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By J. Patrick Coolican (contact) 
Thursday, Aug. 23, 2012 | 2 a.m.
J. Patrick Coolican
I’m the kind of politics junky who measures out his life in presidencies. I can’t tell you what I had for supper two nights ago, but I vividly remember Pat Buchanan’s 1992 Republican National Convention speech. (His real mistake wasn’t radical culture warmongering, it was pushing President Ronald Reagan out of East Coast prime time.)
So, as I watched President Barack Obama on Wednesday at Canyon Springs High School in North Las Vegas, I thought about four years ago. I sort of remember that my apartment off Boulder Highway, Coral Gardens, had just received a splash of brown and hunter green paint and a new name: Canyon Pointe. More vividly, I remember cocktail waitresses caucusing for Hillary Clinton.
And because I was so busy covering one of the most interesting campaigns in recent history, I wasn’t paying close enough attention to the fact that the world was collapsing, even though that collapse was intimately intertwined with the campaign.
By early 2008, Nevada’s foreclosure crisis had been pummeling the housing market for nearly a year, first with fraudulent and then subprime borrowers, stalling out growth and pushing down home prices. Nevada’s state government decided the best approach would be to mimic a deer in headlights, though to be fair, there was probably not much elected officials could have done.
From September 2007 to September 2008, the unemployment rate in Nevada had jumped from 4.9 percent to 6.9 percent, and it was rising more every month. It would become rapidly clear, though for most of us only in retrospect, that our economy was too dependent on growth and development, on construction workers building homes and stores and casinos for other construction workers.
The national economy had its own problems, though they were linked to ours. Some on Wall Street made big, reckless bets that home prices would never decline. The troubled Wall Street banks were so big and so intertwined that their collapse would have destroyed the economy.
Even though the government stepped in to stabilize the system, the economy still seized up. Only last year did we learn that the American economy saw an annualized decline of an astounding 8.9 percent in the fourth quarter of 2008, far worse than original estimates. By the time Obama took office, the private sector was losing 700,000 jobs per month, with state and local governments soon to follow with their own layoffs.
What should have been clear at the time was that there would be no quick recovery. The recession was the result of a financial crisis. Here are economists Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff, experts on financial panics, writing in Newsweek in March 2009: “The recessions that follow in the wake of big financial crises tend to last far longer than normal downturns, and to cause considerably more damage.”
They were right. Homeowners were deep in debt and underwater on their homes and so were reluctant to spend. It was worse in Nevada, which was heavily dependent on construction, and on people and businesses spending disposable income on the Strip.
Once the job losses hit, more foreclosures would follow, and the cycle continued, only abating somewhat in the past year or so.
We can argue all day long about what caused all this, but you can’t deny that this is what was happening four years ago.
In amnesiac America, it seems to me that recalling this recent history — and reflecting on the mess that Obama inherited — is a valuable exercise.
So what - the economy was growing and hiring and job growth positive by June of 2009 the recovery was in full bloom --- but the recovery died on the back of Obama
We are here and now four years after the recovery started
We have had 4 years of stimulus, new financial regulations, hot air, Obamacare, new EPA rules, Dodd-Frank,
THE RESULT 1.5% GPD growth and 23 million under employed. 50 million on food stamps and $16 trillion of national debt
And what is the Obama plan -- more of the same
Oh yeah! He has really been laser focused on creating new jobs since he took office. He spent the first year on nothing but Obamacare and really didn't do anything. I think he has been on too many junkets to Las Vegas since he has been in office. What a hypocrit! I have just seen that unemployment in Vegas has gone up again in the past month. Not to mention if they counted all of the people that fell off of the unemployment rolls our unemployment rate would be closer to 30% instead of showing just the 12% that are unemployed. I don't see us in recovery right now, we are still in a recession that has yet to end and will not end until the trade deficit is repaired.
Reagan never mentioned the "inherited thang" once.
Obama has been to Las Vegas more this year than he's met with his jobs council. Maybe that's a good thing because his job-creatin ain't making it.
Dodd_Frank is a joke. Big banks like Barclay's thrive on regulation, while the litle fellows struggle to keep up.
Obama/Biden 2012 and four more years of incompetence.
This is not just a US recession, it is global as well, and our markets interact with that fact.
Historically, we seem to have recessions of varying degrees fairly regularly.
Authorities can proclaim the end of recessions, but that doesn't really seem to reflect the experience of the populous due to the effects of a recessions.
I've read about the 1973-74 recession proclaimed by one source to have ended in 3 years, and another source saying it took 20 years to fully recover.
The current recession stated to have ended in 2009 will hardly be cheered since the global facts point to problems that are still effecting us today, with some improvements, but not enough for people to dance with joy.
I think reality should see our current recovery as a long term effort, not something that should end within a few years.
Also, a dysfunctional Congress has impeded the recovery, so who knows what could have been if they were functional and looking to benefit all the people instead of digging our graves with intransigence.
Obama's efforts with the ACA were a step toward bring the cost of healthcare into greater control.
I would have been much happier about that if he had created, and Congress had passed, a single payer universal healthcare program. It is the only way to reduce the cost of healthcare in this country, while increasing and maintaining quality care.
The problem with bringing that about was due to the national and multinational big money special interest lobbyists that dominate our government.
With everything else, making an effort to get us out of the war business, gradually as needed for our economy, was a piece of good governance.
At the same time, trying to get through Congress a jobs program that would also help to repair our decaying infrastructure was also a good effort.
Dealing with the global economic issues is not a one man job. There are other leaders and circumstances to deal with, and the US helped mightily to add to the global problems, before Obama ever took office. The world knows that and it is time Americans accepted responsibility for our role in what is happening globally, and which continues to circle back around to us.
There are so many global changes that were not as forceful as in the past decades. The fix is not nearly as simple as some people think.
There maybe many things that Obama could have done if his hands weren't tied by a dysfunctional Congress of intransigents. We will never know until he has more cooperation and teamwork.
Mr. Coolican,
Not awake again so I will keep my comments to: Wonderful article! I will be back.
Every Prez must Lead with what ever in globally going on
Leading the American economy from behind is failure.
Blaming Bush, blaming Europe, blaming ATMs, blaming the weather, is not leading.
A Leader takes responsibility and takes action and Leads
Obama has failed
Future I bet you voted for Bush twice. Seems to me you are just a partisan. We dont expect you to like Obama. I'll give you one good example of leadership the previous admin could never provide.....Osama Bin Ladin, DEAD. Check!
The United States was "-" that close to having our financial structure gone as we know it. President Obama literally saved the US from financial collapse. Period!
Vc. -- Obama took over a year to finally pull the trigger on OBL. Why did it take a year knowing exactly where he lived? Because Valerie Jarrett his private mentor told him three time not to take OBL out. Joe Biden disagreed with taking OBL out. Only After a year of Hillary Clinton dogging Obama to do the right thing did he let the Seal go in.
That is not leadership - but afterward Obama hogged all the credit and gave up to many classified details
Long said "The United States was "-" that close to having our financial structure gone as we know it. President Obama literally saved the US from financial collapse. Period!"
TARP took hold hold before Obama took office, and the Fed did their job before Obama took office.
The Obama stimulus came into play AFTER the recession was over June of 2009
What action do you actually believe Obama took to save the world
For those who are listening to the liberals propagating the fallacy that everything is "Bush's Fault," think about this:
January 3rd, 2007, the day the Democrats took over the Senate and the Congress:
The DOW Jones closed at 12,621.77
The GDP for the previous quarter was 3.5%
The Unemployment rate was 4.6%
George Bush's Economic policies SET A RECORD of 52 STRAIGHT MONTHS of JOB CREATION!
Remember that day...
January 3rd, 2007 was the day that Barney Frank took over the House Financial Services Committee and Chris Dodd took over the Senate Banking Committee.
The economic meltdown that happened 15 months later was in what part of the economy?
BANKING AND FINANCIAL SERVICES!
THANK YOU DEMOCRATS (especially Barney) for taking us from 13,000 DOW, 3.5% GDP and 4.6% Unemployment...to the CRISIS by (among MANY other things) dumping 5-6 TRILLION Dollars of toxic loans on the economy from YOUR Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac FIASCOES!
(BTW: Bush asked Congress 17 times to stop Fannie & Freddie -starting in 2001 because it was financially risky for the US economy).Barney blocked it and called it a "Chicken Little Philosophy" (and the sky did fall!)
And who took the THIRD highest pay-off from Fannie Mae AND Freddie Mac? OBAMA
And who fought against reform of Fannie and Freddie?
OBAMA and the Democrat Congress, especially BARNEY!!!!
So when someone tries to blame Bush...
REMEMBER JANUARY 3rd, 2007....THE DAY THE DEMOCRATS TOOK OVER!"
Budgets do not come from the White House. They come from Congress and the party that controlled Congress since January 2007 is the Democratic Party.
Furthermore, the Democrats controlled the budget process for 2008 & 2009 as well as 2010 & 2011.
In that first year, they had to contend with George Bush, which caused them to compromise on spending, when Bush somewhat belatedly got tough on spending increases.
For 2009 though, Nancy Pelosi & Harry Reid bypassed George Bush entirely, passing continuing resolutions to keep government running until Barack Obama could take office. At that time, they passed a massive omnibus spending bill to complete the 2009 budget.
And where was Barack Obama during this time? He was a member of that very Congress that passed all of these massive spending bills, and he signed the omnibus bill as President to complete 2009. Let's remember what the deficits looked like during that period:
If the Democrats inherited any deficit, it was the 2007 deficit, the last of the Republican budgets. That deficit was the lowest in five years, and the fourth straight decline in deficit spending. After that, Democrats in Congress took control of spending, and that includes Barack Obama, who voted for the budgets.
If Obama inherited anything, he inherited it from himself.
In a nutshell, what Obama is saying is, "I inherited a deficit that I voted for,
And then I voted to expand that deficit four-fold since January 20th, 2009."
Mitt is on to something
Obama voted for what he inherited
January of 2007 Democrats took over Congress; the House with Nancy Pelosi and Barney Frank; the Senate with Obama, Biden, Harry Reid, and Chris Dodd. This was followed by the elevation of Obama to president in 2009.
This is a singular turning point in American history with the social and economic morass that followed. Obama, Reid and Pelosi have been on a path to implement the Liberals Entitlement Manifesto. One where a powerful Central Government control all activities and directs people's lives.
Look at the baseline number to decide if you and the country is better off with Democrat control years later.
BLS A-1 table 2002 employment 136.5 million. 2003 the tax rates were lowered
2007 Baseline numbers:
2007 Total employment - 146,273,000 up 10 million jobs since Clinton
2007 Unemployment Rate - 4.6%
2007 Initial Jobless claims - 300k per week
2007 Food Stamps. - 28 million at a cost of $38 billion
2007 GDP - $13,715 trillion
FY-2007 Total Debt - $9.0 trillion
FY-2007 Revenue - $2,568.2 trillion up $576.8 billion from Clinton
FY-2007 Spending - $2,728.9 trillion
FY-2007 Fed gov employment 1.8 million people
FY-2007 Deficit - $160.7 billion
Estimated 2012 Baseline numbers after four years of vulture socialism
2012 Total employment - 143,202 million jobs down 3 million
2012 Unemployment Rate - 8.2%
2012 Initial Jobless claims - 370k per week
2012 Food Stamps - 46 million people at a cost of $75 billion
2012 GDP - $ 15.0 trillion
2012 Total Debt - $16.3 trillion up $7.3 trillion (and Obama has requested another $1.2 trillion)
FY-2012 Revenue - $2.5 trillion
FY-2012 Spending - $3.7 trillion
FY-2012 Fed gov employment 2.1 million people
FY-2012 Deficit - $1.3trillion
FY-2007 Military Spending - $673 billion (includes Wars)
FY-2012 Military Spending - $670.9 down from 2007 in actual dollars
you're spitting out a bunch of number and claims Future and Milt, but you won't put your real name up with them. You're partisan rhetoric gets ZERO CREDIBILITY.
you're spitting out a bunch of number and claims Future and Milt, but you won't put your real name up with them. You're partisan rhetoric gets ZERO CREDIBILITY.
More Barack Obama nonsense. Enjoy endless recession:
On Wednesday, however, his administration put into effect yet another new regulation making it harder for America's oil and gas companies to increase production. In fact, that regulation, as the head of the American Petroleum Institute recently wrote, would make American companies unable to compete with foreign competitors.
That may be exactly why the president supported it.
The new regulation, Section 1504 of the Dodd-Frank bill, would require American companies to release information detailing expenditures on foreign operations. That proprietary information would immediately be available to foreign and domestic competitors alike, and would be used to undercut whatever advantages American companies have achieved as a result of their own hard work. Section 1504s "extractives transparency rules," as interpreted by Obama's activists at the SEC, force American companies to compete with one hand tied behind their back. Competitors in Moscow and Beijing must be dancing for joy now that the rules have been finalized. Obama has just handed them the keys to the world's oil riches.
http://junkscience.com/2012/08/23/jeffre...
"By early 2008, Nevada's foreclosure crisis had been pummeling the housing market for nearly a year, first with fraudulent and then subprime borrowers, stalling out growth and pushing down home prices. Nevada's state government decided the best approach would be to mimic a deer in headlights, though to be fair, there was probably not much elected officials could have done."
Coolican -- gotta disagree with you on this point. The "fraudulent and then subprime borrowers" are insignificant when compared to the massive fraud perpetrated by lenders and their many, many parasites. The best word to describe them is rapacious.
Your characterization of Nevada government is right on. At least the legislature started giving us some good laws, especially last session's AB284. And our AG seems to be at least trying. Have a look @ http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2012/aug...
"I think reality should see our current recovery as a long term effort, not something that should end within a few years."
peacelily -- the reality is this kind of recession is nothing new. The difference now is government over-regulation is a serious impediment to recovery. What used to be personal liberties, particularly in person-to-person commerce, are now beat down by government at every level. A friend in court yesterday told me about a poor guy prosecuted for having a sign on his trailer advertising he could help with remodeling, etc.
"The paper bubble is then burst. This is what you and I, and every reasoning man, seduced by no obliquity of mind or interest, have long foreseen; yet its disastrous effects are not the less for having been foreseen. We were laboring under a dropsical fulness of circulating medium. Nearly all of it is now called in by the banks, who have the regulation of the safety-valves of our fortunes, and who condense and explode them at their will. Lands in this State cannot now be sold for a year's rent; and unless our Legislature have wisdom enough to effect a remedy by a gradual diminution only of the medium, there will be a general revolution of property in this state." -- Thomas Jefferson, letter to John Adams, 1819, from "The Works of Thomas Jefferson" Vol. 12
The Sun needs to limit comments to 'tweet length" so we get more content and less ramble.
Historically, the US economy runs in cycles. This does not consist of a regular pattern of equal dips and peaks, some are worse than others. We are in the worst decline since the Great Depression. I find myself highly skeptical that either party will proactively lead us out of the current recession, but blame or credit will be assigned to the party in office as some normalization eventually occurs. So much for partisanship and the state of the economy.
Love it when the tea-tards come out with polls and forecasts that anoints their candidate.
You would think they would learn something from the whole Sharon Angle debacle. But that would take reasoning skills.
And yet with all this going on, we elect the one person who could not get a job as dog catcher, president of the United States.
Than blame it all on the fact that as a Senator, he had no clue to what was coming because all he did was vote "present"
Now it sits in his lap and he has nobody to blame but himself for not being able to do anything but campaign constantly..
To be fair, he did stop campaigning a few times/ Just long enough to reward top donors to his campaign, with government bailouts (wall street and bankers) than to write a few letters supporting some cause that would lead to more minority blocks of voters. (illegals and gay marriage)
Now we go three years without a budget and all he can do is slam Mitt's budget because his doesn't exist... It can't exist because it would show he is still trying to keep America down...
As loyal Obama supporters know, you can't grow the government if the economy is good and everyone is working...
The financial crisis was actually caused by mark-to-mark accounting changes being imposed on US financial markets by FASB and IASB (2007-2008). That ended in April 2009 when the Stock Market began it's rise once again.
The problem was with as much debt and leverage in the system the damage from MTM was horrific. It basically killed the Housing market and thus the entire US economy.
What has been tried the last 3 yrs is to transfuse blood into a zombie financial system. 5 trillion dollars has been used and it has accomplished a pulse, nothing more. Nothing is working because the patient is almost dead. A system run on debt which will not and can't borrow no more.
How bad is it? take a look: http://demonocracy.info/infographics/usa...
Bob_Realist:
The legislation that ended Glass-Steagal was the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, authored by Phil Gramm who still defends his actions today.
Phil Gramm was picked as John McCain's financial adviser for the 2008 run against Obama. As the G-L-B Act was in the midst of crashing the economy, John McCain still believed that Gramm was an authority on economics!
Gramm was only bumped from the campaign after making the statement "We have sort of become a nation of whiners. You just hear this constant whining, complaining about a loss of competitiveness."
A nation of whiners. The G-L-B act allowed Wall Street to sell mortgage insurance policies (credit default swaps) that had no liquidity, NO money to back up the mortgage if it failed. That is illegal.
So after $billions of commissions were paid for illegal mortgages and insurance policies, the real estate market collapsed throwing millions out of work. However, the real problem is that we became a nation of whiners. We complained about being robbed.
The warped irrationality of GOP authorities and dignitaries cannot be underestimated.
And as today's headlines read: "Nearly 70 percent of Las Vegas homeowners remain underwater".
All around is the damage from the real estate and stock market crash of 2008. Those facts and the reasons for them cannot be denied. Nevada property values will be lucky to recover dead even with 2002 within a decade.
I honestly can't believe what I read in this column. Here we are, three and a half years after Obama took office, and people are still saying that everything bad that exists today is the fault of George W. Bush, even though President Obama is the one who has in many case embraced and continued the very policies that are being complained about.
Talk about denial!
I can tell you that if Mr. Romney is elected and cannot turn the economy around in 2 years that there are a lot of people here that are going to have a lot of explaining to do! Additionally excuses about inheriting something will not be accepted along with cries of uncooperative Democrats in congress. The standard of the past will be applied equally to presidents of the future!
I for one doubt seriously that supply side economics and tax cuts are going to do much for a global financial crisis! In addition.. all the cutting they plan to do to government will grind the economy even slower. Spending cuts have an immediate effect on the economy.. tax cuts take time before you see any impact from them. Just hope you dont depend on a check from the government! Defense contractors know this very well because in january they will lay off a lot of people unless congress votes to spend more money.
But then I doubt Mr. Romney will be given the chance to fail by the voters... but thats just me!
By this time next year Romney will be sitting in the drivers seat of a fancy car at his La Jolla beach mansion, riding his car elevator up and down, up and down, maybe with a dog strapped to the roof for added nostalgia.
He'll be in a reflective mood, thinking about his $100M 401K retirement account and how he can squeeze another dollar from his federal tax bill, a squeezed dollar that will in turn be traded for foreign currencies such as Swiss Francs or whatever they call money in Bermuda or the Cayman Islands.
Meanwhile, across the continent in Washington DC, someone mentions his name -- Willard M. Romney -- and someone else within earshot asks, "Willard Rmoney, who is that?" The reply: "Ah, just some awkward rich guy who campaigned for the presidency for about eight years, spending upwards of a billion for his embarrassing fifteen minutes of fame."
After an uncomfortable pause the conversation turns to sports and Bryce Harper's run at Major League Baseball's single season homerun record.
Honestly, I think that most of the comments from both democrat and republican partisans here lack some degree of insight.
Both Bush and Obama, and their financial advisors and government entities were and have been at work trying to deal with both a national and global economic crisis.
It doesn't rest on one man's shoulders, or one party. To think so is very shortsighted and shows a lack of understanding of the complexity of the politics and problems and how governments and economies operate, plus how they are interrelated.
Also, as far as the US goes, the Congress has a good deal of culpability in it's obstructionism and intransigence.
This is a long term process, and many changes can take place globally before we begin to see the light of day.
Even now, Europe is considering move to including growth in its formula, as the US recommended. Euro bonds are also under consideration, something the US did earlier.
If any of those commenting think they have the solution for the world, please present your solution, and send it to the various governments in the world. You might get credit for saving the global economies.
Here are a few links for those interested in timelines and other information for review, both nationally and globally, related to the events of the global crisis, and more. Sometimes memories are short, especially during an election year.
National:
http://timeline.stlouisfed.org/
http://libraryguides.law.pace.edu/financ......
Global:
http://www.cfr.org/economics/timeline-gl......
http://ww
In order to head off some election year partisan politics about the US economy in the near future, I am adding a link to a Reuters article from last night.
It explains the changes in the global economy that are going to effect the US, in spite of showing some improving in manufacturing.
Knowledge of realities in a global economy helps us to keep an appropriate perspective.
http://in.reuters.com/article/2012/08/23...
Watch the documentary "Meltdown, the secret history of the global financial collapse", on you-tube. It is better than "Inside Job" because it shows the real estate crashes in Spain and Dubai. Dubai is the site of the biggest real estate crash in the world (Dubai also helped finance City Center). The docu mentions that just as much financial manipulation was going on in London as NYC. I hope that high school teachers are having serious discussions with students about whether college is worth it, and not just pressuring them to take out toxic loans to go to UNLV. Student loans are the next bubble.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3CDGh4cX...
peacelily,
What that article fails to mention is that we are by far the largest single importer in the world. It should come as no surprise that if we slow down our purchases because our people simply don't have the money then it is going to ripple out to the others.
Who Really Single-Handedly Brought America Down?
When will someone talk about how the Republicans singlehandedly brought down this country? Stand up and admit that it is a race-based promentalbackwashpsychosis that has twisted your loyalties and stops you from carrying out the duties you were elected to perform for this country- it has made you crazy, and crazy for all to see. This race-based promentalbackwashpsychosis has made your Republican heart and mind turn against America, your country- this is treasonous" and that you do it just to make the President, a black man, seem incompetent, makes you crazy. If you think that what you've done (not done) has helped this country your simply still in that race-based promentalbackwashpsychosis, and you really need to pull your head out of you behind- the smell is bad and in a group, it is overwhelming- it's no wonder your doing crazy things.
President Obama has rightly and repeatedly reached across the isles for your support. He has utilized and incorporated many Republican suggestions and how did they respond? The Republican Party voted against almost ever-single thing the President offered to move the country forward. The Jobs Act, the Stimulus Package, the 911 Healthcare bill, the Pentagon Spending, Collective Bargaining for Emergency Workers, Senior Citizens Relief Act, the Paycheck Fairness Act, the automotive bailout, healthcare for everyone, they voted against infrastructure bills, against tax credit for small business- everything that they used to do easily. They voted for a war without paying for it, they voted for the rich-people tax cuts in 2001 without paying for it. They obstructed, filibustered, slowed- till it all but stopped, everything. They caused the national debt, caused the country to loose its good credit rating, and even in these times, having so much more than the other 99 percent, they refuse to even consider paying their fair share- they are crazy.
They took a vow, and pledged allegiance to a person, over the country they swore to protect and defend. Is this not clearly treason?
Is this not hypocrisy, America? Republicans really have single handedly brought down this country trying to bring down a Black man- is that not crazy? Is that not a race-based promentalbackwashpsychosis? Well it looks like it to me! Wake up America, the patients are trying to run the asylum. The kids have taken the car (again) and are trying to drive it over the cliff (like Star Trek's young James Kirk) and they truly believe it's the right thing to do- yeah, tear up your stuff. I say: "kick they little ass," damn some "time-out." I say: "put something on them that they will remember 100 years from now." Or lets go the Bible on them and don't "spare the rod and spoil the child." Put your foot in that ass with all the love you've got in you. They deserve the red carpet treatment, the best that you can muster, so be the adult and give it to them, they're begging for it America" Amen!
Did you know that Willard Mitt Romney is actually a psychopath, according to the Hare Psychopathy checklist? To Romney, being presumptive GOP candidate is a self-fulfilling Mormon prophesy! Wait for surprises and revelations later from Gawker.com and Wikileaks about Romney and Ryan on or before November 5, 2012. Moreover, did you know that , Senator Harry Reid is correct about the fact that Romney has paid zero taxes for ten years? Furthermore, Romney, for having committed yet undisclosed criminal acts, is a traitor, unpatriotic at least and anti-America at best. More revelations from Gawker.com and Wikileaks later, at the right place, at the right time, so that Willard Mitt Romney, a.k.a. Mr. Pants on Fire, wished he never ran for president. Did you know that Romney has been preparing, training for president the past twenty years, but he has essentially been running for president since 2006? Who knew that what is known about Willard Mitt Romney is just a tip of the iceberg of yet undisclosed criminal acts, unprosecuted temporarily due to money, power, influence and insufficient evidence, for which reason there are 33 billionaire donors in his campaign of mass deception? If only you, 99 per centers including die-hard Republicans, subconsciously blind to the truth due to ignorance, tradition, twisted logic and peer pressure, let your eyes be opened to the truth, based on all things considered, that Romney fits perfectly the profile of a psychopath, according to the checklist of Hare Psychopathy, you would know beyond the shadow of doubt that Willard Mitt Romney cannot be trusted, and is evidently disqualified and not fit to be president.
Obama didn't inherit this mess, we the people did. Obama didn't create this mess and won't cure it, nor will any other politicians, as their marching orders come from those funding their political campaigns. The needs of special interests are varied and great and not conducive to that needed for economic stability. Consider the faction which holds great opportunity in times of uncertainty.
What the world needs now is a resurgence of fair media, that peoples champion and conscience of nations holding history of inspiring citizens to gather overwhelming public opinion in order to force needed changes! Large opinion holds history of forcing significant political changes and media holds history of influencing opinion.
Obama inherited an economy that was rapidly melting down. He was able to stop the meltdown, but only enough that the economy has slowly come back. Whether or not he would have been able to do more if he had had evan a little bit support from the Republicans is a good question. However, there are still structural problems in the economy (housing forclosures, etc.)that are taking some time to iron out, and will continue to. It is without question though that the economy has come back a lot, with the doubling of the S&P 500 being an indicator of that. Anyone who doesn't see that is not rational.
Special interest lobbyists certainly can be credited for the economic mess that the USA and the countries around the World are in. And Commenter Don Steele is absolutely right about "We the People" actually inheriting "this mess"! There is lots of finger pointing and blame to go around over this current recession/depression.
Our country has yet to fully recover, and few US Citizens have truly recovered from this economic disaster where the Wall Street financial wizards and Bankster had gotten the lion's share of "bailouts."
Blessings and Peace,
Star
I don't blame Obama for the mess we're in -- only for the fact that he hasn't got us moving out of it and seems to be digging a deeper hole. Double-digit unemployment, debt, deficit, political morass, crony capitalism, racial & ethnic divisiveness -- it all comes back to he and his party's failed leadership.
Coolican offers a pathetic plea for the voters to blame anyone but the president for his disastrous policies. It's the -- johnny made me do it -- defense. Of course the second act is the other Johnny defense - But Johnny did it first.
Desperation at his stage of the game is like a football locker room at the end of the season, it just stinks.
Staying out of the political part of the article and focusing on the economic outlook for LV as a whole.
When an area maxes out on it's building potential for the population and the construction business goes away...is there enough business left to support the market construction has built?
I think for LV we need to look at diversification of employers to rebuild job growth in the area and get the unemployment rate down. Zappos is a great example of a new employer in the region to help lower the umemployment rate. Now, how does LV attract more Zappos,aka new and diversified business to the area?
To take it to the political side, should people in every town and city hope the president will stop individually to their town to find solutions? No, local government and citizens need to try to find solutions to bring answer about to help recover from the economic crisis. Las Vegas got too big on housing, and has always been big on gambling....housing is done growing, its balloon has burst, what can we replace it with? Maybe one or two big balloons, or 100 small ones. What do we have to do on a more local level to rebuild out of this recession on our own local level? Finger pointing isnt going to do it. Time to put our thinking caps on and make some movement for ourselves.
Cooligan -- You are so liberal that you don't let facts get in the way. Four years is enough: As the lyrics of the song by The Who "Won't Get Fooled
Again!", I won't either. If Romney is no better, OUT he goes also. He can't do any worse. At least Ryan has a quantifiable plan for Medicare. The best Obama has done is hot air and smoke and mirrors and run up more debt.
President Barack Obama was a pioneering contributor to the national subprime real estate bubble, and roughly half of the 186 African-American clients in his landmark 1995 mortgage discrimination lawsuit against Citibank have since gone bankrupt or received foreclosure notices. As few as 19 of those 186 clients still own homes with clean credit ratings, following a decade in which Obama and other progressives pushed banks to provide mortgages to poor African Americans.
Obama is just a gangster in the worst sense of the word. There is a difference between Obama and Romney. Obama is directly responsible for this economic collapse (not entirely but directly, and Mitt Romney ran wildly successful companies.
It's getting old. I think Americans know the "Blame Bush" strategy is complete BS.
The perfect storm converged during the Bush W tenure.No doubt he seeded some of the storm clouds,but he was not alone to blame. These seasons of economic shifts occur in cycles, they are attributable partly to man made events, and partly to forces of change. The perfect controller does not exist--there is no automatic steering mechanism in charge of all the variables in economic processes. It's a dynamic and unpredictable system. And we must view these things as occuring over long term periods. What is difficult is that we live in the here and now, and seek improvement in the short term--but that is not always to be. I would venture to guess that we are in a long term correction which will in several years settle at a new equilibrium. Afterall, we have a massive debt bubble working its way thru the process, as well a massive supply of currency outstanding that is yet unresolved. Some predict yet another major stock market implosion from the debt, and major inflation from an excessive money supply.This is not over yet, so hang on for awhile.
REAGAN WAS HANDED A WORSE ECONOMY BY CARTER & HAD A BETTER RECOVERY IN 4 YEARS.THE BUSH RECESSION ENDED IN JUNE 2009.
Obama lied to your faces & promised hope & change, he would cut the deficit in half, he would lower unemployment, he promised transparency, no earmarks, etc......Obama & the radical liberals had full control of the Senate, the House & the Presidency..
And what did Obama give us? 6 TRILLION in new debt, higher unemployment w/ 23 Million Americans now out of work, Obama promised his TRILLION dollar stimulus would keep unemployment below 8% ( unemployment is now over 12% now in some states & well over 8% in every state ), earmarks continue, there's zero transparency, he's never passed a budget ( 1st President in history to not do so ), he rammed Obama care down Americans throats who overwhelmingly reject it, gas prices have doubled under Obama, the top secret military leaks coming out of his white house getting Americans killed, etc etc..
He can't campaign on his horrible record so he lies, divides & smears.