Why Do We Blame the President for Economic Crisis?

[Rhondazvous]

Let’s forget about Obama for a minute. When a say “the president,” I’m not talking about Obama, US presidents in general. I did an independent study and calculated that since the Panic of 1797, the US has been in either a recession or a depression for almost 1/3 of the time we’ve been a country. So this has nothing to do with whether the republicans (found. 1854) or the democrats (found 1828) are in control. It isn’t due to the diabolical machinations of the Federal Reserve, which did not even exist until 1913. In fact, according to economists fluctuation is just a natural part of the business cycle. So I wonder, was it something Clinton did to bring about the surplus? Was it something Bush did to bring about the deficit? Is it the president’s job to create jobs? Was the guy right who blamed the president when I paid $1 for 1 orange?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_cycle

[Chad32]

Well he's kind of supposed to be running the country. He's head of the executive branch, though there are also the judicial and legislative branches. People need someone to blame, so they go to the top public servant in the country.

[Minimalist]

Presidents can take steps to influence the cycle.  Clinton not only balanced the federal budget he left it with a huge surplus.  Bush the Shithead came along, gave a big tax cut to his rich-bitch buddies and then started two wars without figuring out how to pay for them.  Bye-bye surplus, hello deficits.

Most presidents do nothing either so positive or negative and are simply borne along by the currents.

[Faith No More]

Clinton's economy was bolstered by the internet and tech boom, but he did at least balance the budget.

According to the experts I've seen talk about it, our system is designed to have the ups and downs, because that's how the Wall Street guys make the big money. Canada has a high amount of banking regulation, and they've haven't seen a recession since the Great Depression. We let the banks write their own laws here in the United States of Money, so banking regulation is an uphill battle. The bankers and hedge fund managers don't want regulation, because they make more money by manipulating the system.

[Minimalist]

Yeah....the joys of unfettered capitalism.

Mainly joyful for unfettered capitalists and fuck everyone else.

[Chad32]

Given that we're 15+ trillion dollars in debt, our economy has had more downs than ups. I realize some people believe some debt is a good thing, but I don't think this much debt is good.

[abaris]

I've got no horse in the race, but who's we? The ones blaming the current president would blame him for their diarrhea if they could get away with it. The creators of the economical crisis haven't been blamed at all.

[Crossless2.0]

When we talk about the economy, we're talking about a complex, dynamic system that has myriad interrelated elements that need to be considered to arrive at reasonable tentative conclusions as to just what the hell is going on at any time.

Many people don't "do complex" and want a simple explanation -- one person or a small group of people to blame -- to spare themselves the trouble of researching and thinking about something this difficult.

[Jackalope]

Here's how it works:

President = don't like ; Congress = like == Congress gets the credit, president gets the blame.
President = like ; Congress = don't like == Congress gets the blame, president gets the credit.
President = like ; Congress = like == Take credit for everything good, anything bad is the fault of the previous administration / legislature
President = don't like ; Congress = don't like == break out the pitchforks and torches, boys.

That's American politics in a nutshell.

[Ludwig]

Here's how it works:

President = don't like ; Congress = like == Congress gets the credit, president gets the blame.
President = like ; Congress = don't like == Congress gets the blame, president gets the credit.
President = like ; Congress = like == Take credit for everything good, anything bad is the fault of the previous administration / legislature
President = don't like ; Congress = don't like == break out the pitchforks and torches, boys.

That's American politics in a nutshell.