Obama/McCain supporters: what do you think eithe can do...

Regardless of what Clinton did (or didn't do), he managed to get the economy going in the right direction. Which is a lot to be said comapred to many other presidents. The links below will show the National Debt and where it stood from President to President for several decades.

And we'll have to disagree about Bush Two inheriting a recession. By the end of Clinton's second term, the National Debt was decreased by over 8%. That's not a sign of a recession if you ask me. Even with the Dot-Com crash of 2000-2003, IMO it was really the war & growing gas prices that helped cause it. If only our current administration handled the situation better and waited to have the support of their allies, then maybe we wouldn't have to shoulder so much of the war expenses.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nationa...idential_terms
http://dkosopedia.com/wiki/Data_on_N...t_by_President

And Bush will hand off an economy that's crashing harder than the dot com bust with his $ 4+/gallon gasoline, a war machine that's behind by $ 1/2 trillion and growing, then there's the property flipping/real estate bust.

I'm all for tax cuts/rebates when inflation is in check. All this rebate serves is to do exactly what the 2001 rebates did. A wealth transfer fueling inflation as an economic stimulus package. Funny, Bush sold his first tax rebate as something Americans could pocket and save towards retirement and so on. The market reacted and inflation stripped every penny and then some from those receiving rebate checks. As for the rebate I've yet to receive, gasoline is up 80 cents/gallon from the day Bush announced this one in mid January 2008. That's $ 16 a week on fuel alone. Granted it wasn't a lump increase, but it's been a nickle and dimeing process. By mid-summer, that rebate will become a deficit just like it was in 2001.

Wyld's opening commentary on tax cuts and rebates creating opportunities, I disagree with that statement too. There are far too many wolves/entrepreneurs raising the prices on us for these cuts/rebates to create opportunities for anyone other than the wealthier and already established. Right now, we're in the midst of a tax rebate and employment is going south and the similarity, the same thing happened throughout 2001.

Guess we'll ride this out and weather the bad times once again ? I pity the next person in office, there won't be any wars to start to distract this time, just pure domestic economic misery. The war may be a drain, but it does employ 150+K soldiers and others. When the plug is pulled on that, it'll be Gulf War I all over again. The military will downsize to save money, those people/soldiers will have whatever bonus money they received to re-enlist during the Iraq war to blow or live off of, because the economy will head deeper into recession. Who knows, maybe we go after Iran this time ?

Sorry for the pessimism everyone, but 8 years ago we couldn't afford a 2nd Bush as President. I certainly hope there aren't any more with White House aspirations after this one ?

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You can and should blame Bush for a lot but hi gas prices is the fault of the Fed Reserve and monetary policy.

The common thought is that the is a run on commodities from newly strengthened economies like China and countries in South America. However we don't have traffic lines at gas stations because fuel is in limited supply like in the '70s.

What is happening is we are inflating the dollar. It started around 2000-2001. We dropped interest rates so low that the effective rate was below the rate of inflation. rates should always be about 2.75% above inflation. Thats sound policy. It means an prudent investor would get a real positive rate of return. I myself borrowed money, a lot of it at 4% back then to purchase buildings.

Now interest rates are well below the rate of inflation so for all intents and purposes, our dollar is losing value at a hi speed. We are losing to the euro, the Brazilian real, the pound, because the Fed Reserve can't get it right. The price of a barrel of oil has almost doubled in months. Demand hasn't increased in months by a factor of 2 and neither has supply gone down by half. Its the ever weakening dollar. I just got back from 2 weeks in europe and the Euro is solid and sound and the dollar is getting trashed. So oil which is valued in dollars goes up as the dollar gets weaker.

Part of good commodity trading is knowing exchange rates. Traders have caught on that our dollar is dropping, so they bid up oil and other commodities accordingly.

McCain disappointed (and lost) me when he started making nice-nice with the radical right-wing fundamentalist "Christians" who in reality are bigoted, hatemongering homophobic hypocrites.

I've switched my allegiance to the next president of these United States, Barack Obama.

there was in fact, concern among many analysts and fund managers that the Fed would be playing politics, and keep interest rates high, as a political move, to keep the price of oil low (i.e., keep the US Dollar highly valued)

Thats a really good question. With most European countries on the Euro, and the Euro is not subject to political folly as in *priming the pump* by easing interest rates, the Euro has remained strong. Brazil's economy has gotten stronger by strengthening the Real. I was in Italy and they aren't happy with the Euro but Italy has always been screwy with economics.

When you say socially encompassing I don't know what that means. We need a sound currency. If we raised basic Fed interest rates, the dollar would rebound and gas prices should fall. Right now we are inflating away our debt. Is that a good idea? I sure wonder. With gasoline at $4/gallon, how is the average guy handling it? Thats real money to the regular guy.

I wasn't referring to your post, Zoe. I agree with you. I'm against making the Bush tax cuts permanent 1) because with the current rate of inflation it simply isn't a good time to keep taxes on the upper class at the levels they enjoy under Bush, and 2) I would be against ANY measure to keep ANY tax cuts permanent. The economy is fragile, and it changes all the time. The answer to everything isn't "cut taxes," regardless of what the right wing wants us to believe. If that were so then neither Bush I nor Reagan would have raised taxes because they were against it in principle, but they realized that handling the economy takes a bit of pragmatism.

I also agree with you on the supposed "gas tax holiday," but then again so does every economist in the country. It's a stunt that neither McCain nor Hillary would actually enact in reality, but it sure sounds fun!