Worst President Ever?

EpicDude86 said:

My question is why is the FED a private bank?

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It's only quasi-private. It doesn't earn any profit, and its chairman are appointed by elected officials. It describes itself as "independent within the government," which I think is a fair characterization.

And it's better that way. If it was DIRECTLY subject to meddling politicians, it would likely make decisions that may be politically popular but drastically wrong. And its integrity would be compromised by politicians trying to get reelected by pledging to do this or that to the interest rates, when A) they have no idea what they're talking about, and B) neither do the voters.

Kandahar said:

HOW did the Fed turn regional problems into a national crisis?

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Because it's a NATIONAL bank.

Covers the whole nation.

It created the NATIONAL problem of easy money in the Twenties, it created the NATIONAL problem of pinched off money in 1929, and thereby created the NATIONAL problem of a massive stock market crash.

You were aware that the Federal Reserve operated throughout the entire nation, weren't you?

Kandahar said:

HOW would not having a Fed at all be superior to having a timid Fed,

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Damnifino.

How about you knock down your own strawmen? I said the FED caused the Depression. I didn't say the Don Knott's Fed or the Arnold Schwarzenegger Fed did the damage. I made no mention of strength or bravery or anything.

The Fed caused the economic boom, the Fed caused the economic crash by limiting the money it lent, the Fed made the crash it caused worse by....not lending money.

Also, needless to say this must be mentioned, the Congress violated the Constitution by transferring it's monetary duties under the Constitution to the privately owned Federal Reserve. No authority to abdicate it's power exists in the Constitution.

Kandahar said:

And WHY has their only been one depression (which you and I agree was exacerbated by the Fed not loaning ENOUGH money) in the nearly 100 years since the Fed was established, instead of one every 10-15 years as was the norm prior to the establishment of the Fed?

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Your argument here has absolutely no logical bearing in your attempt to refute the claim that the Federal Reserve caused the Great Depression.

Farmer John cut his toe off with his axe. Why didn't he cut off more? Because he learned to wear boots when chopping wood! Did he have to slice off his pecker before learning to not chop wood when nekkid? No. The lost toe was enough.

The Fed learned be gentler to the economy. But the economists at the Fed helped FDR make the Depression worse, because their theories weren't working.

Wanna know WHY we've never had a depression since the 1930's?

It's really simple.

FDR is in the unique position of having created the only depression inside a depression ("depression" was the word used to describe economic downturns at the time), and he didn't want the press to call it a depression, so he referred to it as a recession, instead.

We haven't had any "depressions", but we've have a lot of ****in' recessions since FDR. And it was the FED that exacerbated Peanut Farmer's economic problems, leading to a couple of new terms in the American lexicon, STAGFLATION and "Misery Index".

Scarecrow Akhbar said:

It created the NATIONAL problem of easy money in the Twenties,

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Bubbles happen all the time, but they don't typically cause depressions. Besides, the Fed was MORE constrained during the 1920s than it is now due to the Gold Standard. If this theory was correct, we should be seeing depressions MORE often now.

Scarecrow Akhbar said:

it created the NATIONAL problem of pinched off money in 1929, and thereby created the NATIONAL problem of a massive stock market crash.

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And how did you arrive at the conclusion that a pinched off monetary supply is an argument against the existence of the Fed, instead of an argument for the Fed to do even more? How would the economy have been better off if there WAS no Fed to loan money?

Scarecrow Akhbar said:

The Fed caused the economic boom, the Fed caused the economic crash by limiting the money it lent, the Fed made the crash it caused worse by....not lending money.

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So the Fed caused the Great Depression by not lending money. And therefore we'd be better off without this institution which was created to lend money...so that we don't have anyone to lend money. :doh

Scarecrow Akhbar said:

Also, needless to say this must be mentioned, the Congress violated the Constitution by transferring it's monetary duties under the Constitution to the privately owned Federal Reserve.

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The Fed isn't truly private or public, it's somewhere in between.

Scarecrow Akhbar said:

No authority to abdicate it's power exists in the Constitution.

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Article II, Section 2, Clause 2: He [the President] shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur; and he shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by Law: but the Congress may by Law vest the Appointment of such inferior Officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the Courts of Law, or in the Heads of Departments.

Scarecrow Akhbar said:

Farmer John cut his toe off with his axe. Why didn't he cut off more? Because he learned to wear boots when chopping wood!

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So logically you wouldn't blame the boots for his accident; they prevented it from being even worse.

Scarecrow Akhbar said:

The Fed learned be gentler to the economy. But the economists at the Fed helped FDR make the Depression worse, because their theories weren't working.

Wanna know WHY we've never had a depression since the 1930's?

It's really simple.

FDR is in the unique position of having created the only depression inside a depression ("depression" was the word used to describe economic downturns at the time), and he didn't want the press to call it a depression, so he referred to it as a recession, instead.

We haven't had any "depressions", but we've have a lot of ****in' recessions since FDR.

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We've ALWAYS had a lot of ****in recessions throughout American history. The difference is that they aren't so severe that they qualify as depressions anymore, and even severe recessions like the current one are rare. We've only had one depression since the establishment of the Fed, and none since the end of Bretton Woods. Prior to the Fed, we were averaging one depression about every 10-15 years.

Scarecrow Akhbar said:

And it was the FED that exacerbated Peanut Farmer's economic problems, leading to a couple of new terms in the American lexicon, STAGFLATION and "Misery Index".

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The Fed CAN'T cause stagflation. It's economically impossible. They can cut interest rates to reduce unemployment, or they can raise interest rates to reduce inflation. They can't do both.

Lincoln is not up there. He split our country in half and created a war over taxes.

vauge said:

Lincoln is not up there. He split our country in half and created a war over taxes.

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Lincoln did not split our country in half; the South broke off on its own accord.

Also, Lincoln did not create the Civil War; it started with a Confederate act of aggression.

Lincoln is not up there because Lincoln has no reason to be up there.

vauge said:

Lincoln is not up there. He split our country in half and created a war over taxes.

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but he free'd all the slaves...in...a country that didn't belong to him. HOW NOBLE!

The Tariff acts were against the south. Northerners were making money hand over fist and congress was passing tariff acts against the south highly taxing agriculture and liquor state to state trading. The southern economies were hurting and starving.

Lincoln originally ran as a Whig party pro-slavery candidate. Then Mr "honest Abe" pissed on the conventions and stacked the deck in his favor virtually creating a mockery of the Constitution and voting system to get the nomination. Later, he dissed the Whig party in favor of the National Union Party (war democrats) so that he could continue his war and kill thousands of our citizens from both the North and South. He was a mockery and barely was re-elected by only the Northern states.

In 1861 he also signed into law the Revenue Act of 1861 creating our first Income tax to fund his little war.

The acts of aggression were from the North and South. They were not uniquely from the Southerners. Granted most of these aggressive measures were because of slavery by this point. I think it was South Carolina that broke off and Abe ignored state sovereignty and the most precious paper that we have - again!

He is by far the worst pres we have ever had. Again, he split our nation in two. He was untrustworthy and deceitful.

During this time countries from all over the world were ending slavery. It was on path well before he became president. Don't get me wrong, ending slavery was one of the best things that America has ever done. But it wasn't by his hand alone. I believe that it could have been done with much less blood.

Edit: I prob never should have said anything. I wonder how long it will take for me to be called a racist?

Dav said:

Lincoln did not split our country in half; the South broke off on its own accord.

Also, Lincoln did not create the Civil War; it started with a Confederate act of aggression.

Lincoln is not up there because Lincoln has no reason to be up there.

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A Confederate act of aggression to get control of land in their own territory?

Wow, three posts defending the Confederacy in a row. That must be a new DP record.

phattonez said:

A Confederate act of aggression to get control of land in their own territory?

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I suppose the 1979 Iranian takeover of the American embassy was justified because the embassy was "in their own territory"?

Just because it is within the country's borders doesn't mean it belongs to the country. Otherwise, the Vatican and Monaco would not be independent states.

vauge said:

The Tariff acts were against the south. Northerners were making money hand over fist and congress was passing tariff acts against the south highly taxing agriculture and liquor state to state trading. The southern economies were hurting and starving.

Lincoln originally ran as a Whig party pro-slavery candidate. Then Mr "honest Abe" pissed on the conventions and stacked the deck in his favor virtually creating a mockery of the Constitution and voting system to get the nomination. Later, he dissed the Whig party in favor of the National Union Party (war democrats) so that he could continue his war and kill thousands of our citizens from both the North and South. He was a mockery and barely was re-elected by only the Northern states.

In 1861 he also signed into law the Revenue Act of 1861 creating our first Income tax to fund his little war.

The acts of aggression were from the North and South. They were not uniquely from the Southerners. Granted most of these aggressive measures were because of slavery by this point. I think it was South Carolina that broke off and Abe ignored state sovereignty and the most precious paper that we have - again!

He is by far the worst pres we have ever had. Again, he split our nation in two. He was untrustworthy and deceitful.

During this time countries from all over the world were ending slavery. It was on path well before he became president. Don't get me wrong, ending slavery was one of the best things that America has ever done. But it wasn't by his hand alone. I believe that it could have been done with much less blood.

Edit: I prob never should have said anything. I wonder how long it will take for me to be called a racist?

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I'm curious. Is this the standard Texan view taught to schoolchildren over there, or do you just enjoy being a rebel by claiming that the president which historians almost unanimously pick as the best president ever is actually the worst president ever?

Dav said:

Wow, three posts defending the Confederacy in a row. That must be a new DP record.



I suppose the 1979 Iranian takeover of the American embassy was justified because the embassy was "in their own territory"?

Just because it is within the country's borders doesn't mean it belongs to the country. Otherwise, the Vatican and Monaco would not be independent states.

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It's not the same situation. South Carolina was a part of the Union, and Fort Sumter was a part of South Carolina. When they seceded from the Union, then shouldn't they have gotten all of the land of their state? You're basically arguing that secession is illegal.

Again, notice how libertarians and some conservatives rage against Lincoln for his clamping down on individual rights and pursuing the confederacy at any point and never acknowledging their existence.

I completely disagree with that assessment of Lincoln.

The only definitive thing I can say about Lincoln is that he was not genuinely against slavery. The ending of slavery is often always attributed to Lincoln, but he had very little to do with it. At most, he was saying the right things at the right moment.

If we strip that attribution away from Lincoln, very little is left.

The South had no moral leeway to rebel. They'd had a relatively firm hand on national law and the judiciary for decades leading up to the Civil War (presidencies, Congress, and the Supreme Court) and the moment they started losing their grip they panicked and quit the Union. The republic only worked for them when they had the power, and it was an especially sore point for the North that the South only began questioning the right of political majorities in Congress to govern when they themselves no longer had the clear majority or the oval office. They also started exaggerating their own fears and whipping themselves into a frenzy, imagining Lincoln had powers he couldn't have and believing just because the national government would no longer be an instrument for the expansion and preservation of their way of life; they could have still had that way of life in their own states, so far as they were able to maintain it by their own means.

The only definitive thing I can say about Lincoln is that he was not genuinely against slavery. The ending of slavery is often always attributed to Lincoln, but he had very little to do with it. At most, he was saying the right things at the right moment.

If we strip that attribution away from Lincoln, very little is left.

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I disagree, although, Lincoln did not orchestrate the anti-slavery movement to the degree often imagined by the American people nowadays. He was, nonetheless, against slavery and played a key role in the anti-slavery political network as the Civil War waged on.

Morality Games said:

I disagree, although, Lincoln did not orchestrate the anti-slavery movement to the degree often imagined by the American people nowadays. He was, nonetheless, against slavery and played a key role in the anti-slavery political network as the Civil War waged on.

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Actually, upon closer inspection, it would seem Lincoln would be an opportunist when it comes to the topic of slavery. Before the Civil War, he was not known for siding with the abolitionists, in fact I believe he was indifferent of it. It was only when anti-slavery sentiments became a useful tool for rallying against the South (during the Civil War), did Lincoln actually gave his support towards Abolition.

Sure, you can say he played a key role, but no more than a single brick in an entire wall.

Or rather (if I remember correctly), against slavery, and to some extent or another, interested in its abolition, but of less general importance to the strength of the union.

Scarecrow Akhbar said:

Woodrow Wilson.

Passed the 16th, 17th, and 19th Amendments.

DRAGGED the US into WWI - thereby setting the stage for WWII.

Created the Federal Reserve, which caused the Great Depression.

Enacted unconstitutional anti-sediction laws criminalizing freedom of expression (see "Eugene Debbs")

League of Nations failure.

Others I'm too lazy to list.

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Oh yeah - that's just aweful, he passed the 19th Amendment :roll:

You mother would make you eat that.

Aunt Spiker said:

Oh yeah - that's just aweful, he passed the 19th Amendment :roll:

You mother would make you eat that.

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Too late, Aunt. We covered this already, and he ate...crow.

Boosh!

Fiddytree said:

Too late, Aunt. We covered this already, and he ate...crow.

Boosh!

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LOL

But it's not official until I sing.

Fiddytree said:

Or rather (if I remember correctly), against slavery, and to some extent or another, interested in its abolition, but of less general importance to the strength of the union.

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I think you're correct. Lincoln was much more interested in keeping the Union intact, which of course meant that he had to appease the South by laying off of slavery. When the South seceded, he needed to side more with the Republicans to gain support, and therefore made the appropriate ideological change.

Aunt Spiker said:

LOL

But it's not official until I sing.

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That doesn't work well on a forum.

Post lyrics instead.

Lightdemon said:

I think you're correct. Lincoln was much more interested in keeping the Union intact, which of course meant that he had to appease the South by laying off of slavery. When the South seceded, he needed to side more with the Republicans to gain support, and therefore made the appropriate ideological change.

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Politics is politics, and difficult choices are made by leaders, eh?

Fiddytree said:

Politics is politics, and difficult choices are made by leaders, eh?

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Some things just never change.

Dav said:

I'm curious. Is this the standard Texan view taught to schoolchildren over there, or do you just enjoy being a rebel by claiming that the president which historians almost unanimously pick as the best president ever is actually the worst president ever?

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My, what a thoughtful response...

Barack Obama. I don't believe this is a premature decision, because he is only implementing the disastrous polices of the Carter administration, but on a much larger scale. No brainer.