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who do U think is the best president ever

Yea, Chirac and his lot are real conservatives
Probably not to most Americans, but to W. Europe, many would consider him conservative.
GDP per capita isn't higher.
Depends on which area. W. and N. Europe is higher, E. and S. Europe is lower.
 
Che said:
Uh, Not Wrong. Depression was serverly hurt when FDR proposed New Deal. Look at CWA, PWA, CCC, and TVA. Employed millions! That's the biggest crap I've heard in the past week. It was Hoover's "it's gonna end eventually" and trickle down policies that worsened the depression. Your facts are screwed because the upturn happened when The New dal was proposed. If you think that Supreme Courts ruling of NIRA and AAA being unconstitutional produced good results then think again my friend. Direct aid to people actually helps NOT hurts.

Direct aid does not help. In order to provide this direct aid, FDR and Hoover had to take money out of the economy, which costs jobs. Government is a zero-sum game. I don't know why you can't see this.

Read this essay by Enlightenment French thinker Frederic Bastiat:
http://bastiat.org/en/twisatwins.html

Che said:
More people live comfortably in France compared to here. Although we have only 5% unemployment rate, there is at least a 15% poverty rate which is just as dangerous. In France that doesn't exsist.

I think the minority groups in France aren't acutally that bad. Conneticutter, you obviously have no idea how horrible conditions are in minority communities today. There is drug deals and deaths daily. This isn't what happens in France.

First of all, don't you make assumptions about what I know and what I don't know about conditions in this country. That's a typical tactic from left-wingers that has no substance, and I'm not going to let you get away with it.

Secondly, as far as I know the only European country with the higher GDP per capita is Luxembourg. The drug problem is a direct result of the war on drugs, not capitalism. French society is being torn apart both on the economic side with their socialistic and state-run practices (which Chirac for the most part continues), and on the cultural side where they ban religious symbols and the like.
 
Connecticutter said:
Direct aid does not help. In order to provide this direct aid, FDR and Hoover had to take money out of the economy, which costs jobs. Government is a zero-sum game. I don't know why you can't see this.

Read this essay by Enlightenment French thinker Frederic Bastiat:
http://bastiat.org/en/twisatwins.html


What economy? Millions were jobless? Common Stock was worth nothing. An anonomous quote goes as following "10 men can buy the world. 10 million can't even buy enough to eat". We needed jobs and relief for people without money. Unfortunately, we couldn't just forget about them as Conneticutter seems to imply. We needed jobs, relief, housing, and faith in the future. FDR brought us that because we were in a time of disaster.

First of all, don't you make assumptions about what I know and what I don't know about conditions in this country. That's a typical tactic from left-wingers that has no substance, and I'm not going to let you get away with it.

Secondly, as far as I know the only European country with the higher GDP per capita is Luxembourg. The drug problem is a direct result of the war on drugs, not capitalism. French society is being torn apart both on the economic side with their socialistic and state-run practices (which Chirac for the most part continues), and on the cultural side where they ban religious symbols and the like.

Capitalism is bitch to the other half my friend. People who have a public school education have a minimal chance of becoming rich. Those who can't afford private schools will have a very small chance of making it to college. Thus the average job for this person will be a janitor or garbageman. No one likes being poor and many will take drugs or alchohal for there misery. Then others will work to provide the drugs because they have high value. This little community of fiends and dealers will form and government doesn't try to do anything to stop it compared to France. Why does this not happen in France? Because Public schools are better run and have more money pumped into them. Public education is very good in France and colleges are affordable. More people get good jobs, and those who can't get good jobs will get better support and easier opportunities to find jobs.
 
Che said:
What economy? Millions were jobless? Common Stock was worth nothing. An anonomous quote goes as following "10 men can buy the world. 10 million can't even buy enough to eat". We needed jobs and relief for people without money. Unfortunately, we couldn't just forget about them as Conneticutter seems to imply. We needed jobs, relief, housing, and faith in the future. FDR brought us that because we were in a time of disaster.

And it didn't work, as has been well documented. So what's so good about FDR's policies? If you think that pushing socialist policies is good regardless of the consequences, then you are the one who is "forgetting about them."

Che said:
Capitalism is bitch to the other half my friend. People who have a public school education have a minimal chance of becoming rich.

That's because there is no competition in the public schools and the unions keep it that way. If they were opened up to competition, they would improve, as has been shown in any area that has a truly competitive voucher system.

Che said:
Those who can't afford private schools will have a very small chance of making it to college. Thus the average job for this person will be a janitor or garbageman. No one likes being poor and many will take drugs or alchohal for there misery. Then others will work to provide the drugs because they have high value. This little community of fiends and dealers will form and government doesn't try to do anything to stop it compared to France.

First of all, many people in public schools go on to college.

Secondly, I take issue with this whole buisiness of being trapped in poverty. Look at the statistics. If you graduate high school, avoid having kids out of wedlock, and hold onto any job for a single year, it's been shown that you will almost certainly not be poor.

It's also been shown that those earning at the bottom 20% have almost all moved up after 10 years, so in the next census there's a different bottom 20%. This has mostly to do with age.

The drug problem, like I said, is due to the black market created by the war on drugs, and is not a symptom of poverty.

Che said:
Why does this not happen in France? Because Public schools are better run and have more money pumped into them.

Our failing public schools are paying $10,000 per student!!! Money is not the issue here. Here's an interesting expose:
http://abcnews.go.com/2020/Stossel/story?id=1500338&CMP=OTC-RSSFeeds0312

Che said:
Public education is very good in France and colleges are affordable. More people get good jobs, and those who can't get good jobs will get better support and easier opportunities to find jobs.

Which is why unemployment is twice as large? and minority communities are marginalized and impoverished? I can't keep going around and around like this! Get your facts straight.
 
Connecticutter said:
And it didn't work, as has been well documented. So what's so good about FDR's policies? If you think that pushing socialist policies is good regardless of the consequences, then you are the one who is "forgetting about them."

Here's a document stating that The New Deal helped. When removed to Economy plunged again.

http://www.socialstudieshelp.com/Lesson_90_Notes.htm

Here's a link showing how your wrong about the New Deal not Working and how I'm right :lol:

http://www.co.broward.fl.us/library/bienes/lii10204.htm

"the WPA eventually employed approximately one-third of the nation’s 10,000,000 unemployed, paying them about $50.00 a month."

keep in mind that this is only one program and that $50 was alot of money back then because you could go to the movies for a quarter.

That's because there is no competition in the public schools and the unions keep it that way. If they were opened up to competition, they would improve, as has been shown in any area that has a truly competitive voucher system.

Unions are good because they stop teachers from being paid $5.15 an hour to teach in a room of 40 kids.

However, there should be high federal academic standards on education in our schools.

First of all, many people in public schools go on to college.

Not nearly as many that come from private and the graduation rate is many times below 30%.

Secondly, I take issue with this whole buisiness of being trapped in poverty. Look at the statistics. If you graduate high school, avoid having kids out of wedlock, and hold onto any job for a single year, it's been shown that you will almost certainly not be poor.

You act like getting a job is easy...

It's also been shown that those earning at the bottom 20% have almost all moved up after 10 years, so in the next census there's a different bottom 20%. This has mostly to do with age.

Which is why BBC reported that people in Poverty in America are on the rise each year and as of 2004, 37 million were under the poverty line.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4198668.stm

The drug problem, like I said, is due to the black market created by the war on drugs, and is not a symptom of poverty.

Yes it's that but also I sometimes think of it like this: when you have a hard day you'll come home from work sit on the couch and have beer. When you have a hard life and every day is hard, you may decide to take something more than a beer...

Not that I support people taking drugs, but you can see why people take drugs.

Our failing public schools are paying $10,000 per student!!! Money is not the issue here. Here's an interesting expose:
http://abcnews.go.com/2020/Stossel/story?id=1500338&CMP=OTC-RSSFeeds0312

Which is why I support federal academic requirements. I've written to my congressman about it (although I not sure he got it) and I urge you to do so to. There may be 10,000 per student if all averaged out, but take into account that the neighborhoods that have more money get better schools while the ones without don't get good schools. Also if you give three schools 1000 dollars each, one may use it for construction one may use it to deal with unions, and others may use it to build basketball court.


Which is why unemployment is twice as large? and minority communities are marginalized and impoverished? I can't keep going around and around like this! Get your facts straight.

Our minority communities are just as bad if not worse. My facts are straght. We have more people in poverty, and they have a larger middle class
 
Che said:
Here's a document stating that The New Deal helped. When removed to Economy plunged again.

http://www.socialstudieshelp.com/Lesson_90_Notes.htm

And here's a quote from your source:

"Still, after seven years of heavy government spending - 20 billion dollars worth - and the creation of an enormous federal bureaucracy that supervised the new programs, millions remained unemployed."

Che said:
Here's a link showing how your wrong about the New Deal not Working and how I'm right :lol:

http://www.co.broward.fl.us/library/bienes/lii10204.htm

"the WPA eventually employed approximately one-third of the nation’s 10,000,000 unemployed, paying them about $50.00 a month."

keep in mind that this is only one program and that $50 was alot of money back then because you could go to the movies for a quarter.

Just because a government agency employs a lot of people doesn't mean that it's doing a good thing. In order to fund this buisiness enterprise, the government had to take money out of the economy and took away jobs somewhere else. The government cannot just create wealth and jobs out of thin air.

Che said:
Unions are good because they stop teachers from being paid $5.15 an hour to teach in a room of 40 kids.

That's absurd. In free market competition, school's couldn't pay teachers 5.15 an hour because then there wouldn't be enough quality teachers willing to teach. Additionally, they wouldn't be able to stuff 40 children in a room because then the parents will take their kids elsewhere, or establish their own school.

Did you read my John Stossel link on this? Because I'm looking at your links :2wave: and therefore I would appreciate it if you take a look at mine. :smile:

Che said:
Not nearly as many that come from private and the graduation rate is many times below 30%.

I believe that is a byproduct of the failure of our public school system.

Che said:
You act like getting a job is easy...

Well, I sure know that getting a good job is a bitch. However, this poverty stat works any job, even a minimum wage job. Getting a minimum wage job is easy. I'll try to locate the source of the statistic.

Che said:
Which is why BBC reported that people in Poverty in America are on the rise each year and as of 2004, 37 million were under the poverty line.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4198668.stm

Keep in mind that the increase in the poverty level was very small, and that the poverty line measure is in no sense an objective, absolute measure. They are constantly "revising" the line, and I just can't in all seriousness compare one year to the next.

Anyway, this does not address my point. My point is this: It is found that the people in poverty in 1996 are mostly out of poverty in 2006. In 2016, the 2006 group will be mostly out of poverty, and we'll get a new group. In fact, most of those in poverty are younger people who don't have much work experience yet.

Che said:
Yes it's that but also I sometimes think of it like this: when you have a hard day you'll come home from work sit on the couch and have beer. When you have a hard life and every day is hard, you may decide to take something more than a beer...

Fine - but the poor are not the only ones using drugs. You also have these spoiled rich kids thinking they can get away with anything. People have it far easier than they did in 1900, for example, so why weren't we innundated with drugs in 1900. (I don't know exactly what the situation was in 1900, but I doubt the numbers are proportional to "toughness of work. If you find the stats, I'll concede your point).

Che said:
Which is why I support federal academic requirements. I've written to my congressman about it (although I not sure he got it) and I urge you to do so to. There may be 10,000 per student if all averaged out, but take into account that the neighborhoods that have more money get better schools while the ones without don't get good schools. Also if you give three schools 1000 dollars each, one may use it for construction one may use it to deal with unions, and others may use it to build basketball court.

And that's funny, because none of the money is actually going into educating the kids.

I found this from the Connecticut government website that outlines per-puil spending:
http://www.state.ct.us/sde/dgm/report1/cpse2005/table3.pdf

Note that the poorest towns still spend $8000 per pupil. That is certainly enough for a decent education, and I can tell you that the residents of Bridgeport and New Haven are not getting their moneys worth. Not by a long shot.

If the school stood to lost money and influence if they lost customers, then things would change. The money is already there.


Che said:
Our minority communities are just as bad if not worse. My facts are straght. We have more people in poverty, and they have a larger middle class

Okay, I'm going to have to see your source on that one.
Wow, long post.
 
Che said:
Not nearly as many that come from private and the graduation rate is many times below 30%.

Government schools can't meet the requirements. In the Los Angeles Unified School District, 20% of high school seniors can't pass a comprehensive exam based on an eighth grade level. Clearly the problem isn't money.


Che said:
You act like getting a job is easy...

It is easy. Got any skills? No? Then maybe for people without skills they have a little problem. Perhaps they should have paid attention to the teacher in high school? Whatever, they're lack of marketable skills isn't something I should be required to pay for. There's always strawberries that need picking, so it's not like they can't find a job, it's that they can't find a job that meets their picky requirements.

Tough excrement, eh?

Che said:
Which is why BBC reported that people in Poverty in America are on the rise each year and as of 2004, 37 million were under the poverty line.


Check out the poverty rate curve as a percent. It's been trapped below 15% for 30 years. Clearly it's not any particular president's policy that controls the "problem".

Personally, I don't think it's a problem. Most of the people in "poverty" in the United States have enough to eat, a car, a house, clean water, medical careplenty to chose from with their basic cable subscription.

Checking out this table, I find out that when I was going to college (and under 65), I was technically in "poverty". Isn't that special? Don't it just make mincemeat out of any whining about "poverty" in the United States? How many college students do you think live in "poverty"? And, of course, the government definition of "poverty" doesn't include in-kind assistance like food stamps and housing subsidies or medical care.
 
Last edited:
Chi said:
The euro socialists actually have a higher GDP then us.
And maybe all of Asia has a higher GDP than the US, they aren't very comparable numbers. You need to use GNI to compare areas with difference populations.

Che said:
Direct aid does not help. In order to provide this direct aid, FDR and Hoover had to take money out of the economy, which costs jobs. Government is a zero-sum game. I don't know why you can't see this.
Except when deficit spending, where you essentially take money from the future economy.

Che said:
What economy? Millions were jobless? Common Stock was worth nothing. An anonomous quote goes as following "10 men can buy the world. 10 million can't even buy enough to eat". We needed jobs and relief for people without money. Unfortunately, we couldn't just forget about them as Conneticutter seems to imply. We needed jobs, relief, housing, and faith in the future. FDR brought us that because we were in a time of disaster.
He helped a lot, and gave the American people hope. But when we look at the facts, little else but created a long lasting needless bureaucracy.

Che said:
Capitalism is bitch to the other half my friend. People who have a public school education have a minimal chance of becoming rich. Those who can't afford private schools will have a very small chance of making it to college. Thus the average job for this person will be a janitor or garbageman....
Why does this not happen in France? Because Public schools are better run and have more money pumped into them. Public education is very good in France and colleges are affordable.
My parents both went to public school, and got into college. I went to public school, and before I even graduate from high school I'll probably have my associates degree. And it was easy, cheap, and entirely possible.

Those who can't get into college because they went to public school are lazy. Me and all of my friends that are in public school are all going to college easily, and some of us already have 2-4 semesters of college credit because it's so easy. I've amassed almost two years of college credit while in high school. All of this in the heartland of "Utah's conservatism capitalist valley", the state who spends the least per student on education in the entire United States. Give me a break.

PS, I enjoy your Hughy Long quote. I'd be interested to know which partisan version of history would paint the murderous dictatorship leaning Long in a good light.

Connecticutter said:
And it didn't work, as has been well documented. So what's so good about FDR's policies? If you think that pushing socialist policies is good regardless of the consequences, then you are the one who is "forgetting about them."
He gave the people hope by conspicuously making jobs and handing out money. He gave thousands jobs, and had he lived, WWII never broke out, and he never tried to take more power, he probably could have had the country back in order by the mid 50's, maybe. That's not to say that the excessive bureaucracy created by FDR's policies wouldn't be a rather large problem, but the US would probably not be in a depression. It's a partisan (and flawed) view of history where FDR did nothing to help the economy.

Che said:
You act like getting a job is easy...
It is if you're lazy, of course. The rest of us do fine. Maybe you can't get a $20 an hour job with no education, but if you're expecting that, then you are (I'm sorry to say) quite the idiot.
 
-Demosthenes- said:
He gave the people hope by conspicuously making jobs and handing out money. He gave thousands jobs, and had he lived, WWII never broke out, and he never tried to take more power, he probably could have had the country back in order by the mid 50's, maybe. That's not to say that the excessive bureaucracy created by FDR's policies wouldn't be a rather large problem, but the US would probably not be in a depression. It's a partisan (and flawed) view of history where FDR did nothing to help the economy.

Well, I don't think that FDR caused the great depression. I think that there are many factors going into it which include the breakdown of international trade and policies of the federal reserve. I think if we had fixed those two problems, the depression would not have materialized out of the recession.

I think that to pretend that the depression was created by the free market and then it's new deal interventionism to the rescue is a partisan and flawed view.
 
Connecticutter said:
Well, I don't think that FDR caused the great depression. I think that there are many factors going into it which include the breakdown of international trade and policies of the federal reserve. I think if we had fixed those two problems, the depression would not have materialized out of the recession.

I think that to pretend that the depression was created by the free market and then it's new deal interventionism to the rescue is a partisan and flawed view.
I would have to agree.
 
Far and away it was GW!

Once he left office it became politics! He may not have accomplished much
but keeping the loose-knit confederation of newly independent states together
was a handful.

My hat is off to him. Every one since has been nothing more than a politico
for one party or another.
 
XShipRider said:
Once he left office it became politics! He may not have accomplished much
but keeping the loose-knit confederation of newly independent states together
was a handful.

My hat is off to him. Every one since has been nothing more than a politico
for one party or another.

He literally trans ended the political parties. And it is true that every president who tried this later was ruined.
 
I think that our constitution and government structure gave rise to the political parties. They were inevitable. Jefferson and Adams were allies in many way who found themselves pit against each other through the party system.

Anyway, Washington was still awesome.
 
Democratic-Republican governments seem to spur the creation of political parties, and other political alliances. They are almost necessary it seems.
 
FDR, hands down the best, followed by either of the Adamses. I would also include Samuel Adams, though unelected, he was the first 'unofficial' President, being very influential behind the scenes and as a writer.

Jefferson gets a lot of deserved credit for his writings, but he was a disaster as a President. George Washington is also overrated; he was only a 'rebel' because legal problems involving land swindles were catching up with him in England. He was another Reagan: wildly popular, but of no consequence or morality.
 
Picaro said:
Jefferson gets a lot of deserved credit for his writings, but he was a disaster as a President.
Merely the writer of the Declaration of Independence, the ideas came from the Continental congress. John Adams would shudder to hear that history sees Jefferson as the primarily responsible for the Declaration of Independence.

Picaro said:
Washington is also overrated; he was only a 'rebel' because legal problems involving land swindles were catching up with him in England.

You would definitely be in the minority when it comes to US historians. We're not sure why he was so popular, but it allowed him to lead the cause in the war. And he retired as General right after it was over because he thought the people would make him king, they elected him against his will, and he refused to be considered the third time. All so a monarchy-like government wouldn't take over, even one with him in charge.

Sound like a guy who's fighting over land?
 
-Demosthenes- said:
Merely the writer of the Declaration of Independence, the ideas came from the Continental congress. John Adams would shudder to hear that history sees Jefferson as the primarily responsible for the Declaration of Independence.

He wrote a lot more than the Declaration.

You would definitely be in the minority when it comes to US historians. We're not sure why he was so popular, but it allowed him to lead the cause in the war. And he retired as General right after it was over because he thought the people would make him king, they elected him against his will, and he refused to be considered the third time. All so a monarchy-like government wouldn't take over, even one with him in charge.

Sound like a guy who's fighting over land?

Sounds like a man covering his *** in uncertain political times, and who wanted to retire to his fine plantation of some 20,000 plus acres of prime riverbottom that cost him nothing, and loaf around.
 
Picaro said:
He wrote a lot more than the Declaration.

And I never said anything otherwise. He is famous for his involvement with the Declaration of Independence, which is a bit overblown. He did influence the establishment cause with his religious freedom book (Virginian Religious Freedom or something like that). He was important, but the romantic view we have of him now is not who the man was.

Picaro said:
Sounds like a man covering his *** in uncertain political times, and who wanted to retire to his fine plantation of some 20,000 plus acres of prime riverbottom that cost him nothing, and loaf around.

It's curious that he never owned more than 8,000 acres of land in his lifetime, and that his land, Mt. Vernon, had been in the family since his Great Grandfather, John Washington.
 
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