Poll
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Obama or Putin -- who is the better leader?
This thread is designed to host a civilzed discussion on the topic, so please no flaming etc.
Objectively speaking who is the better leader of their respective country, Obama or Putin?
Take into consideration things like successfull policies, accomplishments, international recognition etc. Whatever you like, just be reasonable.
Putin is obviously a much stronger leader, unfortunately. He actually has a backbone, unlike Obama. But, many people also have strong suspicions that he has killed people who opposed him or spoke out against him so that he could remain in power. To his credit, at least he hasn't really done anything to weaken and divide his own country, as Obama has.
https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2014/country-chapters/russia
https://www.rt.com/politics/russian-terrorism-investigator-committee-993/
The Russian economy is in shambles, its citizens are oppressed en masse on a daily basis and it gets rocked by dozens of terrorist attacks annually.
Despite these facts, people will claim that Putin is a good leader because he was willing to drag his country into two expensive fights that Russia has neither the power-projection nor the resources to actually win. Why do people make this claim? Because they're idiots, obviously.
Originally posted by Star428
Putin is obviously a much stronger leader, unfortunately. He actually has a backbone, unlike Obama. But, many people also have strong suspicions that he has killed people who opposed him or spoke out against him so that he could remain in power. To his credit, at least he hasn't really done anything to weaken and divide his own country, as Obama has.
Note that while you celebrate Putin's backbone and saying 'he hasn't done anything to weaken his country', Russia's suffering major problems due to the sanctions caused by his actions and the dropping of price in the oil market, while the US has been on a steady upwards course.
If we're talking a results-based measure, Obama has been more successful. Economically, the US has continued to repair and strength post-economic crash throughout his run, to a level surpassing most other countries.
Nor is the US divided in a way that affects the outside particularly. Our military is as unified as ever, we have no provinces in rebellion or experiencing instability, etc.. Something that can't be said of Russia.
Tzeentch
Despite these facts, people will claim that Putin is a good leader because he was willing to drag his country into two expensive fights that Russia has neither the power-projection nor the resources to actually win. Why do people make this claim? Because they're idiots, obviously.
Appearance of strength, rather than results.
Some people would rather have a leader who talks big rather than one who takes a much more steady approach.
US, Germany, these are the countries prospering.
A lot of running a country is running an economy and forging ties with other strong countries, which is not about bluster.
Putin isn't a good leader, he's just good at impressing idiots with reckless bravado and idiotic brinksmanship, which happens to make up a large proportion of Russia's population (and America's apparently).
Putin's entire foreign policy basically rests on having rational opponents. He's like a troublesome child who doesn't care about the rules. But as he discovered with the Turkish jet downing incident, when he plays his games with other megalomaniacs the results aren't pretty.
Originally posted by Stigma
Recent migrant crisis notwithstanding, Germany's economy is in a recession for some time now. And I hear the US owe around 20 trillion dollars.
Here's a chart for Germany's unemployment (you can mess with how far you go back) and GDP.
They have a 4.5% unemployment and mild GDP growth. They're worried about recession because the GDP growth is so small- less than 1%- but this is a very robust economy worried about contracting a bit, Germany in recession would still be doing better than many other countries. Here's an economic forecast made last November that notes it's expected to remain a strong economy through 2016.
They could eat a few months of recession and still be in healthy economy land, really. Due to the fact that they never went in to the austerity thing (austerity being a short-sighted policy which hurt a lot of country's recoveries), they'd been sitting prettier than most of Europe ever since the big crash happening in '08.
As for the US owing, the national debt is mostly owed to ourself, does not have a direct impact on the economy, and interest rates are so low that economics have noted we really should be issuing more debt since it's practically like people paying the government to hold their money in exchange for the security of US debt. And it's in bonds, so it cannot be 'called in'. National debts work a *lot* different than individual's debts, and a lot of people panic thinking it means something very different than it does.
In terms of 'national debt in comparison to GDP,' we had far larger after WW2... and we never paid it off, instead we let economic growth happen until the debt became small in comparison at the same time we were doing stuff like building national highway systems and paying for new social programs. Also, Japan has a far larger debt-to-GDP ratio too, and watch them not exploding. Debt is something those who want to induce panic in people unfamiliar with national economies use.
Not sure about prosperity tbh.
Well, job-wise, the US is still lagging in full-time jobs, but in pure number of jobs is reaching/may have already reach what economists call 'peak employment,' where unemployment numbers no longer drop because there's really not much else to go, and this down from a double-digit unemployment, Obama has literally cut unemployment in half.
Germany's already easily at peak employment with their 4.5%.
Debt is a meaningless metric for economic strength. Almost every major country in the World has financial debt to other countries- it's basically the currency of geo-politics.
If you ask most Russians I'm confident that they'd gladly trade Russia's 13 trillion dollar deficit for America's alleged 20 if it meant also exchanging their 15% inflation for America's 0.5% inflation, or their average annual income of $20,000 for American's average annual income of $41,000.
In fact, Germany has had 2 reccession periods in the last 8 years, and narrowly missed the 3rd one.
I stand corrected though, they had about tiny 0.3% growth last year.
Here's a list of European countries that wouldn't trade their economic health for Germany's:
List complete 🙂
And that pretty much goes for the rest of the world too.
While they've had recessions, the first one was part of *everyone* having a recession and followed by some fairly strong growth, and the second one was pretty much a recession-ette that didn't cause any damage to speak of.
Now, in comparison, Russia's economic issues are a good deal more serious.
Originally posted by Q99Norway, Switzerland, UK (?), Poland, Iceland may not want to trade tbh. 🙂
Here's a list of European countries that wouldn't trade their economic health for Germany's:
Regardless, let's go back to the topic on hand: Obama vs Putin.
Economy is one side of the coin. What about the things that they get done, both domestically and internationally.
Who is more successful in that regard?