I didn't think he was much of a president, but Jimmy Carter was the closest >we got to an honest man in the White House in my life time. I respected the >fact that he never got rich, lived in the same four bedroom house he and his >wife built in 1960 until he died (yesterday). I may not have agreed on a lot >of his decisions, but he lived his beliefs and I respected him for that.
May he rest in peace.
I didn't think he was much of a president, but Jimmy Carter was the closest we got to an honest man in the White House in my life time. I respected the fact that he never got rich, lived in the same four bedroom house he and his wife built in 1960 until he died (yesterday). I may not have agreed on a lot of his decisions, but he lived his beliefs and I respected him for that.
May he rest in peace.
Before it was brought up by President Trump, I had no idea Jimmy Carter
gave away authority over the Panama Canal. I already thought that he was
the dumbest human being after Joe Biden, but this just bumped him up to
the biggest cretin the White House has ever seen.
On Mon, 30 Dec 2024 10:06:39 -0500, Andrzej Matuch wrote:
Before it was brought up by President Trump, I had no idea Jimmy Carter
gave away authority over the Panama Canal. I already thought that he was
the dumbest human being after Joe Biden, but this just bumped him up to
the biggest cretin the White House has ever seen.
There is some history there. Panama was part of Columbia but when a treaty fell apart in 1903 the US supported the brave freedom fighters in their revolt against Columbia and the achieved independence.
The US has been plagued by desperately wanting to be an empire without
having the appearance of being an imperialist nation. Sometimes the scheme doesn't work and it wound up with an albatross like Puerto Rico.
Still, it was a mistake giving away the Canal Zone. Torrijos and later Noriega were supposed to keep a lid on it.
To his defense Carter inherited a huge bag of shit from the Nixon/Ford handling of the inflation brought about by the oil embargo.
I appreciate the additional context. I had no idea about most of this.
On Mon, 30 Dec 2024 15:29:52 -0500, Andrzej Matuch wrote:
I appreciate the additional context. I had no idea about most of this.
Jimmy had some bad ideas but he also had his share of bad lucky. When he
set out to rescue the hostages in Iran who would have thought the finest
US helicopters don't work in sandy conditions.
He did appoint Volcker which took some courage.
https://www.stlouisfed.org/publications/regional-economist/january-2005/ volckers-handling-of-the-great-inflation-taught-us-much
That was a rough era. It was difficult to pitch any capital improvement
when a company could get a better return on money by putting it in the
bank than any realist ROI could show. I hope the Fed doesn't come down
with a bad case of cowardice and cook the figures to justify easing money again.
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