You do realize that a huge % of the US and even world population think obama, the fed government and the fed saved the US in 2009 and beyond, right? On top of that those 3 catch 0% of the blame from a large % of the population for causing 2008.

I think trump is the nut low at controlling the narrative about himself and obama is the nuts at it. I'm not sure how this can even be argued.

I'm pretty far from the biggest Obama fan, but the financial crisis came about in 2007-2008 and Obama was inaugurated in 2009.

I've seen some nonsense arguments before but managing to imply that Obama had anything to do with the 2008 crash is impressively insane given that the crash started months before he was sworn in. I don't think the way he dealt with the crash was always correct but he did do a lot of the right things (as espoused by most economists) and then was effective at reducing the deficit from 2010 onwards. He was a decent president but by no means perfect.

On the other hand if Trump wasn't good at controlling narratives he would be bankrupt or in jail. He has relied on stating nonsense as fact for his entire career. His whole presidential run was built on controlling how he and others were portrayed in the media. He is completely incompetent at doing his job - the only significant policy he has implemented was a run-of-the-mill Republican tax cut and virtually everything else he has tried to do has been a disaster from either a political or humanitarian view (ACA, immigration, withdrawal from Syria etc). I mentioned this earlier, and that it's probably a good thing for the country, but nothing he talked about during his campaign has been achieved. Yet despite all this he has managed to convince his base that he's the best thing that has ever happened to America. You only have to look at people like joe and Jsmith for examples of how he can get people to believe that facts placed right in front of them are not true.

Oopsie.

Ah well at least it proves that a huge percentage of the population aren’t total morons.

Okay, my second sentence should have read that the fed govt & fed reserve don't catch enough blame for '08 and made it clear obama doesn't and shouldn't.

Obama was the president during the slowest economic recovery in the history of the US. He didn't do a lot of things right. His response, which is the classic dem response, of throwing tax payer money at everything failed.

As has been discussed ITT before, judging a tax cut (or the trade skirmishes) within a few years is just stupid. It is like paying $15k for solar panels and then analyzing if they broke even or you profited off the decision within a year of your decision.

lol at thinking trump is some kind of genius for controlling his image with the media. Who in the US has a worse image than trump?

It was a "slow" recovery when compared to historic recessions but was faster than every country in Europe (with the possible exception of Germany). The basics of economics says that it is correct for the government to spend during a recession and save during growth. For the past 3 decades Dems have mostly adhered to that mantra, including the only period of budget surplus since Nixon, while Reps have spent, spent, spent regardless of the state of the economy.

As for policies, I deliberately didn't include any evaluation as to the efficacy of the tax cuts in that post to avoid this response but you decided to ignore the points I actually made and say it anyway.

And finally there's a difference between controlling narratives and controlling image. Trump is maybe the most polarising politician in living history so it's not surprising that his image isn't great. What he is good at though is controlling what narratives are driven by the media. To give a specific example; he turns every topic into some variation on us vs them and constantly uses incendiary language to drive the point home that the people he doesn't like are the enemy. This is partly why he is so polarising but is also how is able to maintain such a loyal base despite the constant corruption and incompetence that is rife in his administration.

When Obama took office he inherited one of Americas worst economic recessions. People tend to forget quickly imo. Do you remember the US housing bubble and the banks affected by it?

Wikipedia: United States housing bubble

The reason economic growth was slow in Europe was because of obama's failed policies. Remember that the US economy is the dog and every other economy is the dog's tail.

When the government spends more that just means the private sector needs to spend less (either now or later) since they are paying for the govt spending. Let's not act like govt spending is a big plus for the economy while ignoring the negative effects of taxing more.

To be fair a dem president is mostly to blame for the housing bubble (see bill clinton's lets give everyone a house because banks are not giving houses to poor people bill).

Obama came in during a very scary time for our economy and the banking system specifically. As it turns out all he had to do was change an accounting rule named mark to market accounting and the whole thing would have been fixed as some economists told him. Unfortunately he went the other way and tried to throw money at the fire.

It goes like this: Everyone else >>>>>>> liberals > Trump supporters. So Marksman is on the right track.

Not to go off on a tangent, but if you want to see another example where the government caused a bubble see college education. Government decides the price of college is too expensive for poor people so they attempt to make it so everyone can afford it via grants, scholarships, loans, etc. and then are shocked the price of college keeps going up.

But you still remember who was president of the USA before Obama took office? Hint: It was not Clinton.

Making education a privilege affordable to all and not just to a small population is beneficial to society. Do we agree on that?

Bush was between obama and clinton. Please finish your thought on that.

I want higher education affordable to most, but no I don't think having it available to literally everyone is good for society. We have seen the negative unintended consequences of govt trying to make it available to all and I think both the poor and middle class are worse off because of those actions.

How long was Ex-President Bush in office? 2 terms, right? Just saying.

There is plenty of countries where education is (almost) free, you should visit Europe for example. And no, this is not socialism.

well this surely wins the its all projection award. like, have you seen the antifa thread or the transgender thread? you guys absolutely lose your **** on a daily basis.

And, how do you see the poorest better of, who can most likely not afford higher education for their kids at all or the middle class, struggling to afford it (unless you win a WSOP bracelet and put it in the bank).

Yeah, bush was 8 years. Please continue.

Just got back from Italy a couple weeks ago. I didn't get a whole lot of opportunity to speak with college aged kids but the one I did talk to said as soon as he gets his MBA he's leaving Italy. He was hoping to go to the US or England then the US in a few years. Unfortunately his English and my Italian weren't good enough for me to understand why the US was the end game.

FYI - Education (college or otherwise) is not free or almost free in any country and hasn't been in the history of the world.

The govt has done everything they can to make college affordable to the poor and middle class and I think most would argue it has become even less obtainable for those classes.

Please note that I did not say I don't want college affordable to the poor and middle class. I said I don't see a path to make if affordable to all without severely hurting the poor and middle class.

LOL - Sorry. FYI, for example in Germany college is completely free, in a few states you pay around 560 USD per semester (every 6 month). This is the same in most of Europe. So you are saying that European education is worse than the education in other countries? I mean, you seem to have 1st hand experience. By the way, Italy, Spain, Portugal and Greece were hit heftily by the same economic crisis. That could be a reason, because Italy is still struggling for example.


SOURCE: Businessinsider.com

To my knowledge teachers do not teach for free, there aren't book publishers giving away their work for free and builders aren't building school buildings for free in Germany or anywhere else in the world.

Something being free and having someone else pay for it are two very different things, but it says nothing about the price of the product or service. Your graph shows how much students pay in tuition, but it makes no mention about the total cost of the education.

Maybe we can just agree to disagree here?

Obama is insanely popular and admired outside of the U.S.
Trump.. not so much.

/\

Edit above

Trump is actually very popular in Russia.
Among certain circles at least.
Obama...not so much.

You can't agree that how much one pays in tuition can be different than the actual cost of college?

Either way, we got off on a tangent. The point we were discussing is that dems often put policy in place that hurts the US economy because they are either stupid and can't think of the unintended consequences or they do it maliciously for future votes.

Examples of the malicious policy is increasing MW to create higher unemployment since unemployed people tend to vote dem or increasing college loans/grants to increase the cost of college so dems can then say they want to help even more while repubs are stuck trying to help the poor and middle class by cutting college grants.

No.