Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Presidential Debate

I used to suppose Rick Santorum was perhaps more honest than, say, Gingrich or Romney.  Until two nights ago when I heard him say, during the debate, that the economic downturn was caused by a spike in oil prices in 2008.

He went on from there to tell two more lies in rapid succession, but I was so stunned by the first that I can't now tell you what those latter lies were.

Gingrich lied about having been a lobbyist and Romney lied by omission about his company.  Bain Capital would acquire a company, borrowing the money to do it, and then take that money out of the bought corporation in order to repay the loan.  On top of that money,Bain also sucked out of its acquired company as much profit for its investors as possible; whether the company thus treated survived or prospered was of no concern; the Bain people got unheard-of profit either way.  That's called unscrupulous.

It seems such a bizarre thing, when people have right in front of their eyes someone everybody agrees is honest, yet they think they ought to see which of the others, the liars and crooks, is more suitable to be President of the United States.  They will make better decisions, we are told.  No way.  Dishonest men never make the best decisions because every decision is colored by their dishonesty. 

And every word out of their mouths, as Rick Santorum so vividly demonstrated.

3 comments:

Anam Cara said...

I'm not a student of economics, but I don't think the economic downturn can be attributed to any one thing. It was rather a perfect storm of various problems.

Having said that, isn't it possible that while one person might say it was the housing crisis another might say it was the spike in oil prices that made it difficult for some to pay both their mortgages and buy gas to get to work or to heat homes or cook?

Sometimes I think I know the proper answer, but it turns out that there are other possible reasons for something. Could that be the case here?

In other words, might you and Rick Santorum disagree about the "cause" of the economic downturn while another person posits a different cause? Which of you is correct? If you each believes yours is the reason for the downturn can you say someone is lying?

Anastasia Theodoridis said...

I don't know of anybody at all who thinks the downturn of 2008 wasa caused by a spike in oil prices. It may have been a contributing factor (although I, for one, never heard it mentioned until now) but it wasn't the cause; the misbehavior in Wall street and Washington was. And this seems to be quite well documented, not just opinion.

David Garner said...

Indeed. Very well said.