By almost any measure that you can think of, the U.S. economy has gotten worse since Barack Obama became president. Unemployment is higher, the cost of food and gas are skyrocketing, the number of Americans living in poverty has spiked dramatically, the housing market is in nightmarish shape and our national debt has absolutely exploded. Meanwhile, Barack Obama continues to prance around the country declaring that “we can live out the American dream again” and that what we are experiencing right now are simply “bumps on the road to recovery“. But such mindless platitudes are of little comfort to the millions of American families that are slowly descending into poverty or the tens of millions of American families that are already there. If this is the “change” that Barack Obama was promising then he can just keep the change.
Barack Obama is proving to be one of the worst presidents in all of U.S. history. Perhaps when it is all said and done he will be recognized as the absolute worst. Not that George W. Bush was much different. In fact, the Republican Party will not regain much credibility with the American people until it admits that George W. Bush was an absolutely horrible president. Sadly, the truth is that we have not had a decent president in decades. This statement is going to upset almost everyone that is still trapped inside the false left/right political paradigm in this country, but I am not here to pander to the political establishment.
Barack Obama is a horrific president.
So was George W. Bush.
That is the truth.
Not that it is our presidents that actually run our economy. As far as the economy is concerned, the U.S. Congress deserves as much (or more) of the blame as the executive branch does.
However, if you really want to point fingers at someone, then you should place the most blame on the Federal Reserve. As I have written about previously, the Federal Reserve has more power over our economy that any other single institution….
So exactly what is the Federal Reserve? Most people would say that it is an agency of the federal government. But that is absolutely not true. In fact, the Federal Reserve itself has argued in court that it is not an agency of the federal government. Rather, the Federal Reserve is a privately-owned banking cartel that has been given a perpetual monopoly over our monetary system by the U.S. Congress. This privately-owned central bank has been destroying the value of the U.S. dollar for decades, it has run our economy into the ground and it has driven the U.S. government to the brink of bankruptcy. The Federal Reserve operates in great secrecy, it has never been subjected to a comprehensive audit and it is not accountable to the American people. Yet the decisions that the Federal Reserve makes have a dramatic impact on the lives of every single American citizen.
But the mainstream media rarely points fingers at the Fed, and the truth is that when election 2012 arrives, the American people are going to judge Barack Obama primarily on how the U.S. economy is performing.
By just about any measure you can name, the U.S. economy has gotten much worse since Barack Obama became president. Of course it is glaringly obvious by now that Barack Obama is completely clueless when it comes to economics. In fact, Obama surrounded himself with economic advisers such as Larry Summers who actually were highly instrumental in getting us into this mess.
So should Barack Obama be held accountable for this economic disaster?
Yes.
But so should Bush, Clinton, Bush Sr., the entire U.S. Congress and the Federal Reserve.
The economic decline we are experiencing now has taken decades to build, and what we are experiencing now is simply an acceleration of the long-term economic trends that are destroying this country.
The following are 20 ways that the U.S. economy has gotten even worse since Barack Obama became president….
#1 In January 2009, the official U.S. unemployment rate was 7.6 percent. Today it is 9.1 percent.
#2 When Barack Obama took office, the number of “long-term unemployed” in the United States was approximately 2.6 million. Today, that number is up to 6.2 million.
#3 When Barack Obama first became president, the average price of a gallon of gasoline in the United States was $1.83. Today it is $3.79. This also affects the price of almost everything else that we buy.
#4 In April 2009, the average U.S. household spent approximately $201 on gasoline. In April 2011, the average U.S. household spent approximately $369 on gasoline.
#5 According to an article in the Daily Mail, the cost of a Memorial Day cookout was 29 percent higher this year than it was last year.
#6 When Barack Obama was sworn in, there were nearly 32 million Americans on food stamps. Today, there are more than 44 million on food stamps.
#7 According to the U.S. Census, the number of children living in poverty has gone up by about 2 million in just the past 2 years.
#8 When Barack Obama took office, the U.S. national debt was 10.6 trillion dollars. Today it is 14.3 trillion dollars.
#9 The federal government has borrowed 29,660 more dollars per household since Barack Obama signed the economic stimulus law two years ago.
#10 During Barack Obama’s first two years in office, the U.S. government added more to the U.S. national debt than the first 100 U.S. Congresses combined.
#11 The combined debt of the major GSEs (Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Sallie Mae) has increased from 3.2 trillion in 2008 to 6.4 trillion in 2011. Thanks to George W. Bush, Barack Obama and the U.S. Congress, U.S. taxpayers are standing behind that debt.
#12 Under Obama, the U.S. trade deficit continues to grow. The trade deficit was about 33 percent larger in 2010 than it was in 2009, and the 2011 trade deficit is expected to be even bigger.
#13 Only 66.8% of American men had a job last year. That was the lowest level that has ever been recorded in all of U.S. history.
#14 Just since August, 2 million more Americans have left the labor force.
#15 In 2010, more than a million U.S. families lost their homes to foreclosure for the first time ever, and that number is expected to go even higher in 2011.
#16 The U.S. real estate crisis just continues to get worse. During the first three months of this year, less new homes were sold in the U.S. than in any three month period ever recorded.
#17 The U.S. dollar has fallen by 17 percent compared to other major national currencies since 2009.
#18 Faith in the U.S. dollar and in U.S. Treasuries is rapidly declining. The mainstream news is not reporting on it much, but right now the Chinese are rapidly dumping U.S. government debt. That is not a good sign.
#19 When Barack Obama first took office, an ounce of gold was going for about $850. Today an ounce of gold costs about $1500.
#20 Americans seem to be more pessimistic about the economy than ever. According to a brand new poll, 61 percent of Americans believe that they will not return to their “pre-recession” lifestyles until at least 2014.