Bill Clinton and the Economy

Bill Clinton won the 1992 Presidential campaign mainly due to the fact that George Bush Sr. focused mainly on foreign affairs and neglected the problems at home. Bush Sr. was seen to be an elitist politician, far removed from the everyday struggles of regular American Citizens. Clinton focused mainly on the economy and the problems at home. When he came to office he realized that he was very disillusioned as to where the actual power of the United States was centered.  As a candidate Clinton wanted to focus mainly on “investment in infrastructure, worker training, and job creations”. By the time he became President he did not realize that he appointed to many advisers to his staff that favored the private sector. People like Robert Rubin(co-head of Goldman Sachs) convinced Clinton to look at the financial problem in a different way. Instead of creating tax cuts and other stimulus programs, that were aimed at reducing unemployment, Clinton was convinced to help reduce the fiscal deficit.  In reducing the deficit and reducing federal borrowing requirements he created a highly favorable environment for the bond brokers on Wall Street. Besides that Clinton also helped to create free trade treaties with other countries and greatly reduced tariffs on imports. In doing so he greatly open other countries of the world to U.S. investment. This last part is what ties into the movie Dirty Wars. By helping to produce an environment for great growth of Wall Street investments in other regions of the world, such as for example the middle east, he opened a flood gate for violence and terror. In order to protect their investments in the developing world, large corporations began to employ their own private armies such as the Black Water security company. These mercenaries had no moral obligation to the United States people nor were hindered by any patriotic ideals. They simply went out and did what they were told to do in order to secure their paycheck.