ORIGINAL: CarpetBagger]Quite frankly i have to somewhat disagree with the well written post above. A person making 30K a year 10 years ago was doing ok for themselves. The cost of living was significantly less than it is now. Gas alone was a 1/3rd of the price and so was electric, heat, water, sewage, ect...You even got interest on your money, and the stock market was thriving. This was under Clinton and a Republican congress. Today everything is so inflated in price due to the rise in production costs and fuel in the country that it is hard to really look back a few years and see how everything has changed in such a short amount of time. I think it is pretty easy to let your home foreclose and get behind on payments, if you have a job shipped overseas or subcontracted out for a cheaper wage...Not to mention the rising cost of living surrounding you as a homeowner....
I agree that 10 years ago 30k was a decent enough amount of money to live off of depending on where you were located. In California probably not but in other states like Missouri where I'm from then yeah. But what I was trying to say is even if you were making 30k the banks shouldn't of been giving out huge loans for property and houses that are beyond that persons ability to repay. Because of Clinton's equal credit policy though banks just started giving out loans left and right. Everyone started mortgages their house. Some even taking a second and third mortgage out on their house. And then you've got all the young couples just married and wanting to go out and buy themselves a place to live. They end up buying property and a house that's out of their means and saddle themselves with a huge monthly payment that takes 30 years to pay off. Then you've also got these people that make low income and they go out and buy a brand new $35,000 truck. They do great for a few months and then all of a sudden things get tight and they can't make their monthly payment. The bank reposes the vehicle but that's about all they can do since that person doesn't have anything else of value to their name. So the problems with our economy isn't really who has been in the oval office but people today wanting to live far and beyond their means.
Clinton also did very little to get our economy in the good shape it was then. The economic boom was because of Reagan's policies and the end of the Cold War during the 80's. Clinton was just elected at the right time to get to benefit of everything that had already been put into play. Also keep in mind that it was in the late 80's and early 90's when the job industries were being redesigned because of innovations like the personal home computer. A lot of big advancements in technology was taking place. Things like this cause economic growth. Since that period however our large corporations have taken their businesses and jobs overseas and other countries like China and Japan are outpacing us in technology. So our economic problems have a whole heck of a lot of reasons for why it's in the shape it's in now and it's not all because of George Bush and the war in Iraq like Obama would lead you to believe. And now what is Obama going to do to fix our economy? He's going to lower taxes on the people that don't pay that high of taxes as it is and raise taxes on all the businesses which which drive our country and are currently in downward spiraling recession.