What was President Bush's most memorable achievement in the last 6 years? Although I usually don't agree with him, I have to back him up and acknowledge that his most memorable moment was catching that 7.5 lbs bass. Good catch Mr. President!! "You know, I've experienced many great moments and it's hard to name the best," Bush told the weekly Bild am Sonntag when asked about his high point since becoming president in January 2001. "I would say the best moment of all was when I caught a 7.5-pound (3.402 kilos) [bass] in my lake,"
Without doubt his most memorable achievement was the several fold increase in oil prices and their companies.. Without Bush policies this would not have been possible....
How much has the value of your home increased? How much has your portfolio increased? How much has your tax bill been cut? Are you unemployed? I'll happily pay a buck or two more per gallon if it means my assets tripling.
bush came into office at a high water mark for the dollar and now we sit near 30 year lows. on a dollar adjusted basis, i think all major asset benchmarks are decisively down in real value during his term. tax cuts are good, but as an overall picture the hidden tax of a soft dollar far exceeds the cuts for everyone but corps with special breaks (for instance the energy industry) may be wrong there, but that's my read on it
Agreed! But I think these things are in spite of him rather than becuase of him. I did like his SSN proposal, or at least putting it on the table. He's had a terrible time in history to try and manage a country, but much of it is his own doing, or maybe better out would be lack of doing. No! I don't blame him for 9/11. No I don't blame him for going into Iraq. The intel of the time mandated action. But since then, man o man, what a friggin mess he's made of things.
the point is captainobv, even tho the prices of your assets may be higher, they're actually worth less because the dollar they're priced in fell more than they went up
No doubt that asset inflation is systematic of a cheaper dollar. Then again the dollar being on 30 year lows (though not quite, EUR at 126 equates to the old DM at 65 and DM traded 80 a few times in the 1980's) is systematic of Treasury yields being on 30 year lows as well. It's clear the administration actively pursued a weaker dollar policy in response to the 01-02 recession. I'm fine with that. A strong dollar at the expense of double digit unemployment and nonexistent exports is hardly utopia. There's a ying-yang to FX valuations. One can't be a WallMart employee and yet be a Neiman Marcus shopper. In other words it's great to say a beemer was cheaper under Clinton. unless of course your working on a Ford assembly line. So yes I agree AC that a weaker dollar is a soft tax, it's at least a soft import tax, forcing consumers to do the "right" thing by buying domestic products. I think with each year the dollar sits at the lower end of the range the greater the likelihood of improving the trade imbalance. Is the economy better today than ten years ago? I'd say at face value, clearly not. However I think the economy is undergoing necessary, systematic changes that although painful in the short run, they will enable us to better compete in the coming decade.
good points, i'm always neglecting to look at it in the context of employment and trade balance. so hopefully at these levels we've got more incentive for domestic consumption and production. ic that it's a stimulative approach seems like both barrels were loaded and fired coming off the bubble years into low rates and soft dollar. also good pt this being near a 30yr low on the dxy doesn't necessarily translate overall to being as low as it appears