# Best President for U.S. Economy



## SG854 (Jul 19, 2022)

Make a Choice


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## smf (Jul 19, 2022)

Obama seems better than GWB

https://5minuteeconomist.com/which-presidents-were-best-and-worst-for-the-us-economy.html

Comparing Obama and Trump is trickier.

https://www.latimes.com/politics/st...vs-obama-who-really-did-better-on-the-economy


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## FAST6191 (Jul 19, 2022)

So all engaged in pointless wars (not even potentially beneficial ones like the banana wars) and/or money printing as well as seriously increasing national debt. How much control they ultimately had over that I don't know (presidents being largely figureheads with little real power to do all that much). I could look at their budgets but doubt much truth will be revealed by them as they have to nominally play the game and try to make suggestions that will pass congress (which approves budgets and such like). We could look at how much but at the same time the opposition is probably going to have been "more more more" outside of a few that know how economics works. Most regulatory authorities have been in a coma for decades now. All do nonsense like corn subsidies, increasing university loan guarantees to ridiculous heights (the real reason it costs so much), bailouts of failed businesses and none by their actions could be said to be fans of the free market (or even if we are to pay attention to what was spoken of then even more so).

All opted for next election strategies rather than anything particularly long term (infrastructure has been awful, local and federal finance has been worse for many years rather than sorting problems) but that is basically the game at this point so I don't know if I can be upset.

We would also have to divorce their actions from any underlying perks -- the .com bubble might have been silly but silicon and networked versions thereof is not (not to mention I thought we were supposed to thank al gore for the internet). Shale oil extraction also changes things (see peak oil before and after). Farming maybe did not see so radical advances as some of those but still saw some things on the industrialisation front.

To that end we would probably have to play a game of least worst. If I look at money supply ( http://www.shadowstats.com/alternate_data/money-supply-charts ), real inflation ( http://www.shadowstats.com/alternate_data/inflation-charts  )  and national debt charts ( https://www.self.inc/info/us-debt-over-time/ ) then last two are probably gone even if Trump would probably be the closest to free markets in action (and as that came with Chinese tariffs as a major aspect of it all... yeah, though in some ways that is not so bad as some other things). Bush might be the least damaging but you also scored two forever wars and likely the housing crash as well (though that was an inevitability from where I sit) so eh. Forgettable Obama then maybe having to take it by default but he was probably also the one to truly unleash the modern monetary theory genie so eh.


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