Election 2024 & Presidential Cage Match: Dark Brandon 46 vs Felonious Farty 45

[PleaseBlitz]

23 minutes ago, Captain Wiggles said:

 

What no course in Phishenomics? 👀

 

That's at UMass Amherst. 

[Jabbyrwock]

26 minutes ago, Captain Wiggles said:

 

What no course in Phishenomics? 👀

 

Assignment 1:

Discuss "Fast Enough For You" within the context of the American concept of "Keeping up with the Joneses"

[Captain Wiggles]

5 minutes ago, TradeTheBeal! said:

Cause Carter choked one up like Playoff Dak.  

 

 

Except he didn't tho. Carter inherited a ****ty economy and actually improved it. Reduced unemployment and incomes improved during his term.

 

My whole life Republicans have said he was the worst president ever. Well up until the black guy from Kenya came along. 🤣

[hail2skins]

3 hours ago, LadySkinsFan said:

The economy is going to get even better once the Fed drops the interest rates back down, housing sales pick up because of that specifically. 

It'll be interesting to see how lowered rates will increase demand versus increasing supply and what the impact on prices is.

[hail2skins]

1 hour ago, Captain Wiggles said:

 

Except he didn't tho. Carter inherited a ****ty economy and actually improved it. Reduced unemployment and incomes improved during his term.

I think both unemployment and inflation worsened under Carter, at least by measuring where they were when his term ended to when it began. Couple that with the Iran hostage crisis and you know the rest. 

 

For as much as people like to complain about the state of things today economically, seems like it's significantly better than the late 70s and early 80s.

[Captain Wiggles]

Unemployment was 8% in 1976 and 6% in 1979. 🤷‍♂️

 

Carters economic numbers were better than St Reagans first term. Hell unemployment was at like 10% in the early 1980s. 

 

Also Carter gets a ****load of blame for Iran hostage situation. Never forget tho that Reagan was sending the likes of Ross Perot over there to undermine Carters negotiations behind the scenes. 

[Midnight Judges]

The economy - which is largely and increasingly global - does not revolve around the American President. And even if it did, Presidential type actions would in many cases take years to have an impact. 

 

This idea of tying the unemployment rate or GDP or the DOW Jones to the President is a dumbed down media narrative that needs to die. It has us rewarding and blaming Presidents for things that are outside their control as opposed to evaluating Presidents based on what they have actually done. 

 

Also, Carter, NOT Reagan, got the hostages released. Iran refused to release them until Reagan was inaugurated - NOT because they feared Reagan (lol) - but because they were bitter at Carter by that point. BTW, they took even more hostages while Reagan was President. He secretly traded them weapons as a result. You might have heard of that.  

Edited February 1 by Midnight Judges

[Larry]

1 minute ago, Midnight Judges said:

This idea of tying the unemployment rate or GDP or the DOW Jones to the President is a dumbed down media narrative that needs to die. It has us rewarding and blaming Presidents for things that are outside their control as opposed to evaluating Presidents based on what they have actually done. 

 

Your point might have more impact if the American voters were rewarding and blaming Presidents for their economies.  

 

Unfortunately, what's being discussed here is the reality in which large numbers of voters are consistently rewarding Presidents, claiming that they're doing it because of the economy, when in fact the economy got hugely worse.  People literally claiming that President X was great/terrible "because of the economy", when the actual economy is the opposite of what the person claims it was.  

 

I would bet you that 2/3 of the people who have already made up their minds that they're voting for Trump claim they're doing it because the economy was vastly better under Trump.  

 

Yes, I agree with you that acting like the only factor impacting the US is the political party of POTUS is - laughably simplistic at best.  

 

But it's vastly superior to claiming that one supports Trump because Biden made the economy vastly worse.  

[hail2skins]

1 hour ago, Midnight Judges said:

BTW, they took even more hostages while Reagan was President. He secretly traded them weapons as a result. You might have heard of that.

The optics of having 50+ hostages for over a year is vastly different than that of having several over there. Plus that of the Soviets rolling into Afghanistan, even if that adventure didn't turn out well for them.

 

The arms-for-hostages probably would've derailed Reagan if it had happened in his first term. Might've impacted GHWB more if he had run against Gary Hart instead of a stiff like Dukakis.

 

I hear what people are saying regarding the economy, but unfortunately perception is reality. The economy, with the exception of covid, has been good both under Trump and Biden.  The trillions in stimmy that went into the economy starting with Trump were eventually going to have an inflationary impact.  But many people can't recognize that and just wave their "Joe Did It" signs.......

 

 

[Midnight Judges]

17 minutes ago, hail2skins said:

The optics of having 50+ hostages for over a year is vastly different than that of having several over there. Plus that of the Soviets rolling into Afghanistan, even if that adventure didn't turn out well for them.

 

The arms-for-hostages probably would've derailed Reagan if it had happened in his first term. Might've impacted GHWB more if he had run against Gary Hart instead of a stiff like Dukakis.

 

I hear what people are saying regarding the economy, but unfortunately perception is reality. The economy, with the exception of covid, has been good both under Trump and Biden.  The trillions in stimmy that went into the economy starting with Trump were eventually going to have an inflationary impact.  But many people can't recognize that and just wave their "Joe Did It" signs.......

 

 

 

Yeah I agree, inflation is yet another metric that isn't simply boiled down to "who is in the Whitehouse right at the moment?"

[Larry]

47 minutes ago, hail2skins said:

The economy, with the exception of covid, has been good both under Trump and Biden.  The trillions in stimmy that went into the economy starting with Trump were eventually going to have an inflationary impact.  But many people can't recognize that and just wave their "Joe Did It" signs.......

 

(My emphasis above.)  

 

But now we're in the land of "Well, if you look at the economy under Trump, and you ignore the bad parts. . . "

 

Which absolutely is a game lots of people like to play.  

 

And I also like to point out that well, at least by some metrics, the economy during Trump's first three years grew slower than it did, the 3 years before he took office.  Despite the fact that the only major thing that Trump and the GOP did, when they had full control, was to double the federal deficit (the first time it's ever been done when it wasn't a war or a recession), so they could stimulate the economy (and improve their changes of retaining power).  

[hail2skins]

7 minutes ago, Larry said:

But now we're in the land of "Well, if you look at the economy under Trump, and you ignore the bad parts. . . "

 

Which absolutely is a game lots of people like to play.  

 

And I also like to point out that well, at least by some metrics, the economy during Trump's first three years grew slower than it did, the 3 years before he took office.  Despite the fact that the only major thing that Trump and the GOP did, when they had full control, was to double the federal deficit (the first time it's ever been done when it wasn't a war or a recession), so they could stimulate the economy (and improve their changes of retaining power).  

But Larry, I think its disingenous to expect folks to ignore the effects covid had on the economy and expect that you'd see a positive number that year compared to 2019.

 

"At least by some metrics...."  That is cherry picking.  The chart linked below which shows "annual percent change" probably contains the most widely acknowledged numbers regarding GDP growth, and it shows:

 

Obama's last three years: 2.3, 2.7, 1.7

Trump's first three years: 2.2, 2.9, 2.3

 

https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/USA/united-states/gdp-gross-domestic-product

 

I don't consider Trump's GDP numbers to be all that impressive, especially compared to Reagan's or Clinton's. There are people I work with who will swear that we never achieved two percent growth under Obama, even if you show them visible evidence like above.

 

And don't even get me started on the deficit...........

[Larry]

6 minutes ago, hail2skins said:

"At least by some metrics...."  That is cherry picking

 

Actually, I put that statement in there, to inticate that it's at least debatable.  

 

Yes, GDP is one of the numbers I consider to be at least impartial, non-cherry-picked, metrics.  

 

Another one I use is the BLS's numbers for total nonfarm jobs.  

 

(I can't link directly to the data.  You have to:
Go to https://www.bls.gov/data/
To the "Employment: section, the first line
I use the "multi-screen" selector, but the "one screen" gets you the same data
Choose "Seasonally adjusted"
"Total nonfarm"
"All employees"
"Total Nonfarm"
And "Retrieve data".  

I treat, for example, Jan 2017 to be the last month of Obama.  And Feb 2017 as the first month of Trump.  

 

And for that, the number of jobs added, per year, are:  

 

First 3 years of Trump:  2175 (Thousands of jobs, per year)

3 years prior to Trump:  2696

 

It's a statistic I've been using, as an impartial benchmark, for 20 years.  

 

To me, the best, most recognized numbers to look at, to measure the economy, in no particular order, are:  

GDP

Total jobs

Unemployment rate.  

 

(And I tend to kind of consider the unemployment rate to be less important.  Because it's easily affected by people simply not looking for work.)

 

 

[PeterMP]

4 hours ago, hail2skins said:

I think both unemployment and inflation worsened under Carter, at least by measuring where they were when his term ended to when it began. Couple that with the Iran hostage crisis and you know the rest. 

 

For as much as people like to complain about the state of things today economically, seems like it's significantly better than the late 70s and early 80s.

 

@mcsluggo has made the point here multiple times that part of the economic situation under Carter was because he appointed a Fed chairman that took the steps to bring inflation down.  That Carter appointing Volcker as Fed chair was an act of political courage.

 

https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2022/7/13/23188455/inflation-paul-volcker-shock-recession-1970s

 

I'd be tempted to argue that 2 1 term Presidents (Carter and Bush) have been the best Presidents of my lifetime.

[Larry]

13 minutes ago, PeterMP said:

 

I'd be tempted to argue that 2 1 term Presidents (Carter and Bush) have been the best Presidents of my lifetime

 

1)  First vote I ever cast, was for Gerald Ford for POTUS. A half-term President. 

 

2)  And I've got to give Bush 1 huge props, for Desert Storm. Might be the highest this country has been, since the Moon landings. 

[hail2skins]

6 minutes ago, Larry said:

 

1)  First vote I ever cast, was for Gerald Ford for POTUS. A half-term President. 

 

2)  And I've got to give Bush 1 huge props, for Desert Storm. Might be the highest this country has been, since the Moon landings. 

First vote was for Ford?  Damn Larry you are old!

 

My first vote was for GHWB.  Remember in the aftermath of Desert Storm I was walking with my dad and told him I couldn't see any way that Bush, who was rocking a 90 percent approval, wouldn't be re-elected. He said "Don't be so sure," and I probably hadn't been paying enough attention to the unemployment rate. Still, Bush probably would've pulled it off, if not having to run against likely the biggest political rock star of my lifetime (I don't think Perot was as much a factor in that election that many think).

[RabidFan]

1 hour ago, Larry said:

 

1)  First vote I ever cast, was for Gerald Ford for POTUS. A half-term President. 

 

2)  And I've got to give Bush 1 huge props, for Desert Storm. Might be the highest this country has been, since the Moon landings. 

per Orangy recently, wasn't Operation Desert Storm fought in the jungles of Vietnam??   🤣

[Captain Wiggles]

My first vote was for John Kerry.

 

#SwiftBoated  🤔

 

[LadySkinsFan]

My first vote was for George McGovern, '72. I've voted Democrat in every election since. And I was 21, even though the voting age was changed that year to 18.

 

 

Edited February 2 by LadySkinsFan

[Cooked Crack]

 

[PleaseBlitz]

My first vote was for Obama. I was eligible to vote for Kerry, but too young and dumb. 

[The 12th Commandment]

Dukakis was first vote. Bump on a log had more personality . 

 

Then I got to vote for slick Willy.  That made up for that.

[Captain Wiggles]

51 minutes ago, The 12th Commandment said:

Then I got to vote for slick Willy.  That made up for that.

 

[Fergasun]

We're not gonna talk about Haley on "The Breakfast Club"?  

10:10 into the interview -- "With Obama, that's when we really started to feel the division..." 

Host: "I thought that was because of white supremacists though?"  

 

Haley: "Everything was exaggerated with the Obama administration...[than a few seconds later] everyone is at fault.  People felt like they were being put in camps through that administration."  

 

Then she jumps to "he was very much an Iranian sympathizer..."  

 

Really, Obama was President a long time ago and this is the first I heard he was an Iranian sympathizer.  And the Iranian people loved Americans before - I don't think their culture really is all that anti-American aside from the pee-pee-gand-ja...   

 

 

 

[Califan007 The Constipated]

4 hours ago, Fergasun said:

We're not gonna talk about Haley on "The Breakfast Club"?  

10:10 into the interview -- "With Obama, that's when we really started to feel the division..." 

Host: "I thought that was because of white supremacists though?"  

 

Haley: "Everything was exaggerated with the Obama administration...[than a few seconds later] everyone is at fault.  People felt like they were being put in camps through that administration."  

 

Then she jumps to "he was very much an Iranian sympathizer..."  

 

Really, Obama was President a long time ago and this is the first I heard he was an Iranian sympathizer.  And the Iranian people loved Americans before - I don't think their culture really is all that anti-American aside from the pee-pee-gand-ja...   

 

 

 

 

 

 

Me as interviewer:

 

"What do you mean, 'felt like they were being put in camps'? That's a very specific term to be using...what did you mean by that? And didn't you recently say you would pardon Donald Trump in order to help the country heal and move forward?...If so, why are you bringing up Obama, which was even further back than Trump? Why would you pardon Trump but not let go of criticizing Obama?"

Edited February 2 by Califan007 The Constipated