"intentionally blind to the truth"
These are just a few economic accomplishments and a very fair analysis. There is much much more, but you can look those up yourself.
www.snopes.com/barack-obama-accomplishments/www.thebalance.com/what-has-obama-done-11-major-accomplishments-3306158I haven't checked this next one but might as well toss it in there to give you something to browse. It looks pretty straight and has links to sources.
pleasecutthecrap.com/obama-accomplishments/I don't think you're blind, Randy, but I do think you have tunnel vision. In spite of your protesting every time it comes up, you DO come across as extremely partisan.
Hmm Respect George Bush? I don't ridicule him or try to tear him down, but he definitely did more harm than good. I guess I feel tolerant towards him. Respect him? No.
I could legitimately rebut much of what is cited as accomplishments in your links.
I welcome sharing the truth with those not already consumed by the prevailing false narratives, and will over the time that I'm allowed to do so, but I have no doubt that I will be wasting my time with certain members of this forum who are ill-informed or in some cases, fully versed but deceitful.
Unfortunately it is too often the case in today's authoritarian environment that one must measure the merits of informing others of the truth verses the repercussions that one might be harassed with for doing so.
With that said, feel free to establish a new thread due to my in-depth reply.
Hopefully it will be widely available to the members.
Instead of addressing the long lists of assertions from three sources I'll suggest that those who have no issue reading consider the Snopes article that has been linked to and the list of accomplishments that are cited there as an example with a few additional insights from me.
"Biggest job growth in manufacturing since the '90s"
When you read how Snopes considers how unimpressive the claim is in context, supported by an accompanying chart, please keep in mind that the North American Free Trade Agreement Passed in December of 1993 and try to consider the effect that it had on manufacturing jobs as illustrated by the chart included as predicted by then presidential candidate Ross Perot.
If you are a young person then you have no memory or understanding of the truly vibrant and widespread economy that existed during the eighties.
Just to put things in perspective, there was so much prosperity that a U.S. Senator named Earnest 'Fritz' Hollings, a well-known Democrat complained that, "
There’s too much consumin' goin' on out there."
Had to find a way to stop all that consumin'...and the Leftists did.
"Auto industry breaking sales records"
Anyone who has taken an investment course is aware that the auto industry is among those business sectors that are notoriously cyclical in nature and is historically plagued with booms and busts.
Just such a downturn was used to justify the government unconstitutionally 'bailing out', taking actual ownership of and designating union ownership of some American automakers.
The restraints, deadlines and disclosures facilitated a less than favorable foreign acquisition of Chrysler by Fiat.
The result is that Fiat has had plans to pare back its production of the American car in America.
In addition, there was the 'Cash for Clunkers' program that although it helped boost new car sales, it eliminated many reliable used cars that many in the low income communities depend on making purchasing or repairing a reliable used car with used parts more expensive and making many more dependent on public transportation...F'ing brilliant!...Ahem..."Progressive".
"Clean energy production doubled"
Yeah?
The clean energy business would not have increased otherwise?
Go Solyndra!
I thought '
progressives' were against government welfare.
I think discussions about thorium molten salt reactors and fuel cell technologies is beyond this forum but some might want to investigate them.
Nuclear is clearly out which might explain why we allowed the Russians to acquire control over domestic sources of uranium.
The key is to make energy expensive and to rely on wind and solar....Smart!
How do the poor people of the world figure into this when food is turned into fuel and energy prices rise?
How are you going to produce the electricity to charge the battery in your green car without fossil fuels?
The decreasing gas prices that helped out the economy and families were due to extractions on private lands in order to circumvent federal land and ocean restrictions placed on drilling by the Obama administration (didn't stop him from taking credit) and OPEC increasing production in order to put economic stress on those American-based production efforts.
Just to be clear...I support innovation in the energy sector but not at the expense of people.
"Unemployment cut in half"
Snopes fails to explain that the unemployment rate data is an accounting of unemployment insurance claims and not necessarily how many people are actually unemployed.
This is important because it does not reflect the number of people who are no longer looking for gainful employment.
This can be partially determined by the Labor Force Participation Rate figures that show a significant drop since 2008.
As strange as it sounds, under the current circumstances, a higher unemployment rate could be a good sign for the economy as more people over the age of 16 decide to rejoin the workforce.
"Deficit cut by three-quarters"
Read the piece carefully.
He reduced what was created earlier when he and his fellow Democrats had complete control over the federal government even as they falsely claimed is was the fault of President Bush and the Iraq War.
Hoorah!
Annual deficits should be completely eliminated in order to stop the ever increasing dependency on debt acquisition.
I'm tired of hearing about decreases in the annual deficits.
I want to hear about decreases in the national debt.
"Stock market tripled"
It is an awesome thing when the value of shares triple in less than a decade if those increases are based on the fundamentals of the underlying companies in anticipation of future prosperity.
It should be frightening when the value of shares triple in less than a decade due to quantitative easing and shares being bought on margin.
When people use loans to buy stocks it is referred to as buying on margin.
As long as the value of the stocks exceeds the balance of the loan and the current interest rate can be paid then everyone is happy.
If the underlying stock falls below the balance of the loan or the current interest rate is unable to be paid then the loan may be 'called'.
In other words, the loan will need to be paid back.
The collateralized stock would account for part of the repayment but whatever remains would have to made up from other sources.
In a low interest rate environment buying on margin is very popular as one can leverage their investments quite significantly.
However, if interest rates rise and the cost of maintain the margin account increases the buying on margin becomes less favorable and people decide to sell their positions to get out of the loan.
The problem is that there is a downward domino effect that takes place when more people are selling than buying and the price of a security falls to reflect the decrease in demand for it.
With buying on margin at the highest levels ever across the entire market you can only imagine what will happen if interest rates rise too quickly.
Businesses may not be hiring, but they are certainly borrowing and building infrastructure.
Look at the construction going on in the United States without the corresponding increases in employment.
Low interest rates have their own issues because they weaken the dollar and could result in massive inflation as has occurred throughout history in many other countries.
The only real solution is to increase domestic production and manufacturing, to eliminate annual deficits and to begin paying down a debt that appears will never ever be paid off.
Creating more fiat dollars or keeping interest rates artificially low is not the answer.
"And he did it all with Republicans obstructing"
In addition to what the Snopes piece says I would remind people that it was not the Republicans that obstructed Obama, Pelosi and Reid in the first years because the Republicans did not have even enough seats to mount a filibuster.
It was the more responsible Democrats that, with a few exceptions, filled the seats of spendthrift Republicans as a result of that same election.
Democrats controlled the federal government and they were not too shy to take advantage and to take every opportunity to weaken and humiliate the opposition even to the point of using authoritarian parliamentary tactics to prevent debate and influence votes.