Do You Think George Bush PURPOSELY Tanked The Economy?

[mermaid]

I believe, sincerely, the Bush intentionally tanked the economy, so as to give many young, poor people no other option than joining the military, thus providing him with the fighting men he needed to go fight his dirty wars that profit and interest only the wealthy and well-connected (whose kids you NEVER see fighting these wars.)

What do you think?

[meti57b]

1. bush bankrupted the economy to de-fund present and future social programs.

[liberal N proud]

9. The reason they want to dismantle social programs is to

push the agenda of creating two classes
The have it alls
and
The have nothings

[FreedomAngel82]

29. Then you can also

have your "faith-based" programs and privitize everything so he doesn't have to ever have tax's and then never have anything for people who need it.

[ArkDem]

2. You can almost feel the intelligence dripping from this poll!

[sui generis]

3. republicans love inflation

because it changes the value of the dollar, and with a less valuable dollar the value of our debt (and the cost to pay it back) decreases.

Even small upticks in the inflation index create savings of billions on our foreign held debt.

Make no mistake, it is being manipulated, and like tax breaks for the wealthy and supreme court rulings on republican presidential candidates, they plan on pulling the ladder up behind them.

[tk2kewl]

4. To increase the price of oil. Up almost $40 since '99

[melissinha]

5. To keep the poor poor

Sure so that people would have no choice but to join the army... but theres more...

IF you drive the economy down, you can pay workers less and get more profit.

[Deep13]

25. Yep, ...

...and to make sure the Federal govt. is powerless to make social change. That Clinton surplus was a scarey thing to neocons.

[fertilizeonarbusto]

6. I think

it's mostly to dismantle social programs and set themselves in comfy power, like Sui Generis, points out, but, if a draft is needed to employ the "rabble" (that's us) usefully, all the better.

[Shoeempress]

7. I want to make the government small enough to drown in a bathtub.

Grover Norquist.

[Norquist Nemesis]

34. You rang?

One would think the Bearded Little Troll would be jumping for joy with all of Bush's policies full steam ahead and a Republican controlled Government to boot! The fact is, government size has increased under his policies. Policies espoused by the Bearded Little Troll.

More empirical data to prove the trickle down dogma is INcorrect.

The most ironic thing about these liars is that they'll claim credit for it once/when the Democrats are again in charge and balancing the budget. They'll be telling us that the policies of the past when the Republicans were in charge are finally starting to take effect and government is taking too much of your hard earned money! Rinse and repeat.

[AntiCoup2K4]

8. Why not? His grandpa did.

Prescott Bush and his Wall Street banker/Nazi funding friends are the ones who set up the 1929 stock market crash which led to the Great Depression.

Since Junior seems to be reliving that period of family history, it makes perfect sickening sense.

If you have already promised that you will not have a draft, as the Dumbass has, then you either lied and go back on your promise. Bush isn't opposed to lying, but he is opposed to being caught in a lie. Probably because of that "read my lips" thing that brought down his dad.

So, unable to have a draft, and left with a military which is losing voluntary enlistment (for obvious reasons) then the only option that's really left is to force people to join, and make it look voluntary.

How can this be done? Several different ways...

1) No job opportunities? Join the military. And you'll get an education (if you survive and ever get out of Iran)

2) Convicted of a drug offense? Join the military or go to prison. This is where right wing judges come in.

3) Can't pay off your credit card debt? (Thanks Joe Biden and other traitors) No problem! We'll sign you up for our new program. Just "serve your country" and we'll take care of that little problem for you.

Draft? Who needs one, with so many "volunteers".

[MessiahRp]

12. Isn't it strange?

That every downfall of our society in the last 100 years or so, the Bushes have close ties or can be implicated with?

-Prescott's deals with the Nazis and his role in the stock market collapse

-George Bush being implicated by some as having some connection with the JFK Assassination (check out conspiracy sites and his possible connection there) http://www.jfk-assassination.com

-George Bush's connection to the rise of the deficit and thus the following recession in the 90s

-George Bush's first Gulf War

-George W. Bush's theft of the 2000 election

-Jeb Bush's role in the theft of that election

-George W. Bush's connection to the Bin Laden Family after one of them attacked us on 9/11

-George W. Bush's corrupt administration and their attempt to overthrow the current social system for an ownership society as well as their attempt to erase the constitution.

-W's illegal war in Iraq and continuous war on terror elsewhere

Seems to me they are the root of all American evils over the past century.

Rp

[RaleighNCDUer]

15. Were Bush and/or Walker involved in the 1933 coup attempt

that was thwarted by Gen. Butler?

[MessiahRp]

16. That I don't know..

But I am sure many here.

I don't put anything past these slimes at this point.

Rp

[dutchdemocrat]

26. Samuel Prescott Bush

Don't forget Prescott Bush's fathter - Samuel Prescott Bush who started out as low-management for railroads, where he made the connections needed to move over to Buckeye Steel Castings Company. Buckeye harbored railroad strike-breaker sentiment from the president on down. It's founder was member of the "Cleveland Gatling Gun Battery",<11> called a military and social organization, set up in 1878, the year after nationwide railroad strikes the year before. This guns and railroad connection returns for World War I, when Buckeye Steel produced gun barrels and shell casings,<12> and Sam Bush was moved by his employer-owners puppet-masters into the position of chief of the Ordnance, Small Arms and Ammunition Section of the War Industries Board. Bush took national responsibility for government assistance to and relations with Remington and other weapons companies.<13>

Preacher's son Bush looks innocent until you are informed that his patron, Percy Rockefeller took control of Remington Arms in 1914. Frank Rockefeller was president of Buckeye Steel for three years from 1905-1908, followed by Sam Bush from 1908-1937, throughout the WWI years and the gunbarrel sales era of Buckeye. In 1915 a new Remington plant was constructed, operational by 1916 for the first world war, just in time to get a million rifle order from Russia. 67% of all the ammunition used in WWI by the US, Britain and Russia was sold by "Merchants of Death" Remington.

Samuel Prescott Bush was an early president of the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM), which is has always been anti-worker, anti-consumer-rights, and ultra-conservative. Three past presidents of NAM helped Robert Welch form the John Birch Society, to uphold the tradition of Sam Bush -- Bush's Buckeye Steel employees worked seven days per week, 12 hours per day. It's not a far step for son Prescott Bush managing Auschwitz slave labor worked to death.

During the height of American isolationism, a Senate Munitions Inquiry, often called the Nye Committee after its chairman, Senator Gerald Nye, critically examined the military-industrial complex of government agencies, corporations, labor unions, and banking. The Nye Committee has been portrayed as a naive isolationist search for evil arms dealers ("Merchants of Death") who caused wars, underplaying the social, intellectual, political, and cultural currents of the 1930s which have more recently been re-examined (see reference Coulter). The Committee was formed in August 1933. It examined World War I military-industrial finances in January and February 1936. In spite of this second historical connection, most of the records and correspondence of Samuel P. Bush's arms-related work with the government were destroyed at the National Archives, in order 'to save space'.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_P._Bush

[MessiahRp]

27. Wow...

Not that I didn't before but wow, do I hate the entire Bush Family.

Generation after generation of plundering our country and trying to wreck society. I'm not sure a family goes this deep rooted into the history of our country ever and certainly none has worked so hard to rob it of it's money, values, or constitution. Unbelievable what these jerks have done to our society as a whole during their existence.

Rp

[FreedomAngel82]

31. Yep

I noticed that yesterday that they are involved in everything since WW2. I wonder if any Bush's were around in the beginning of the country.

[FreedomAngel82]

30. So true

What I fear is another great depression and Bush trying to take away people's social security. :\

[Lone_Wolf_Moderate]

10. I'm not that cynical. I think he really believes,

as Reagan did, that his supply-side policies will work. No amount of economic sense, or fact, or truth, or political pressure can convince him otherwise. The Grover Norquists and Stephen Moores of this world know the truth, and really want the economy to tank, so they can blame it on government spending, and have an excuse to gut social programs.

[TahitiNut]

11. ANYTHING for cheaper labor and higher profits

The corporatist right has always liked higher unemployment (between 5% and 8%) because it drives down wages and drives up profits.

[AP]

13. Just like S&L scandal, just like 401(k) defunding, Bush transferred bill-

ions in wealth from middle and working class to the hands of the already wealthy, and that tanked the economy. Every consequence of this is intended: lower tax revenues and a desperate labor force that will work for less money. All this continues to concentrate wealth in the hands of capital and people with wealth.

It amazes me that any DU'er would think this wasn't all planned and intended.

[IrateCitizen]

14. The economy is hardly tanking for his main constituency...

The "haves" and the "have mores"....

They're making out quite fine, thank you very much.

In any event, the cracks in the economy for most of us were started long before Bush's arrival -- they just weren't visible yet. Reagan could be blamed for most of this, IMHO, due to his ignoring reality regarding the finite nature of energy supplies out of a desire to see "people get rich". Clinton didn't help things either, with his promotion of "globalization". Dubya has simply accelerated the process through his rich-friendly, worker-hostile economic policies.

[Tux]

17. Bush screwed the economy

So people would have to use faith-based programs. Desperate times makes for good converts afterall. How else would churches get members?

[fob]

18. Does george bush* masturbate horses?

Of course they did, it was getting mighty expensive to "share the wealth" with all us "regular folk". Crash the economy, start a war, buy low, hold, hold, hold, wait for a Democrat to fix things, sell high, trash Dem, repeat.

[Is It Fascism Yet]

19. Yep, it's a back door draft. The economy is still fine for those on top.

n/t

[earth mom]

20. Wow, I'm surprised at all the "no" votes!

Judging from all that I've read here and elsewhere the past 6 months, there is no doubt that * purposely tanked the economy for possibly some of the reasons already posted up thread but also very possibly with the intention for the economy to crash to such a degree here that U.S. creditors and/or the World Bank would have to take control of the country. There was an excellent article posted here on DU about this a few months ago, but I don't have the time this morning to look for it. The article made a helluva a lot of sense...as do some of the other reasons posted up thread.

What better way to control the masses than to make them fearful, hungry and desperate? :grr:

[FreedomAngel82]

32. Interesting point on the World Bank

Would make sense why he put Wolfowitz on there. He was wrong about everything on Iraq so he has some purpose at the World Bank.

[Cleita]

21. I wrote something along these lines in the following post.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=3661088#3662559

I think that once they tank the economy, they are going to build a military economy, paid for by oil revenues from the ME. I believe we are presently occupying it for that purpose. They already have the Saudi Royal family and Israel in their back pocket.

Jobs will be created in the factories building tanks, missiles, airplanes, ships and everything else needed to wage war. This will keep those who have signed a loyalty oath employed.

They will insure world dominance with the threat of war. At home we will be kept in line with militia type police like in Germany. Okay so I like to write fantasy and futuristic stories, but this could be what's at the bottom of the PNAC.

Anyway, it's the only thing that makes sense out of what they are doing, which on the surface seems irrational.

[Tim4319]

22. I think he tanked the economy so poor people have no choice

but to join the military. I feel is is dumbing down education, sending jobs out of the country, and denying the stem cell research all so that poor people will have no choice but to join the military. I feel he is doing this in order to make sure the rich, well-to-do kids will continue to run large corporations, while painting poor kids into a corner (join the military or bust).

These are just my feelings

[Protagoras]

23. We've been sacrificed on the alter of

Multinational Corporate profits. Sure there's some element of truth in all the answers above...but in the end...we needed to be squashed down en mass so that they could pave over us. We weren't being disposable enough..But Bush is working real hard to change all that.

Neocon Globalism at it's best.

[Ready4Change]

24. My "Other" reason:

I think Bush was raised steeped in the religion of Reaganomics. To him that is the way to make an economy work.

And, from his families perspective, this is correct. To them, wealth isn't a matter of numbers, it is relative. Not how much they have, but how much MORE they have than others. In that respect, Reaganomics excel. It drives a wedge right through the upper end of the middle class, intensifying the contrast between haves and have-nots.

The fact that Reaganomics rapidly create huge federal deficits that in turn damage consumer confidence, thus shattering the engine of the economy itself, doesn't enter Bush's awareness.

That last, to me, is the difference between Bush 43 and Bush 41. 41, I think, sees several steps into the process, and knows that the economy as a whole needs to somehow keep stumbling along. 43, however, can't think that far ahead. He's driving the economy deep into self destruction. Then he'll say "Oops."

[FreedomAngel82]

28. I think so too

Look at all the places his 2006 budget is cutting and then look at how he's STILL having tax cuts in a time of war. NO president has ever done that before!!! So of course he is! Not only for the reason you stated but also because his rich buddies can get richer and have it easy. He's gotta take care of his base and all.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

33. Yes....one of the goals of PNAC and the NeoCons is to reduce....

...US per capita salaries to force America to be more competitive within the world economy. Additionally, this will further destroy the American middle class by pushing its upper boundaries closer to the upper boundaries of the lower class.

And yes...the unemployed will enlist or be drafted into the military to feed the machine of the NeoCon Forever War.