Obama steps down, will he be considered a major failure?

The people who dislike him anyway will blame him. Hell, they blame him for Katrina, and he wasn't in office then.

The great recession was put into motion long before Obama was elected. By the time he assumed the presidency, the most any president could have done was to try to implement as much as possible to keep it from turning into another great depression.

Frankly, the presidency has little to do with how well the economy does, at least not the economy during the term of the presidency in question. For the most part, the economy lags far behind the laws and policies put in place during any presidential term. That's not even addressing the fact that it's Congress which enacts the laws, and even laws initiated by the executive branch generally have little resemblance to what a given president intended/wanted.

 

[rainforests1]

If Hoover is blamed on the Depression(which he had nothing to do with at least in the beginning) why would Obama not be blamed on eight years of failure? We have to be consistent. Either both get blamed or neither get blamed.

 

[kazyeeqen]

While I like the discussion about cohabitation as a social revolution, just as the independence we currently experience in the west (especially America, I believe) was a social revolution, that is not an excuse for our government to stop benefiting the people. It would be great if people realized their psychological need for closeness and developed and cultivated familial bonds and intentional communities for cohabitation, not because the decline of our society forces people into it by making full time work not enough to support a person independently. Then maybe we could all live both well and together.

But I don't know if that's possible. I don't generally think people are able to do things voluntarily, even things that are good for us/them, it's generally path of least resistance and outside influences molding us into the shapes we become as individuals and a society.

As a prepositional note, and with all respect to the non-English speakers among us and the difficulties inherent in the English language... Something is blamed on a person, a person is not generally blamed on something, and when they are the meaning is very different. Hoover did not result from the depression, but some people might blame the depression on Hoover. Hoover might be blamed for the depression, if word order is very important in the sentence.

In conclusion, I think if every president were more like Obama, instead of the pendulum swing of crazy far right to... middle... we might gradually improve as a nation, including economically.

 

[Mischief]

As a prepositional note, and with all respect to the non-English speakers among us and the difficulties inherent in the English language... Something is blamed on a person, a person is not generally blamed on something, and when they are the meaning is very different. Hoover did not result from the depression, but some people might blame the depression on Hoover. Hoover might be blamed for the depression, if word order is very important in the sentence.

Thank you. Every time I read the title of this thread, I have to make the mental adjustment from what the OP actually said to what he intended to say.