The truth keeps getting in the way of the left's agenda......

I think you are referring to where I said "Bush put the final nail in"... in that I was talking about the housing (and banking) messes started by Clinton. The war thing referred to increasing our debt, and while that didn't help, I'd agree it didn't cause the recession. As far as oil is concerned, I could use some help understanding why it fluctuates so drastically. I know a few things, like that if a Saudi prince gets a hangnail, the price of a barrel jumps up a couple bucks.... but besides that it seems like nothing but speculation.

 

I should add though... I'm not trying to explain every reason why the recession hit, only that IMO Obama's not doing that bad dealing with it. It's not an easy fix, and I think just about everyone could agree with that. It's more the methods he's using that angers some, but I wonder what others would do if they were president. I would pull a Palin and quit LOL

 

That is not the way I read your words, but I see the way you were trying to say it now.

As for the price of oil, a lot of it is speculation, but not all speculation is what most think it is. During the last oil price surge, there was one airline that was making money - a lot. Southwest had managed to "speculate" itself into a great deal and was paying the pre-surge prices it had paid for earlier ($2ish per gallon) while most others were paying the going rate ($4ish per gallon). I assure you that lots of other utilities, transports, etc. did the same thing saving the customers literally billions. Such speculations are a part of the price structure of oil, but I cannot tell you how big a part.

 

Our economic woes can be attributed to one thing: Lack of confidence. The people aren't confident & businesses aren't confident. Think about it, you see it every day. How many major decisions, whether at home or at work, are affected by a lack of confidence in how the economic landscape will look tommorrow? My job is business consulting & the customers I meet with daily all seem like broken records...."we're just not sure". The lack of confidence manifests itself in many different ways...no hiring, no expansion, no investment, etc...but results in one- economic stagnation. Having a novice at the helm has caused this mess. No one knows what his goals are or what his policies are intended to achieve. It's like he throws money at the wall just to see what sticks with little or no regard to the big picture. Until businesses are satisfied they won't be taxed & regulated to death or creamed by the bureacracy of Obamacare things just won't be getting any better. Businesses are sitting on a lot of cash & they are itching to spend it but they are scared of what the next BO folly may cost them.

 

If there is no demand, there will be no production. If there is no production, there will be no jobs. If there are no jobs, there will be no demand. It is a viscous cycle. I don't know how you break the cycle and it is possible that we won't or can't. The 'New Normal' theory. But it does seem that businesses are sitting on quite a bit of cash while the potential consumers have no confidence that they will have any extra cash to spend be in the near term do to many factors. Job uncertainty. Pay uncertainty. High fuel prices. Rising food costs. Etc.

 

The President (regardless of who it is at a particular time) sets the tone. The agenda he lays out and the vision he shares are the impetus. BO is erratic and either plays it too close to the vest or is truly clueless. Either way we have seen and felt the results.

 

Obama has to be a wet dream for the Republicans. Its almost as good as having an actual Republican in the White House and maybe even better than that in actuality since they can blame him for things where they would never blame a Republican president. Obama has to be the worst negotiator on the planet. The Republicans had their way with him on the Bush Tax Cuts and are going to again with the debt ceiling cuts.

 

If banks and mortgage companies gave the deals(interest rates) then that they are giving now; would these people have defaulted en masse? And it wasn't just the poor. A lot of people bought houses as investments, then couldn't sell them for their ''worth''. Also, part of the blame were the deceptive practices by these entities to inflate their bottom line. I'm not excusing these deadbeats or their stupidity(I think to own a house, you should be able to read a contract)but there is enough blame to go around.

 

I agree.