Hannity, Limbaugh promote myth of an "Obama recession"
SUMMARY: Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh continue to suggest that President-elect Barack Obama is to blame for the decline in the stock market, referring to the state of the stock market as an "Obama recession." In fact, analysts have refuted the proposition that the market decline has anything to do with anticipation of Obama's presidency.
On the November 11 broadcast of his nationally syndicated radio program, Sean Hannity again suggested that President-elect Barack Obama is to blame for the decline in the stock market and said of Wall Street's performance: "Wall Street keeps sinking. Could it be the Obama recession: The fear that taxes are gonna go up, forcing people to pull out of the market?" Hannity is not alone among conservatives in the media in referring to an "Obama recession" in purported explanation for the state of the stock market. As MSNBC's Chris Matthews noted on November 12, radio host Rush Limbaugh "says the recession isn't President Bush's fault. It's the fault, catch this, of the president who hasn't yet taken office. It's an 'Obama recession'; that's what he's calling it." Matthews characterized Limbaugh's reference to an "Obama recession" as "some of the bitter sore loser's rhetoric we are hearing from the right these days."
Limbaugh referred to an "Obama recession" on the November 6 and November 11 broadcasts of his nationally syndicated radio show. But as Media Matters for America has noted, analysts have refuted the proposition that the market decline is attributable to Obama's election, citing other factors such as weak economic data.
For instance, a post on The Wall Street Journal's MarketBeat blog stated that "[f]ollowing the brief pre-election euphoria that brought stocks up 17% in a six-day period, stocks have been sluggish since as investors focused, once again, on the lame economic data and the drumbeat of bailouts, potential bailouts, and worries about other bailouts." From a November 12 item on MarketBeat:
The market has contracted an ongoing case of the "blahs." Following the brief pre-election euphoria that brought stocks up 17% in a six-day period, stocks have been sluggish since as investors focused, once again, on the lame economic data and the drumbeat of bailouts, potential bailouts, and worries about other bailouts.
"The market is kind of wallowing and just kind of staying in a downtrend right now," says Stephen Carl, head trader, Williams Capital. "The market is not keen on anything at the moment."
Again, stocks were lower. The Dow industrials lost nearly 2%, and other major averages were performing about as well after another spate of sour news from America's corporations.
"The weakness being witnessed at the start of today's session can be accounted for by the negative investor sentiment surrounding the still unfolding economic crisis," writes Conley Turner and Brian Sozzi, research analysts at Wall Street Strategies. "The market is in uncharted territory, and is navigating a path that requires the skill set of the early world explorers...the news flow so far, albeit slow, is not providing any solace to market participants."
[...]
One problem may be that U.S. stocks, in a sense, are no more attractive now than they were at the beginning of the year. According to Bespoke Investment Group, the U.S. price-to-earnings ratio sits at 20.54, compared with 20.11 at the beginning of 2008. Usually, P/E ratios decline in bear markets, but as earnings have fallen faster than prices, the U.S. P/E has expanded.
Additionally, as Media Matters documented, in the days immediately following the November 4 election, several analysts on Fox News and Fox Business Network cited reasons independent of the election to explain the fall of the market, explicitly stating that they did not believe the market was reacting to Obama.
From the November 12 edition of MSNBC's Hardball with Chris Matthews:
MATTHEWS: Also, baseball, hot dogs, apple pie and Chevrolet: Is there anything that says America to the world, or used to, more than the American auto industry? Democrats are now urging emergency help for an industry in desperate trouble, while President Bush is cool to the idea. Should the blame for this destruction of our industry go to the politicians for refusing to modernize Motown all these years? Should the auto industry be forced to make it on its own now, or is it just too big and important in jobs to be allowed to die? We'll ask author and New York Times columnist Tom Friedman, he's coming on Hardball tonight. Plus, Rush Limbaugh says -- and sometimes I agree with him; not this time -- he says the recession isn't President Bush's fault, it's the fault, catch this, of the president who hasn't yet taken office, Barack Obama. It's an "Obama recession"; that's what he's calling it. That's just some of the bitter sore loser's rhetoric we're hearing from the right these days. Later on -- later on that -- we'll have more on that. Also, what are President Bush's greatest regrets as his presidency comes to a close? We'll have that, the 11th-hour confessions, and he's making a true confession right now on tonight's "Politics Fix."
From the November 6 edition of Premiere Radio Networks' The Rush Limbaugh Show:
LIMBAUGH: Now, Carl Cameron did a report on Fox last night. He was on The O'Reilly Factor, and he's now been everywhere on Fox because people have been leaking to him. But it's not just -- it's not just Fox and Carl Cameron. Newsweek -- Newsweek has a special project they call -- on Sarah Palin, the purpose of which is to destroy Sarah Palin and, of course, establish the anointed one.
Speaking of Obama, by the way, the Obama recession is in full swing, ladies and gentlemen. Stocks are dying, which is a precursor of things to come. This is an Obama recession. Might turn into a depression. It's -- he hadn't done anything yet, but his ideas are killing the economy. His ideas are killing Wall Street. They need some certainty. And now everybody in the drive-bys -- we don't know who Obama is. We've got a story from Jennifer Loven at the Associated Press today -- we don't know who Obama is. All of a sudden now on Charlie Rose, they're starting to talk about his ties to Saul Alinsky.
From the November 11 edition of The Rush Limbaugh Show:
LIMBAUGH: I just -- you know, I remember when the focus in this country used to be on the private sector. In the good old days, what was good for GM was good for America. Now we're told what's good according to the Treasury secretary is good for America. The singular focus on Washington is the problem. Everybody -- you know, the market down 267 again. The Obama recession continues.
And why is this happening? Because there's no stability. The markets are frozen waiting for Paulson to say something. The Treasury secretary has all the power here. The markets are frozen because they really don't know how fast Obama is going to embark on his own destruction of the U.S. economy via his tax increases.
There is so much government interference. There is so much government control. There is no incentive to plan for next week if you're one of these businesses, unless you're desperately trying to stay alive by asking the government for a bailout. Then you're trying to get it next week. But there is no incentive to plan for much -- you know, next five years out.
From the November 11 broadcast of ABC Radio Networks' The Sean Hannity Show:
HANNITY: By the way, Donald Trump was right. He was saying that he expects oil to tumble. He even said it may go as low as $20 a barrel. He said this when it was 140. Now, it's under $55 a barrel. Well -- and by the way, Wall Street keeps sinking. Could it be the Obama recession: the fear that taxes are gonna go up, forcing people to pull out of the market? All right, let's get to our phones here, as promised. Let's go to Ann in Rahway, New Jersey. Ann, long time no -- no hear. How are you? Welcome to the show.
In: Blame it on Obama
Out: Blame it on Bush
Anyway, this economy could come back to ruin Obama. Michael Savage called this one - he's going to be a 1 term president because Obama can place the economy on Bush for only so long before that becomes an ineffective, hackneyed bail card, and as the economy isn't very likely going to grow into a booming state during his first term, coupled with American impatience, could lead to an inept Republican in 2012. And whoever wins 2016 gets to ride the coattails of a successful economy.
Michael Savage is digging his own grave. Autism, gay marriage, white people being superior. Tick tick tick...
you think his audience is changing? or are we talking censorship???
on a lighter note, I wonder if Obama will do the blame thing - I mean him personally. Let's see if he does. He seems to be taking (or am I delusional?) a higher road - campaigning is over. And Bush is hardly the ONE person to blame. Goes across the board, nestpaw?
If Obama becomes a one-term president... the sick part is that the rightwing would actually try and claim that Bush was a better president than Obama simply for that reason... and not for the obvious... the inability to save the economy (for the damage done by Bush 'may' be to great to be saved?)...
I for one feel that Obama will win by an even bigger margin in four years than he did last week...
I will make my prediction now (and come back to this post in four years) and say that Obama will beat (regardless of who it is --- Romney or Huckabee?) by an even larger majority than this time in both popular and electoral votes!!
As for this thread.....
Rush and Sean's days are numbered... and the Fairness Doctrine will have had nothing to do with their demise... but simply their collective bu!!sh!t not being tolerated anymore...
And as Olbermann said.... they are irrelevent now!
They will try very hard to turn him into Carter. They will pretend that high inflation and energy prices happened only under him and not his predecessor. Obama though seems to anticipate this type of stuff.
Rush and Sean are so obviously in over their heads on this economic stuff.
What I find amazing is this MMFA is quoting Chris Matthews
As MSNBC's Chris Matthews noted on November 12, radio host Rush Limbaugh "says the recession isn't President Bush's fault. It's the fault, catch this, of the president who hasn't yet taken office. It's an 'Obama recession'; that's what he's calling it." Matthews characterized Limbaugh's reference to an "Obama recession" as "some of the bitter sore loser's rhetoric we are hearing from the right these days."
Chris Matthews the 2005 "Misinformer of the Year" who turned into a Hillary Clinton smear monger during the primaries and a hater of Sarah Palin, he does have a problem with women. Bus sadly he is a hack for now the Democrats. This guy has no sense of what it is like to be a journalist. Chris Matthews, you are a liar.
http://mediamatters.org/items/200512230005?f=s_search
It's what the right-wing loves to say
same goes for those criticizing bush. see ya... i am sure some sommie country will take ya. or you can stay here until obayme turns this one social.
Hannity & Limbaugh sure know how to stay on message:
Anything that went wrong after Bush's inauguration: Clinton's fault
Anything that goes wrong in the end days of the Bush administration: Obama's fault
And what says that after Obama is inaugurated, bad stuff is either Clinton's fault or Obama's fault? With a missing gap of eight years...
AB001 I totally agree with you. When BUSH came to office 1n 2001 HANNITY said that he inherited a recession from CLINTON. Now that BUSH has wrecked the economy, he is blaming OBAMA before he takes office. In their world, nothing a CONSERVATIVE REPUBLICAN does is wrong, nothing a LIBERAL or DEMOCRAT does is right. I have said it before but I believe it is worth repeating,these jerks do the same thing for the REPUBLICAN party that DR JOSEFF GOEBBLES did for the NAZI party, spread lies and disinformation.
how did bush wreck tha economy?
Yeah, those bush tax cuts really saved the day, didn't they? The proposed savior of capitalism resulted in a - what - 30% reduction in the market when he took over in 2000? You reichpublikkkan idiots tried to tell us that Bush bailed out Clinton, and now you are trying to say Obama tanked Bush? Before he ever took command of the wheel? Desperate...
First, Snoop, you are off on dates a little bit (but we will excuse that). Wall Street had started softening in mid year of 2000, but a recession was not declared until late Spring 2001. If a recession is declared only after 2 quarters of negative growth, it seems the 4th quarter of 2000 must have shown some of that negativity. The current recession can only be blamed on one administration (and that must be either Hoover or Carter, according to the partisans, RashL and Shamity.)
Oops, you're right, I was off by a year. Thanks for the correction!
As much as I like Clinton, I blame that recession on him. The main reason? He didn't get rid of Greenspan, possibly the most innacurate predictor of the economy ever. Mister bubble never had any business being the head of the Fed.
oh yea...the .com blunder that went unchecked during clinton years had no effect on the economy. lets sell sell sell and then have no inventory to back it up when the chips come in. funny the facts go unnoticed by you left wing morons.
These two, among others, are partisan hacks. While their "popularity" seems to exceed anything the other side offers at present, those days may be numbered. There is plenty of "unbiased" reporting that finger pointing, primarily at the present administration. While this lame duck administration has to accept the vast majority of the criticism for what is happening in the US, there are plenty of targets available to point fingers at on both side of the political spectrum in the US and targets also around the world.
Plenty of blame to go around? So now you're a responsibility socialist?
But whatever, you talk in such broad generalities that you say nothing at all.
Examples Oscar. To make a point, you'll need to offer examples, not vague language that imputes dems into this calamitous failure of conservative market fundamentalism.
Plenty of blame to go around? So now you're a responsibility socialist?
But whatever, you talk in such broad generalities that you say nothing at all.
Examples Oscar. To make a point, you'll need to offer examples, not vague language that imputes dems into this calamitous failure of conservative market fundamentalism.
FactCheck.org lays out prenty solid case that the current economic situation cannot be layed solely at the feet of the Republicans.
So who is to blame? There's plenty of blame to go around, and it doesn't fasten only on one party or even mainly on what Washington did or didn't do. As The Economist magazine noted recently, the problem is one of "layered irresponsibility ... with hard-working homeowners and billionaire villains each playing a role." Here's a partial list of those alleged to be at fault:
* The Federal Reserve, which slashed interest rates after the dot-com bubble burst, making credit cheap.
* Home buyers, who took advantage of easy credit to bid up the prices of homes excessively.
* Congress, which continues to support a mortgage tax deduction that gives consumers a tax incentive to buy more expensive houses.
* Real estate agents, most of whom work for the sellers rather than the buyers and who earned higher commissions from selling more expensive homes.
* The Clinton administration, which pushed for less stringent credit and downpayment requirements for working- and middle-class families.
* Mortgage brokers, who offered less-credit-worthy home buyers subprime, adjustable rate loans with low initial payments, but exploding interest rates.
* Former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan, who in 2004, near the peak of the housing bubble, encouraged Americans to take out adjustable rate mortgages.
* Wall Street firms, who paid too little attention to the quality of the risky loans that they bundled into Mortgage Backed Securities (MBS), and issued bonds using those securities as collateral.
* The Bush administration, which failed to provide needed government oversight of the increasingly dicey mortgage-backed securities market.
* An obscure accounting rule called mark-to-market, which can have the paradoxical result of making assets be worth less on paper than they are in reality during times of panic.
* Collective delusion, or a belief on the part of all parties that home prices would keep rising forever, no matter how high or how fast they had already gone up.
The U.S. economy is enormously complicated. Screwing it up takes a great deal of cooperation. Claiming that a single piece of legislation was responsible for (or could have averted) the crisis is just political grandstanding. We have no advice to offer on how best to solve the financial crisis. But these sorts of partisan caricatures can only make the task more difficult.
http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/who_caused_the_economic_crisis.html
Did I say that Republicans were the only culprits? I think I blamed an economic philosophy, whose faith in the invisible hand, can only be compared to the zealotry of religious fundamentalists.
But whatever, you talk in such broad generalities that you say nothing at all.
How about taking your own damned advice? Did you read the article in it's entirety? If you had, you would have seen this:
Observers as diverse as former Clinton Treasury official and current Berkeley economist Brad DeLong and George Mason University's Tyler Cowen, a libertarian, have praised Gramm-Leach-Bliley has having softened the crisis. The deregulation allowed Bank of America and J.P. Morgan Chase to acquire Merrill Lynch and Bear Stearns. And Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley have now converted themselves into unified banks to better ride out the storm. That idea is also endorsed by former President Clinton himself, who, in an interview with Maria Bartiromo published in the Sept. 24 issue of Business Week, said he had no regrets about signing the repeal of Glass-Steagall.
Stop using using vague words like conservative market fundamentalism and give concrete examples from relaible sources.
finally some common sense here. thank you carn! bravo!
Yay! Bravo!
If you have something you want to tell me, if you don't like the way I write, don't be some sycophantic cheerleader, it's unbecoming. Post to me. I'll respect you more for it.
Ouch! How about you chill out, disproportionate response boy? You think I was snarkin' you? I wasn't. But I'm about to.
I did read the MMFA article, I followed the links, too, and I didn't see the quote you pasted, so I don't know what you're p*ssing and moaning about. Maybe it's there. Maybe I missed it, but next time you want crawl up my a** defending a conservative with a snippet from the article, come with a quote that is actually from the article.
Anyway. There is nothing vague about the concept of conservative market fundamentalism. It's a well established phrase used to criticize laissez-faire capitalism, sorry you haven't heard of it.But, since I offended your sense of loyalty to Oscar, guess I won't point out conservative bs anymore. I'll let them talk sh*t up and down these threads. And I guess since Clinton was a Democrat he couldn't have been operating under the principles put forth by conservatives that posit a deregulated market is the only market that works.
Oh, your FactCheck link. I get it. Sorry.
Didn't read the factcheck article yet. I had to run off to work, so I posted and left. Thought I was being somewhat delicate in tone and considerate in responding. So thats another count you can take a flying leap on.
Honestly, extensive cut and paste work bores me to tears. If you don't synthesize your own perspective off of the information you're working from, it suggests to me that it's just information to you. It says to me that it has no analogous framework or personal relevance to you. It's boring and since it lacks narrative it fails to persuade. That's me though, I like my facts with ketchup.
But I'll read the damn thing and try to find contravening evidence that this global market crisis has its roots in anything other than my initial contention that market fundamentalism is to blame.
That was to cArn. I must have selected the wrong post to reply to.
Pretty soon they will be blaming Obama for the Iraq war saying he is responsible for 4500 lost American lives because he promised to end the war and we still have troops over there.
It will be lost on his followers that 4195 of these lives, and the dreams real Great Americans had, have been lost already and it is 2 more months before President Obama can actually do anything.
please read "and the dreams real Great Americans had" as "and the dreams these real Great Americans had"
thanks.
AFAIK, Sean Hannity did not, so far, publicly say that US is currently in a recession. He thinks it is a hiccup and that the economy is doing great.
How can he attribute a non-event to Obama?
Many right-wingers still say that the economy has not reached a recession or depression. They might change their tune once it's official 1/20/9.
How can he attribute a non-event to Obama?
Simple - he used his non-brain....
:-)
and here i always thought bad economic news caused the market to go down. plunging profits, layoffs, corporate bankruptcies apparently have nothing to do with it.
-- PRESIDENT-ELECT OBAMA who has been trying to bring both sides together to get this country up and running again --
Obama has done a lot of talking. Besides some neglible legislation...what has he done to bring the country together?
"...what has he done to bring the country together?"
Easy one. He ran a campaign that emphasized our shared fate and not divisiveness which resulted in the largest mandate since Bush I in 1988.
"...what has he done to bring the country together?"
He has shown that right-wing talk radio is full of liars and cannot be trusted as a source of factual information. Once America learns this lesson and right-wing talk radio dies its long-overdue death, civility can return to the American political scene.
we do know what the republicans have been doing to tear the country apart for the last 15 years. how did that palin surge work out?
Besides some neglible legislation...what has he done to bring the country together?
He's brought civility, modesty, and pragmatism to the executive branch?
Apparently you haven't been watching the news for the last 2 years. Pay attention.
ummmm... what has he done to bring this country together? HE'S NOT THE PRESIDENT! What has the current president done to bring this country together?
Only folks as stupid ad Hannity and Rush could even try to sell the idea that the crash in the market was Obama''s problem. So let us do a bit of fact checking. Now, who was the president when the markets took that first big tumble. Yep it was GW Bush and definately NOT Obama. I know it is tough for those two to face up to the facts, but their guy Bush is the one who screwed up the war in both Afghanistan and Iraq. Bush is the one who screwed up the economy so that it is so wobly when he leaves office, only the smart intervention by Obama will save our country. And further, Bush was President when the entire country came unglued due to his stupid leadersip. Nice try you two, but it is just not going to work. You have lost all your mojo and we will not allow you to screw up our lvies anymore. Try being a good American for a chqange, both of you. We will succeed under our wonderful new President no matter how hard you try to destroy him. No one is stupid enough to believe you after the dismal failure of your guys to win this election. Crawl off to some hole and try to regroup while the rest of us celebrate the election of a fine intellectual, a great statesman and someone you were so unsuccessful in your attempts to stop. I feel sort of sorry for you two. Mari
No one is stupid enough to believe you after the dismal failure of your guys to win this election...
That part I'd disagree with, Mari.Hopefully their number is shrinking, but there is still a group of knucklehead-Americans who believe that Bush's economic policies were sound, and our current situation has absolutely nothing to do with the past eight years of incompetence.
I've said it before, but I don't even consider the GOP a political party anymore, they're clearly a cult.
I'll just jump in here with a suggestion. Fans of this site will find this article very interesting reading.
http://www.milwaukeemagazine.com/currentIssue/full_feature_story.asp?NewMessageID=24046
Goes into some detail the psychology and strategy of these "hosts" that we love to get after here at MMFA.
That is all, carry on.
fact checking does not come from a mologue. try a good American...what would that be...someone like you basing a President? you should reread your words before you do something you condemn in the next set of words. how did he screw up the war? we have yet to be attacked since 9/11. the surge worked and a withdrawl plan is in place. did you serve this great country in some other way than bashing it for the last several years? when obayme taxes the rich...who do you think they will pass the costs on to? hmmmm i bet they take all of the burden or here is an idea... we as consumers do. feel sorry for yourself. anyone who claims intellectual anything is an eliteist scumbag!
Obama did 9/11
Obama blew up the pentagon with Ayers
Obama killed 4,000 American soldiers in Iraq.
Obama bankcrupt the Lehman Brothers. Yup, Obama did it all!
If that's the case, I blame Limbaugh for taking up too much space in the world - and Hannity for his lies that have contributed to Global Warming, they both need to shut up - their crap-talk is destroying the enviroment.
I submit that Limbaugh, Hannity, Mathews and the rest of the bloviators be charged a Carbon Tax for their exorbant release of Carbon Dioxide. All that yelling and fast talking is bad for the environment. ;P
To me it is obvious what is happening here, Republicans are ducking responsiblility. They are going to attempt to make people think this is reality just by repeating it. So hold on to your hats folks, this isn't the last we're going to hear of that phrase.
We're proabably going to hear much more attacks directed at Democrats than say the poor or blacks, because Democrats are now the #1 enemy of Republicans. What's truly unfortunate is this phrase is likely to catch on big-time in conservative circles.
Hopefully, most people will see this as just another desperately weak counterattack to liberals finally standing up for America.
Republicans don't know what responsibility is.
Republicans don't know what responsibility is.
Yes, they do. They spend their lives avoiding it.
Fox News Alert: Limbaugh /Hannity agree, 2 + 2 = 7, listeners concur.
Perhaps a metaphor will help:
The Republicans have just spent the last eight years defecating all over the living room carpet.
The Democrats have just walked into the living room...
...and the the Republicans immediately start shouting, "This is ALL YOUR FAULT!"
Good metaphor. I would extend it to the whole neo-liberal capitalism movement.
That ideology has led to a world that is close to armageddon and they claim that if we will just keep trusting in un-restricted free markets, we will soon all be driving Hummers to our info jobs, enjoying NFL games on our plasma TV and our children will all be above average.
Limburger, Insannity, Billy-O, and the others are not exactly the brightest bulbs on the marque. Even professional economists don't have a confident grasp of the current situation. Faux and friends are just being their snarling, drooling selves and are trying out all the negative lies and warmed over rumors and insinuations we had to deal with for so many months. There are STILL idiots who want to see Obama's birth certificate!
This is the same script these overpaid dumbasses have been regurgitating for years. If you look at their version of history, every thing good that happens is due to Republican policies, and everything bad is the result of Democratic "socialist" policies.
This sounds like an exaggeration of their rhetoric, but it's not. Just go back and check their transcripts, if they're available. According to them, the boom of the 90s was a result of Reaganomics. The Soviet Union fell because Reagan outspent them on defense, but the huge deficits subsequently created were the fault of... guess who.... the Democratic Congress.
They will go on to explain that the recession that hit around 2000 was Clinton's fault, and, apparently, they think the current banking crisis can be laid at the feet of a Democratic Fair Housing Act passed 30 years ago.
And, of course, everything bad that happens from this point forward will be Obama's fault. If Iraq turns out badly, it will be Obama's fault.... never mind that we never should have been there to begin with. Never mind that Bush and Cheney lied through their teeth to get us there.
In the revisionist Troglodyte version of History, Numbnuts Bush was just trying to hold things together, between Democratic disasters.
And the Simple Sarah Army will lap it up and drool approvingly.
Clinton's affair with Monica was the source of original sin that detroyed the Eden of Reaganomics...
Yea, verily, and they were smitten with 8 years of President Numbnuts, and they were much aggrieved.
Well, if the recession did hit around 2000, part of the blame would have to lie with Clinton as GWB didn't take office until Jan 2001. But what's a year or two among the posters here?
Does that mean that President Numbnuts will take the blame for our current mess?
Fine the 2001 Recession was Clintons fault, then the 2008 Depression is Bushs fault.
Its Clinton's fault in the sense that he didn't adequately stand up to the deregulation schemes of the Republicans. With Bush they controlled all of the cards with predictable results.
Spot on, Wook. Most said, fewest words.
Let's say we did go into a recession on Clinton's watch. So what? He reigned over the longest and largest expansion of the US economy in history. Everyone knows economics is cyclical. He balanced the budget and got America going again.
Meanwhile, what has Bush done with complete control? He's ran up the deficit and the economy has sputtered since he took office. There's no consistency, like we had under Clinton. The two are not comparable. Clinton knew exactly what he was doing. I wouldn't trust Bush to be the banker in a game of Monopoly.
oh yea...clinton sold the navy's oil reserves to balance the budget and was not fighting a war for the past 7 years. i am sure bush made congress vote for the war especially the ones who voted for it then didn't vote against it but said they voted for it but not for it then not for it but against it even though they voted for it but didn't.
My foot. We had no business invading Iraq in the first place. The Iraq recession is the unintended consequence of a retarded Republican cowboy foreign policy.
And what? That a handful of Democratic warhawks voted with the Republicans (who voted in lockstep like the obedient slaves they are) is supposed to absolve the right for its lustful pursuit of nation building?
You're out to lunch, pal.
Hey Sean:
A Ponzi scheme is a fraudulent investment operation that involves promising or paying abnormally high returns (‘profits’) to investors out of the money paid in by subsequent investors, rather than from net revenues generated by any real business.
Doesn't this sound like a somewhat better account of the collapse of the economy than an "Obama Recession"? Exacerbate this with tens of millions paid annually to CEO's and fund managers (they deserve every penny--NOT!) and now use some of the taxpayer funded bailout to pay their bonuses. Sean, you're either with us or against us. But don't throw a snit--we already know which side you are on. You're a worthless sociopathic w@nker. Just don't let your mother catch you.
It's funny how the right was blaming Clinton for this recent economic downturn as recently as last month. Never mind who's been in office the past 8 years. Now they want to blame Obama when he hasn't even been inagurated yet. But if the downturn is because people are worried about an Obama administration why did his numbers go UP when the economy started to tank? Rightly or wrongly people trust Dems more on economic issues. Obama cannot possibly be blamed for the current state of the economy or the markets.
why don't you read an article dated as far back as 1999 stating exactly what was going to happen because of the increased pressure from clinton for his "red line" surge. funny... the exact thing that was predicted happened. ny times article dated sept 30 1999. who was president then?
Since they persist. I will persist in asserting the only appropriate and relevant comment that applies to them: These gentlemen are ill.
Why is so hard for people to see that President-elect Obama will be the best thing that's happened to this country in a very long time. I guess the problem is he is so intelligent, so eloquent, that when he speaks in simple terms people try to make more of what he has said. IT'S ELEMENTARY PEOPLE, ELEMENTARY!
obama has only slightly less responsibility than bush: specifically the us and global economy is too large for one man. although i hear rumors that central planning makes a good wrecking ball for economies
I have to admit that even I am getting sick of hearing the same exact crap come out of Hannity's mouth. If you turn him on at any point in time during his show you can bet that you will hear one of a number of things that he reads off of a list or he will be talking to a caller who is gushing about what a great American he is and how much he/she loves Hannity's show and what a great job he is doing for our troops. There is no substance to any of it. Of all the conservative commentators he is clearly the dumbest and has nothing new to say. He tries way too hard to keep his audience listening with talk of extremism and doom and gloom due to an Obama presidency. I am not a liberal but I am glad we have Obama and I want him to succeed.