Russia, Russia, Russia- All Things Russia/Trump Related

it seems you're not an internet people

Oh, yeah.  We REALLY benefited from his economy. 

Record number of people on food stamps (topped out just short of 50 million).  Record unemployment.  So much so, that the Bureau of Labor changed the way the unemployment statistics were calculated and reported so that the number released didn't look nearly as grim as it truly was.  Specifically, they changed the accounting of people who were "long-term unemployed", meaning they cut off counting them in the full numbers.

With an end-to-end GDP of 2.1% during his 8 years in office, he had one of the lowest GDP growth rates of any president, significantly below the historical grand average of 3% per year.

Median income grew at a much lower pace than historical performance (in fact, in contracted for the first several years of his presidency).  He had the second worst record on debt as a percentage of GDP since the early 1950s (was ~52% when he took office, peaking at roughly 80% during his tenure).

But on the plus side, the stock market performed fairly well.  And he was the best gun salesman in recent history.  Well, this, despite the "shovel-ready" infrastructure fiasco, and giving literally hundreds of millions of dollars to his cronies at alternative energy startups like Solyndra ($500MM, then they went bankrupt only a short time later).  

Yeah his economy was just dandy.  Plenty of signals that big business doesn't expand while under a highly-regulated, nanny environment.  Get the heck out of the way and let them do what they do best.  Stop trying to legislate your way to success.

He was also a freaking embarrassment and flat-out coward on the world political stage.  Ask him about his line in the sand.  And then the next one.  And the next one.  Or, better yet, how about those billions of USD he loaded up on a plane and had sent to Iran?

Oh, how about that wonderful idea that his AD Eric Holder had - Fast & Furious.  A few widows of Border Patrol and Texas Law Enforcement Officers would love to talk to you about that fiasco.  

Or how about him weaponizing the IRS by having Lois Lerner target conservative non-profits.  

Yeah, he was a charming one, for sure.

Every single statistic I provided is verifiable. And most are record low or near record low performance for sitting US presidents. All verifiable. Your opinion of him is irrelevant when the statistics and trends factually show otherwise.

Eight, EIGHT, YEARS OF BELOW AVERAGE GDP growth, yet you state that people were confident in his economy?  That statement right there voids any additional opinion you have. That’s just the thing...you can’t run from facts.

And so it begins- apnews.com/9e926bfccb5947d5a5f8eb260cb0a7e6

Sorry I’ve been AWOL for several days. Work, life and the usual stuff. I haven’t read subsequent posts but here is the Obama things I said I would post to throw so light on just how corrupt his administration was. Time prohibits me from giving a detailed, thorough post but here is an article that outlines scandals from the Obama administration. 

www.naturalnews.com/041056_Obama_scandals_Benghazi_Fast_and_Furious.html

Test, the media here in the US is pro democrat. They will never tell the truth when it negatively impacts any Democrat president or leader. Hillary was one of the most corrupt candidates I’ve ever seen get the nomination for president. As Sec of State, she ran a pay to play scheme that involved the Clinton Foundation. High profile people from across the globe would donate, in most cases, millions of dollars to the foundation for the purposes of gaining an audience with her to help shape policy that was favorable to groups, foundations or even principalities from what was the presumptive next president of the US. Donations to the Clinton Crime Family Foundation have all but dried up since her defeat in the 2016 election. 

The media has no interest in this story. Nothing to see here. 

The media is anti republican. In my lifetime of 55 years, the media has disparaged every single republican president there has been. The last Republican president that got any favorable coverage from the media was Eisenhower and that was mostly due to his status as a national war hero. 

To close, Obama was a terrible President. He did nothing to advance things in this country. He was the recipient of fawning media coverage. Had the press carried out their 1st Amendment rights faithfully, he wouldn’t have won re-election and perhaps wouldn’t have won the first time 

Test, I’ve read a bit more stuff. I’m sorry but I can’t agree with much of anything you have said about the Obama economy. I am a statistic of the Obama economy. I have been self employed since 1999. I had fantastic years up until 2007. Things began to slow down in the construction sector where I live and I had to become bi-vocational. I worked graveyards in a plant then would get up after an hour of sleep when I had work of my own. It got worse here in 2009 after Obama was inaugurated. There was no confidence in the economy. Obama himself downplayed expectations by saying that most of the jobs that were lost were gone and weren’t coming back. He inspired no confidence in folks looking to invest their capital. In the business I’m in, electrical contracting, when people have investment capital, the building industry goes well. It wasn’t ever great under Obama. Most people were reluctant to invest when they had no confidence that their employment situation was uncertain. 

Under Trump, people are investing capitally. There is building going on again here where I live. I’m busier now than I have ever been. The Trump economy, thanks to the one thing Obama and most Democrats/socialists don’t think stimulate an economy, tax cuts, is humming now. The unemployment rate here where I live is less than 3%. 

Tax cuts, not regulation and restrictions, stimulate economies. The last democrat that embraced tax cuts was JFK. Since then, it’s been tax increases for almost every democrat president since. 

It's not that the statistics relating to GDP are wrong. I don't dispute that at all. What I dispute is that the rate of GDP growth trend comparison with other fiscal years and those presidents governing the economy during those periods as a worthwhile gauge of economic governance comparison. Without the context of the US and global economic climate during Obama's presidency or any presidency, the comparison of growth of GDP is incomparable. 

I can't help wonder if the idea that it is, features strongly in propaganda put forward by other political parties and you've been influenced by that propaganda machine.  

For something a little more meaningful try comparing GDP growth of US economy versus GDP of European countries and Canada who were impacted and you might see that over 60 years or so, % difference wise when it comes to GDP growth of other affected countries, the Obama years showed a greater % difference between the USA and other economies than previous presidents. 

I am not suggesting for a moment that Obama's administration created and took the US into a period of unprecedented economic prosperity nor that he was some kind of Mr Perfect without fault but without intending to be punny about it - credit where credit is due. 

I empathise with what you experienced over the past decade or so and respect to you for enduring it and are seeing hope again.
The economy was collapsing when Obama took office, it was in free fall as they say. we're talking heading toward something worse than the great depression of the 30s. There were a lot of casualties and it was globally impacting. The construction and housing/building sector was propped up by a false economy created by the financial sectors. I may be over simplifying the enormity and complexity of this. 
This wasn't just USA being impacted either. This was a financial crisis of global proportions which spanned continents. Australia, wasn't impacted very much - Western Australia especially for other reasons including mining boom and the economic climate in Asia.

The real question is how could any president have stopped the collapse which lead to your long term unemployment?. The sector you were employed in was already over extended. You were employed and had been employed on borrowed time well before Obama came along. Your suffering didn't come as a consequence of Obama and the demand for your skillset now is not purely due to Trump.

All that aside, regardless of who's fault it is, I'm truly pleased to hear that the quality of your life is improving.  Remember, where there are tax cuts, the government income is reduced. Debt still has to be paid and sacrifices need to be made. Trumps vision seems to be built on the idea that too much welfare and grace is given to other countries who are not proportionally putting in when it comes to global effort. Phenomenal amount of resource spent by the USA, not so much by others. I'm not sure Isolasionist is the best approach mind you. Time will tell.   

 

Thanks for clarification and openness regarding your personal situation. 

I haven't studied the specifics of the historical US budgets.  Reagan is very well regarded by economists when it comes to successful economic management during his terms.

Going on memory here, Maggie was taking on the Coal Miners and pissing them off, Gorbochov(Sorry if misspelled) was leading the isolationist and uncooperative Soviet union and the Cold War was an extension of Superpower Egos gone mad. Working class folks here had had enough of Fraser and Sent Hawke in.  These were definitely times when Media bias affected information and understanding of what was going on in the world. I have no idea who was leading West Germany. 

I think the soviets boycotted the LA Olympics in the same year that The Terminator hit the big screen. The reason for them doing that was because the USA had boycotted the Moscow Olympics 4 years earlier and that was in protest of the Soviets invading Afghanistan. 
Anyway
The world owes a lot to Reagan's brand of international relations. It involved encouraging another "superpower" to Tear down a Wall. who historically for 40 years or more had been combatant and hostile to the Western values and policies of which the US President represented. Gorbochov's role of course was instrumental in seeing reason an dismantling the Soviet Union but to think that he respected Reagan enough to work with him is pretty impressive on Reagan's part. Trust needs to be earned and both leaders took the Risk and it paid off.

Yet again, I digress.
My revenue comment was relating to the nation Debt. It still needs to be paid off. The tax situation and Social Reforms and impact to the Economy, I don't have an appreciation of how changes impacted every US citizen. I stand by my comment about Obama's management of the Economy based on the indicators.  
 
There is a lot of social injustice in the USA. That's one of those wishy washy concepts which is really difficult to appreciate. Everyone has the right to education and the right to make a go of it, I think. 
People just need to put effort in and get off their lazy arses or lazy donkey's as the Americans say, sorry, asses. They've only got themselves to blame right? Wrong!
There's a good lot of people who are disenfranchised and caught in an intergenerational rut of no hope and crime.  Privelege is not egalitarian. Yes - plenty of greedy and lazy people who do have themselves to blame as well. Every opportunity who like to play the victim too.  
   
We hear stories at this end from the possibly biased media suggesting Crime rates increase prior to the winter because Prison is more comfortable or people who are unemployed getting knocked by a subway train, pleading not to be treated citing reason as inability to afford it. I don't know how true it is. Where there's smoke there's fire though. Why would these people have any respect or love of the nation? 

Relating that welfare is not the responsibility of governments 

There is an economic cost of the impact of these people , Crime - incarceration, cash jobs, exploited as slave labour and there is benefit of breaking the cycle.  Obama's ideology was to empower the next generation of Americans, through government backed initiatives set up to empower them. 
Providing additional privilege to those who seemingly have it in the first place at the expense of other Americans is never going to be popular, it's debatable whether it's a sunk cost and waste or the Government has a mandate of creating systems which protect the welfare of all of it's citizens.