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#52 Oct 07 2015 at 6:50 PM Rating: Excellent
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I like that "GOP presidents have recovered..." as though Bush is now taking credit for the housing bubble that fueled the economy. Used to be that Gbaji fell all over himself trying to push it on the Democrats. "We... we wanted to fix it with our House and Senate majorities but... butttt..... what if Barney Frank was MEAN to us!?!?! Smiley: cry"

Now it's all Bush's master strategy for economic recovery Smiley: laugh
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#53 Oct 07 2015 at 6:50 PM Rating: Decent
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angrymnk wrote:
I am annoyed with you so I will respond with the following. I am better under Obama than I was under Bush. Do I qualify as people?


You qualify as one person, which is a single data point in the set of "all people". Were you confused about this?

I was better off economically under Bush than Clinton, so therefore Bush's economy was better than Clinton's, right? That's pretty poor logic.
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#54 Oct 07 2015 at 6:51 PM Rating: Excellent
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gbaji wrote:
Jobs aren't "economic growth". Jobs are the result of that growth.

Awesome growth results under Bush then Smiley: thumbsup
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You're grasping at straws to try to defend the indefensible.

You seem to think I'm much more invested in this than I am. I was around for both ends of the Bush economy. I know how it went. I don't need to engage in lengthy arguments while you try to re-write history in order to "defend" anything. I can rattle off a few lines because, well, we were all there. The only one scrambling to make it something different is you.

Edited, Oct 7th 2015 7:59pm by Jophiel
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#55 Oct 07 2015 at 7:02 PM Rating: Decent
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gbaji wrote:
Jophiel wrote:
gbaji wrote:
It wasn't gone, it was devalued.

Good news, folks! All your jobs aren't gone because of Bush's failed economy! They're just... devalued! Much like your house, savings, etc. Wasn't it a fun ride though? Don't blame Bush! seriously, he did nothing but sit and watch it unfold so you can't really blame him, right?...


Jobs aren't "economic growth". Jobs are the result of that growth. You're mixing up concepts. Badly. Jobs can be lost. Growth really isn't. Growth is measured by things like GDP and market values. Those measure the "size" of the economy. Those in turn can affect things like jobs and wages. Which yes, in turn can affect growth due to effects on purchasing. There's a feedback effect between these factors, but they are not all the same thing.

What I find amusing is that you are steadfastly ignoring the key arguments I have made and instead are choosing to use "gotcha" arguments based on manipulating the terms and concepts of the issue itself. I said that many sectors of the economy grew during Bush's term, not just housing. The valuation loss in the housing market affected those due to credit issues, not because the growth in those sectors disappeared. And again, that's about investment confidence, not actual assets disappearing. I also pointed out that your claim about Bush's recovery being built on a bubble (again, so you can defend Obama's tepid recovery) was absurd, since past recoveries have been similarly fast, and didn't have housing bubbles going on.

You're grasping at straws to try to defend the indefensible. Obama's recovery has been horrible and there's no one to blame that on other than Obama and the Democrats. As the OP shows, even the unemployment rate recovery (which is what impacts the average person the most) is somewhat illusory when you account for labor participation rate. How the economy "feels" to the average person kinda matters here. Stock markets have been recovered for several years now, why hasn't this helped the working class much? We should have booming job creation rates right now (should have for 4 years really). We should have 3-4% GDP growth rates right now. We aren't, and we haven't. Normal recessions are followed by a huge upswing recovery with high numbers in those areas. We haven't seen that in this recovery.

It's hard to argue that this can be anything other than Obama's poor policies after the recession. We can run around trying to place blame on the recession itself, but as I said earlier, it's what you do in response to a recession that really matters. And Obama's response was the wrong one.


This is almost as amusing as the presenter who was trying to convince the audience that while their 401k shrunk drastically, nothing really changed ( because you know, it is not really money, you still have the same amount of stock as you had yesterday.. ). Even more amusing, the very next day I heard people at work repeat it without being able to comprehend how badly they were just *******

That said, since you want to branch out to other sectors of economy, we can certainly talk about how Bush made them better. He most certainly helped the war machine a fair bit. Though I am not sure that is the sector you were referring to.

I also like the 3-4% GDP growth rate demand. But you know what? Since Obama's response was the wrong one, what would you do differently? I am totally serious.
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#56 Oct 07 2015 at 7:07 PM Rating: Excellent
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angrymnk wrote:
I am better under Obama than I was under Bush. Do I qualify as people?
If you net worth is less that $250k then, no, you are not a person in gbajiland.

gbaji wrote:
Stock markets have been recovered for several years now, why hasn't this helped the working class much?
Greed

gbaji wrote:
We should have booming job creation rates right now (should have for 4 years really).
Blame for lack of good jobs being created laying directly at the feet of the large companies who can make that happen at will.

Edited, Oct 8th 2015 1:58pm by Bijou
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#57 Oct 07 2015 at 8:02 PM Rating: Good
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Stock markets don't help the "working class." Have you tried investing in anything lately? There is so much ******** and red tape and minimum deposits that seem designed specifically to prevent anyone with a limited income from even getting started. How many people do you actually know, working class or otherwise who have anything at all to do with stocks? Wait, don't answer that. You know someone who knows someone who is a bit of an expert I'm sure.
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#58 Oct 08 2015 at 7:30 AM Rating: Good
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It really is pretty funny. "Oh, we ruined the Middle East? Blame the new guy. Left the economy decimated? New guy's fault! We started at a high point? Oh, that's all us, we did that one."

Edited, Oct 8th 2015 9:30am by lolgaxe
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#59 Oct 08 2015 at 4:51 PM Rating: Good
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lolgaxe wrote:
It really is pretty funny. "Oh, we ruined the Middle East? Blame the new guy. Left the economy decimated? New guy's fault! We started at a high point? Oh, that's all us, we did that one."

Edited, Oct 8th 2015 9:30am by lolgaxe

In fairness, Obama was in his second term before he stopped blaming Dubya for literally everything.
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#60 Oct 08 2015 at 5:05 PM Rating: Good
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Demea wrote:
lolgaxe wrote:
It really is pretty funny. "Oh, we ruined the Middle East? Blame the new guy. Left the economy decimated? New guy's fault! We started at a high point? Oh, that's all us, we did that one."

Edited, Oct 8th 2015 9:30am by lolgaxe

In fairness, Obama was in his second term before he stopped blaming Dubya for literally everything.

In fairness the GOP started blaming Obama for all the country's problems, like, the day after he got elected.
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#61 Oct 08 2015 at 5:10 PM Rating: Good
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I'm surprised they waited that long.
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#62 Oct 09 2015 at 7:45 AM Rating: Good
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Pretty sure birthers were in full swing well before he was President Elect.
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#63 Oct 09 2015 at 7:15 PM Rating: Default
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angrymnk wrote:
This is almost as amusing as the presenter who was trying to convince the audience that while their 401k shrunk drastically, nothing really changed ( because you know, it is not really money, you still have the same amount of stock as you had yesterday.. ). Even more amusing, the very next day I heard people at work repeat it without being able to comprehend how badly they were just *******


Except the presenter was actually correct. If you have X shares of some fund, and the fund loses value because of a market crash, you still have X shares of that fund. When the fund regains its value (and it almost certainly will), your investment will regain its value as well. The worst thing you can do after a market crash is panic and sell your investments. When you do that you make those losses real. Until that point, they're just numbers on a ledger somewhere. Markets bounce after crashing, quite consistently. You want to be in the market to ride that bounce. Pulling out is a mistake. Arguably, you should be buying when it hits a floor (or just a low point near the floor), if you can.

Quote:
That said, since you want to branch out to other sectors of economy, we can certainly talk about how Bush made them better. He most certainly helped the war machine a fair bit. Though I am not sure that is the sector you were referring to.


Why use rhetoric instead of analysis? You jump on the "war machine" bit, to dig on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, but that's not relevant to this discussion. The computer market grew significantly during Bushs term. Cell phones grew massively during his term. Heck. Home electronics of all kinds grew during his term. Massively. Agro industry grew. Pharma industry grew. I believe even manufacturing (which has not been the strongest industry in the US for some time), grew during his term. Did they all grow as much as they could have? Hard to say. You'd have to put up something else to scale it against. But the point I was making is that the economy during Bush's term was hardly just "propped up by a housing bubble". That's the narrative folks love to use to excuse the poor performance of the Obama economy, but that's really not true, and there are far more direct and sensible explanations for our economic woes today.

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I also like the 3-4% GDP growth rate demand. But you know what? Since Obama's response was the wrong one, what would you do differently? I am totally serious.


The same thing I (and many other conservatives) said he should do back in 2009 when the subject first came up. TARP1? Fine. It directed funds to parts of the economy most directly hit by the crash. I thought at the time that some of the funds (a largish chunk actually) were misdirected, so we spent more than we needed to, but it did the job. What Obama should have done differently was that instead of trying to spend his way out of a recession, thinking somehow that government directed money transfers would do better than the market would, he should have lowered tax rates across the board (or at least not raised them), and basically allowed the players in the economy to keep more of the money they were earning so they could choose where to spend it. Even just a temporary 3-5% tax cut across the board would have resulted in a lot more money in the hands of consumers, investors, and businesses, while creating far less deficit along the way.

The core problem with Obama's approach to recovery rests on his assumed belief that the government knows better how to spend our money than we do. Sadly, this turns out to be false every single time, but many on the Left just can't let go of the idea. Spending money for a specific cause is one thing. If you think that only government would put money into building roads, or running schools, or doing research, then choosing to spend money on those things, while still debatable from a cost/benefit point of view, is at least a legitimate concept. But thinking that government will use money to build up the economy as a whole better than the private hands that money is currently in? Completely ridiculous. Governments are good at spending money to achieve specific non-economic goals. They are absolutely terrible at spending money in ways that actually create economic growth. It just doesn't work, and frankly I'm not sure why anyone would actually think it would work.

Sometimes even "doing nothing" is a better choice. If Obama had simply said "we spent money on TARP. The core problem has been alleviated, and we expect a rapid economic recovery as a result", the economy would have recovered much better/faster than it did. As I mentioned earlier, confidence is a huge factor in terms of recovery after a crash. If people believe the economy is/will turn around, they will put money into it in order to gain on that recovery. But if they think it's going to linger in a low state for some time, they'll hold off. They'll put their money elsewhere. They'll invest in loss reducing things rather than gain creating things. And as a result, the economy *will* recover more slowly.

A huge factor to the slow recovery was Obama himself. He projected the image of a man who didn't understand economics, and wasn't listening to people who did, and instead seemed to want to use the economic downturn as an excuse to embark on a social agenda based spending spree. And every player in the market basically sighed at that and realized they were going to be in for rough economic seas for some time. And yeah, perception becomes reality in that situation. Again, all he had to do was *not* push his recovery act, and the economy would have recovered better. And as I mentioned above, if he had instead simply put some temporary tax reduction measures (perhaps like the across the board $300/$600 dollar tax credits Bush did in 2002), it would have done a ton to help both consumer and business confidence in the recovery.

He just did everything backwards. And back then, conservatives predicted exactly what would happen. And by and large, what we predicted is what happened. The only people surprised when the economy didn't recover by 2010 (remember the whole campaign based on the "summer of recovery"?), was Obama and his economic team (and I suppose Liberals and Democrats who bought into their ideas). Everyone else was like "Um... We told you it wouldn't recover like past recoveries if you did that". We weren't surprised at all that things didn't recover as quickly as they should have. Obama didn't follow the same steps past presidents followed that were successful at creating quick recoveries. So why be surprised when he changes his actions, and the results change?

What's bizarre is when we can clearly point to the difference in his actions and those of past presidents, point to the predictions that his different actions would produce different recovery results, and then to the actual difference in the recovery itself, yet people will still insist they have nothing to do with each other. I'm just not sure how much more evidence is needed here. Previous 4 recessions all were addressed in similar ways, and with similar outcomes (relatively quick turnarounds). Obama does something radically different, and gets a different outcome (much slower turnaround). Why is this confusing to anyone? Likely cause and effect just aren't that hard to see here, unless you have ideological blinders in the way.
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#64 Oct 09 2015 at 10:14 PM Rating: Decent
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gbaji wrote:


Quote:
I also like the 3-4% GDP growth rate demand. But you know what? Since Obama's response was the wrong one, what would you do differently? I am totally serious.


Even just a temporary 3-5% tax cut across the board would have resulted in a lot more money in the hands of consumers, investors, and businesses, while creating far less deficit along the way.


Tax cuts. The well isn't that deep, is it?
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#65 Oct 09 2015 at 10:31 PM Rating: Decent
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gbaji wrote:

Except the presenter was actually correct. If you have X shares of some fund, and the fund loses value because of a market crash, you still have X shares of that fund. When the fund regains its value (and it almost certainly will), your investment will regain its value as well. The worst thing you can do after a market crash is panic and sell your investments. When you do that you make those losses real. Until that point, they're just numbers on a ledger somewhere. Markets bounce after crashing, quite consistently. You want to be in the market to ride that bounce. Pulling out is a mistake. Arguably, you should be buying when it hits a floor (or just a low point near the floor), if you can..


You are right. The presenter if factually correct. That said, to most people, it was real money that they now cannot use to retire, borrow against, or, unless they want to incur heavy loss, cash out. And again, it is true that markets do bounce after they crash in the same way sun does come out after a storm. No one denies it. But as with some of the booms, you may need to wait a decade to get back to your original amount ( dot.com comes to mind ). Decade seems like a lot of time for someone that needs money now, because they lost their job. Thanks Bush.

In short, I am not annoyed that the presenter was not telling the truth. He technically was. I have a problem with the way it was presented. I get that they don't want to cause panic, or all out pitchfork mob, but he certainly while he was telling the truth, he was not being honest about it.

What the news story that day should have been is 'You are ******* Seiously. ( not like in 1930s, but still )'. I personally don't need a 'it's just numbers' pep talk.
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#66 Oct 12 2015 at 8:05 AM Rating: Excellent
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gbaji wrote:
And back then, conservatives predicted exactly what would happen. And by and large, what we predicted is what happened.
"Do as we said or we'll sabotage any efforts." We covered that.
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#67 Oct 14 2015 at 5:22 PM Rating: Decent
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lolgaxe wrote:
gbaji wrote:
And back then, conservatives predicted exactly what would happen. And by and large, what we predicted is what happened.
"Do as we said or we'll sabotage any efforts." We covered that.


What sabotage? Seriously. What did the GOP do that could have caused some form of sabotage? We didn't have the political power to do anything during the time period in question (2009-2011). Even with nearly 100% GOP opposition to various spending bills in 2009, the Dems still passed them. Even after the GOP gained a majority in the house and eliminated the super majority the Dems had had in the Senate, this didn't allow them to actually pass legislation to undo anything Obama and the Dems had done in 2009/2010.

If "tell people this wont work and why it wont work" is sabotage, then I guess that was sabotage. Cause that's all we did. We predicted something would fail, and then it failed. I'm just not sure how one supports the notion that the GOP had some magical power to cause that failure. Obama's economic recovery plan failed because it was a bad plan. Period.
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#68 Oct 14 2015 at 5:26 PM Rating: Decent
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angrymnk wrote:
You are right. The presenter if factually correct. That said, to most people, it was real money that they now cannot use to retire, borrow against, or, unless they want to incur heavy loss, cash out. And again, it is true that markets do bounce after they crash in the same way sun does come out after a storm. No one denies it. But as with some of the booms, you may need to wait a decade to get back to your original amount ( dot.com comes to mind ). Decade seems like a lot of time for someone that needs money now, because they lost their job. Thanks Bush.

In short, I am not annoyed that the presenter was not telling the truth. He technically was. I have a problem with the way it was presented. I get that they don't want to cause panic, or all out pitchfork mob, but he certainly while he was telling the truth, he was not being honest about it.

What the news story that day should have been is 'You are ******* Seiously. ( not like in 1930s, but still )'. I personally don't need a 'it's just numbers' pep talk.


I'm not understanding your point here. So telling the truth was "dishonest" in your eyes. You understand why he would not want to cause a panic. But you think he should have caused a panic by telling people they were screwed? That makes zero sense. You're seriously saying he should have told people they were screwed, made them panic and sell their investments, and then actually caused them to be screwed? Cause that's seriously f'd up.

He did exactly what he should have done. He cautioned against panic, and advised people to stick with their investments knowing that they will recover rather than pulling out and losing out on the bounce. What the heck is wrong with that?

Edited, Oct 14th 2015 5:45pm by gbaji
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#69 Oct 14 2015 at 6:42 PM Rating: Good
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gbaji wrote:
lolgaxe wrote:
gbaji wrote:
And back then, conservatives predicted exactly what would happen. And by and large, what we predicted is what happened.
"Do as we said or we'll sabotage any efforts." We covered that.


What sabotage? Seriously. What did the GOP do that could have caused some form of sabotage?
If you think he means the elected GOP members of Congress did all the sabotaging you are a moran.

If you can't noodle out who did, you are an double moran.
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#70 Oct 14 2015 at 6:47 PM Rating: Decent
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Friar Bijou wrote:
gbaji wrote:
lolgaxe wrote:
gbaji wrote:
And back then, conservatives predicted exactly what would happen. And by and large, what we predicted is what happened.
"Do as we said or we'll sabotage any efforts." We covered that.


What sabotage? Seriously. What did the GOP do that could have caused some form of sabotage?
If you think he means the elected GOP members of Congress did all the sabotaging you are a moran.


And what did the un-elected GOP members do that caused sabotage? Was it the Tea Party? I get that this is what he's claiming (repeatedly), but I'm asking him to back that up with facts.

Quote:
If you can't noodle out who did, you are an double moran.


Who did... what exactly?

Edited, Oct 14th 2015 5:48pm by gbaji
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#71 Oct 14 2015 at 6:48 PM Rating: Decent
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Gah. Hate when I mean to edit, and I reply instead.

Edited, Oct 14th 2015 5:49pm by gbaji
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#72 Oct 14 2015 at 7:29 PM Rating: Good
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Yep...Double Moran.
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#73 Oct 14 2015 at 8:07 PM Rating: Decent
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Friar Bijou wrote:
Yep...Double Moran.


That's a nice bit of name calling, but how about answering the question? I honestly have no clue how anyone thinks that the GOP/conservatives/whomever "sabotaged" Obama's economic recovery plan. Is this another case where "everyone just knows" that it happened, but magically no one can actually describe what was supposed to happen? Cause that's the feeling I'm getting here.

I can point at the exact policies Obama followed and talk about why they were bad policies and slowed down the recovery process. Can you at least do the same and explain what it was that others did that somehow sabotaged this? Seems strange to me that a party could have a majority in both houses and the White House, successfully pass several bills aimed at economic recovery, but then when the economy doesn't recover as promised, it's somehow someone else's fault? And you wont even say who these mysterious shadowy figures who swooped in to cause failure are? Seriously?
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#74 Oct 14 2015 at 10:25 PM Rating: Good
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Where are your vaunted powers of deduction? Surely you can sus out what sort of people might have the power to manipulate employment on a large scale? People who would not really be affected financially in doing so. People who can chose to spend on capital projects or not?


C'mon lil' buddy! I have faith in you; you can do it!
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#75 Oct 15 2015 at 7:18 AM Rating: Good
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Friar Bijou wrote:
Where are your vaunted powers of deduction?
I'd settle for his having some ability to remember things.

Absolute obstructionism.
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#76 Oct 15 2015 at 11:27 AM Rating: Default
lolgaxe wrote:
Friar Bijou wrote:
Where are your vaunted powers of deduction?
I'd settle for his having some ability to remember things.

Absolute obstructionism.


Wahhh those mean ole republicans kept big bad barry and the dimwit democrats from saving the economy.

Fact is Democrats have no interest in a strong vibrant economy. The more people working means less people on welfare which means less votes for Democrats. Just like the democrats have no intention of fixing the illegal immigration crisis. More illegal immigrants means more Democrat votes which means more lower class people on welfare which means more Democrat votes. Obamacare has crushed this economy. Every major corporation are cutting back lower level employees hours so as to avoid having to pay the Obamacare tax penalty.

But hey blame W....it's what got Barry elected.....twice.
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