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Simple answer, because a generation of Young Americans got "Bush is really bad" confused with "Obama is really amazing" and now they have realised that he is merely a man, and cant change the world in a year, they think he sucks.

Welcome to the real world. Cynical Brits like me have known for a long time that ALL politicians are slimy little toads. Its simply a case of "who will screw me the least" not "who can change the world for the better" and i think alot of people have realised it.

Dont misunderstand me, i much prefer Obama to Mcain, if only for the republicans appalling choice of VP, but really, the furore and expectation surrouding BA was ridiculous. What on earth did they think he was going to do?!

Legalize gay marriage, reform healthcare, revisit foreign policy, and give articulate speeches.

Honestly, the notion that Obama's supporters see him as some form of world changing savior is ridiculous hyperbole. I was at one of the most liberal school in the nation during his campaign, and while the support for him bordered on the irrational when he was running against Hillary, it was not at all like that during the race against McCain.

The fact remains that the 'Young Americans' who supported him during the campaign probably still support him because he's doing most of the things they wanted him to do.

Honestly, the only thing I took away from this election is that most Americans seem to have learned tact, and communications skills on the internet: where everything is either awesome, or crap.

Honestly, the only thing I took away from this election is that most Americans seem to have learned tact, and communications skills on the internet: where everything is either awesome, or crap.

Apart from yourself and a select few (selected by me, of course ) - this website is not evidence for this. And yes, I'm aware that pointing that is, somewhat ironically, rather tactless.

Albatross wrote:

Honestly, the only thing I took away from this election is that most Americans seem to have learned tact, and communications skills on the internet: where everything is either awesome, or crap.

Apart from yourself and a select few (selected by me, of course ) - this website is not evidence for this. And yes, I'm aware that pointing that is, somewhat ironically, rather tactless.

Sorry bro, but quite frankly... and seriously...



I.E., a obvious ploy, rather a well disguised, yet extremely misplaced ploy... and you fell into it. TIGER TRAP!!!

Find the information that Dogma is citing to prove this, and I will give you a cookie. If more people, with a higher quota of communication skills, have entered the arena; that is clearly a different meaning that what he directly implied. Lacking skills before, that awesome group, learned those skills, came online, and saved the goddam day. No... clearly, and epically no...

Take a large group, from different sites, and sample that. You will end up with roughly the same numbers as before. There have always been things that bump in the night, but the internet has little to do with communication. It has everything to do with presentation (inferring that a larger umbrella is needed, obviously).

y'know I kinda like obama

Dont misunderstand me, i much prefer Obama to Mcain, if only for the republicans appalling choice of VP

Indeed, my decision would have been made that much harder if McCain hadn't of been running with Palin as his VP. I fething hate Palin, I can't believe there are people out there who seriously want her to run for president in 2012.

Anyway, unlike some I wasn't under the impression that Obama would magically make everything better just a few months into his presidency, I knew full well it would take time, so that could be why my opinion of him hasn't really changed drastically since. That doesn't stop other people from constantly trying to make me regret it, though.

Fateweaver wrote:I am working on my accounting degree now so that I know how to do 3 things that can score me cash. If I wanted to get ASE certified it is a 9mo course and could then have 2 degrees in less than 4 years.

Hang on, you're working on an accounting degree that has no Economics component? What kind of Commerce degree is that?


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JEB_Stuart wrote:You can't deny that the US not only wastes more then any other country in the world, but that our economy is almost completely abstract. Our industrial capacity is pretty much done for, we don't export nearly as much as we should, and we are falling further and further in to debt. Basic economics indicates that this is not a wise road to take. You are right Shuma, we are in a consumerist model for our economy, but you are wrong in not pointing out that it is a poor model at best, or a dangerous one at worst.If you think that he was using the purchase of cellphones as the cause of waste then you are either willfully ignoring his use of one example in order to put him down or you are naive. He makes an excellent point about waste and how people don't save money or value what they have, and that should have been acknowledged....

Throwing stuff away has nothing to do with a prosperous economy. There is no substantial link between the two. People are only talking about the two ideas because Fateweaver raised it as the cause of the struggling US economy, and Fateweaver has already explained his complete lack of knowledge and interest in economics.

People bemoan the loss of industrial capacity a lot, as some indicator of the decline of a country. Thing is, most industry is low value added, which is means that is very hard to be really good at it compared to other countries in the world. You need no organisational capacity, very little technology and absolutely no skill base to start up a textiles plant. As a result the source of advantage in textiles in low labour rates. As a result, the countries with very low labour rates dominate textiles and other low value added industry. It's worth noting that as China has grown it's income per capita the textile plants in the major cities have become non-competitive, and so they've moved into poorer regions in China, or even into the other poorer Asian countries.

Now, the big thing to remember is that the real measure of an economy is the income level. That is, economies that are providing their citizens with high incomes are better than economies providing their employees with low incomes. So how do you grow incomes while keeping low value added industry?

The answer is that you don't. Instead you shift your economy into industries that can sustain high incomes, and that means you shift to high value added industries, where organisational capacity and a highly skilled workforce are needed. You move into high tech manufacturing, into high end service provision. The only alternative is to pay the same wages as China.

Now, the US certainly has economic problems. There has been decades of solid growth in GDP, but this growth has centred entirely on the wealthiest people, and the result is a continual erosion of the middle class, to the point now where the median income is lower than it was in the 1970s. Savings are poor across the board, this limits the funds available for investment and causes the US to look overseas for investment capital - hurting the trading account (this is due in part to cultural values, in part to the set up of the financial sector and in part due to Greenspan trying to maintain growth rates through unsustainable monetry policy). And government debt is harming long term growth (people make a lot of noise about the stimulus but the stimulus probably should have been bigger than it was, the US budget problems are long term problems, due to unsustainble deficits during good economic conditions - and that's a problem with the overall lack of party accountability for the budget at the political level, too little whip control and too much regional politics leads to horrendous levels of pork barrelling... good luck solving that one).


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jamessearle0 wrote:erm i cant fething stand that he got the nobel peece prize for doing feth all, what a prik

You know he didn't award the nobel peace prize to himself, right? That you're calling him a prik because of decisions other people made. Obama didn't deserve the prize, but he didn't campaign for it and appeared quite embarrassed when he received it.

If I was to call your post the most inciteful post on US politics in 2009, it wouldn't be true. But would be a prik because someone else gave you undue credit?

sebster wrote:
Hang on, you're working on an accounting degree that has no Economics component? What kind of Commerce degree is that?

Accounting is usually considered a technical specialty in the US. You will pick some of it up if you earn an economics, or business, degree. But you usually don't get any economics, or business training if you earn an accounting degree.

The majority of US educational programs, in my experience, are highly specialized. If you want anything like a liberal arts education you pay through the nose (like I did).

dogma wrote:Accounting is usually considered a technical specialty in the US. You will pick some of it up if you earn an economics, or business, degree. But you usually don't get any economics, or business training if you earn an accounting degree.

The majority of US educational programs, in my experience, are highly specialized. If you want anything like a liberal arts education you pay through the nose (like I did).

Yeah, I don't think you need the education across the board that you'd get from a liberal arts degree, but to be anything other than a tax clerk you need a foundational understanding of economics.

Do they do finance and management accounting? Or is it just IFRS and the tax code and you're out the door?

sebster wrote:Yeah, I don't think you need the education across the board that you'd get from a liberal arts degree, but to be anything other than a tax clerk you need a foundational understanding of economics.

Do they do finance and management accounting? Or is it just IFRS and the tax code and you're out the door?

All of my friends who did accounting all received training in more then just tax code. But maybe my uni's accounting program was more broad on purpose....

sebster wrote:
Do they do finance and management accounting? Or is it just IFRS and the tax code and you're out the door?

Depends on the program. Four year degrees are usually comprehensive, while two year degrees will give you the basics and then feed you to the CPA exam. Though there aren't very many 2 year accounting degrees outside of states with a two tier CPA certification.

The one I'm enrolled in is a 2 year. No economics involved, just taxes and income and all that book keeping jazz.

I'm sure I'd be better with an economics or business degree but I can scratch out a decent living on a 2 year degree and if I'm so inclined I can be a mechanic on the side. I'm also going to get my A+ and Microsoft certifications too. Just have to take a test and pass. That can also yield me money until I complete my degree.

I won't make $150/hour as an accountant but I'll make enough to be happy.

Fateweaver wrote:The one I'm enrolled in is a 2 year. No economics involved, just taxes and income and all that book keeping jazz.

I'm sure I'd be better with an economics or business degree but I can scratch out a decent living on a 2 year degree and if I'm so inclined I can be a mechanic on the side. I'm also going to get my A+ and Microsoft certifications too. Just have to take a test and pass. That can also yield me money until I complete my degree.

I won't make $150/hour as an accountant but I'll make enough to be happy.

If you're looking at billing out at the highest possible rate then you're looking at public practice, and thinking about it again the economics and finance might not be missed that badly. I come from a company accountant perspective, so I tend to look at what’s important to doing my job, but in practice it is probably quite different.

Thanks for the info anyway. Over here accounting is a three year degree, and that includes mandatory micro and macro units, and even some economic history. I was just surprised that someone could get an accounting qualification without it, but thinking about it a bit more I’ll just chalk it up to being just another thing that gets done differently over there

If I was to lean toward more of an administrative position prospective than I'd be required to take some eco classes. As it stands I'll probably end up being just a lowly bookkeeping clerk with this degree but I don't want to get into the ins/outs of economy and what not. I'm into number crunching, not watching numeric trends or learning numeric theory.

Decent pay (enough to raise a future family with) and can always become my own mechanic or pc repair technician/software tech with a little extra effort and a few dollars more.

JEB_Stuart wrote:

sebster wrote:Yeah, I don't think you need the education across the board that you'd get from a liberal arts degree, but to be anything other than a tax clerk you need a foundational understanding of economics.

Do they do finance and management accounting? Or is it just IFRS and the tax code and you're out the door?

All of my friends who did accounting all received training in more then just tax code. But maybe my uni's accounting program was more broad on purpose....

Its not. Business majors in undergrad in my school were required to take micro and macro economics, and a new technologies course where they told us nonsense like "the wheel" was going to revolutionize everything. Pfft. If logs were good enough for pop they were good enough for me.

This has been quite absorbing so far. As an "outsider" I'm not going to comment too much.

My observation is that we live in a media controlled world now which needs regular news or change in order to sell itself. If this change is not forthcoming on a regular basis, than the media gets bored and switches to negative reporting because it's easier to get a response from the public by being critical.

In reality, one year is far too short a time period to expect real change to occur, but we don't really live in reality anymore.

Now, the US certainly has economic problems. There has been decades of solid growth in GDP, but this growth has centred entirely on the wealthiest people, and the result is a continual erosion of the middle class, to the point now where the median income is lower than it was in the 1970s. Savings are poor across the board, this limits the funds available for investment and causes the US to look overseas for investment capital - hurting the trading account (this is due in part to cultural values, in part to the set up of the financial sector and in part due to Greenspan trying to maintain growth rates through unsustainable monetry policy). And government debt is harming long term growth (people make a lot of noise about the stimulus but the stimulus probably should have been bigger than it was, the US budget problems are long term problems, due to unsustainble deficits during good economic conditions - and that's a problem with the overall lack of party accountability for the budget at the political level, too little whip control and too much regional politics leads to horrendous levels of pork barrelling... good luck solving that one).

It's unfortunate that these issues will likely not be addressed until a total U.S. economic collapse occurs, there is simply too little political will to deal with these problems, both in government, and in the citizens.

Frazzled wrote:
Its not. Business majors in undergrad in my school were required to take micro and macro economics, and a new technologies course where they told us nonsense like "the wheel" was going to revolutionize everything. Pfft. If logs were good enough for pop they were good enough for me.

Business and accounting aren't always the same program.

They are not? I've not seen otherwise. Accounting is a substrata of business.

Frazzled wrote:They are not? I've not seen otherwise. Accounting is a substrata of business.

Not in the 2 year technical degree field. Often times accounting is treated as a focus of a more mathematics based degree focus. It's difficult to fit the business, math, accounting, and gen eds into the same AS degree.

Undergrad business majors in my public university also has accounting under the business umbrella. You have to take a set of 'core business courses' in order to major in a business specialty which includes macro/micro eco, business communication (aka speech class), etc. Accounting 101 also is a part of the core business knowledge ditto with business calculus and other not so fun classes.

Yeah, that's usually true, but you can get different degrees from the same department.

Some places have as many as 5:
Bachelor of Business Administration - usually comprehensive
Bachelor of Accounting - always confined to accounting
Bachelor of Business - less accounting, more entrepreneurship/human resources/etc.
Bachelor of Business Science - economics and accounting
Bachelor of Public Administration - varies a lot, but generally a greater focus on government and non-profits

Welcome to the land of designer degrees. One of the likely culprits for the high cost of American higher education.

I think we may be looking at a difference between AA and BS degree here.

Just to answer the opening question "So why's Obama so unpopular all of a sudden?"

Simple. He's the president.

Doesn't matter if you're Jesus H Christ, half the world will hate you just because of your job title, and the other half will hate you just because the first half does.

I can't say that I speak for everyone, but here is my opinion:

* I am a fiscally conservative, socially moderate republican.

* You don't spend your way out of a depression or a recession. IT DID NOT WORK for FDR's new deal. The war got us out of that mess (not advocating or condeming war, no flaming please), not his SPEND, BUILD, SPEND, BUILD approach. That was actually making the depression worse, brought on debt that future generations would have to pay.

* I am still upset with Bush and congress for issuing tax-cuts during wartime.

* I am still upset with Bush and congress for issuing tax-rebates during wartime.

* I am upset with Obama's current plan to spend, spend, spend our way out of this depression...during 2 wars.

* I am still upset with the lack of oversite that allowed real estate speculators and lending agencies to cause the house prices to inflate and then crash. Did a number to many American's credit. Plus, with housing values in the tank, people would have to take a big loss to sell their homes.

*McMansions. People being house-poor, being granted credit they didn't warrant, for houses they didn't need.

*A socialized healthcare system being rushed through congress, that will cost billions, that is ill-defined and top heavy.

*No caps on law-suits for medical malpractice leading to insane malpractice insurance premiums, adding to our insane health care costs.

*Bailing out US automakers with some of them need to die off, anyway.

* Expecting me (Mr. Middle Class) to pay for Health Care reform for every swinging-dick in the US.

*Expecting me (Mr. Middle Class) to pay for bailouts of Automakers.

* Expecting me (Mr. Middle Class) to pay for bailouts of lending agencies with poor, if not criminal, lending habits.


Is all of this Obama's fault? hell no. But he is continuing what Bush started. As always, IMHO, YMMV, OMG, WTF, BBQ.

Flashman wrote:Why's Obama dropped so badly in the opinion polls? <snip> You guys do want universal free health care right?

From where I sit it's buyer's remorse. Everyone wanted a black president but didn't consider that they were electing a socialist as well. Now they realize this guy wants to turn our society on it's head and don't like it.

And NO I don't want universal "free" health care. Nothing in life is free... Government cannot give you something that it first does not take away from someone else under threat of violence.

Green Git is my idol.

You don't spend your way out of a depression or a recession. IT DID NOT WORK for FDR's new deal. The war got us out of that mess (not advocating or condeming war, no flaming please), not his SPEND, BUILD, SPEND, BUILD approach. That was actually making the depression worse, brought on debt that future generations would have to pay.

I love the conservative revisionist history approach to the new deal. Somehow it only started "not working" several decades after it had worked. All of a sudden the "wartime economy" pulled us out of the economic stupor, despite things like having a large percentage of the male population drafted into a job that (heres a hint) was a government funded one that in effect produced and serviced nothing. What's the difference between a soldier fighting overseas and a construction worker "payed to fill the holes he just dug" economically? Nothing. A military is just an inefficient continuous stimulus package with the added bonus of fighting wars (as opposed to renewing roads or fixing bridges, filling the hole you dug is just a phrase, they don't actually do that).

I am still upset with Bush and congress for issuing tax-cuts during wartime.

* I am still upset with Bush and congress for issuing tax-rebates during wartime.

The war was actually more of a purple elephant in a room full of cobras. What they should not of done was cut taxes and give ineffectual rebates during a time of economic downturn. The MPtS ensures that during a "recession" cutting taxes is one of the worst things you can do to stimulate growth.

* I am still upset with the lack of oversite that allowed real estate speculators and lending agencies to cause the house prices to inflate and then crash. Did a number to many American's credit. Plus, with housing values in the tank, people would have to take a big loss to sell their homes.

Raeganomics: The study of loosening the reigns so that wall street can hang itself.

*McMansions. People being house-poor, being granted credit they didn't warrant, for houses they didn't need.

Commoditized debt isn't that bad of a concept, and it works, but then a knife is a wonderful tool until you start playing with it. You can't really blame people for buying houses that they didn't need, it's simple human nature, what you should blame is the banking institutions that allowed it and the culture that propagated the myth that everyone in america is entitled to a home.

*A socialized healthcare system being rushed through congress, that will cost billions, that is ill-defined and top heavy.

The system is actually pretty well defined. It's just an incredibly complex and (still) constantly rewritten document thats hard for the lamen to read. Add fox news to that and you get death panels and populist outcry forcing numerous concessions into what COULD be a good piece of legislation. Thats democracy for you, good ideas never survive a bored and ignorant populace.

*No caps on law-suits for medical malpractice leading to insane malpractice insurance premiums, adding to our insane health care costs.

They actually barely even scratch your healthcare costs. The big issue is the no-competition insurance system and the backwards practice of healthcare pay boosts for targeted procedures and medicines that are unnecessary (this is so ludicrously prevalent that it's almost an institution of it's own).

*Bailing out US automakers with some of them need to die off, anyway.

Well if you look at it objectively the jobs lost by their massive bankruptcies and more banks failing due to the sudden losses would actually have the net effect of costing the nation more. You have to disassociate natural selection from business, as thats how we got in this pit in the first place.

* Expecting me (Mr. Middle Class) to pay for Health Care reform for every swinging-dick in the US.

As opposed to you subsidizing private insurance? Do you know how private insurance agencies work? Do you know how the healthcare bill being pushed works? It doesn't sound it from this post.

*Expecting me (Mr. Middle Class) to pay for bailouts of Automakers.

It's that or have your currency devalued by the large shock to the u.s. economy anyway.

Expecting me (Mr. Middle Class) to pay for bailouts of lending agencies with poor, if not criminal, lending habits.

So you wanted the U.S. economy to collapse totally due to a run on the banks? Or do you somehow think that they did this for no reason? Do you want the dollar to trade at a fifth the value it currently does? Because that would make it hard for you to buy anything. Do you think the politicians wanted to do this? It certainly doesn't look good on their resume, though it should, since it shows that they have the foresight to not cling to the ridiculous idea of "natural selection in business". Though it certainly is politically nice and easy to say that you were "against" the bailouts as a conservative politician, as it gives you a nice boost in the polls with your voterbase of people that have no fething clue how currency works.

Green Git is my idol.

Yes, you both must get along very well in bizarro america where Obama is a socialist robber baron and our trash means our economy is dangerously unsustainable compared to the rest of the world.

kronk wrote:
* You don't spend your way out of a depression or a recession. IT DID NOT WORK for FDR's new deal. The war got us out of that mess (not advocating or condeming war, no flaming please), not his SPEND, BUILD, SPEND, BUILD approach. That was actually making the depression worse, brought on debt that future generations would have to pay.

So all those tanks, planes, and ships we built during the war were free? Just build, build, build? Not spend, build, spend, build?

dogma wrote:

kronk wrote:
* You don't spend your way out of a depression or a recession. IT DID NOT WORK for FDR's new deal. The war got us out of that mess (not advocating or condeming war, no flaming please), not his SPEND, BUILD, SPEND, BUILD approach. That was actually making the depression worse, brought on debt that future generations would have to pay.

So all those tanks, planes, and ships we built during the war were free? Just build, build, build? Not spend, build, spend, build?

Hush, let him dream.