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I don't think governments, generally, impact the economy.

Tom396

Tom396

.30-06
I believe the US economy always has and always will have up and down swings. I don't think, in general, current administrations have much influence on that. The politicians, I believe, can only hope to be in office when the trend is up and hope to be unseating an incumbent when the trend is down. IMO, it's usually more about timing than anything else.

However, we've been in a downturn for quite awhile now. We are way overdue for an upswing. This should be a good time to be the President. But it isn't. The economy has shown very little indication of recovery. Is this the present President's fault? Perhaps it is, but again, I don't think Presidents have that much control over economic events. I believe that the influence they do have comes more from actions that wouldn't necessarily be intentionally aimed at strengthening an economy.

Given that, I'm at a loss. It's hard for me to imagine that this President has truly been the biggest reason that we haven't recovered yet, but it sure is getting harder and harder to refute. Take care. Tom Worthington.
 
Re: I don't think governments, generally, impact the economy

I somewhat agree. Governments should not have a direct impact but the legislation, world view, foreign relations, job rates, etc all play a roll and influence things in a lot of ways.

Every president inherits baggage from the prior, how they deal with it and whether they move forward is in on their shoulders. Are things better now then they were when the current POTUS took office?

I don't think things are better now: Gas is double what it was when I bought my car, food costs are higher as a result. Unemployment is through the roof, the debt is out of control, etc. Granted not all of that can be blamed directly to the POTUS, congress is to blame also. I just hate that he continues to blame the other guy four years later. The dems had a super majority for the first two years in office. Total control and they couldn't even pass a budget.
 
Re: I don't think governments, generally, impact the economy

The government and the political system effect the economy more than you can know. The strangulation of commerce by regulations too expensive to implement, closes down raw materials, industry to turn the raw materials into products, robs jobs in mining, fishing, transportation and the money that would have been circulating through the communities dries up, reducing sales, reducing taxes collected, resulting in more lawlessness, less public services, more people depending on services..... Mom and Pop can't stay in business.

Just this past year, some the threats that come from the top, shut down of the top 3 petroleum refineries, shutdown of coal fired power plants, threats of and ordered rolling blackouts in the coldest part of the year, tax on Christmas tree threat, the storming of stores because they sold raw foods, the Gibson guitar plant more than once, TSA expanding to ground transportation and highway check points, tighter controls on transportation........... It all trickles down to less take home and more expenses for the general populous.

The dollar has been on the rise for weeks but the prices in the stores don't seem to be falling.

Forcing the use of alcohol has raised the price of corn, the lack of corn has given rise to other grains as substitution for feed for raising meat.

I don't think the drought or the floods are due to any government doings but I may be wrong.

It doesn't have to be the stroke of a pen, just a quietly worded sentence that can put the markets into such a tail spin that it can take years to recover. It's just one's and zero's but it results in more people without jobs.

With an unstable leadership, what man in his right mind would invest and have to endure all the bureaucratic crap that hangs over every head that he would hire?

Unemployment up another 10th of a percent.

Back to power, I live in a small county with about 10 thousand population. We have more than 2 gas powered power-plants and more than a hundred windmills. Less than 20 miles away and yet we have rolling blackouts. It just doesn't seem fair to have the crap in your own back yard and be denied the use of the same when you are never late on paying the over priced bills.

I really thing the topic is dumb. I am not saying that the feds can help but they can do a lot to hurt.
 
Re: I don't think governments, generally, impact the economy

While there is little Governments can do to make things better, there are a lot of ways to make it worse.

For instance, a lot of our current economic problems and business closures and entire cities and towns being boarded up, was in many ways, Ronald Reagan's epic disaster looking the other way while businesses moved oversea's where the labor is cheap.

Don't know about anyone else, but I have noticed just about everything at walmart is not made in the US, but rather China and numerous other third world countries where it costs pennies on the dollar to make.

And coincidentally often have quality issues and often do not last for very long either.

And now you know why china has more money than we do.

They're exporting goods 24 hours a day that costs them $35 a crate to make and selling it for thousands.

Not hard to figure out how they are getting their money.

But I agree wholeheartedly that Government can easily hurt business. I think they're really trying to kill coal altogether because they are into all this "green renewable energy".

I can point out my door and show you several coal mines closed only because they can't get the permits from the EPA.

Or I can show you a link to solyndra and other pet projects that have closed for "other" reasons.
 
Re: I don't think governments, generally, impact the economy

I'll ditto that I think that while the gov. can't necessarily fix the economy they can and have made it worse. John A. has a great point about jobs going overseas since the 80's. In previous generations we had far more factories to go back to. Now we have WalMart and McJobs to pay minimum wage to people. I also find it amusing that when Bush II was in office and gas hit $4.00/gallon it was all his fault, he's an oil president etc. Now that BHO is the president and gas is up we hear...it's not my fault, we don't have anything to do with the price of oil. BHO hasn't helped anything in the economy that I can tell but his spending will consume the nation someday. I ask myself, if the Republicans win will anything change? I hope so but have my doubts. Maybe they will slow the trainwreck down.
 
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