What years does the Obama Years remind you of?

[pbrower2a]

Well its a depression, so none of those others.

Carter?    Far too much legislative activity for that parallel.
Reagan?  At most as a mirror image.
the elder Bush? Foreign policy OK, if not as showy... but he is definitely not the afterglow of his predecessor.
Clinton? Slick, similar electoral results, but with a much different constituency.
Dubya? Fewer cheap gestures, much more integrity, far more respect for procedures and legal niceties, undid much harm of Dubya.

One can easily rule out  Ford, Nixon, and LBJ. Kennedy requires a great personal tragedy. Too much political savvy to be Eisenhower (really a fine President), and he would like a rerun of the 1948 election in  2012.

Most Presidents seem to make impossible any repeat act for several decades.  

So far the closest analogy is to the first four of FDR -- at least if one goes by the generational-cycle theory of Howe and Strauss. Both took over at or near the end of nasty meltdowns of the US economy. An odd parallel is an assumption that both Presidents endured misguided and WRONG assaults on their alleged religious heritage -- as in "Franklin D. Rosenfeld" and putting an emphasis on the President's middle name.

Is he up to the standard of FDR? More like Teddy Roosevelt -- and I think that he would be satisfied with such a comparison. Nobody wants WWIII.

wut....the...feck?

What from the Bush adminstration did Obama undo?

War in Iraq. Damage to international opinion of America. Relevance of Osama bin Laden. Reliance upon a corrupt speculative boom for prosperity.

[pbrower2a]

Well, the issue is confused by the fact that we have no Left in american politics to turn to to cure the Right-caused depression - we did then apparently, after a fashion.

Debt is now 100 percent of the US GDP - guess what - if unemployment bounces up again (it's back up above 9 again), the Democrat party is finished for a generation.

I had a great job in the Bush years. Then the BO years rolled around - and they have stank up the joint. Gas is spiking again - the money that I do have in my pocket is worth less, and I still don't have as good of a job as I had in the Bush era.

Like the good man said - am I better now than I was 4 years ago? Hell no.

Debt-service costs are still manageable. Deficits are shrinking. America prospered during the late 1940s and through the 1950s despite huge debt related to World War II.

Great job? What was it? Were you part of the speculative boom? Things went well for a while. and now you can't resuscitate the speculative boom and the easy money. Maybe you thought that you would cash out at the right time but found that you couldn't. 

Easy money is more curse than blessing, fellow. We now get our economic recovery the old-fashioned way if it is to stick.   

[Chaddyr23]

The Carter Years.

Oh, I must not have noticed the rampant inflation, foreign policy disasters, and rapidly rising unemployment of the Obama administration...

I know some of you really wish Obama was Carter. But wishing it doesn't make it true.

Right!

[IDS Speaker Ben Kenobi]

Debt-service costs are still manageable.

The US went from having an advantageous position vs the Euro to a disadvantageous position vs France + Germany. Sure, the US has a much greater capacity to support debt and to pay it down, but it's squandering what could have been a real opportunity.

Imagine if Obama hadn't busted the bank and deficits were contained. The US would be making a killing vs the Euro as the Swiss did and are doing, especially now that they are talking of downgrading France.

Deficits are shrinking.

Not nearly fast enough. The deficit is still double the Bush era's worst, and worse than anything you'll see in Europe. Horrible mismanagement.

America prospered during the late 1940s and through the 1950s despite huge debt related to World War II.

True, but what they did in '46 and '47, was to cut the budget in HALF and paid it down. Straight spending cuts. That is what it will take this time to fix things. Do you see Obama proposing a 50 percent cut in government spending? I sure don't.

Great job? What was it? Were you part of the speculative boom? Things went well for a while. and now you can't resuscitate the speculative boom and the easy money. Maybe you thought that you would cash out at the right time but found that you couldn't.

Well I was fresh out of university. I ended up paying off all my loans. I worked as an inventory manager for a small store. Something around 2x what I make now + all the OT I could possibly want. It was a great position, but I got let go in the downturn. 

Easy money is more curse than blessing, fellow. We now get our economic recovery the old-fashioned way if it is to stick.

Only if we can stop digging the hole deeper. 

[shua]

Having read as much as I could stomach of that trainwreck of an article I'm convinced the solution to all that ails America is rounding up the publishers and readers of the American Thinker and putting them in isolated prison camps in Alaska far away from intelligent life.

How do you know they're not already there?

[Old Europe]

Basically Clinton's first term with unemployment rate from Reagan's first term.

[m4567]

People see what they want to see. I think Obama is Reagan by way of Bill Clinton.

[hotpprs]

Woodrow Wilson's era, the 1910's.
Progressive.
Anti-business.
Wilson was President during a war that dominated the decade and ended before he left office.
The US was a prosperous country with the rich gaining more and more of the wealth, and kids becoming disillusioned.
Bad foreign policy.
Imperial mindset of the President.
Maybe we will have another 10 to 20 good years of fun like the roaring 20's before things really crash like the great depression.
That would coincide with the timeframe for Social Security not being able to pay it's current promises, state pensions going bust, and the debt finally bringing the whole economy down and crashing the stock market.
Who is going to be the next Harding, Coolidge and Hoover?

[RosettaStoned]

 Which years do the Obama Years remind you of?

[Vazdul (Formerly Chairman of the Communist Party of Ontario)]

The way things are going in this country, it almost feels like the Buchanan years.

[pbrower2a]

Woodrow Wilson's era, the 1910's.
Progressive.
Anti-business.
Wilson was President during a war that dominated the decade and ended before he left office.
The US was a prosperous country with the rich gaining more and more of the wealth, and kids becoming disillusioned.
Bad foreign policy.
Imperial mindset of the President.
Maybe we will have another 10 to 20 good years of fun like the roaring 20's before things really crash like the great depression.
That would coincide with the timeframe for Social Security not being able to pay it's current promises, state pensions going bust, and the debt finally bringing the whole economy down and crashing the stock market.
Who is going to be the next Harding, Coolidge and Hoover?

Dubya was -- except that he had two bungled wars for profit. The double-zero decade simply wasn't fun.

[Bandit3 the Worker]

Reminds me of those great Carter years! Except the music's not as good, and we have Internet.

[TheGlobalizer]

Which years do the Obama Years remind you of?

THIS.
CHANGES.
EVERYTHING.