Maximus Posted March 15, 2011 Report Share Posted March 15, 2011 My answer would be Woodrow Wilson. He sold us out to the bankers through the Federal Reserve. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
khaight Posted March 15, 2011 Report Share Posted March 15, 2011 Just to add some perspective here, can I throw out some more candidates? Hamilton, Wilson, Truman, Kennedy, Carter are some of my least favs. Esp. Hamilton. Can the federal reserve just die already? Er, Hamilton was never elected President. Indeed, he was ineligible due to his place of birth. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
agrippa1 Posted March 16, 2011 Report Share Posted March 16, 2011 I'd say that is because the Objectivist community is part of the American rightwing, and has all the biases that this entails. To a Lefty, O'ism is Right-wing; to a Righty, it's Left-wing. So your characterization tells us a whole lot about your politics, and not so much about O'ism. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
khaight Posted March 16, 2011 Report Share Posted March 16, 2011 To a Lefty, O'ism is Right-wing; to a Righty, it's Left-wing. So your characterization tells us a whole lot about your politics, and not so much about O'ism. I'd put the point this way: the left is more hostile to Objectivism than the right because the left is more consistent in its adherence to ideas that conflict with Objectivism. But it's easy to find groups on the right that are hostile as well: the religionists and the neo-conservatives, in particular. And it's easy to find Objectivist commentary that is highly critical of the right, if you care to see it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mmmcannibalism Posted March 16, 2011 Report Share Posted March 16, 2011 Er, Hamilton was never elected President. Indeed, he was ineligible due to his place of birth. Wasn't being in America before the revolution considered proper citizenship(sans other requirements) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
khaight Posted March 16, 2011 Report Share Posted March 16, 2011 Wasn't being in America before the revolution considered proper citizenship(sans other requirements) My impression is that 'natural born citizen' at the time was taken to mean born in one of the 13 colonies which formed the union. Hamilton was born and raised in the Caribbean. Even if he had been eligible, though, he never held the office, so picking him as a least favorite President is just wrong. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mmmcannibalism Posted March 17, 2011 Report Share Posted March 17, 2011 My impression is that 'natural born citizen' at the time was taken to mean born in one of the 13 colonies which formed the union. Hamilton was born and raised in the Caribbean. Even if he had been eligible, though, he never held the office, so picking him as a least favorite President is just wrong. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_born_citizen_of_the_United_States#Constitutional_provisions It specifically mentions Hamilton as someone who could have become president. Your other point still obviously true. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
khaight Posted March 17, 2011 Report Share Posted March 17, 2011 It specifically mentions Hamilton as someone who could have become president. Ok, I stand corrected. It's interesting, given how active Hamilton was in supporting and opposing other Presidential candidates in the first few elections, that he seems not to have made a serious run for the office himself. I wonder why he didn't? Perhaps he would have had he not been killed in that duel with Burr. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xall Posted November 4, 2011 Report Share Posted November 4, 2011 An idea about comparing the socialistic tendencies of the FDR and Obama administrations for my Master's degree thesis sprung up last night, but since I'm rather unfamiliar with American literature, I was wondering if any of you can point me towards some books/articles/essays that deal with the politics and economics of both FDR's administration (from '33 to his death) as well as the current one. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xall Posted November 8, 2011 Report Share Posted November 8, 2011 An idea about comparing the socialistic tendencies of the FDR and Obama administrations for my Master's degree thesis sprung up last night, but since I'm rather unfamiliar with American literature, I was wondering if any of you can point me towards some books/articles/essays that deal with the politics and economics of both FDR's administration (from '33 to his death) as well as the current one. For some reason my reply did not bump the thread from the last post made in March so I hope this remedies it... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
2046 Posted November 8, 2011 Report Share Posted November 8, 2011 Yeah, go on Mises.org and look up Flynn, Higgs, and Woods. (Just off the top of my head) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
softwareNerd Posted November 8, 2011 Report Share Posted November 8, 2011 (edited) An idea about comparing the socialistic tendencies of the FDR and Obama administrations for my Master's degree thesis sprung up last night, but since I'm rather unfamiliar with American literature, I was wondering if any of you can point me towards some books/articles/essays that deal with the politics and economics of both FDR's administration (from '33 to his death) as well as the current one. Amity Shlaes "Forgotten Man" (lot of detail about the opinions, the politics, the regulations,and economic policy...but weak on actual positive economic analysis) Benjamin Anderson "Economics and the Public Welfare" a broader economic-history, from 1913 to 1946 Burton Fulsom "New Deal or Raw Deal" (I have not read this one, but know that it is often mentioned) At Mises.org, there's also an online version of Murray Rothbard's history "America's Great Depression". I personally did not like the book, but I know that's another one that's often recommended by "Austrian-leaning" folk. Finally, if you want the pro-FDR line, to test your thoughts, you might try Jonathan Alter's "The Defining Moment" Added: I just remembered another book that is a good survey, though the author has a Keynesian/Monetarist/eclectic stance: Charles Kindleberger's "The World in Depression" Edited November 9, 2011 by softwareNerd Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AtlasGotHisHeadBlownOff Posted December 8, 2011 Report Share Posted December 8, 2011 If you're going by who had the most negative effect on the American economy there is no worse than the guy who should have remained an actor : Ronald Reagan. Before him, everyone was trending up, now you don't trend up unless you have a politician bought and paid for in your back pocket. Here's the evidence : http://imgur.com/a/U4FR4#0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FeatherFall Posted December 8, 2011 Report Share Posted December 8, 2011 Atlas, some of those statistics do seem convincing at first glance. But their power comes from a misunderstanding of what they actually mean. Thomas Sowell explains it best in the first part of this Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AtlasGotHisHeadBlownOff Posted December 8, 2011 Report Share Posted December 8, 2011 Nice try at a cop out, you should have stopped at "those statistics do seem convincing". Try reading those graphs and comparing it to what Sowell said, then you would realize that the two have nothing do with each other. Ah nevermind, since you were too lazy to do it the first time, I did that for you too. Sowell says, the income disparity isn't true because it is a comparison of "household incomes" -- meanwhile offering no actual evidence to the contrary except lip service. But if you read the first graph at that link you would see it is comparing actual hourly wages and overall compensation -- not household income -- and all of it stemming right from the Reagan economic policies of less regulation, lower taxes, and the mythological idea of trickle down. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
softwareNerd Posted December 8, 2011 Report Share Posted December 8, 2011 ...But if you read the first graph at that link you would see it is comparing actual hourly wages and overall compensation -- not household income -- and all of it stemming right from the Reagan economic policies of less regulation, lower taxes, and the mythological idea of trickle down.Taking that graph at face value, it shows average hourly wages fell after 1980. How do you make the leap from that to saying "deregulation caused average hourly wages to fall"? Are you suggesting that regulation in the U.S. has steadily and significantly decreased ever since Reagan? If so, that's a false premise. All sorts of economically important things happened since 1980. Most significant was the opening of China and India. Are you classifying these effects as "deregulation" too? If so, that confuses issues and makes analysis more difficult. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FeatherFall Posted December 8, 2011 Report Share Posted December 8, 2011 (edited) Atlas, if you won't acknowledge that household income is mentioned in five of the graphs to which you linked, we can't have a meaningful discusssion. Edited December 8, 2011 by FeatherFall Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
softwareNerd Posted December 9, 2011 Report Share Posted December 9, 2011 (edited) Atlas, if you won't acknowledge that household income is mentioned in five of the graphs to which you linked, we can't have a meaningful discusssion.Here's a rhetorical question: what type of meaningful discussion does one have with a person who is pining for the halcyon days of Nixon, Jimmy Carter, "WIN" buttons, 17% mortgage rates, soaring unemployment, and great movies like "Death Wish". More generally, the ignorance of history is one of the things that sends each odd generation down the same tired path that their grand-parents took. Edited December 9, 2011 by softwareNerd JASKN 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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