The Thing About this Recession . . .

I read President Bush's speech from yesterday and something dawned upon me. He said he was leaving office with the nation in recession, but he inherited one when he came into office. And if he inherited one, we were all living in one! Anytime a President has an economic issue to deal with, we all do. I did a bit of checking for dates and the official "beginning" of that recession was March 2001, less than two months after he took office, so it seems Clinton left him the seeds of recession, growing. I checked the state of the economy when Clinton took office, that was right after the Savings and Loan "incident" which of course raised the deficit and left the economy scrambling, so Clinton also inherited economic instability. Of course, there was the Wall Street situation in the late 80's at the end of Reagan's term in office, so George H. W. Bush also inherited an economic issue. We all know, from our consumer-crazed mentality that Reagan inherited an economy of major inflation, which has always been blamed on Jimmy Carter. If memory serves though, the interest rates were pretty high when Ford passed Carter the mantle of power, and we know Ford inherited lines at the gas pumps and the price of gasoline putting an end to the "gas wars." So Nixon didn't exactly leave the office in good economic standing, much less the rest of the mess, and there was still Viet Nam. Nixon inherited a pretty troubled office, what with the collapse of Johnson's "Great Society" dream, but the installation of medicare and the elimination of the silver standard and a full scale war that was referred to as a conflict, going in Viet Nam. Johnson didn't inherit that war, he fought Kennedy to have it. I can't really comment on the effect Kennedy had on the economy, as his presidency was so short lived, but the late 50's were definitely a time of recession in the US. Eisenhower is the one president that doesn't appear to have inherited a recession. After WWII, the economy was gaining strength, industry was booming, building was booming, and babies were booming. He did, however; inherit the Korean conflict and left both a struggling economy and advisers in south east Asia, a.k.a. Viet Nam, to Kennedy. Truman inherited a huge war, WWII, but the nation really had begun to move on from the depression through his years in office and things were looking fairly good for Eisenhower, economically speaking. Truman, of course connects us back to FDR, who inherited the Great Depression. Of course, in his attempt to stabilize the economy, he gave us the Social Security system and dropped the gold standard. I think President Bush has given the most insightful statement I've heard in his entire presidency. Recessions are inherited in this country. It has nothing to do with political party! The elimination of a currency standard and the taxation of the barter system will continue to insure that everyone inherits a recession, or worse . . .
He that trusteth in his riches shall fall . . . a Proverb of Holy Scripture