Jesse Jackson wants to cut Obama's nuts off

[Kirkland Laing]

Cold War and Iran Hostage.....Jimmy Carter = Pussy


And it's not just the way he acted it's the results he got. Reagan did the whole Iran-Contra deal but he got the RESULT of free hostages and Americans were mighty happy.

Jimmy Carter was an awful President!

Carter did an amazing job with Iran. If he'd sent troops to keep the Shah in power that'd be the equivalent of George Bush sending troops to Iraq to keep Saddam in power. He would have lumbered the US with a hugely expensive occupation facing an insurgency supplied by the USSR and China in a country four times bigger than Iraq with a ten times bigger (by number of people) insurgency. The country was already bankrupted by one needless dumbass foreign war in Vietnam and couldn't have managed another.


Reagan negotiated with the Iranians before the 1980 election and gave them arms in exchange for the release of the hostages, an epic act of scumbaggery that he eventually had to admit to :



Let's start with the part that is the most controversial. A few months ago I told the American people I did not trade arms for hostages. My heart and my best intentions still tell me that's true, but the facts and the evidence tell me it is not.


They were released during his inauguration. American networks showed a split screen of the hostages getting off the planne and Reagan taking the oath.

[El Kabong]

Jimmy Carter = bad President end of story

[Kirkland Laing]

Jimmy Carter = bad President end of story

And negotiating with terrorists is a commendable action. We're always being told that negotiating with terrorists is bad and the sign of a weak leader. Except when it helps you win elections obviously. I see McCain and the White House are now adopting Obama's policy on Iran after previously saying it was wrong and dangerous.

Why was Jimmy Carter bad?

[El Kabong]

Jimmy Carter was bad for a variety of reasons everything he did (and still does) is shit: the economy, energy, taxes, gas, foreign relations....so MAYBE Carter inherited a bad economy, he didn't turn it around, he made it worse

[amat]

Jimmy Carter was bad for a variety of reasons everything he did (and still does) is shit: the economy, energy, taxes, gas, foreign relations....so MAYBE Carter inherited a bad economy, he didn't turn it around, he made it worse

LOL, where would this forum be without Lyle. I've heard Carter called a bad president almost unanimously though what Laing said made sense. But now he is regarded as one of the foremost humanitarians on this planet yet Lyle still manages to find a way to slag him off. Great.

[El Kabong]

Hey Mother Teresa was a great humanitarian but it doesn't mean she'd be a good politician. Jimmy Carter has done some really good things like founding Habitat for Humanity but he made some very serious blunders.

[Wayne]

Jimmy Carter was bad for a variety of reasons everything he did (and still does) is shit: the economy, energy, taxes, gas, foreign relations....so MAYBE Carter inherited a bad economy, he didn't turn it around, he made it worse

Jimmy Carter did one good thing that Reagan immediately undid: he put solar panels on the White House. With the President doing it, surely the rest of the nation would have followed. Reagan helped hold the country back decades.

[X]

Psychiatry students were in their Emotional Extremes class. "Let's set some parameters," the professor said. "What's the opposite of joy?" he asked one student.

"Sadness," he replied.

"The opposite of depression?" he asked another student.

"Elation," he replied.

"The opposite of woe?" the prof asked a young man called Lyle.

The Southern Gentleman replied, "Sir, I believe that would be giddyup."

[El Kabong]

Jimmy Carter did one good thing that Reagan immediately undid: he put solar panels on the White House. With the President doing it, surely the rest of the nation would have followed. Reagan helped hold the country back decades.

Man Made Global warming is complete and utter crap...what happened from the 1970's til now? NOTHING! I thought we were all supposed to die horrible deaths from Global Warming YEARS ago.........hey I'm still here so let's just put this myth of MAN MADE global warming to bed....pollution is bad but it's not "brewing giant hurricanes" as Al Gore suggests

[Wayne]

Jimmy Carter did one good thing that Reagan immediately undid: he put solar panels on the White House. With the President doing it, surely the rest of the nation would have followed. Reagan helped hold the country back decades.

Man Made Global warming is complete and utter crap...what happened from the 1970's til now? NOTHING! I thought we were all supposed to die horrible deaths from Global Warming YEARS ago.........hey I'm still here so let's just put this myth of MAN MADE global warming to bed....pollution is bad but it's not "brewing giant hurricanes" as Al Gore suggests

What do solar panels have to do with global warming? I think I was referring to renewable energy that we don't have to depend on anyone else for. Just like Michael Moore I've learned to put Gore's comments in proper context.

[Kirkland Laing]

Jimmy Carter was bad for a variety of reasons everything he did (and still does) is shit: the economy, energy, taxes, gas, foreign relations....so MAYBE Carter inherited a bad economy, he didn't turn it around, he made it worse

Explain exactly what Carter did that was bad. For instance, the economy. What did Carter do that was bad for the economy? How did he make the economy worse. Use facts and evidence in your answer.

[El Kabong]

Well acting like a pussy during the Oil embargo hurt him big time he didn't fix the problem he tried to make America more like the USSR where the government allows you to have the temperature in YOUR OWN HOUSE only so hot or so cold and when the government is trying to tell anyone what they can or can't do in their own house it's over stepping the bounds. Intrest rates were also very high, the prime rate was 21.5%.....that's the highest it's ever been.....EVER.

Fact is all economies run on oil and therefore not gaining any access to oil hurt the economy of America. You don't have oil = you don't sell anything, you don't sell anything = people don't have jobs = the government doesn't collect as much when the tax man comes a knocking.


But awwww he had good intentions....so I guess we'll give him a break

[Kirkland Laing]

Well acting like a pussy during the Oil embargo hurt him big time he didn't fix the problem he tried to make America more like the USSR where the government allows you to have the temperature in YOUR OWN HOUSE only so hot or so cold and when the government is trying to tell anyone what they can or can't do in their own house it's over stepping the bounds. Intrest rates were also very high, the prime rate was 21.5%.....that's the highest it's ever been.....EVER.

Fact is all economies run on oil and therefore not gaining any access to oil hurt the economy of America. You don't have oil = you don't sell anything, you don't sell anything = people don't have jobs = the government doesn't collect as much when the tax man comes a knocking.


But awwww he had good intentions....so I guess we'll give him a break

As I expected, bugger all substantive from you in reply. The oil embargo was something out of Carter's control. Exactly what could any president have done to force the Arabs to put their oil back on the market?


Carter had the guts to put interest rates up to kill inflation, even though he knew it would mean no chance of winning a second term in office. He doomed his own political career to do the right thing for America.

Here's a comparison for you Lyle. Carter came to power and inherited double digit inflation which Nixon had created and done nothing about and Ford had continued to do nothing about. The only way to get inflation down was to appoint a Fed chief that was an inflation hawk but this would mean the Fed raising interest rates to levels as high as 20% to get the economy back on track. Carter bit the bullet and did what Nixon and Ford didn't have the balls to do.


Bush 43 came to power with record low inflation, low interest rates and the first Federal budget surplus since before the Depression. The country was in a shallow recession* that ended even before he enacted his tax cuts, but the overall fiscal health of the country was outstanding. He then proceeded to blow the fiscal situation up with huge unfunded tax cuts and when they failed to produce economic growth slashed interest rates to unsafe levels and printed historic quantities of dollars to fund the deficits caused by the tax cuts. When the housing bubble he'd created started to deflate he was left with the same choice Carter had -- raise rates and stop printing money to get the economy/fiscal situation on track and stop inflation/the oil price soaring, or continue his policies, knowing he'd need to print epic quantities of dollars to prevent the economy from catastrophe but making the long-term situation much worse. Bush chose the coward's way out, picking a Fed topper who was nicknamed Helicopter/Backstop Ben for his stated willingness to run the printing presses at full speed to deal with any economic problems.

One of these guys inherited a disastrous situation and dealt with it. The other one inherited the best economic situation of any president in living memory and created a total disaster, something you'll discover when your shrinking paycheck buys less and less over the next few years. From a position of surplus the deficits are now so big that the US is currently borrowing $1 trillion a year from foreigners to maintain its current standard of living. The total worth of the US is roughly $50 trillion, so you're effectively giving away a State a year to foreigners which you'll have to pay back in future at whatever rates of interest they're demanding to hold assets in depreciating dollars.


* Recessions are actually necessary every few years to cleanse overinvestment/capacity from the economy and allow markets to form more realistic prices for goods and services. Clinton could easily have avoided the recession at the end of his time in office by running the printing presses and flooding the financial system with money, something Bush has done almost nonstop since he took office, but Clinton had the balls to maintain fiscal discipline and abide by the rules he'd set for monetary policy.