https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-01-19/why-labor-force-participation-is-still-so-low

Well, I'd say the primary cause of oil's decline was the shale revolution in the U.S.. The fracking that started going on in the late 2000s just unleashed such a huge supply that demand was overwhelmed and naturally the price took a hit. U.S. rigs are so flexible that anytime the price starts to creep back up, more will come online and increased production will send the price sinking back down. We really have done a number on oil dependent countries like Russia and Venezuela.

Shale producer were all almost out of business at $26 a barrel. OPEC finally was willing to cut production

Shale and fracking is high cost low grade oil

Fracking isn't oil though.

Oh nevermind I'm just very familiar with its association with natural gas.

Fracking is a process. Extremely labor intensive. Thx prado

But yeah it is an expensive process. The earthquakes associated with it come from cheaper methods of disposing of waste.

Our technology has improved greatly over the past few years, we can now produce oil just as cheap as pretty much any of the OPEC countries, http://www.cnbc.com/2016/11/30/leaner-and-meaner-us-shale-greater-threat-to-opec-after-oil-price-war.html.

Natural gas is actually the byproduct, oil is the main reason for using it.

Obama as worst president ever is just laughable. The social good he did for a major part of the population in just getting elected alone made him better than average. And we're still alive, with much lower unemployment than when he started, and we're not in any major war, which should put him ahead of many others.
Certainly a civil liberties viewpoint on this one: http://civilliberty.about.com/od/historyprofiles/tp/Worst-Presidents-Ever.htm

All oil no matter the source go through the oil market for price discovery

Ultimate authority that Wikipedia is, puts him in the second best quartile, but at least this is based on many polls: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_rankings_of_presidents_of_the_United_States
Lincoln, Washington, and FDR seem to be top 3 choices for most.
Andrew Johnson, James Buchanan, and Warren Harding are favorites for the bottom.
Carter seems to be the most contentious, ranked as high as 18th and as low as 34th.
Reagan's service has aged well, considered to be in the mid 20's just after his term, but seems to have a consensus around 8-11 now.

Lower unemployment has come as a result partially of two things, people taking bad jobs that they don't actually want, and people who have stopped looking for work completely. Now, there certainly are more happily employed people now than in 2009, but the unemployment rate falling to its current level has come at a pretty high cost. And last time I checked, we were still in Afghanistan, not to say Obama is the reason we are there because he isn't.

"Lower unemployment has come as a result partially of two things, people taking bad jobs that they don't actually want, and people who have stopped looking for work completely."

So there's this thing called the U6 unemployment rate that covers discouraged and underemployed workers...

http://www.macrotrends.net/1377/u6-unemployment-rate

If the U-3 decline were masking economic malaise caused by job-seekers becoming discouraged/underemployed workers, we'd expect U6 to be declining more slowly than U3. But the opposite is true.

Maybe the U-6 is missing people too. But where are they going?

Ugh, consistent naming. U3, U6. Not U-3 and U-6.

They died because Obama is obviously eating them.

Oh yeah, I saw that on that zombie tv show... Oh wait, I don't have cable. It must have been the NBC news.

http://www.shadowstats.com/article/c810x.pdf

Arguments like this discuss U6 and U3 measurements. In truth I think they overestimate but they have some good points

U1, persons unemployed 15 weeks or longer, as a percent of the civilian labor force;
U2, job losers and persons who completed temporary jobs, as a percent of the civilian labor force;
U3, total unemployed, as a percent of the civilian labor force (this is the definition used for the official unemployment rate);
U4, total unemployed plus discouraged workers, as a percent of the civilian labor force plus discouraged workers;
U5, total unemployed, plus discouraged workers, plus all other marginally attached workers, as a percent of the civilian labor force plus all marginally attached workers; and
U6, total unemployed, plus all marginally attached workers, plus total employed part time for economic reasons, as a percent of the civilian labor force plus all marginally attached workers.

discouraged is generally measured as short term for the last 4 weeks actively looking for employment, and long term as within the last 1 year

anyone who is actively looking for work past the 1 year mark aren't even considered, which affects people of 2 varieties, a skilled job that has been wiped out in the US, or a low skill job wiped out of a region. both of these people still want jobs, but have taken quite a bit of time searching: still technically unemployed

honestly if you consider the way industrial production and manufacturing in the US was on the downshift, plus many construction jobs, it's fairly obvious U6 isn't necessarily the hands down best.

(i'm addressing its aggregate with U4 specifically btw)

and 2 varieties is actually probably an oversimplification at that!

Fair. (I assume you mean "*isn't* actively looking for work".)

More reading:
http://www.usnews.com/news/the-report/articles/2015/07/16/unemployment-is-low-but-more-workers-are-leaving-the-workforce

@Lethologica

not necessarily, they can still be looking for work but not finding any in their expertise, so they stay on welfare.

This is generally not considered unemployed as they're "not in the labor force" but they're still a part of our population, who aren't retired, who aren't too young, who aren't dependents on someone, but aren't considered unemployed

"actively looking for work" is bad, because people can go for a year without a job and still be wanting a job

Short version - there are a lot of different unemployment stats, and under some, unemployment, the employment percentage has improved less than under other stats, but it still has improved, and not just trivially, no matter how you measure it. It was very bad in 2008.

Anyone competent to talk about presidents knows that it's ridiculous to talk about where they fit in history for some time after they are in office.

"not necessarily, they can still be looking for work but not finding any in their expertise, so they stay on welfare."

Incorrect. People who are jobless, available to work, and actively looking for work are categorized as unemployed in all of U1-U6. That's *literally* the definition of unemployment.

Any jobless person in the relevant age bracket who wants a job, is available to work, and has either worked *or* actively looked for work in the last 12 months is at least marginally attached (U5).

Specifically addressing people who aren't finding anything in their expertise: marginally attached workers who haven't actively looked for work in the last month "because they believe no job is available to them in their line of work or area" are discouraged workers (U4). That's not the only reason discouraged workers can give, but it's one of them.

Labor force participation is another issue, because labor force participation is only calculated using employment + standard unemployment (U3). Marginally attached workers aren't counted as labor force participants, but they *are* considered in unemployment measures U4-U6.

https://www.bls.gov/cps/cps_htgm.htm

A friend shared this video to me:
10 reasons why Obama was the worst president ever:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0F6jGenEuU
I figured it was relevant, even though I disagree with some of the points. (not all)

Like... It's idiotic to say a president is the worst within a week of leaving office

@Lethologica

no, only up until one year

from your OWN source

"Specifically, to be counted as marginally attached to the labor force, they must indicate that they currently want a job, have looked for work in the last 12 months (or since they last worked if they worked within the last 12 months), and are available for work."