LogFAQs > #979913824

adjl posted...

His rationale is that because the loans were paid back, no harm was done and therefore Trump shouldn't be punished. Obviously, if the loans weren't paid back there'd be no question of his liability for whatever damages were incurred, but in this case it's less a matter of punishing him for causing damage and more a matter of punishing him simply for breaking the rules (rules which need to exist).

It's more than that.

Trump lying about his property values let him secure a loan at a lower rate, because the bank thought it was taking on less risk than it actually was. In essence, the bank should have been paid much more money to finance the loan in the form of higher interest rates, but they lost those profits because Trump defrauded them.

Muscles posted...

He's pretty bad and has hurt this country with his rampant spending and printing money, thus causing inflation (it is also because of greedy companies, but printing so much during covid came back to bite us in the ass too).

If you're going to blame Biden's financial policies for inflation, you might want to consider what's happening in other countries.

Specifically, every developed country on the planet fought high inflation after COVID ended. That's not a result of any one government's monetary policy, that's a result of a massive surge of consumers suddenly getting back out into the real world (thus causing a glut of demand for goods and services that had previously been inaccessible during COVID) and supply chains taking 1-2 years post-COVID to fully bring themselves back online to pre-pandemic levels (thus choking supply of many of those same goods and services). High demand + low supply = soaring prices = inflation.

And the US has actually done fairly well for itself, all things considered. Compared to other G20 economies, the US is actually slightly ahead of the curve, typically ranking somewhere in the 5-10th spots for inflation.

For my own view, I think Biden has been a perfectly adequate president. He hasn't been worldshaking, but he's shown competence and has been a steady hand at the wheel, which the US badly needed after the Trump years. I think most of his accomplishments kind of work against him for how low-key they've been - he did an excellent job rallying the world to Ukraine's aid in the immediate aftermath of the 2022 invasion (and would be continuing to reap dividends if the Republicans in the House would stop dogfucking for five seconds and do their job), his infrastructure bill is sorely needed, and his management of the economy has been solid. His only major misstep has been his handling of the Israel/Palestine conflict - regardless of your views on the belligerents, it is quite clear that Biden's maximal and unconditional support for Israel has not yielded any influence over Israeli decision-making, illustrated most vividly in Israel's complete lack of interest in facilitating humanitarian supplies or stopping West Bank settler violence, despite entreaties from the US to do so, and their decision not to inform the US of a strike against the Iranian consulate in Syria, a major escalatory action that put American troops and assets at risk and threatened (and still threatens) to touch off a wider conflict in the region.

Thus far, I'd probably give him a solid 7.5/10. Maybe 8/10 if I'm feeling charitable.