The limited value of recent history

In 1936, Roosevelt sought re-election despite 17% unemployment. One can imagine Mitt Romney, Karl Rove, and the Koch brothers running attack ads, reminding Americans that unemployment has been "above 17% for 48 consecutive months" as incontrovertible proof that the New Deal was a "failure."

But on Election Day, FDR won 46 out of 48 states. How could an incumbent president win re-election with an unemployment rate at 17%? Because voters realized the Great Depression wasn't Roosevelt's fault, and the economy was getting better, not worse.

Seventy six years later, President Obama is in a tough fight because unemployment is stuck at 8.25%. Is this high for a modern incumbent president? Obviously it is. But here's the detail I think much of the political establishment fails to appreciate: the Great Recession was a catastrophic economic crisis, unlike anything Americans have seen since the Great Depression.

When pundits compare Obama's economic record against every president since Truman, they're making a fundamental mistake -- no administration was forced to confront a crash of this magnitude since FDR. Comparing Obama to the last 11 presidents is, at its root, deeply misguided.

Indeed, I don't think the political world has fully come to grips with the severity of the crisis in late 2008. This wasn't just another recession. It wasn't just a cyclical downturn. It wasn't a slowdown caused by interest rates or a dot-com bubble. It was an international breakdown of the global financial system -- and it not only takes longer to recover from such a crash, the effects of the catastrophe linger.

Darrell Duffie, a professor of Finance at Stanford's Graduate School of Business, presents his solutions for addressing problems that nearly destroyed the American economy. Duffie is the author of "How Big Banks Fail -- and What To Do About it."

Americans deserve a president that will stand by what he claims during his campaign.

I love it. A Liberal with a strong bias toward our anointed one throws out a couple cherry picked statistics from which the most asinine and unbelievable conclusions are presented and all of the sudden it is “proven” Obama still walks on water no matter what his elections promises were (cut deficient in half in the first 4 years, full transparency etc. etc.) and nothing is his fault as usual.

I suggest people who believe this nonsense do a little research on FDR and this time in American history. MANY of our leading economist believe FDR’s policies extended the depression instead of helping end it not to mention his extortion of the SCOTUS of which we are still feeling the negative effects as well as his PRO Union stance.

At least today, unlike then, people have a LOT more ways of finding out the truth even though too many, due to laziness and/or apathy, don’t bother and rely on “sound bites” they happen to hear to form an opinion.

"deserve's got nothing to do with it" - thikthird and some other guy

I love it. A Liberal with a strong bias toward our anointed one throws out a couple cherry picked statistics from which the most asinine and unbelievable conclusions are presented and all of the sudden it is “proven” Obama still walks on water no matter what his elections promises were (cut deficient in half in the first 4 years, full transparency etc. etc.) and nothing is his fault as usual.

No. He has an incredible list of flip flops, that is why he is a bad president and cannot be trusted.

Americans deserve a president that will stand by what he claims during his campaign.

big blatant nope on that one. it would work better if you said "SOME of our fringe".

still shovelin the same old shit and calling it sugar...I'm not looking forward to the next 4 years...

Interesting comment .... no facts or anything just the typical left wing attack BS. Feel better?

Interesting comment .... no facts or anything just the typical left wing attack BS. Feel better?

did you miss the facts I posted in the 2nd post of this thread?

So does this negate the "things should be better" argument?