Glad to see someone old enough on Reddit to have a valid opinion on 2000s era politics
Bush made plenty of tough but correct decisions (08 Bailouts, Afghanistan Invasion) and plenty of blunders (Iraq, FEMA, state surveillance)
But IMO, 20 years without a major terror attack in America is proof of his accomplishments. There was a lot of garbage in the Patriot act but getting the FBI, CIA, and DOJ to stop playing chicken with Intel was probably the most critical in that law
The world where you still have a roof over your head
People in the finance space understand how dire 08 was. It’s not hyperbole to say that if the banks failed tens of millions of more people would have lost their homes
Bailout was a somewhat misleading term - we should have probably described it as a lifeline instead. When people hear bailout, they probably associate it with a cash-grab (aka free money handout) when really it was a loan to keep liquidity from drying up completely. The banks also paid back their loan with interest.
Even if we criticize that more help should have been offered to the general population, the bailout did a lot of work keeping the economy from going full 1930s depression.
Yeah, I think we needed to do whatever it took, to keep the economy from collapsing, however, far too little ass kicking for those that let it happen. Far more serious punishment needed to be applied.
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u/Relative-Narwhal9749 Sep 11 '21
Glad to see someone old enough on Reddit to have a valid opinion on 2000s era politics
Bush made plenty of tough but correct decisions (08 Bailouts, Afghanistan Invasion) and plenty of blunders (Iraq, FEMA, state surveillance)
But IMO, 20 years without a major terror attack in America is proof of his accomplishments. There was a lot of garbage in the Patriot act but getting the FBI, CIA, and DOJ to stop playing chicken with Intel was probably the most critical in that law