Presidential Myths, Lies and Campaign Promises Along With Retail Cos. We Look To Short

The presidential elections are coming up again. The last 4 years went by very quickly, and as always, we are confronted with BS blown all over the mainstream media. This time (like last time) the focus is on the POTUS and the economy. I fear many lay persons and even some who should know better fail to realize that the president has very little willful control over the economy - at least to the upside. Now, it is possible for a president to wreck the economy. For instance, we had one not too long ago who took it upon himself to start several concurrent wars while cutting taxes at the apex of a cyclical economic peak (aka, bubble about to burst), but that rarely occurs, right?

Generally, the POTUS is either blamed or glorified for things that are largely out of his control. Prominent examples have been:

Reagan, whose policies actually sucked but rode a cyclical bull to acclaim...
Clinton, whose policies sucked less, but still rode a cyclical bull to acclaim.
Carter, the poor bastard... Wrong place at the wrong stagflationary time.
And last but not least, Obama - there was no way in hell anyone, regardless of who it was other than the almighty God/Buddha/Allah [fill in the blank] himself could have extricated the country from the mess that Bush contributed to.

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