Jimmy Carter at 94

[Segnosaur]

Came across this article recently:

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/08/22/jimmy-carter-lives-in-an-inexpensive-house.html

It mentions that:
- Carter still lives in the home he built himself in the 1960s
- The value of the house is assessed at $167k, which is probably less than the value of the armored vehicles parked outside for secret service protection (and less than the average house value in Atlanta)
- He often entertains neighbors, using paper plates and boxed wine
- He attended the opening of a local discount store, and supposedly buys some of his clothing there

 

[theprestige]

Yeah, but we survived Bill Clinton.

Okay, that was pretty funny.

 

[theprestige]

Bill Clinton... the president who ended up with a budget surplus (as opposed to the huge deficit). Clinton... the president who, although he was impeached, still ran an administration with far fewer scandals than Reagan, GW Bush, or Trump.

Yeah pretty easy to survive an administration like that.

(And, to bring the topic back to Carter, his administration was pretty much scandal free.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_federal_political_scandals_in_the_United_States

I was thinking more about about the Bill Clinton who presided over the tech bubble and paved the way for 9/11.

 

[Brainster]

Okay, that was pretty funny.

I will admit freely that one of the things that I definitely don't like about Trump is that he's a vulgar person; in a lot of ways he comes off as a frat boy. This bit with calling Omarosa a dog is just plain bizarre; who above the age of 30 even thinks that way?

But the Democrats really have no room to argue that point after Clinton. If anything Trump is a little more honest about the kind of person he is; Clinton was skilled at leaving an impression of being a classy guy while secretly being a complete scuzzball.

 

[Brainster]

Came across this article recently:

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/08/22/jimmy-carter-lives-in-an-inexpensive-house.html

It mentions that:
- Carter still lives in the home he built himself in the 1960s
- The value of the house is assessed at $167k, which is probably less than the value of the armored vehicles parked outside for secret service protection (and less than the average house value in Atlanta)
- He often entertains neighbors, using paper plates and boxed wine
- He attended the opening of a local discount store, and supposedly buys some of his clothing there

So he's exceptionally frugal? According to online sources, Carter is worth somewhere between $7 million and $8 million. I will give him credit though for not taking the easy millions that Bill and Hillary have scooped up for making speeches.

 

[LSSBB]

So he's exceptionally frugal? According to online sources, Carter is worth somewhere between $7 million and $8 million. I will give him credit though for not taking the easy millions that Bill and Hillary have scooped up for making speeches.

High net worth is often the end result of frugality.

 

[Trebuchet]

High net worth is often the end result of frugality.

Or being born with a silver spoon in your mouth and parlaying it into a couple of place settings.
A net worth of 7-8 million doesn't even qualify as rich these days. Just "comfortable".

 

[Stacyhs]

I bet Carter's house doesn't look like the interior of Versailles, either.

 

[Brainster]

High net worth is often the end result of frugality.

I don't deny that, although I suspect most people here don't understand the definition of the word frugal.

 

[LSSBB]

Or being born with a silver spoon in your mouth and parlaying it into a couple of place settings.
A net worth of 7-8 million doesn't even qualify as rich these days. Just "comfortable".

A casual search of James Earl Carter, Sr.'s net wealth wasn't very informative beyond "wealthy", so I'm not sure whether he was a millionaire, or even how much Jimmy inherited or was gifted from him. Good question, though.

 

[ponderingturtle]

Bill Clinton... the president who ended up with a budget surplus (as opposed to the huge deficit). Clinton... the president who, although he was impeached, still ran an administration with far fewer scandals than Reagan, GW Bush, or Trump.

Yeah pretty easy to survive an administration like that.

(And, to bring the topic back to Carter, his administration was pretty much scandal free.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_federal_political_scandals_in_the_United_States

Exactly an administration is no fun without indictments. That is what makes republican administrations great!

 

[Segnosaur]

Bill Clinton... the president who ended up with a budget surplus (as opposed to the huge deficit). Clinton... the president who, although he was impeached, still ran an administration with far fewer scandals than Reagan, GW Bush, or Trump.

Yeah pretty easy to survive an administration like that.

(And, to bring the topic back to Carter, his administration was pretty much scandal free.)

I was thinking more about about the Bill Clinton who presided over the tech bubble and paved the way for 9/11.

First of all, I thought we were talking more about the integrity of the administration (i.e. scandals the president and his staff were involved in) rather than the quality and impact of his decisions.

But if you want to bring up some of the things Clinton did as president:

Not really sure why you are blaming clinton for the tech bubble. (Such bubbles happen in the economy.) The internet was a relatively new technology and its not like Clinton had a role in purposely pushing excessive speculation and/or causing the crash. (Perhaps he should be blamed in part for losening some banking regulations which lead to the 2008 meltdown, but that was something politicians from both parties have done.

As for 9/11... Al-Qaeda was founded in the late 1980s (when we had a republican president) and 9/11 occurred when another Republican was president. And afghanistan (the country that sheltered bin Laden for years) was run by the Taliban (who came to power following the collapse of the soviet-supported government during a civil war funded by the U.S. while the republicans controlled the white house.) Note that I'm not blaming the republican presidents for 9/11... these things are the result of some pretty complex geopolitical events. But blaming it on Clinton seems quite foolish.