Guno צְבִי (05-17-2022)
Historically, business people have made terrible presidents. Granted, Trump was less a business person than a reality TV personality known for playing a business-person character, but he at least ran some businesses in the real world, and his results with the country were even worse than his results with those businesses. Then there's GW Bush, who followed a string of business failures with an eight-year term as president when pretty much everything in the country got worse: unemployment and poverty rose, incomes and stocks fell, and so on. Herbert Hoover is another businessman-turned-president and even though he'd actually been a success in business, he gave us the worst economic collapse in American history. It turns out the skills and instincts needed in business just aren't the same as the ones needed for political leadership.
Guno צְבִי (05-17-2022)
Let's see - who else used a teleprompter....
Oh, yeah. Every President since the teleprompter was invented.
Guno צְבִי (05-17-2022)
I disagree. Their Executive experience in the private sector give them a superior edge on managing the largest budget in the world. Private businesses do not have a never-ending stream of other peoples' money to spend. They either become efficient and cost effective or they are out of business. The government has no need for quality or efficiency because they have no competition and the money will never run out.
Private sector businessmen are far superior to anyone who's spent their life working only for the government.
Life is Golden (05-17-2022)
That's not how it turns out, though. Speaking of spending endless streams of other people's money: consider the last two businessman presidents. George W. Bush inherited a nation with record budget surpluses, and left one with record budget deficits. Trump inherited an economy where deficits had fallen by over half in the preceding eight years (from $1.412 trillion FY 2009 to $0.665 trillion in FY 2017), and he presided over nearly a quintupling of deficits in just four years (to $3.132 trillion).
Too often, business people are used to having a never-ending stream of other people's money to spend. Bush, for example, got rich by being brought in on the purchase of the Texas Rangers. Bush put up about $106,000 of his own money, and another $500,000 of bank money, yet somehow came away with a 2% share of a team worth $87.2 million at the time. When you're used to daddy's friends handing you stuff basically for free, just to curry favor with the family, it develops some really sloppy money habits. It's the same with Trump, who spent decades woefully mismanaging his company, but with the understanding Fred Trump and his buddies would always be there to make sure things come out OK. Lots of business people are used to that kind of handout, so when it comes time to manage something the size of the US economy, where even those inherited fortunes and connections aren't enough to bail out incompetence, things tend to go pretty badly.
That's why you'll find that lists of the worst presidents in history are pretty heavy with businessmen. Most recent lists have the bottom of the pack include GW Bush, Hoover, Harding, Trump, Buchanan, and Andrew Johnson. Bush, Hoover, Harding, and Trump had been prominent businessmen before screwing up the country as president.
Guno צְבִי (05-17-2022)
Elon Musk slams Biden: 'The real president is whoever controls the teleprompter?
Hold your taters' there! Perhaps it was intended as a slam on Biden- Perhaps it wasn't- but irregardless to that-
THERE IS NO WAY IN HELL IT COULD BE A SLAM ON BIDEN SPECIFICALLY- AS EVERY PRESIDENT SINCE THE TELEPROMPTER WAS INVENTED- USES OR USED TELEPROMPTERS.
And someone really really clever, may just ask Elon Musk- HOW COME HE USES TELEPROMPTERS? AND WHEN HE DOES, DOES THAT MEAN HE DOESN'T WRITE HIS OWN SPEECHES AS WELL?
SO BASICALLY THIS IS EITHER ONE STUPID THREAD OR A TOTAL THREAD FAIL! OR EVEN A BRAIN FART BY THE FART FACED ELON MUSK!
WHY ARE WE SEEING SO MANY TRUMPTARDED THREADS HERE ON JPP?
IS IT BECAUSE TRUMPTARDS ARE GETTING DESPERATE?
I THINK SO!
Last edited by Geeko Sportivo; 05-17-2022 at 02:17 PM.
AProudLefty (05-18-2022)
Isaiah 6:5
“Woe to me!” I cried. “I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty.”
Let's take an honest look at what those three each did:
(1) Biden: presided over the best year for economic growth in almost forty years, and a fifteen-month stretch when more jobs were created, by far, than in any such period in American history. He also presided over a long-overdue withdrawal from Afghanistan, a strong rebound in the US's reputation internationally, a decline in the budget deficit, and the passage of a huge infrastructure plan.
(2) Obama: you name the stat, and it probably took a turn for the better on his watch. Unemployment rates fell, median real income rose, real GDP per capita rose, violent crime rates fell, incarceration rates fell, stock values soared, home values soared, consumer debt levels fell, poverty rates fell, etc.
(3) Carter: his was a mixed bag, with very strong job creation and good economic growth, but poor median income growth and rising poverty. However, he did accomplish the Camp David Accords and set in motion the policies that ultimate beat inflation (after Nixon and Ford having just kicked the can down the road).
So, no, I definitely wouldn't say they fucked up the country the most in the last sixty years. Trump and Bush both inherited a prospering nation with a growing economy and left an absolute basket case. Nixon pioneered new heights of corruption, while also getting countless killed in Vietnam for years for nothing. Ford led us through a period of pretty much across-the-board worsening. Reagan ran up gigantic deficits with very little to show for it in terms of actually enhancing life for the American people (e.g., the poverty rate didn't come down at all on his watch, despite all that economic stimulus). If I were to rank the presidents over the past 60 years, Biden, Obama, and Carter would probably rank behind Clinton, LBJ, and maybe JFK, but certainly would look stronger than the Republicans. The only two I could think maybe I'd flip would be Carter and the first Bush, who had his strong points.
deficit spending.....he doubled the national debt......(2) Obama: you name the stat
Carter and Biden?.....inflation and inflation.....did I mention inflation.......
Isaiah 6:5
“Woe to me!” I cried. “I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty.”
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