Letters to the Editor
-
A gang of liars and thieves
The bulge in credit expansion happened mostly during the Bush tenure. W spent a week interviewing Bernanke before he offered up his appointment. The Democrats didn't seem to have any problem with that, or any other Bush nominee, that made it through their vetting process.
The Dems promised PayGo, and to defund the war in Iraq, but did neither.
Quite simply there were a lot of ways the economy could have been improved with a diversion of funds.
Bush got caught with his hand in the cookie jar in the Dubai port deal, a quid pro quo which would have allowed the UAE port ownership, in exchange for US military posts guarding the straits of Hormuz. It was the linchpin in the war against Iran.
Paulson used his influence at GS to rejigger the commodity index in the spring of 2004, which drove gasoline prices lower, in an attempt to influence the midterm elections.
The SPR was probably also manipulated to bring crude oil prices down, which it now seems were absurdly low at the time.
The Bush admninistration has always talked a strong dollar and done nothing to support the currency.
Like everything else the level of mendacity is stultifying. It is quite generally acknowledged that the level of information from the BLS, and the way economic figures are calculated in the CPI are so disingenuous as to be laughable.
The next President has the opportunity to clean up the woodshed, and expose the Bush administration for what it was, a gang of liars and thieves.
The only way forward rests with a decent honest accounting of economic figures, a true estimate of the cost of the war in Iraq, and the bottom line on the Bush debacle.