Clinton left the country with a balance budget.

His zipper might of needed work but he left the country in good shape.

Requirements for borrowers were eased during his administration and he appointed the main people who ended up milking Fannie Mae for millions. He really laid the "turd" before Bush. Bush was just unlucky enough that it started stinking when he became president.

Wasn't there also this little issue about one of Bin Ladens speed boats crashing into one of out military ships? We could have had him then, pre-911.

Still think he left the country in great shape? There are many Presidents who get credit and catch blame for things that really aren't of thier doing.

You are trying to tell us that after eight of Bush, its Clinton fault that the country is in trouble? :rolleyes:

Not entirely. All I am saying is that housing industry (Fannie Mae in particular) is a large contributing factor that the economy is in such bad shape, IMO, and that Clinton DID make it easier for people with bad credit to get Fannie Mae loans and that he DID appoint the people, who years later (just recently) got in trouble for milking Fannie Mae out of millions of dollars.

I never said Bush doesn't deserve blame. I just said that these two things that Clinton did ended up hurting us later. It wouldn't have mattered who was president. Everyone is very quick to blame the current President for bad things and give them credit for good things. Reality of it is that SOME of these things were set in motion long before that president took office.

The worst thing that Clinton did was to sign NAFTA. That has hurt our economy far more than anything in the banking sector.

Yeah, and once again that was something that took years and years to see the full effects.

It usually does. Our economy has been on a steady decline since the early 1970s for a variety of reasons, most of them long term problems which affect things very slow and gradually. There have been a few spikes in the decline like in the late 1990s, but for the most part, adjusted for average cost of living, the average American earns about half of what he did 40 years ago. Two people in the family must work full-time today to have the same standard of living that one full-time wage earner gave them in 1970. My generation ("Generation x") are the first to have a lower standard of living than our parents. Unless we make some major changes to our economy, that trend will surely continue to the next generation.

Nonsense. You prefer protectionism? NAFTA isn't perfect, but it beats the alternatives.

Any economic decline is hard to pin on NAFTA. Reductions in manufacturing jobs, for instance, have more to do with lack of productivity, lack of capital investment, and so on.

And just to link your last two posts, if the economy has been sliding since 1970 (your phrase) then how can you blame NAFTA which was signed in 1992? What caused the first 22 years of decline?

Yes, Americans do indeed lack the same productivity of Mexicans. We lazy Americans refuse to work 80 hours per week for $50, no bathroom breaks, and no benefits. I suppose if we were as productive as those Mexicans, maybe all of those factories would not have moved south.

Or maybe we should be as productive as they are in Burma. They have slave labor over there. That's why so many products now come from there. Maybe if we all worked for free, we could be as "productive" as they are too.


Wage decline caused it. The middle class has been steadily growing poorer over the past 40 years. That means the majority of consumers have less money to spend than they once did.

As any economist knows, in order to keep the economy moving well, you must get consumers to spend money. If they don't earn enough money from their jobs, then you need to get the money to them in another way. That's where the banks and credit cards come in.

Forty years ago, very few people had credit cards. Other than getting a mortgage or a car loan, few people borrowed any additional money from the bank. Today, in order to keep the same standard of living as normal middle class people did decades ago, most middle class families are hugely in debt. That is what has kept the economy moving the last 40 years. Without all that credit, the economy would have shrunk long ago due to lack of consumer spending. The credit has allowed people to live beyond their means, and thus spend more money.

But as we are seeing now, there is a limit to how much you can lend people before they finally default. And we have reached that limit.

Basically, those overseeing our economy have been kiting in order to make the "good times" last. But as always happens, eventually you get caught because the amounts get too high.

You are focusing on Mexico. You should focus on your largest trading partner. And if you want to focus on Mexico, you should talk about textile jobs (and the accompanying legislation on origin) and dumping cheap agricultural products into Mexico, and not just on factories.

When did Burma join NAFTA? Must have missed it. :rofl:

You just disproved your own argument re NAFTA causing an economic slide in the US. First you said that slide had gone on for 22 years. Now you say that US wage decline has gone on for 40 years. Once again, NAFTA came along in 1992.

Your turn. Time to bring the WTO and corporate elite into it, I think.