Obameter- Tracking campaign promises

[Binky Bainbridge]

I think that ultimately, it was the straw that broke the camel's back, but this economy is behaving differently than any in the past - I don't know that Bush, in his 8 years, ever thought it would fall like it did. It obviously surprised the hell out of the market gurus. I think that if even one person had predicted the meltdown, we would have laughed.

I'm talking about regulation - or in the case of Bush, lack of it, that contributed to the excesses that Wall Street perpetrated in their incessant drive of profits at any price, greed ruled and Bush encouraged it!

[Justoo]

And so did Clinton. And both houses of the legislature during both presidencys.

[TexKan]

The Dems have the ability to take their agenda and run with it. We will see what happens. Obama can't pass everything on his own. If history proves right then the Dems will shoot themselves in the foot. I hate to say that and that in itself is the one drawback to the Dems - they don't use the power when they have it. That is why they don't have the WH that often thru history.

I hope they listen to the people and the first time voters that got them the majority that they were so happy to have. I think the Obamameter is more reflective of the legislature than it is Obama.

Overall - it would be easier if there were some term limits on these guys. I'm real tired of these lifetime politicians that have lost touch with the people that put them there - on both sides.

[sunshine]

"If history proves right then the Dems will shoot themselves in the foot. I hate to say that and that in itself is the one drawback to the Dems - they don't use the power when they have it. That is why they don't have the WH that often thru history."

Texkan:
18 republican presidents
14 democrat
4 Dem-Rep
4 Whig
2 Federalist
1 Union (Reb party renamed Union for 1864 election)

thus, your statement above is wrong.

[TexKan]

I'm sorry - I thought 18 was more than 14 and I am probably looking more at recent history than the whole 200 + years.

I'm glad I could make your day tho!


http://www.wisegeek.com/in-the-us-ha...presidents.htm

[Highwayman]

I'm talking about regulation - or in the case of Bush, lack of it, that contributed to the excesses that Wall Street perpetrated in their incessant drive of profits at any price, greed ruled and Bush encouraged it!

You can stop with the mindless propaganda sound bites anytime, the election is over.

CONTRARY TO A VIEW POPULARIZED DURING THE 2008 presidential election season, the current economic crisis was not the result of deregulation.

The Bush administration made many mistakes, but deregulation was not one of them.

Not only was there no major deregulation passed during the past eight years, but the Bush administration and a Republican Congress approved the most sweeping financial-market regulation in decades.

The bipartisan Sarbanes-Oxley Act was enacted in 2002 to prevent corporate fraud and restore investor confidence after the collapse of Enron and WorldCom. It failed to prevent the accounting fraud and influence-peddling scandals at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. And even after those scandals were widely understood, regulators sent Fannie and Freddie back into the market to continue buying subprime loans, lending and borrowing with implied taxpayer backing.

Across the government, the Bush administration supported new regulations that added almost 1,000 pages a year to the Federal Register, nearly a record. If this is insufficient regulation, it's hard to imagine a scope that would be effective.

We are in this mess largely because critical thought and moral judgment have been subordinated to the politicization of our economy, resulting in regulatory gaps and excessive controls of the wrong kind.

Government regulations should be limited to those that increase and protect transparency and competition, protect public and private property, promote individual responsibility and enforce equal opportunity under the law. Even if the right laws and regulations could be found, they would prove insufficient to protect freedom and prosperity.

The Culprit Is All of Us - Barrons.com

[TexKan]

What would you expect this guy to say??? Of course he didn't think he was over regulated!

Propoganda?????????? Binky doesn't even live here - how much propoganda do ya think he listens to?

This is one reason I don't always hang my hat on "sources and data". All depends on where it comes from.



SCOTT S. POWELL is a senior VP at ELP Capital, which manages a commercial real-estate debt-based hedge fund; a visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution; and a Commerce Bridge board member.

Hedge funds - got us here in the first place ( I don't think this guy is at Capitol any longer or a board member of Commerce Bridge either)

Hoover Institution -
As a think tank, the Hoover Institution is host to academic activity related to the basic tenets for which it stands: representative government, private enterprise, peace, personal freedom, and the safeguards of the American system.[1]

The Hoover Institution is influential in the American conservative and libertarian movements. The Institution has long been a place of scholarship for high-profile conservatives with government experience. A number of Hoover Institution fellows had connections to or held positions in the Bush administration and other Republican administrations. High-profile conservatives Edwin Meese, Condoleezza Rice, George Shultz, Thomas Sowell, Shelby Steele, and Amy Zegart are all Hoover Institution fellows. Retired U.S. Army General John P. Abizaid, former commander of the U.S. Central Command, was recently named the Institution's first Annenberg Distinguished Visiting Fellow


Barron's is America's premier financial magazine. It provides in-depth analysis and commentary on the markets, updated every business day online

[Binky Bainbridge]

You can stop with the mindless propaganda sound bites anytime, the election is over.

I will when you stop the mindless Obama-baiting - you're getting to be very predictable, and dare I say it, a tad boring ..... move the stylus onto the next track .... :)

[Highwayman]

What would you expect this guy to say??? Of course he didn't think he was over regulated!

The point was over the Democrat claim that Bush deregulated financial markets. He didn’t, but Democrats repeat it over and over anyway. Hence, it’s mindless propaganda.

Propoganda?????????? Binky doesn't even live here - how much propoganda do ya think he listens to?

All of it.

This is one reason I don't always hang my hat on "sources and data". All depends on where it comes from.

You continually show us that you like to ignore facts when it gets in the way of what you want to believe.

SCOTT S. POWELL is a senior VP at ELP Capital, which manages a commercial real-estate debt-based hedge fund; a visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution; and a Commerce Bridge board member.

Hedge funds - got us here in the first place ( I don't think this guy is at Capitol any longer or a board member of Commerce Bridge either)

Hoover Institution -
As a think tank, the Hoover Institution is host to academic activity related to the basic tenets for which it stands: representative government, private enterprise, peace, personal freedom, and the safeguards of the American system.[1]

The Hoover Institution is influential in the American conservative and libertarian movements. The Institution has long been a place of scholarship for high-profile conservatives with government experience. A number of Hoover Institution fellows had connections to or held positions in the Bush administration and other Republican administrations. High-profile conservatives Edwin Meese, Condoleezza Rice, George Shultz, Thomas Sowell, Shelby Steele, and Amy Zegart are all Hoover Institution fellows. Retired U.S. Army General John P. Abizaid, former commander of the U.S. Central Command, was recently named the Institution's first Annenberg Distinguished Visiting Fellow


Barron's is America's premier financial magazine. It provides in-depth analysis and commentary on the markets, updated every business day online

You’ve established my source as knowledgeable on the subject. You have not shown him to be wrong or otherwise offered proof to the claim that Bush deregulated financials.

[Binky Bainbridge]

I am not so naive as to believe that one man or indeed one administration was to blame for the financial meltdown - both the Democrats & the Republicans share the blame.

I think this article by the BBC neatly sums it up in a concise balanced way:

Did Bush cause the financial crisis?
By Greg Wood
BBC North America Business Correspondent, New York


"Consider the terrible consequences of the 'anything goes' Bush Administration, whose irresponsible non-regulation of financial institutions has led to this crisis."

President Bush was not always a champion of deregulation

Those words, from the Democratic Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi, sum up the charge against George W Bush - that in the eight years of his presidency he actively pursued policies of deregulation which caused the biggest financial and economic meltdown since the Great Depression.

It is a grim legacy for President Bush to contemplate as he enters his final days in office - but is it true?

Market collapse
He certainly presided over a widespread failure of regulation.

On his watch, the US authorities did little to prevent the sale of millions of mortgages to people who could never afford them.

They failed to police the market in mortgage-backed securities which has now collapsed with such devastating consequences.

And credit default swaps, those multi-billion-dollar bets on other people going bust, went virtually unregulated.

In recent days, Congress has been holding hearings to determine how the regulators at the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) missed numerous warning signs - "Red Flags" - about Bernard Madoff, the man accused of running a gigantic Ponzi scheme which has defrauded investors of at least $50bn.

Paul Kanjorski, the Democratic Representative who is chairing the hearings, argued that the SEC's failings were - in part - due to chronic under-staffing, implying that the Bush Administration had starved the agency of the resources needed to do its job.

In the blame game for this financial crisis, George W Bush comes a close second to greedy and unscrupulous Wall Street bankers.

But there are serious flaws in this argument.

Deregulation started long before President Bush came to power, and it was enthusiastically pursued by both Democratic and Republican administrations.
Here is just one example:

The Glass-Steagall Act of 1933 separated the activities of commercial banks, which take deposits, from investment banks, which invest money. It was repealed in 1999.

That relaxation of the rules enabled commercial lenders, like Citigroup, to trade instruments such as mortgage-backed securities and collateralised debt obligations.

'Far-reaching reform'
Many see the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act as a major, direct cause of the current financial crisis.

But it was signed by a Democratic President, Bill Clinton, and supported by many other Democratic politicians, among them the scourge of Bush deregulation Nancy Pelosi.

What is more, President Bush actually increased the burden of regulation on US companies, enacting in 2002 what he called "the most far-reaching reform of American business practices since the time of Franklin D Roosevelt", the Sarbanes-Oxley Act.

A response to a number of major corporate and accounting scandals, including the collapse of the energy group Enron, Sarbanes-Oxley significantly increased the reporting requirements and accountability of company boards and management.

So the image of Mr Bush as the arch deregulator and the Democratic Party as the champion of stricter rules for business does not quite tally with the evidence.

But Mr Bush is not entirely blameless.

Affordable home ownership, especially for African-American and Hispanic borrowers, who had traditionally found it difficult and expensive to get a mortgage, was a key policy goal of the Clinton administration and one enthusiastically carried forward by President Bush.

A laudable aim - but there is evidence that it led to severe political pressure on mortgage providers to lower their lending standards, spawning the now infamous "NINJA" loans for borrowers with "No Income, no Job or Assets."

The mortgage finance company Fannie Mae was also being urged to fulfil its mission of helping low income homeowners by buying up more and more risky loans.

This political pressure, as well as rock-bottom interest rates and unscrupulous lending practices, helped to inflate the sub-prime housing bubble.

President Bush must take his share of the blame.

There is no doubt that George W Bush is a natural supporter of deregulation and that his administration did nothing to stop all sorts of questionable financial activities in the private sector (even though it did not condone them).

As president, he bears the ultimate political responsibility and his party has paid the ultimate political price.

But this financial crisis has many causes, being - as it is - the product of conflicting human emotions and imperfect markets and organisations.

It is impossible to blame it all on one man.

BBC NEWS | Americas | Did Bush cause the financial crisis?