Bush v. Clinton

The Dow Jones Industrial Average took a plunge this morning.  It got me thinking.  I wonder what the Dow looks like for the last 16 years.  8 years of Bill Clinton and 8 years (almost) of Bush.  I used data/sceenshot from Investor.com

Notice how the Bush years aren’t quite as good as the Clinton years.  Bush was touted as a business man when he was elected.  An energy guy too.  It was thought, incorrectly, that he would be able to implement a sensible energy policy and the Dow would do well.

I think Bush is not incompetent.  I think he did exactly what he wanted to do. He lowered taxes on the wealthy.  He made sure the energy companies had record profits at the expense of everyday people.  He toppled Saddam Hussein, who had insulted the family honor apparently.  He moved the judiciary WAY to the right, especially the supreme court.  We will be paying THAT bill for a long time.

I think Bush did exactly what he wanted to do.  I am disappointed that the Democrats can not find a way to combat his methods.  If it were up to me, which it isn’t, I would send bill after bill to Bush so that he can veto them. I would force the Republicans to do actual filibusters on TV, 24/7.  We should force them to show that they don’t care about anyone except themselves. Dems need to get serious and start fighting for what they believe in.

Oh well, maybe next time.  I just want to live to the day I can be scanned into my nanobot body.


Comments

11 responses to “Bush v. Clinton”

  1. Stop drinking that Kalifornia Kool-aid man.

    I am sure you benefited from the tax cuts, did you send the check back? Is it really unusual that only those who pay taxes got a tax cut?

    The Supreme Court of the U.S. has 4 Liberals (Breyers, Ginsburg, Souter and Stevens), 4 Conservatives (Roberts, Alito, Scalia and Thomas) and 1 linguini-spined moderate (Kennedy), how is that tilting left? Remember, it’s not who appointed them but how they’ve ruled that matters.

    Despite what polls you probably read in the NYT, LAT and Washington ComPost, the country is evenly split politically speaking. As I tell some of my Liberal friends, all you need to do is vote for people that represent your beliefs and once you have a majority you can push all kinds of bills around. For now you’ll have to content with veto after veto of pork barrel spending inside of military budgets.

    Nanobots will be illegal one day as embryonic stem-cells will be needed, sorry. 🙂

  2. Glen Lipka Avatar
    Glen Lipka

    I sent my tax cut check to the energy company for a bill that was twice as much as the previous year. I did save some to use for a $3 gallon of gas.

    The main point of this post is to compare the dow jones. I think it’s interesting to think WHY things happen. That is my primary viewpoint of the world. WHY is the most important question to me. It is what drives my UX thoughts as well.

  3. I always find it amusing when I see these kinds of posts. “See, when Clinton was in, the stock market went up a lot, now look at Bush, it didn’t go up as much. Thus we can conclude a Clinton presidency superiority.”

    This is an over simplification that implicates that the person who wrote this post doesn’t understand broad market dynamics as well as other underlying factors that move markets. The writer of this post also failed to mention these points in the context of an ongoing war and high energy prices. Clinton didn’t deal with driving an economy during war time.

    Additionally, many would argue that the policies of the Reagan era assisted greatly in creating conditions in which companies that started back in the 80’s (due to more availability of capital as a result of lower taxes, etc. etc.) drove the market conditions you see during the Clinton years as these companies expanded and rode the demand for their products during this last information-age explosion (Cisco, Sun, etc.).

    But heck, let’s just have the government take a majority of our resources and money, start big-slow-inefficient-bureaucratic-agencies and have them run our lives with their “intellectual superiority.”

  4. Glen Lipka Avatar
    Glen Lipka

    Dude, you are freaking out.

    I didnt make any such conclusions. I just like to look at patterns and behaviors and think about the underlying truths.

    Try and calm down. Take a deep breath. Think happy thoughts.

    You know, I said Toys R Us sucks because of bad user experience and detailed it out. I think the Bush presidency sucks because I am having a bad user experience with it. Isn’t it the same thing? Why are you tripping?

    Do you you have a happy place? I do. Its green with rolling hills and some trees.

  5. Have you thought the source of your experience with the Bush presidency might be due to bad hardware and limited ba ndwidth on your end? 🙂

    My chart for the same years shows my income has increased five fold, my UX has been fantastic.

    Did you know that a gallon of gas cost $0.40 in 1967? It has gone up $2.50 in 40+ years and we haven’t drilled or built a refinery in 30 years. Not bad uh?

  6. Glen Lipka Avatar
    Glen Lipka

    Just for audience research: I have categories on the blog that separate UX, Politics, Sports etc.

    What draws you to my blog? Definitely not the agreement on political issues.

  7. Your posts on UX drew me here initially, I just can’t help but comment on your political ones.

  8. This point is moot — Dems and Repubs are different sides to the SAME COIN.

  9. Glen Lipka Avatar
    Glen Lipka

    My foot with an M is moot. (Not quite Confucius quality wisdom, but its not bad)

  10. Nick Prignano Avatar
    Nick Prignano

    I also found your site to read about UX topics, but couldn’t help but notice this article, and wanted to drop my 2 cents – did you consider inflation in your equation? I hate Bush as much as the next guy, because lets face it, the guy is an idiot, but I also am sick of the argument that “when Clinton was in office, the economy did great.” Presidents have a minimized effect on the economy, and the effect they do have takes years to be realized – so is the reality of fiscal policy.

  11. Glen Lipka Avatar
    Glen Lipka

    @Nick. In general, I don’t/can’t attribute “reasons” why the chart is the way it is. Was the dot-com boom attributable to Clinton? At best, he didn’t ruin something tht was happening naturally.

    I think Presidents can have an effect on the economy over 8 years, but how much is debateable.

    In regards to Bush, I think he is an extremely good (smart) politician. I think he got almost everything he wanted. War with Iraq. Profits for big business, especially Enegery companies. Tax cuts. Deregulation. More money to religious groups. He accomplished his goals. They aren’t my goals, but I don’t consider him stupid. I think it’s 100% an act. He puts it on like a mask. (my opinion)

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