Valid or Invalid: "All that growth is due to the policies of one....Ronald Regan."? - Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community

host · 12-02-2005, 04:06 AM

ArellaNova posted the statement that comprises the thread title. Link:
http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showpos...7&postcount=65

I replied, here:
http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showpos...3&postcount=67

This thread is created to respond to:

Quote:

Originally Posted by ArellaNova

As I have observed from this forum documentation is not required to have an opinion. I thank you for pointing that out though. If I have some time to pull up my old election files I will provide the documentation you require.

Smug/arrogant? Not so much more than anyone else, I'm afraid.

First impressions: Who am I trying to impress? Would you think my opinion true to form if I WERE trying to impress you?

I challenge you, then, to a documentation stand off. You havn't provided me with it to support your theory that Clinton fixed anything. (I would suggest that it happen in a seperate thread though-out of respect - or over PM or e-mail)

As to California, and the other states, Individual state economies can not be measured soely against national policies. They have individual laws, codes, legislatures, and regulations. California is a state that has been run by liberal-democrats for years. What does that say to you?

That is an interesting theory. I have a few that refute most liberal-democrat principles. The most important and the basis for many of my opinions is "Economics in One Lesson" By Henry Hazlett
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/051...lance&n=283155

This has the clearest and concise explination of "The Broken Window Theory" which I use as basis for the argument that Govenrment intervention to "fix" economic problems only creates more problems.

I don't think the President himself deserves credit for economic growth or delcine as a whole at all. I think that Presidential policies can take credit for "affecting" the economy one way or another.

Yet is it my beleif that our free market economy is an entity unto itself - influences by many sources -deserving to be seen through the eyes of the public AND private sectors (gasp, yes. corporations. And parnterships. And small businesses). Link to this quote box:
http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showpos...1&postcount=69

ArellaNova seems to idolize the alleged accomplishments of the Ronald Reagan presidency. I view our current problems...runaway federal deficit, massive corruption in federal government, erosion of America's relationships with other countries, and of the exchange rate of the dollar, oil dependence that threatens national secuirty, the 25 year postponement of an energy conservation policy, the plummeting of America's former human rights leadership, and in quotebox ( 7 ), I cannot help but wonder what this country would be like today if Reagan had never occupied the white house. Reagan's policies reversed the direction of many of Carter's policies that would have made chances far greater that we would not be energy dependent, at war, distant from former allies, and crippled by a huge deficit. There are persuasive arguments for the premise that the Soviet Union was in sharp decline, and that Reagan's foreign and defense policies accomplished huge deficits in pursuit of the Soviet fall that was inevitable without U.S. pressure.
Carter total debt increase, four years: 1977-1980 = $288 Billion
Reagan total debt increase, eight years: 1981-1988 = $1893 Billion
In 1980, total federal debt was $995 Billion
In 1989, total federal debt was $2868 Billion
Link: http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showthr...80#post1474288

Is it not unreasonable, given the acceleration of federal debt in the Reagan years, the reversal of Carter energy, human rights, and foreign relations by Reagan, viewed from where our country was in 1980, and where it is now, to speculate as to whether we would be much better off if Reagan never had a chance to "lead" us? When Reagan took office, Carter's policies had lowered petroluem consumption by 10 percent in two years. The U.S. imported less that 40 percent of it's oil in 1980. Now, we import nearly 70 percent of the 22 million bbls that we consume each day. Where would we find ourselves if Carter had served until 1984? Would the deficit be smaller? Would we use as much oil each day, and borrow so much money to buy so much of it from foreigners? Would we have more allies, a more positive reputation among other nations? Would we be at war in the middle east, or "on terror"?

Would the richest be as rich? Would as many Americans be so poor, and without health insurance coverage? What did Reagan really lead us to?
Utopia? An economic miracle? I think not!

Here is an outline of my other footnoted points:

( 1 ) Supports my contention that the most reliable and convincing means to counter your
Reagan statment is that there is confusion about what bi-partisan, economic "experts", actually
believe. I contend that anecdotal evidence that "trickle down" economic policies dramatically
favored the rich, and failed to signifigantly increase the incomes of the majority.
Included in quote box ( 1 ) is this:
"Back in 2003, the choice of N. Gregory Mankiw, a Harvard professor, to head the council initially provoked some wonderment from economists. He had condemned supporters of some Reagan-era tax cuts as "charlatans and cranks" in the first edition of his basic economics textbook, and he had suggested replacing part of the income tax with higher taxes on gasoline - a nonstarter in this White House. But it's possible that the administration had few other options."

The crux of ( 1 ) is "The White House and Congress need as many as five academic economists of high caliber, and it's not obvious where they will come from. The Republican Party may be facing something of a shallow bench."

( 2 ) Speaks for itself:"N. Gregory Mankiw, whom Mr. Bush nominated on Wednesday to lead his Council of Economic Advisers, wrote a popular economics textbook in which he ridiculed the supply-side tax cuts of President Ronald Reagan as "fad economics" conceived by "charlatans and cranks.""

( 3 ) Criticism of the Hazlitt book that ArellaNova recommended, and my suggestion of a less controversial, and possibly superior, substitute.

( 4 ) A rebuttal of an April 26, 2005 WSJ editorial, that argued "the overall tax burden grew more progressive" Excerpts and links to studies (and a graphic chart) that support the following argument that indicates that economic policies of the twenty years preceding the year 2000 have resulted in: "The super-rich are pulling away from everyone by so much and at a rate so fast that the fact that incomes of many households at the bottom and in the middle have stagnated, or even fallen in constant dollars, has been obscured by ever increasing per capita income."

My point: Since 1980, the overall tax burden did not "grow more progressive", because republican federal tax policy that consistantly favored the wealthy and corporations, resulted in a much larger increase of income to the wealthy, compared to the actual increase in the actual federal taxes that they paid.

( 5 ) Quote from NY Times columnist Krugman that supports his professional association with newly appointed Fed Chariman, Ben Bernanke, and Krugman's endorsement of Bernanke, to attempt to qualify Krugman's credentials as an economist who is making a professional comparison between the effects of Reagan/Bush '41 economic policies, vs. Clinton policies.

( 6 ) Krugman's June 11, 2004 NY Times column, where he provides his opinion (as a Princeton Univ. economist) of the effects of Reagan/Bush '41 economic policies, vs. Clinton policies. I'll use his column's ending, to sum up my points, here.

"It's a measure of how desperate the faithful are to believe in the Reagan legend that one often reads conservative commentators claiming that the Clinton-era miracle was the result of Mr. Reagan's policies, and indeed vindicated them. Think about it: Mr. Reagan passed his big tax cut right at the beginning of his presidency, and mainly raised taxes thereafter. So we're supposed to believe that a tax cut passed in 1981 was somehow responsible for an economic miracle that didn't materialize until around 1997. Apply the same timing to the good things that happened on Mr. Reagan's watch, and you'll discover that Lyndon Johnson deserves the credit for "Morning in America."

So here's my plea: let's honor Mr. Reagan for his real achievements, not dishonor him — and mislead the nation — with false claims about his economic record."

Begin Footnotes ( 1 ) through ( 7 ), below:

( 1 )

Quote:

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/27/bu...ey/27view.html
November 27, 2005
Economic View
Help Wanted: Academic Economists, Pro-Bush
By DANIEL ALTMAN

IT'S no secret that hurricanes and wars have swamped the economic agenda that George W. Bush planned for his second term. In the commotion, however, one fact has gone largely unnoticed: much of Washington's expert economic team has disappeared.

The chairmanship of the Council of Economic Advisers will soon be vacant, and two spots on the Federal Reserve Board that were recently filled by academic economists already are. There is no assistant secretary of the Treasury for tax policy, and the director's chair at the Congressional Budget Office, currently occupied by Douglas J. Holtz-Eakin, will soon be empty, too.

The White House and Congress need as many as five academic economists of high caliber, and it's not obvious where they will come from. The Republican Party may be facing something of a shallow bench.

"Bush's reputation in at least the academic community is about as low as you can imagine," said William A. Niskanen, who was a member of the council during President Ronald Reagan's first term and is now chairman of the Cato Institute, a libertarian research group. "A lot of people would not be willing to give up a good tenured position for a position in the White House."

Back in 2003, the choice of N. Gregory Mankiw, a Harvard professor, to head the council initially provoked some wonderment from economists. He had condemned supporters of some Reagan-era tax cuts as "charlatans and cranks" in the first edition of his basic economics textbook, and he had suggested replacing part of the income tax with higher taxes on gasoline - a nonstarter in this White House. But it's possible that the administration had few other options.

"It has been true, typically speaking, that Republican administrations have found it harder to find senior, more prominent academic economists for the C.E.A. members and chairman than have Democratic administrations," said Michael L. Mussa, a senior fellow at the Institute for International Economics, a nonpartisan research group in Washington, who was a member of the council during President Reagan's second term.

Mr. Mussa explained that the problem was partly one of specializations. "In the economics profession, on the microeconomic and regulatory side, there you find a substantial number of Republicans," he said, "but macroeconomists tend to lean a bit more to the Democratic side, on average."

And politics do matter for the appointments. "If you have written publicly in strong opposition to the current administration, they will be less likely to be interested in you," said Kristin J. Forbes, a veteran of the council who is now an associate professor at the Sloan School of Management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "On the Council of Economic Advisers, the priority is a very good economist who supports most of the president's economic policies."

The same is likely to be true for the positions at the Treasury, the Fed and the Congressional Budget Office. Two of the three spots being vacated by academic economists - Ben S. Bernanke and Edward M. Gramlich at the Fed, and Mr. Holtz-Eakin at the budget office - could well be filled with more of the same, Mr. Mussa said. (Mr. Bernanke is expected to become the Fed chairman; Mr. Gramlich has returned to the academic world, and Mr. Holtz-Eakin will join the Council on Foreign Relations.) Mr. Mussa added, however, that the economist at the budget office should have experience in policy and management.

That's something that many academics lack. "Generally, economists are not very slick," said Alicia H. Munnell, a professor of management sciences at Boston College who served on the Council of Economic Advisers when Bill Clinton was president and spent years working in the Federal Reserve system.

Economists may not want to be political, either, she added. The reason has to do with incentives. "Everybody wants to go back into academia and be respected, so you don't want to say anything too foolish that people are going to laugh at you afterward," Professor Munnell explained.

Professor Forbes recounted that she and her colleagues on the council had pledged never to support policies that they didn't believe in themselves. Nevertheless, the role of the council's chair can take on a decidedly political tilt. That much was clear when Professor Mankiw, the last chairman to serve for more than a few months, appeared before the Joint Economic Committee of Congress in February of last year.

At times Professor Mankiw, who has returned to Harvard, sounded more like Scott McClellan, the White House press secretary, than an economic adviser. "The president is very focused on putting people back to work, at creating jobs," he said. "The president has said that he wants to make the tax cuts permanent. He believes that is important for economic growth."

Once he even caught himself, but the result ended up the same: "The president has - we've worked with Congress in the past to extend unemployment benefits. The president will continue with Congress on that issue."

Quite a few economists might have a hard time acting as the president's mouthpiece today. Plenty of academics, even some who have supported Republicans in the past, have condemned the White House's current policies. In particular, the enormous federal deficit has elicited ire from both left and right.

"There are a number of Republicans, both the right-wingers and the moderates, who are very uncomfortable about the deficits, and particularly about the spending that we saw in the first four years," Mr. Mussa said.

Dismay about the war in Iraq could also prompt many academics to turn down the White House on principle, Mr. Niskanen said.

One hint that the labor pool is drying up may be in the ages of some recent appointees. Professor Forbes was only 33 when she joined the council in 2003. Katherine Baicker and Matthew J. Slaughter, two academics confirmed as members this month by the Senate, are 34 and 36, respectively. Before taking up their new posts, both were associate professors, as Ms. Forbes is now - not full professors, like the vast majority of their predecessors.

Mr. Niskanen suggested that this change could stem from a perceived drop in the prestige of the council. "Bush has centralized policy decision-making much more than any president in years," he said. "The Council of Economic Advisers has been somewhat bypassed."

Mr. Niskanen said that there were now fewer meetings between members of the council and members of the president's cabinet than there were during his term. The council's offices have even been moved to a building farther from the White House.

ALL of these tensions may have resulted in a sort of Catch-22. The president's inability to move forward with much of his second-term economic agenda - dealing with Social Security, the tax system, immigration and tort rules - may have dulled economists' eagerness to work with him. Yet he may need them in order to start the wheels moving.

"John Snow has talked about turning the tax commission report into legislation," Mr. Niskanen said of the Treasury secretary, "but he does not have the skills on board to do that."

Professor Forbes, who also spent time at the Treasury, said that working in Washington demanded heavy sacrifices and large commitments of time. Her colleague there, Harvey S. Rosen of Princeton, added that spouses were often unwilling to move for short-term stints.

But Professor Munnell praised the experience as "extraordinary," adding that it also had a tendency to change the outlook of academic economists: "Once you taste the real world, it's really hard to ignore it."

( 2 )

Quote:

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/28/business/28ECON.html
http://www.mail-archive.com/futurewo.../msg08567.html
February 28, 2003 NY Times
A Salesman for Bush's Tax Plan Who Has Belittled Similar Ideas
By EDMUND L. ANDREWS

WASHINGTON, Feb. 27 — In nominating a respected Harvard economist as one of his top advisers, President Bush has now replaced nearly everyone from his original economic team with people who at one time spoke out against the kinds of policies Mr. Bush is prescribing.

N. Gregory Mankiw, whom Mr. Bush nominated on Wednesday to lead his Council of Economic Advisers, wrote a popular economics textbook in which he ridiculed the supply-side tax cuts of President Ronald Reagan as "fad economics" conceived by "charlatans and cranks."

If Mr. Mankiw is confirmed by the Senate, which is likely, he would become one of the top three salesmen for an even bigger plan by President Bush to cut taxes by about $1.5 trillion over the next 10 years and let the government run big budget deficits for the foreseeable future.

Mr. Mankiw's comments have infuriated a number of prominent supply-side economists, including at least one who helped draft the Reagan tax cuts. Some of them question how Mr. Mankiw can credibly promote Mr. Bush's tax cut proposals in Congress, with business groups and among the public at large.

"It's stupid; it's simply not what a good economist writes," said Martin Anderson, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institute who served in the Reagan White House and also advised Mr. Bush during the presidential campaign. "Anybody who puts that in a textbook for tens of thousands of students to read has a lot of explaining to do."
But Mr. Bush's decision to recruit Mr. Mankiw and the other new members of the economic team reflects a pragmatic decision to install people who can project confidence at a time when the economy shows new signs of stalling and Democrats are gearing up for the next election.

Few people think the new team will waver over Mr. Bush's plans, but the president is nonetheless now relying on people who had no role in drafting the plan that they have to sell.
White House officials dismissed criticisms of Mr. Mankiw today, saying he ranks among the nation's top macroeconomists and is solidly behind Mr. Bush's economic plans.

"The president nominated Professor Mankiw because he is an outstanding and talented economist who shares his view that tax cuts lead to higher growth," said Claire Buchan, a White House spokeswoman.
But Mr Mankiw, 44, (pronounced Man-CUE) is not the only person on Mr. Bush's team who has said things that appear at odds with the president's current policy. Democratic opponents have already jumped on those statements to undermine the credibility of plans....

....John W. Snow, who took over as Treasury secretary this month, campaigned aggressively for a balanced federal budget in the mid-1990's, when the deficit was actually lower than it is projected to be this year.
Stephen Friedman, who recently took over as head of the White House National Economic Council, which is responsible for coordinating administration economic policy, was a board member of the Concord Coalition, a bipartisan political group that pleads constantly for balancing the budget and has long infuriated the Bush administration.
Thus far, Mr. Snow and Mr. Friedman have swallowed any reservations about deficits they once had and become unflinching champions for the president's tax cut plan. ....

.....By most accounts, Mr. Mankiw enjoys enormous respect as a bright and prolific economist who has written best-selling textbooks as well as academic papers on topics ranging from consumer behavior to monetary policy and budget deficits.
"He is definitely not a supply-sider and definitely not a supporter of Reaganomics in the sense that Washington people talk about," said Dale Jorgenson, a professor of economics at Harvard and a longtime colleague of Mr. Mankiw. "But he is one of the top few macroeconomists in the country. He's also very well-organized and a very, very productive guy."
What has infuriated some advocates of Mr. Bush's tax-cutting plans are things that Mr. Mankiw wrote in his textbook, "Principles of Economics," first published in the late 1990's.

The textbook includes a section on President Reagan's economic policies, which, like those of President Bush, called for deep tax cuts and were based in part on the idea that tax cuts could help pay for themselves by producing faster economic growth.
In a section of his book entitled "Charlatans and Cranks," Mr. Mankiw ridiculed the Reagan policies as "fad economics" that were tantamount to "fad diets."

"An example of fad economics occurred in 1980," Mr. Mankiw wrote, "when a small group of economists advised presidential candidate Ronald Reagan that an across-the-board cut in income tax rates would raise revenue."
After reviewing the impact of Mr. Reagan's policies, which included a run of high budget deficits that lasted until the mid-1990's, Mr. Mankiw wrote that the moral of the experience was that "when politicians rely on the advice of charlatans and cranks, they rarely get the desirable results they anticipate."
In later editions of his textbook, Mr. Mankiw dropped the entire section on "charlatans and cranks" and muted his criticism. But he has not mended his fences with today's advocates of big new tax cuts.

"These insulting passages display an enormous level of ignorance about the economic reality of the 1980's," said Stephen Moore, president of the Club for Growth, a political group in Virginia that raises money for candidates who support Reagan-style tax cuts.

Mr. Moore said he wrote a letter pleading against Mr. Mankiw's nomination to Karl Rove, President Bush's top political adviser. But White House officials, who are still angry about Mr. Moore's complaints about Stephen Friedman, said today that they did not listen much to Mr. Moore.
From the LA Times............

.....Tyler Cowen, an economist at Virginia's George Mason University, is skeptical when arts advocates say that government funding brings economic growth. Their studies don't take into account what the same dollars might generate if put to some other government use, or if they were funneled back to the taxpayers, said Cowen.

"The arts are essential, but not the arts we get from state spending," he said. "I don't want to trivialize it -- you would have less of some kinds of art if state subsidies were cut. But I don't think we should exaggerate it, either. The sums involved are so small, I don't see the damage."

In the debates ahead, those who want to shield state arts funding may be challenged because of the very resiliency and resourcefulness that artists and arts organizations historically have shown.

"The cuts are getting everybody shaken up, but the arts have been scrambling and surviving for a long time. They will find a way to survive and find other ways to make the system work and be supportive," acknowledges Robert Lynch, president of Americans for the Arts. But that, he adds, doesn't mean there won't be real pain and loss. "As a matter of survival, there will be fewer performances, shorter hours....The loser is the audience."

( 3 ) "Naked Economics" received a much larger proportion of positive <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/customer-reviews/0393324869/ref=cm_rev_sort/103-8592040-5601453?customer-reviews.sort_by=%2BOverallRating&x=10&y=11&s=books">reviews</a> than Hazlitt's book.

I found the excerpts from the following "citizen" review of Hazlitt's book, "especially helpful".

( 3 )

Quote:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/cus...2&y=11&s=books

Fatally flawed, but a useful guide to free market fallacies, October 21, 2003
Reviewer: Contrarian23 "Contrarian" (Washington, DC United States) - See all my reviews
OK - no "ad hominems" here. One bitter reviewer mentions that many of the "one star" reviewers don't discuss content. But several do. And many of the "five star" reviewers don't discuss content either. So let's stick to the issue - is this a "good" book?

Two major positives for Hazlitt: First, he writes well. His prose is usually easy to understand, and he takes pains to create simple models and analogies for the reader. Second, he elucidates most of the arguments put forth by "free market" apologists, so if you want to know how these people think, this is a great place to get started.

The negatives...ah, where to begin?
1.) The simplicity of his models and analogies is of course the greatest flaw. The real world is never as simple as Hazlitt suggests it is. Even the classic (and flawed) broken window analogy is a dramatic oversimplification. And even the most extreme positions that he takes are flawed. FOr example, at one point, Hazlitt mentions that if it were productive for a society to have its factories destroyed by war, then all factory owners would destroy their factories. But this is not so. In the real world, there are costs to tear down plants - and these are generally borne by the factory owners. If those same plants were destroyed by external forces, those costs are borne by others......

2.) As another reviewer notes, Hazlitt also conveniently ignores all of the following: externalities, public goods, frictions in labor markets, game theory (especially relevant in discussing tariff policy), monopolies and oligopolies, etc. In short, his reasoning is completely circular: if you assume away all of the real world complications that gave rise to various regulations and welfare policies, then OF COURSE you are going to conclude that those regulations and policies are unnecessary and destructive....
3.) Hazlitt does not deal at all with the horribly destructive economic beast that is the modern corporation. Kudos to the one pro-Hazlitt reviewer that pointed this out (and see his review for more detail). But the point for readers to understand is that Hazlitt, by wanting to end all government intervention,implicitly gives even more power to the corporations. This is not Adam Smith's small-farmer, local-shop-owner economics. Multi-national corporate economics is a far different game, requiring a far different set of rules.

There are other problems as well. Read Hazlitt for a thorough grounding in the fallacies of the libertarians, think through his arguments for yourself and you'll soon find yourself refuting almost every conclusion that he reaches. Then you'll be well poised to do battle with your closest misguided Republican friends, not to mention the truly bizarre followers of Ayn Rand.

( 4 )

Quote:

http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_b...n_tax_pro.html
April 27, 2005
More on Tax Progressivity (or Non-Progressivity)

Stuart Levine of <a href="http://taxbiz.blogspot.com/2005/04/fools-and-knaves-wall-street-journal.html">Tax & Business Law Commentary</a> takes me to task for <a href="http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2005/04/wsj_on_distribu.html">my post</a> yesterday about the Wall Street Journal editorial citing a recent <a href="http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-soi/04asastr.pdf">study</a> by Michael Strudler, Tom Petska & Ryan Petska purporting to show that:

the overall tax burden grew more progressive from 1979 to 1999. And while that burden became a tad less progressive after the Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003, the rich and upper middle class continued to pay far and away the bulk of U.S. taxes.

As Mr. Levine notes, the WSJ editorial tells only part of the story -- the WSJ ignores data from the study and elsewhere that the growth in the income received by the very wealthy far exceeded the growth in the taxes they bore during this period:

*
Between 1979 and 2002, the threshold for the top 0.1% grew from $321,679 for 1979 to $710,661 for 2002, an increase of 121%. Similarly, the threshold for taxpayers in the 1% group rose from $109,751 for 1979 to $175,618 for 2002, an increase of just over 60%. However, the thresholds for each lower percentile class show smaller increases in the period; the top 20% threshold increased only 5.6%, and the 40% and all lower thresholds declined. In other words, over the period studied, the rich got a whole lot richer than everyone else and began to put real distance between themselves and the middle class.
*
The share of income accounted for by the top 1% of the income distribution has climbed steadily from a low of 9.58% (3.28 for the top 0.1%) for 1979 to a high of 21.55% (10.49% for the top 0.1%) for 2000. To put it another way, the rich have become real hogs with respect to the portion of the total economic pie they consume.

Indeed, we previously >a href="http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2005/04/bc_symposium_on.html">blogged</a> the recent article by <a href="http://www.law.ufl.edu/faculty/mcmahon/index.shtml">Martin J. McMahon, Jr.</a> (Florida), <a href="http://www.lawprofessorblogs.com/taxprof/linkdocs/McMahon.pdf">The Matthew Effect and Federal Taxation</a> ,45 B.C. L. Rev. 993 (2004):

This article first examines in detail the increasing concentration of income and wealth in the top 1%, and particularly within much narrower cohorts near the top of the top 1%, that has occurred over the past twenty-five years. It demonstrates the strong Matthew effect in incomes in the United States over that period. The super-rich are pulling away from everyone by so much and at a rate so fast that the fact that incomes of many households at the bottom and in the middle have stagnated, or even fallen in constant dollars, has been obscured by ever increasing per capita income. ...Finally, the article suggests that its time for the tax system to address these problems by substantially increasing progressivity at the top of the income pyramid. Future tax legislation ought to mitigate the Matthew effect, rather than enhance it.
<center><center><img src="http://me.to/svr043.gif"

( 4 )

Quote:

http://www.lawprofessorblogs.com/tax...cs/McMahon.pdf
(Page 8)
.....The most recent CBO data show not only that the income inequality
inexorably increased throughout the last two decades of the
twentieth century, but that income inequality—particularly with respect
to the rate at which those at the very top of the income pyramid
pulled away from everyone else—increased in the 1990s more than in
the 1980s.26 In 2000, before-tax income was more concentrated in the
top 1% than at any time since 1929.27

The increasing income disparities
between the top 40% and the bottom 60% between 1979 and
1993 was attributable to the combination of a decline in real income of
the bottom 40% and stagnation of the income of the middle quintile,
coupled with modest income growth for the fourth quintile and
signiªcant income growth for the top quintile, particularly for the
higher cohorts within the top quintile. From 1993 to 2000, the three
lowest quintiles experienced a not insigniªcant increase in real incomes.
Nevertheless, due to dramatic increases in their incomes, the
upper income quintiles—particularly the top 10%—actually pulled
away from the lower income quintiles at a much greater rate in the
mid-to-late 1990s than they did in the period from 1979 to 1993, as is
demonstrated in the following table.....

( 4 )

Quote:

http://mediamatters.org/items/200504260003
Remedial economics for the WSJ editorial board

An April 26 Wall Street Journal editorial argued that "the overall tax burden grew more progressive" in the last 25 years because upper income taxpayers pay a larger share of total taxes than they did in 1979. But the Journal failed to explain why upper income taxpayers pay a larger share today: The wealthiest Americans earn a much larger share of total income than they did in 1979.........

( 5 )

Quote:

http://select.nytimes.com/2005/10/28.../28krugman.htm
........The naming of Mr. Bernanke was a sign of Mr. Bush's weakness, and it brought a collective sigh of relief.

Obviously I'm pleased, too. Full disclosure: Mr. Bernanke was chairman of the Princeton economics department before moving to Washington, and he made the job offer that brought me to Princeton.

So should we all feel confident about the economic future, assuming that Mr. Bernanke is confirmed? Alas, no.............

( 6 )

Quote:

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/11/opinion/11KRUG.html
June 11, 2004, Friday
By PAUL KRUGMAN (NYT); Editorial Desk

In the movie "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance," a reporter defends prettifying history: "This is the West, sir. When the legend becomes fact, print the legend." That principle has informed many of this week's Reagan retrospectives. But let's not be bullied into accepting the right-wing legend about Reaganomics.

Here's a sample version of the legend: according to a recent article in The Washington Times, Ronald Reagan "crushed inflation along with left-wing Keynesian economics and launched the longest economic expansion in U.S. history." Actually, the 1982-90 economic expansion ranks third, after 1991-2001 and 1961-69 — but even that comparison overstates the degree of real economic success.

The secret of the long climb after 1982 was the economic plunge that preceded it. By the end of 1982 the U.S. economy was deeply depressed, with the worst unemployment rate since the Great Depression. So there was plenty of room to grow before the economy returned to anything like full employment.

The depressed economy in 1982 also explains "Morning in America," the economic boom of 1983 and 1984. You see, rapid growth is normal when an economy is bouncing back from a deep slump. (Last year, Argentina's economy grew more than 8 percent.)

And the economic expansion under President Reagan did not validate his economic doctrine. His supply-side advisers didn't promise a one-time growth spurt as the economy emerged from recession; they promised, but failed to deliver, a sustained acceleration in economic growth.

Inflation did come down sharply on Mr. Reagan's watch: it was running at 12 percent when he took office, but was only 4.5 percent when he left. But this victory came at a heavy price. For much of the Reagan era, the economy suffered from very high unemployment. Despite the rapid growth of 1983 and 1984, over the whole of the Reagan administration the unemployment rate averaged a very uncomfortable 7.5 percent.

In other words, it all played out just as "left-wing Keynesian economics" predicted.

In the late 1970's most economists believed that eliminating the high inflation then prevailing in the United States would require inflicting a lot of pain: the economy would have to go through an extended period of high unemployment and depressed output. Once the inflation had been wrung out of the system, the unemployment rate could go back down. And that's exactly what happened. In fact, it's instructive to put a graph showing the actual track of unemployment and inflation during the 1980's next to a figure from a 1978-vintage textbook showing a hypothetical disinflation scenario; the two look almost identical.

Ronald Reagan didn't decide to inflict that pain. The architect of America's great disinflation was Paul Volcker, the Fed chairman. In fact, Mr. Volcker began the process in 1979, when he adopted the tight monetary policy that caused that record unemployment rate. He was also mainly responsible for the recovery that followed: it was his decision to loosen up on the money supply in the summer of 1982 that set the stage for the rebound a few months later.

There was, in short, nothing magical about the Reagan economy. The United States did, eventually, experience an economic miracle — but not until Bill Clinton's second term. Only then did the economy achieve a combination of rapid growth, low unemployment and quiescent inflation that confounded the conventional economic wisdom. (I'm aware, by the way, that this plain statement of fact will generate an avalanche of angry mail. Irrational Clinton hatred remains a powerful force in American life.)

It's a measure of how desperate the faithful are to believe in the Reagan legend that one often reads conservative commentators claiming that the Clinton-era miracle was the result of Mr. Reagan's policies, and indeed vindicated them. Think about it: Mr. Reagan passed his big tax cut right at the beginning of his presidency, and mainly raised taxes thereafter. So we're supposed to believe that a tax cut passed in 1981 was somehow responsible for an economic miracle that didn't materialize until around 1997. Apply the same timing to the good things that happened on Mr. Reagan's watch, and you'll discover that Lyndon Johnson deserves the credit for "Morning in America."

So here's my plea: let's honor Mr. Reagan for his real achievements, not dishonor him — and mislead the nation — with false claims about his economic record.

( 7 )

Quote:

http://www.commondreams.org/cgi-bin/...05/0503-22.htm
Published on Tuesday, May 3, 2005 by CommonDreams.org
Carter Tried To Stop Bush's Energy Disasters - 28 Years Ago
by Thom Hartmann

In his recent news conference, George Bush Jr. suggested that our nation's "problem" with high gasoline prices was caused by the lack of a national energy policy, and tried to blame it all on Bill Clinton. First, Junior said, "This is a problem that's been a long time in coming. We haven't had an energy policy in this country."

This was followed by, "That's exactly what I've been saying to the American people -- 10 years ago if we'd had an energy strategy, we would be able to diversify away from foreign dependence. And -- but we haven't done that. And now we find ourselves in the fix we're in." As is so often the case, Bush was lying.

Consider President Jimmy Carter's April 18, 1977 speech. Since it was given nearly three decades ago, when many of the reporters in Bush's White House were children, it's understandable that they don't remember it. But it's inexcusable that Bush and the mainstream media (which, after all, has the ability to do research) would completely ignore it. It was the speech that established the strategic petroleum reserve, birthed the modern solar power industry, led to the insulation of millions of American homes, and established America's first national energy policy. "With the exception of preventing war," said Jimmy Carter, a man of peace, "this is the greatest challenge our country will face during our lifetimes."

He added: "It is a problem we will not solve in the next few years, and it is likely to get progressively worse through the rest of this century. "We must not be selfish or timid if we hope to have a decent world for our children and grandchildren.

"We simply must balance our demand for energy with our rapidly shrinking resources. By acting now, we can control our future instead of letting the future control us." Carter bluntly pointed out that: "The most important thing about these proposals is that the alternative may be a national catastrophe. Further delay can affect our strength and our power as a nation." He called the new energy policy he was proposing, "[T]he 'moral equivalent of war' -- except that we will be uniting our efforts to build and not destroy."

When Carter had become president three months earlier, the nation was still recovering from the "oil shock" of the 1973 Arab oil embargo, and scientists were realizing our nation was just then hitting the point of domestic peak oil production predicted more than a decade earlier by scientist M. King Hubbert. (The rest of the world is hitting the Hubbert Peak right now.) As Carter noted in his speech, "The oil and natural gas we rely on for 75 percent of our energy are running out. In spite of increased effort, domestic production has been dropping steadily at about six percent a year. Imports have doubled in the last five years. Our nation's independence of economic and political action is becoming increasingly constrained." Hubbert had predicted that the peak of oil production for the USA would come in the 1970s, and it did, hitting us with a shock.

"The world has not prepared for the future," said Jimmy Carter. "During the 1950s, people used twice as much oil as during the 1940s. During the 1960s, we used twice as much as during the 1950s. And in each of those decades, more oil was consumed than in all of mankind's previous history." Hubbert said we must begin to conserve. Carter agreed.

"Ours is the most wasteful nation on earth," he said, a point that is still true. "We waste more energy than we import. With about the same standard of living, we use twice as much energy per person as do other countries like Germany, Japan and Sweden." Carter directly challenged the fossil fuel and automobile industries. "One choice," he said, "is to continue doing what we have been doing before. We can drift along for a few more years. "Our consumption of oil would keep going up every year. Our cars would continue to be too large and inefficient. Three-quarters of them would continue to carry only one person -- the driver -- while our public transportation system continues to decline. We can delay insulating our houses, and they will continue to lose about 50 percent of their heat in waste. "We can continue using scarce oil and natural gas to generate electricity, and continue wasting two-thirds of their fuel value in the process."

But that would be unpatriotic, anti-American, and essentially wrong. Who but a traitor sold out to special interests, or an idiot, would countenance such insanity?

The year 1977 was a turning point for America. If we didn't make clear and rapid progress, we would face painful times ahead. The Saudis would have their fingers around our necks. We'd face war in the Middle East to secure future oil supplies. "Now we have a choice," Carter said. "But if we wait, we will live in fear of embargoes. We could endanger our freedom as a sovereign nation to act in foreign affairs."

Failure to act in the 1970s and 1980s would inevitably lead to a time when the only way to maintain our lifestyle would be to rape our planet and seize control of oil-rich nations in the Middle East. If we didn't begin to develop alternatives like solar power, and dramatically reduce our consumption of fossil fuels, then, Carter said, even our cherished personal freedoms would be at risk. If we continued to simply follow past policies that enriched the oil industry and the Saudis, instead of becoming energy independent, Carter said, "We will feel mounting pressure to plunder the environment."

If we failed to develop alternative sources of renewable energy and conserve what we have, the alternative could be nasty. As Carter pointed out: "We will have a crash program to build more nuclear plants, strip-mine and burn more coal, and drill more offshore wells than we will need if we begin to conserve now. Inflation will soar, production will go down, people will lose their jobs. Intense competition will build up among nations and among the different regions within our own country. "If we fail to act soon, we will face an economic, social and political crisis that will threaten our free institutions."

Carter's speech drew a strong reaction from the Saudis and the oil industry. Think tanks soon emerged - many whose names are today familiar - to suggest there was really no energy problem, and they led the charge to establish a permanent right-wing media in the US. Within two years, Saudi citizen and oil baron Salem bin Laden's sole US representative, James Bath, would funnel cash into the failing business of the son of the CIA's former director, political up-and-comer George H. W. Bush. With that money from the representative of Osama Bin Laden's half-brother, George Bush Jr. was able to keep afloat his Arbusto ("shrub" in Spanish) Oil Company. And he would be in the pocket of the bin Laden and Saudi interests for the rest of his life. But Carter was incorruptible.

"We can be sure that all the special interest groups in the country will attack the part of this plan that affects them directly," he said. "They will say that sacrifice is fine, as long as other people do it, but that their sacrifice is unreasonable, or unfair, or harmful to the country. If they succeed, then the burden on the ordinary citizen, who is not organized into an interest group, would be crushing." But that would be wrong. It would be un-American. It would lead to future oil shocks, and the probable death of American soldiers in Middle Eastern oil wars. Instead of caving in to the Saudis and the oil industry, Carter said: "There should be only one test for this program: whether it will help our country."

Two years later, as the bin Laden family's sole US representative was bailing out George Bush Junior's failing oil business, Jimmy Carter gave another speech on energy, further refining his national energy policy. He had already started the national strategic petroleum reserve, birthed the gasohol and solar power industries, and helped insulate millions of homes and offices. But he wanted to go a step further. "I am tonight setting a clear goal for the energy policy of the United States," Carter said on July 15, 1979. "Beginning this moment, this nation will never use more foreign oil than we did in 1977 -- never. From now on, every new addition to our demand for energy will be met from our own production and our own conservation. The generation-long growth in our dependence on foreign oil will be stopped dead in its tracks right now and then reversed as we move through the 1980s..." In addition, we needed to immediately begin to develop a long-range strategy to move beyond fossil fuel.

Therefore, Carter said, "I will soon submit legislation to Congress calling for the creation of this nation's first solar bank, which will help us achieve the crucial goal of 20 percent of our energy coming from solar power by the year 2000." But then came the Iran/Contra October Surprise, when the Reagan/Bush campaign allegedly promised the oil-rich mullahs of Iran that they'd sell them missiles and other weapons if only they'd keep our hostages until after the 1980 Carter/Reagan presidential election campaign was over. The result was that Carter, who had been leading in the polls over Reagan/Bush, steadily dropped in popularity as the hostage crisis dragged out, and lost the election. The hostages were released the very minute that Reagan put his hand on the Bible to take his oath of office. The hostages freed, the Reagan/Bush administration quickly began illegally delivering missiles to Iran.

And Ronald Reagan's first official acts of office included removing Jimmy Carter's solar panels from the roof of the White House, and reversing most of Carter's conservation and alternative energy policies.

Today, despite the best efforts of the Bushies, the bin Ladens, and the rest of the oil industry, Carter's few surviving initiatives have borne fruit.

It is now more economical to build power generating stations using wind than using coal, oil, gas, or nuclear. When amortized over the life of a typical mortgage, installing solar power in a house in most parts of the US is cheaper than drawing power from the grid. (Shell and British Petroleum are among the world's largest manufacturers of solar photovoltaic panels, which can now even be used as roofing shingles.) And hybrid cars that get 50-70 miles to the gallon are increasingly commonplace on our nation's highways.....

...Meanwhile, Bush brings us an energy bill that includes eight billion dollars in welfare payments to the oil business, just as the nation's oil companies report the highest profits in the entire history of the industry. Americans struggle to pay for gasoline, while the Bush administration refuses to increase fleet efficiency standards, stop the $100,000 tax break for buying Hummers, or maintain and build Amtrak. George Bush Jr. is arguably right that gas prices are spiking because we don't have an energy policy. But instead of blaming Clinton, he should be pointing to the Reagan/Bush administration, and to his own abysmal failures over the past four years.

dksuddeth · 12-02-2005, 05:38 AM

Host, as much as I'd like to respond to this post and point out the correct and incorrect theories regarding your information, i'm not willling to read the enormous amount of text from articles you have posted.

Suffice it to say, in my opinion, that Carter had great domestic policies but was seriously lacking in foreign policy knowledge or execution. This is evidenced by two major things, the iran hostage crisis and the gas shortage issue.

Reagan had great fiscal and foreign policy advisors when it came to the soviet union and defeating communism. The major downside to this is the adaptation of 'deficit spending'. While a great short term boost to the economy to get people and companies spending and investing, in a long term sense you do end up with serious budget deficits that can, and usually will, accelerate in a downward spiral. This is evidenced today by major players from the reagan presidency still in politics today that have the 'deficits don't matter' ideology. It's very important to note that communism in russia was defeated mainly because of the arms race.

stevo · 12-02-2005, 06:13 AM

I shudder to think what this country would be like if the 8 years of the Regan presidency were replaced by jimmy carter - 12 years of carter - the thought makes me tremble. and we all know how you think of regan, host.

Kadath · 12-02-2005, 06:21 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by stevo

I shudder to think what this country would be like if the 8 years of the Regan presidency were replaced by jimmy carter - 12 years of carter - the thought makes me tremble. and we all know how you think of regan, host.

It makes me tremble too: how could we have so utterly ignored the 22nd Amendment to the Constitution?!
I also find it funny that a man who so reveres a former president as to use him as an avatar neither refers to him with respect (ie, President) nor can spell his name correctly given two tries.

dksuddeth · 12-02-2005, 06:21 AM

just think, we could all be sharing the energy price burden like those in europe. and we could have our own succinct islamic community practicing their own sharia laws and courts in our country.

stevo · 12-02-2005, 08:13 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kadath

It makes me tremble too: how could we have so utterly ignored the 22nd Amendment to the Constitution?!
I also find it funny that a man who so reveres a former president as to use him as an avatar neither refers to him with respect (ie, President) nor can spell his name correctly given two tries.

Perhaps I was a tad blase in my post...It was a chaff on host's title. I guess it wasn't that obvious. btw I know how to spell the 39th President of the United State's name. I am also aware that as of February 27, 1951 no person can be elected president more than twice. But does that preclude me from posing the thought of what would have happened? Its a suppositious statement. I didn't realize we were implementing the Fark rules of posting on the TFP, it would have been nice had someone sent me a notice.

Cimarron29414 · 12-02-2005, 08:57 AM

Not touching this thread with a 10 foot pole. But I will hit and run:

Carter's policies had lowered petroluem consumption by 10 percent in two years.

Not hard to reduce consumption when your customers have to sit in gas lines for 3 hours in order to get 5 gallons.

pan6467 · 12-02-2005, 09:06 AM

Carter meant well his term was plagued by scandal by his advisors, an economy that had been built on war and defense and was torn apart, high interest rates and well intentions but unfortunately he didn't have charisma or the moxy it took to be president.

Reagan on the other hand had the charisma, and his way to bring back the economy was through defense contracts. Which worked. His economics (not trickle down, but the massive military build up spending) helped grow the economy immensely. However, the USA could not keep the military spending up the way they had in his terms. It led to record deficits, poor education, an infrastructure that has eroded. Mainly because he didn't put anything into social spending.

So short term, Reagan's policies were good, they did provide a burst, long term they have very effectively destroyed us. There are no mom and pops left, mergers and leveraged buyouts are huge..... in other words consolidating companies into one huge enterprise that is heavily indebt. The infrastructure is pretty much wasted, we are far behind the rest of the "civilized industrial" world in education, healthcare, standard of living, we have grown farther in debt but if we stop spending the economy will fall apart. We learned greed was good and the poor were poor for a reason.

What Bush is doing is similar, cutting heavily into the infrastructure and internal health of the country (Education, healthcare, small business loans, etc) and deficit spending hugely into the military.

So while the rest of the world is producing educated children that will lead tomorrows tech world we're falling behind faster.

We are turning into a has been and a non entity, the albatross around the rest of the world's neck. In that we are not moving forward, our economy is based on debt owed to the rest of the world and we consume far more than we make. This is what we owe Reagan and Bush for.

The debt is coming due, the world is moving to the Euro and the Chinese Yuan. Soon very soon the rest of the world will no longer need the US and we'll be trying to play catch up.

If the economy is so strong now.... why is GM laying off 30,000 jobs. Why as Delphi claims bankruptcy and wants to lower wages 50% does upper management seek record bonuses and "incentives". Bonuses for what? Incentives for what?

The very rich are making sure their golden parachutes are in place, because when this economy fries and it will they'll be like rats jumping ship faster than you can blink.

The problem is 2 fold, we're losing our manufacturing base and small businesses, along with decent waged jobs..... and we're facing having to fix the system pay the deficit and our personal debts with less while the demand for more money is ever increasing.

It's impossible to continue this way, there has to be a break sometime.

filtherton · 12-02-2005, 09:07 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cimarron29414

Not touching this thread with a 10 foot pole. But I will hit and run:

Carter's policies had lowered petroluem consumption by 10 percent in two years.

Not hard to reduce consumption when your customers have to sit in gas lines for 3 hours in order to get 5 gallons.

In fact, carter's plan worked so well, bush has implemented it in iraq.

Okay, sorry. Just had to say it.

Rekna · 12-02-2005, 10:23 AM

I think host should start posting using refrences with links instead of posting entire articles (like a research paper), unless you are forming a direct commentary on a single article itself. I just find it hard to read all of the stuff you post.

Kadath · 12-02-2005, 10:36 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by stevo

Perhaps I was a tad blase in my post...It was a chaff on host's title. I guess it wasn't that obvious. btw I know how to spell the 39th President of the United State's name. I am also aware that as of February 27, 1951 no person can be elected president more than twice. But does that preclude me from posing the thought of what would have happened? Its a suppositious statement. I didn't realize we were implementing the Fark rules of posting on the TFP, it would have been nice had someone sent me a notice.

Sorry, I did come after you a little hard. I just find it odious that "No Reagan" leads directly to "12 years of Jimmy Carter, history's greatest monster."

dksuddeth · 12-02-2005, 10:37 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pan6467

If the economy is so strong now.... why is GM laying off 30,000 jobs. Why as Delphi claims bankruptcy and wants to lower wages 50% does upper management seek record bonuses and "incentives". Bonuses for what? Incentives for what?

This should be obvious. The CEO's of these companies answer to the shareholders/board members, not the employees....at least not the employees first. If cutting costs, whether through layoffs or salary reductions, is going to increase the stock value then that is what they are supposed to do. Likewise, if laying off 30,000 people and reorganizing to become more competitive works, then thats what they should do.

Quote:

Originally Posted by pan6467

The very rich are making sure their golden parachutes are in place, because when this economy fries and it will they'll be like rats jumping ship faster than you can blink.

no doubt, instead of freaking out and hoping that the wealthy will be there to take care of us when it falls, maybe we should start looking at ways to maintain ourselves if/when it should happen.

Quote:

Originally Posted by pan6467

The problem is 2 fold, we're losing our manufacturing base and small businesses, along with decent waged jobs..... and we're facing having to fix the system pay the deficit and our personal debts with less while the demand for more money is ever increasing.

there are several easy answers to these two problems.
1) we can make it cheaper to make things here OR we can support the small business'/mom&pop shops. ask yourself, do you shop at places like walmart/target/sams/costco/walgreens/cvs/kmart or any of the other multinational conglomerates?

2) stay out of personal debt. don't go out and buy that new 25,000 dollar car or the $350,000 house. don't use credit cards. don't patronize businesses that require you to have one.

It's your pocketbook/wallet that controls the economy, not the government. at least not yet, but if you continue to demand that the government take charge of the economy, they soon will.

stevo · 12-02-2005, 11:10 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kadath

Sorry, I did come after you a little hard. I just find it odious that "No Reagan" leads directly to "12 years of Jimmy Carter, history's greatest monster."

But I said, "8 years of Reagan replaced by jimmy carter" Not that if Reagan wasn't elected president jc would have have served 2 more terms...you're just reading too much into my statement.

history's greatest monster...

...That was actually the last line of my original post, but I thought better of it and figured it would come out later in the thread.

ArellaNova · 12-02-2005, 11:53 AM

Oh Good Lord Almighty Host.

Well, let me make a print off of what you have written, and I will make a point to get back to all of your posts.

They wern't kidding about your love of resources. Impressed I am. Let's see what I can come up with.

Lebell · 12-02-2005, 12:04 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ArellaNova

Oh Good Lord Almighty Host.

Well, let me make a print off of what you have written, and I will make a point to get back to all of your posts.

They wern't kidding about your love of resources. Impressed I am. Let's see what I can come up with.

I think Host is retired and this is his major source of entertainment.

host · 12-02-2005, 12:44 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lebell

I think Host is retired and this is his major source of entertainment.

I have a passion that competes with the time that I should devote to sleeping.

Another informed opinion critical of Reagan's "accomplishments":
(Written near the end of Reagan's second term, in 1987.)

About Murray N. Rothbard:

Quote:

http://www.mises.org/content/mnr.asp
Murray N. Rothbard (1926-1995)
David Gordon

Murray N. Rothbard, a scholar of extraordinary range, made major contributions to economics, history, political philosophy, and legal theory. He developed and extended the Austrian economics of Ludwig von Mises, in whose seminar he was a main participant for many years. He established himself as the principal Austrian theorist in the latter half of the twentieth century and applied Austrian analysis to historical topics such as the Great Depression of 1929 and the history of American banking. ............

......In an effort to widen the influence of libertarian thought in the academic world, Rothbard founded the Journal of Libertarian Studies in 1977. The journal began auspiciously with a symposium on Robert Nozick’s Anarchy, State, and Utopia. Down to the present, it has remained the most important journal hospitable to libertarian ideas.

Rothbard established in 1987 another journal, the Review of Austrian Economics, to provide a scholarly venue for economists and others interested in Austrian theory. It too is the key journal in its area of specialty. It has continued to the present, after 1997 under the new name Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics.

In his comments on current events, Rothbard displayed an amazing ability to digest vast quantities of information on whatever subject interested him. Whether, e.g., the question was competing factions in Afghanistan or the sources of investment in oil in the Middle East, he would always have the relevant data at his command. A sample of his columns, taken from the Rockwell Rothbard Report, is available in The Irrepressible Rothbard (2000). Another journal that he founded, The Libertarian Forum, provides his topical comments for the period 1969-1984. He presented a comprehensive popular account of libertarianism in For A New Liberty (1973)...........

Quote:

http://www.mises.org/story/1544
The Myths of Reaganomics

by Murray N. Rothbard
[Posted on Wednesday, June 09, 2004] [To receive the Daily Article in your inbox, go to email services, and tell others too!]

This memo to Mises Institute members was written in late 1987, and published in "The Free Market Reader," LH Rockwell, Jr., ed., 1988, pp. 3342–362 and is posted on Mises.org in an edited edition.

I come to bury Reaganomics, not to praise it.

How well has Reaganomics achieved its own goals? Perhaps the best way of discovering those goals is to recall the heady days of Ronald Reagan's first campaign for the presidency, especially before his triumph at the Republican National Convention in 1980. In general terms, Reagan pledged to return, or advance, to a free market and to "get government off our backs."

Specifically, Reagan called for a massive cut in government spending, an even more drastic cut in taxation (particularly the income tax), a balanced budget by 1984 (that wild-spender, Jimmy Carter you see, had raised the budget deficit to $74 billion a year, and this had to be eliminated), and a return to the gold standard, where money is supplied by the market rather than by government. In addition to a call for free markets domestically, Reagan affirmed his deep commitment to free*dom of international trade. Not only did the upper echelons of the administration sport Adam Smith ties, in honor of that moderate free-trader, but Reagan himself affirmed the depth of the influence upon him of the mid-19th century laissez-faire economist, Frederic Bastiat, whose devastating and satiric attacks on protectionism have been anthologized in economics readings ever since.

The gold standard was the easiest pledge to dispose of. President Reagan appointed an allegedly impartial gold com*mission to study the problem—a commission overwhelm*ingly packed with lifelong opponents of gold. The commis*sion presented its predictable report, and gold was quickly in*terred.

Let's run down the other important areas:

Government Spending. How well did Reagan succeed in cutting government spending, surely a critical ingredient in any plan to reduce the role of government in everyone's life? In 1980, the last year of free-spending Jimmy Carter the fed*eral government spent $591 billion. In 1986, the last recorded year of the Reagan administration, the federal government spent $990 billion, an increase of 68%. Whatever this is, it is emphatically not reducing government expenditures.

Sophisticated economists say that these absolute numbers are an unfair comparison, that we should compare federal spending in these two years as percentage of gross national product. But this strikes me as unfair in the opposite direc*tion, because the greater the amount of inflation generated by the federal government, the higher will be the GNP. We might then be complimenting the government on a lower percentage of spending achieved by the government's gener*ating inflation by creating more money. But even taking these percentages of GNP figures, we get federal spending as percent of GNP in 1980 as 21.6%, and after six years of Reagan, 24.3%. A better comparison would be percentage of federal spending to net private product, that is, production of the private sector. That percentage was 31.1% in 1980, and a shocking 34.3% in 1986. So even using percentages, the Reagan administration has brought us a substantial increase in government spending.

Also, the excuse cannot be used that Congress massively increased Reagan's budget proposals. On the contrary, there was never much difference between Reagan's and Congress's budgets, and despite propaganda to the contrary, Reagan never proposed a cut in the total budget.

Deficits. The next, and admittedly the most embarrassing, failure of Reaganomic goals is the deficit. Jimmy Carter habitually ran deficits of $40-50 billion and, by the end, up to $74 billion; but by 1984, when Reagan had promised to achieve a balanced budget, the deficit had settled down com*fortably to about $200 billion, a level that seems to be perma*nent, despite desperate attempts to cook the figures in one-shot reductions.

This is by far the largest budget deficit in American his*tory. It is true that the $50 billion deficits in World War II were a much higher percentage of the GNP; but the point is that that was a temporary, one-shot situation, the product of war finance. But the war was over in a few years; and the cur*rent federal deficits now seem to be a recent, but still perma*nent part of the American heritage.

One of the most curious, and least edifying, sights in the Reagan era was to see the Reaganites completely change their tune of a lifetime. At the very beginning of the Reagan ad*ministration, the conservative Republicans in the House of Representatives, convinced that deficits would disappear im*mediately, received a terrific shock when they were asked by the Reagan administration to vote for the usual annual in*crease in the statutory debt limit. These Republicans, some literally with tears in their eyes, protested that never in their lives had they voted for an increase in the national debt limit, but they were doing it just this one time because they "trusted Ronald Reagan" to balance the budget from then on. The rest, alas, is history, and the conservative Repub*licans never saw fit to cry again. Instead, they found them*selves adjusting rather easily to the new era of huge permanent deficits. The Gramm-Rudman law, allegedly designed to eradicate deficits in a few years, has now unsurprisingly bogged down in enduring confusion.

Reaganomics has been an uneasy and shifting coalition of several clashing schools of economic thought. In particular, the leading schools have been the conservative Keynesians, the Milton Friedman monetarists, and the supply-siders.
Even less edifying is the spectre of Reaganomists who had inveighed against deficits—that legacy of Keynesianism—for decades. Soon Reaganite economists, especially those staffing economic posts in the executive and legislative branches, found that deficits really weren't so bad after all. Ingenious models were devised claiming to prove that there really isn't any deficit. Bill Niskanen, of the Reagan Council of Eco*nomic Advisors, came up with perhaps the most ingenious discovery: that there is no reason to worry about govern*ment deficits, since they are balanced by the growth in value of government assets. Well, hooray, but it is rather strange to see economists whose alleged goal is a drastic reduction in the role of government cheering for ever greater growth in gov*ernment assets. Moreover, the size of government assets is really beside the point. It would only be of interest if the fed*eral government were just another private business firm, about to go into liquidation, and whose debtors could then be satisfied by a parceling out of its hefty assets. The federal government is not about to be liquidated; there is no chance, for example, of an institution ever going into bankruptcy or liquidation that has the legal right to print whatever money it needs to get itself—and anyone else it favors—out of any fi*nancial hole.

There has also been a fervent revival of the old left-Keynesian idea that "deficits don't matter, anyway." Deficits are stimulating, we can "grow ourselves out of deficits," etc. The most interesting, though predictable, twist was that of the supply-siders, who, led by Professor Arthur Laffer and his famous "curve," had promised that if income tax rates were cut, investment and production would be so stimulated that a fall in tax rates would increase tax revenue and balance the budget. When the budget was most emphatically not bal*anced, and deficits instead got worse, the supply-siders threw Laffer overboard as the scapegoat, claiming that Laffer was an extremist, and the only propounder of his famous curve. The supply-siders then retreated to their current, fall-back posi*tion, which is quite frankly Keynesian; namely deficits don't matter anyway, so let's have cheap money and deficits; relax and enjoy them. About the only Keynesian phrase we have not heard yet from Reaganomists is that the national debt "doesn't matter because we owe it to ourselves," and I am wait*ing for some supply-sider to adopt this famous 1930s phrase of Abba Lerner without, of course, bothering about attribution.

One way in which Ronald Reagan has tried to seize the moral high road on the deficit question is to divorce his rhetoric from reality even more sharply than usual. Thus, the proposer of the biggest deficits in American history has been calling vehemently for a Constitutional amendment to require a bal*anced budget. In that way, Reagan can lead the way toward permanent $200 billion deficits, while basking in the virtue of proposing a balanced budget amendment, and trying to make Congress the fall guy for our deficit economy.

Even in the unlikely event that the balanced budget amendment should ever pass, it would be ludicrous in its lack of effect. In the first place, Congress can override the amend*ment at any time by three-fifths vote. Secondly, Congress is not required to actually balance any budget; that is, its actual expenditures in any given year are not limited to the reve*nues taken in. Instead, Congress is only required to prepare an estimate of a balanced budget for a future year; and of course, government estimates, even of its own income or spending, are notoriously unreliable. And third, there is no enforcement clause; suppose Congress did violate even the re*quirement for an estimated balanced budget: What is going to happen to the legislators? Is the Supreme Court going to sum*mon marshals and put the entire U.S. Congress in jail? And yet, not only has Reagan been pushing for such an absurd amendment, but so too have many helpful Reaganomists.

Tax Cuts. One of the few areas where Reaganomists claim success without embarrassment is taxation. Didn't the Reagan administration, after all, slash income taxes in 1981, and provide both tax cuts and "fairness" in its highly touted tax reform law of 1986? Hasn't Ronald Reagan, in the teeth of opposition, heroically held the line against all tax increases?

The answer, unfortunately, is no. In the first place, the fa*mous "tax cut" of 1981 did not cut taxes at all. It's true that tax rates for higher-income brackets were cut; but for the average person, taxes rose, rather than declined. The reason is that, on the whole, the cut in income tax rates was more than offset by two forms of tax increase. One was "bracket creep," a term for inflation quietly but effectively raising one into higher tax brackets, so that you pay more and proportionately higher taxes even though the tax rate schedule has officially remained the same. The second source of higher taxes was Social Security taxation, which kept increasing, and which helped taxes go up overall. Not only that, but soon thereafter; when the Social Security System was generally perceived as on the brink of bankruptcy, President Reagan brought in Alan Greenspan, a leading Reaganomist and now Chairman of the Federal Reserve, to save Social Security as head of a bi*partisan commission. The "saving," of course, meant still higher Social Security taxes then and forevermore.

Since the tax cut of 1981 that was not really a cut, fur*thermore, taxes have gone up every single year since, with the approval of the Reagan administration. But to save the president's rhetorical sensibilities, they weren't called tax in*creases. Instead, ingenious labels were attached to them; rais*ing of "fees," "plugging loopholes" (and surely everyone wants loopholes plugged), "tightening IRS enforcement," and even revenue enhancements." I am sure that all good Reaganomists slept soundly at night knowing that even though government revenue was being "enhanced," the pres*ident had held the line against tax increases.

Reagan's foreign economic policy has been the exact opposite of its proclaimed devotion to free trade and free markets.
The highly ballyhooed Tax "Reform" Act of 1986 was supposed to be economically healthy as well as "fair"; sup*posedly "revenue neutral," it was to bring us (a) simplicity, helping the public while making the lives of tax accountants and lawyers miserable; and (b) income tax cuts, especially in the higher income brackets and in everyone's marginal tax rates (that is, income tax rates on additional money you may earn); and offset only by plugging those infamous loopholes. The reality, of course, was very different, In the first place, the administration has succeeded in making the tax laws so complicated that even the IRS admittedly doesn't understand it, and tax accountants and lawyers will be kept puzzled and happy for years to come.

Secondly, while indeed income tax rates were cut in the higher brackets, many of the loophole plugs meant huge tax increases for people in the upper as well as middle income brackets. The point of the income tax, and particularly the marginal rate cuts, was the supply-sider objective of lowering taxes to stimulate savings and investment. But a National Bureau study by Hausman and Poterba on the Tax Reform Act shows that over 40% of the nation's taxpayers suffered a marginal tax increase (or at best, the same rate as before) and, of the majority that did enjoy marginal tax cuts, only 11% got reductions of 10% or more. In short, most of the tax reduc*tions were negligible. Not only that; the Tax Reform Act, these authors reckoned, would lower savings and investment overall because of the huge increases in taxes on business and on capital gains. Moreover savings were also hurt by the tax law's removal of tax deductibility on contributions to IRAs.

Not only were taxes increased, but business costs were greatly raised by making business expense meals only 80% deductible, which means a great expenditure of business time and energy keeping and shuffling records. And not only were taxes raised by eliminating tax shelters in real estate, but the law's claims to "fairness" were made grotesque by the retroac*tive nature of many of the tax increases. Thus, the abolition of tax shelter deductibility was made retroactive, imposing huge penalties after the fact. This is ex post facto legislation outlawed by the Constitution, which prohibits making ac*tions retroactively criminal for a time period when they were perfectly legal. A friend of mine, for example, sold his busi*ness about eight years ago; to avoid capital gains taxes, he in*corporated his business in the American Virgin Islands, which the federal government had made exempt from capital gains taxes in order to stimulate Virgin Islands development. Now, eight years later, this tax exemption for the Virgin Islands has been removed (a "loophole" plugged!) but the IRS now expects my friend to pay full retroactive capital gains taxes plus interest on this eight-year old sale. Let's hear it for the "fairness" of the tax reform law!

But the bottom line on the tax question: is what hap*pened in the Reagan era to government tax revenues overall? Did the amount of taxes extracted from the American people by the federal government go up or down during the Reagan years? The facts are that federal tax receipts were $517 billion in the last Carter year of 1980. In 1986, revenues totaled $769 billion, an increase of 49%. Whatever that is, that doesn't look like a tax cut. But how about taxes as a percentage of the national product? There, we can concede that on a percent*age criterion, overall taxes fell very slightly, remaining about even with the last year of Carter. Taxes fell from 18.9% of the GNP to 18.3%, or for a better gauge, taxes as percentage of net private product fell from 27.2% to 26.6%. A large abso*lute increase in taxes, coupled with keeping taxes as a per*centage of national product about even, is scarcely cause for tossing one's hat in the air about a whopping reduction in taxes during the Reagan years.

In recent months, moreover; the Reagan administration has been more receptive to loophole plugging, fees, and reve*nues than ever before. To quote from the Tax Watch column in the New York Times (October 13, 1987): "President Reagan has repeatedly warned Congress of his opposition to any new taxes, but some White House aides have been trying to figure out a way of endorsing a tax bill that could be called some*thing else."

In addition to closing loopholes, the White House is nudging Congress to expand the usual definition of a "user fee," not a tax because it is supposed to be a fee for those who use a government service, say national parks or waterways. But apparently the Reagan administration is now expanding the definition of "user fee" to include excise taxes, on the as*sumption, apparently, that every time we purchase a product or service we must pay government for its permission. Thus, the Reagan administration has proposed not, of course, as a tax increase, but as an alleged "user fee," a higher excise tax on every international airline or ship ticket, a tax on all coal producers, and a tax on gasoline and on highway charges for buses. The administration is also willing to support, as an alleged user fee rather than a tax, a requirement that employ*ers, such as restaurants, start paying the Social Security tax on tips received by waiters and other service personnel.

In the wake of the stock market crash, President Reagan is now willing to give us a post-crash present of: higher taxes that will openly be called higher taxes. On Tuesday morning, the White House declared: "We're going to hold to our guns. The president has given us marching orders: no tax increase." By Tuesday afternoon, however, the marching or*ders had apparently evaporated, and the president said that he was "willing to look at" tax-increase proposals. To greet a looming recession with a tax increase is a wonderful way to bring that recession into reality. Once again, President Reagan is following the path blazed by Herbert Hoover in the Great Depression of raising taxes to try to combat a deficit.

Deregulation. Another crucial aspect of freeing the market and getting government off our backs is deregulation, and the administration and its Reaganomists have been very proud of its deregulation record. However, a look at the record re*veals a very different picture In the first place, the most con*spicuous examples of deregulation; the ending of oil and gaso*line price controls and rationing, the deregulation of trucks and airlines, were all launched by the Carter administration, and completed just in time for the Reagan administration to claim the credit. Meanwhile, there were other promised deregulations that never took place; for example, abolition of natural gas controls and of the Department of Energy.

Overall, in fact, there has probably been not deregulation, but an increase in regulation. Thus, Christopher De Muth, head of the American Enterprise Institute and a former top official of Reagan's Office of Management and the Budget, concludes that "the President has not mounted a broad offen*sive against regulation. There hasn't been much total change since 1981. There has been more balanced administration of regulatory agencies than we had become used to in the 1970s, but many regulatory rules have been strengthened."

In particular, there has been a fervent drive, especially in the past year; to intensify regulation of Wall Street. A savage and almost hysterical attack was launched late last year by the Securities and Exchange Commission and by the Depart*ment of Justice on the high crime of "insider trading." Dis*tinguished investment bankers were literally hauled out of their offices in manacles, and the most conspicuous inside trader received as a punishment (1) a fine of $100 million; (2) a lifetime ban on any further security trading, and (3) a jail term of one year, suspended for community service. And this is the light sentence, in return for allowing himself to be wired and turn informer on his insider trading colleagues. [Editor's note: Ivan Boesky was sentenced to three years in prison.]

All this was part of a drive by the administration to pro*tect inefficient corporate managers from the dread threat of takeover bids, by which means stockholders are able to dis*pose easily of ineffective management and turn to new man*agers. Can we really say that this frenzied assault on Wall Street by the Reagan administration had no impact on the stock market crash [October 1987]?

And yet the Reagan administration has reacted to the crash not by letting up, but by intensifying, regulation of the stock market. The head of the SEC strongly considered clos*ing down the market on October 19, and some markets were temporarily shut down—a case, once again, of solving prob*lems by shooting the market—the messenger of bad news. October 20, the Reagan administration collaborated in an*nouncing early closing of the market for the next several days. The SEC has already moved, in conjunction with the New York Stock Exchange, to close down computer program trading on the market, a trade related to stock index futures. But blaming computer program trading for the crash is a Luddite reaction; trying to solve problems by taking a crow*bar and wrecking machines. There were no computers, after all, in 1929. Once again, the instincts of the administration, particularly in relation to Wall Street, is to regulate. Regulate, and inflate, seem to be the Reaganite answers to our eco*nomic ills.

Agricultural policy, for its part, has been a total disaster. Instead of ending farm price supports and controls and returning to a free market in agriculture, the administration has greatly increased price supports, controls and subsidies. Furthermore, it has brought a calamitous innovation to the farm program; the PIK program ["Payments In Kind"] in which the government gets the farmers to agree to drastic cuts in acreage, in return for which the government pays back the wheat or cotton surpluses previously held off the market. The result of all this has been to push farm prices far higher than the world market, depress farm exports, and throw many farmers into bankruptcy. All the administration can offer, however, is more of the same disastrous policy.

Foreign Economic Policy. If the Reagan administration has botched the domestic economy, even in terms of its own goals, how has it done in foreign economic affairs? As we might expect, its foreign economic policy has been the exact opposite of its proclaimed devotion to free trade and free markets. In the first place, Adam Smith ties and Bastiat to the contrary notwithstanding, the Reagan administration has been the most belligerent and nationalistic since Herbert Hoover. Tariffs and import quotas have been repeatedly raised, and Japan has been treated as a leper and repeatedly de*nounced for the crime of selling high quality products at low prices to the delighted American consumer.

In all matters of complex and tangled international eco*nomics, the only way out of the thicket is to keep our eye on one overriding question: Is it good, or bad, for the American consumer? What the American consumer wants is good qual*ity products at low prices, and so the Japanese should be wel*comed and admired instead of condemned. As for the alleged crime of "dumping," if the Japanese are really foolish enough to waste money and resources by dumping—that is selling goods to us below costs—then we should welcome such a pol*icy with open arms; anytime the Japanese are willing to sell me Sony TV sets for a dollar, I am more than happy to take the sets off their hands.

Not only foreign producers are hurt by protectionism, but even more so are American consumers. Every time the administration slaps a tariff or quota on motorcycles or on textiles or semiconductors or clothespins—as it did to bail out one inefficient clothespin plant in Maine—every time it does that, it injures the American consumer.

It is no wonder, then, that even the Reaganomist Bill Niskanen recently admitted that "international trade is more regulated than it was 10 years ago." Or, as Secretary of Treas*ury James Baker declared proudly last month: "President Reagan has granted more import relief to U.S. industry than any of his predecessors in more than half a century." Pretty good for a Bastiat follower.

Another original aim of the Reagan administration, under the influence of the monetarists, or Friedmanites, was to keep the government's hand completely off exchange rates, and to allow these rates to fluctuate freely on the mar*ket, without interference by the Federal Reserve or the Treas*ury. A leading monetarist, Dr. Beryl W. Sprinkel, was made Undersecretary of the Treasury for Monetary Policy in 1981 to carry out that policy. But this non-intervention is long gone, and Secretary Baker, aided by the Fed, has been busily engaged in trying to persuade other countries to intervene to help coordinate and fix exchange rates. After being removed from the Treasury after several years, Sprinkel was sent to Siberia and ordered to keep quiet, as head of the Council of Economic Advisors; and Sprinkel has recently announced that he will leave the government altogether. [Editor's note: Sprinkel was later rehabilitated, and given Cabinet status, in return for his agreement to take part in the disas*trous Baker dollar policy.]

Moreover, the policy of foreign aid and foreign lending conducted or encouraged by the government has proceeded more intensely than even under previous administrations. Reagan has bailed out the despotic government of Poland with massive loans, so that Poland could repay its Western creditors. A similar policy has been conducted in relation to many shaky or bankrupt third world governments. The spec*tre of bank collapse from foreign loans has been averted by bailouts and promises of bailout from the Federal Reserve, the nation's only manufacturer of dollars, which it can pro*duce at will.

Wherever we look, then, on the budget, in the domestic economy, or in foreign trade or international monetary rela*tions, we see government even more on our backs than ever. The burden and the scope of government intervention under Reagan has increased, not decreased. Reagan's rhetoric has been calling for reductions of government; his actions have been precisely the reverse. Yet both sides of the political fence have bought the rhetoric and claim that it has been put into effect.

Reaganites and Reaganomists, for obvious reasons, are trying desperately to maintain that Reagan has indeed ful*filled his glorious promises; while his opponents, intent on attacking the bogey of Reaganomics, are also, and for oppo*site reasons, anxious to claim that Reagan has really put his free-market program into operation. So we have the curious, and surely not healthy, situation where a mass of politically interested people are totally misinterpreting and even misrep*resenting the Reagan record; focusing, like Reagan himself, on his rhetoric instead of on the reality.

What of the Future? Is there life after Reaganomics? To assess coming events, we first have to realize that Reagan*omics has never been a monolith. It has had several faces; Reaganomics has been an uneasy and shifting coalition of several clashing schools of economic thought. In particular, the leading schools have been the conservative Keynesians, the Milton Friedman monetarists, and the supply-siders. The monetarists, devoted to a money rule of a fixed percentage increase of money growth engineered by the Federal Reserve, have come a cropper. Fervently believing that science is noth*ing else but prediction, the monetarists have self-destructed by making a string of self-confident but disastrous predic*tions in the last several years. Their fate illustrates the fact that he who lives by prediction shall die by it. Apart from their views on money, the monetarists generally believe in free markets, and so their demise has left Reaganomics in the hands of the other two schools, neither of whom are particul*arly interested in free markets or cutting government.

The conservative Keynesians—the folks who brought us the economics of the Nixon and Ford administrations—saw Keynesianism lose its dominance among economists with the inflationary recession of 1973-74, an event which Keynesians stoutly believed could never possibly happen. But while Keynesians have lost their old eclat, they remain with two preoccupations: (1) a devotion to the New Deal-Fair Deal-Great Society-Nixon-Ford-Carter-status quo, and (2) a zeal for tax increases to moderate the current deficit. As for gov*ernment spending, never has the thought of actually cutting expenditures crossed their minds. The supply-siders, who are weak in academia but strong in the press and in exerting enormous political leverage per capita, have also no interest in cutting government spending. To the contrary, both con*servative Keynesians and supply-siders are prepared to call for an increasing stream of goodies from government.

Both groups have also long been keen on monetary infla*tion. The supply-siders have pretty much given up the idea of tax cuts; their stance is now to accept the deficit and oppose any tax increase. On foreign monetary matters, the conserva*tive Keynesians and the supply-siders have formed a coali*tion; both groups embrace Secretary of Treasury Baker's Keynesian program of fixed exchange rates and an interna*tionally coordinated policy of cheap money.

Politically, the Republican presidential candidates can be assessed on their various preferred visions of Reaganomics. Vice-President Bush is, of course, a conservative Keynesian and a veteran arch-enemy of supply-side doctrine, which he famously denounced in 1980 as "voodoo economics." Secre*tary of Treasury James Baker is a former Bush campaign aide. White House Chief of Staff Howard Baker is also in the con*servative Keynesian camp, as was Paul Volcker, and is Alan Greenspan. Since former White House Chief of Staff Donald Regan was a fellow-traveller of the supply-siders, his replace*ment by Howard Baker as a result of Iranscam was a triumph of conservative Keynesians over the supply-siders. This year, in fact, our troika of Economic Rulers, Greenspan and the two Bakers, has all been squarely in the conservative Keynes*ian camp.

Senator Robert Dole, the other Republican front-runner for president, is also a conservative Keynesian. In fact, Bob Dole carried on the fight for higher taxes even when it was relatively unfashionable inside the administration. So de*voted to higher taxes is Bob Dole, in fact, that he is reputed to be the favorite presidential candidate of the Internal Revenue Service. So if you like the IRS, you'll love Bob Dole.

Congressman Jack Kemp, on the other hand, has been the political champion of the supply-siders ever since supply-side was invented in the late 1970s. Kemp's call for higher govern*ment spending, and approval of deficits, monetary inflation, and fixed exchange rates, all attest to his supply-side devotion.

Jack Kemp, however, has for some reason not struck fire among the public, so Mrs. Jeanne Kirkpatrick stands ready in the wings to take up the cause if Kemp should fail to rally. I confess I have not been able to figure out the economic views of the Reverend Pat Robertson, although I have a hunch they do not loom very large in his world outlook.

Although there are a lot of Democratic candidates out there, it is hard at this point to distinguish one from another, on economic policy or indeed on anything else. As Joe Klein recently wrote in a perceptive article in New York magazine, the Republicans are engaged in an interesting clash of differ*ent ideas, while the Democrats are all muddily groping to*ward the center. To make the confusion still greater, Klein points out that Republicans are busily talking about "com*passion," while the Democrats are all stressing "efficiency." One thing is fairly clear; Congressman Gephardt is an all-out protectionist, thoroughly jettisoning the old Democratic commitment to free trade, and is the most ardent statist in agricultural policy.

On monetary and fiscal policy, the Democrats are the classic party of liberal Keynesianism, in contrast to the Re*publican policy of conservative Keynesianism. The problem is that, in the last decade or two, it has become increasingly dif*ficult to tell the difference. Apart from supply-sider Kemp, we can expect the president of either party to be a middle-of-the-road liberal/conservative Keynesian. And so we can expect the next administration's economic policies to be roughly the same as they are now. Except that the rhetoric will be differ*ent. So we can, therefore, expect diverse perceptions and responses to a similar reality by the public and by the market. Thus, if Jack Kemp becomes president, the public will wrongly consider him a champion of hard money, budget cutting, and the free market. The public will therefore underestimate the wildly inflationist reality of a Kemp administration. On the other hand, the public probably perceives the Democrats to be wilder spenders relative to the Republicans than they really are. So should the Democrats win in 1988, we can ex*pect the market to overestimate the inflationary measure of a Democratic administration.

All of this, along with the universal misperception of Reaganomics, illustrates once more the wisdom of those incisive political philosophers, Gilbert and Sullivan: "Things are not always what they seem; skim milk masquerades as cream."

pan6467 · 12-03-2005, 02:18 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dksuddeth

This should be obvious. The CEO's of these companies answer to the shareholders/board members, not the employees....at least not the employees first. If cutting costs, whether through layoffs or salary reductions, is going to increase the stock value then that is what they are supposed to do. Likewise, if laying off 30,000 people and reorganizing to become more competitive works, then thats what they should do.

No they shouldn't, in the short term it crushes the employees work morale and in the long term it destroys the company. It's a golden parachute and it's wrong.

I love how neo-cons don't believe they nor the industries have any civic duty to the community, yet they expect the police to protect, the fire department to be ready, the roads to be good, the schools to be decent and teaching kids for the future, and so on.

Yet, actions like these destroy a community, its tax base and the infrastructure. Of course the executives who get the bonuses, are gone.

Sorry but it's wrong. If I own a company it is for me morally wrong to ask my employees to take cuts and give myself bonuses. What needs to be done is for Delphi to say, We're going to cut wages 25% including managements and together we are going to work to save the company. We'll streamline production, we'll find better ways to market and we'll do it together.

Instead what you are saying is, FUCK YOU workers, we're going to take all we can and when the company goes under..... too bad.

Quote:

no doubt, instead of freaking out and hoping that the wealthy will be there to take care of us when it falls, maybe we should start looking at ways to maintain ourselves if/when it should happen.

Where exactly did I say the wealthy should take care of us? You are putting words in my mouth, now?

No, that is not my belief. My belief is that we are a nation and we need to work together, and find ways to save our country from economic failure. If you want to believe that means I expect the wealthy to pay for everything..... then you have no understanding of me whatsoever. You CHOOSE to believe what you want. The truth is, I believe both sides need to give and compromise.... but I see the rich not doing either. They are taking all they can. It's wrong and it shows that they have no faith in the country or in Bush's so called economy.

Quote:

there are several easy answers to these two problems.
1) we can make it cheaper to make things here OR we can support the small business'/mom&pop shops. ask yourself, do you shop at places like walmart/target/sams/costco/walgreens/cvs/kmart or any of the other multinational conglomerates?

I shop at all the locally owned places I can. They maybe more expensive (not by much) but it helps my local economy.

Quote:

2) stay out of personal debt. don't go out and buy that new 25,000 dollar car or the $350,000 house. don't use credit cards. don't patronize businesses that require you to have one.

Except for the medical bills I just incurred I was debt free. Except for student loans, which as long as I am a student are not due.... I was 100% debt free, bills paid on time, I own 2 cars outright, I own all I have and have no loans or debt on any of it.

Quote:

It's your pocketbook/wallet that controls the economy, not the government. at least not yet, but if you continue to demand that the government take charge of the economy, they soon will.

Ahhhh so if that is the case then why is this thread even here? Why do people praise Reaganomics, curse Clinton... and so on. If it's the people's wallets the politics and government shouldn't have anything to do with it?

Unfortunately, that is not true. The Fed controls interest rates and along with the Department of Treasury prints the money and controls how much is in circulation, thereby influencing Inflation and deflation.

The national deficit cause more money to go to pay just the interest rates therefore taking out the money to keep the infrastructure alive.

Taxes go up in communities to make up for the shortfall of the Federal, State and industries lost..... but as unemployment and lower paying jobs hit the population, the burden becomes heavier on the rich.

As the trade deficit grows the dollar shrinks and we have to ship out more and more jobs to get lower and lower wages to compete with imports. But again, people go farther and farther into debt because they cannot afford to live.

You say sacrifice..... if the people sacrificed truly the economy would go into a full depression. The companies need the people to have credit and use it to buy their products. That's why it is pretty easy to get credit cards.

If people lived within the means, this nation would be bankrupt in 6 months.

It's the "bill-bingo", the robbing Peter to pay Paul that is keeping this nation afloat, from the federal government to the citizens.

But the time is coming when the debt will come due. It has to. When it does, do you truly believe the poor will just riot and steal from themselves? OR that our freedom and our government will survive?

There is a finite number of money and when the trade deficit and the national deficit reach that point we're done.

You act and seemingly want to believe that we have an infinite supply of money..... that is impossible, if we did or if we try inflation/deflation and total devaluation occurs. In other words the money is worthless.

It won't the whole infrastructure will colapse and people will look for any way to survive ..... when that has happened in history and every time throughout history, you get Hitlers, Napoleans, Trotskys, Stalins and so on.

We're not looking at a depression of the 30's, we're staring at a total breakdown in this country.

So keep being greedy, keep believing companies and the rich owe nothing to the communities and when the nation falls apart....... who are you going to blame?

dksuddeth · 12-03-2005, 03:09 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pan6467

No they shouldn't, in the short term it crushes the employees work morale and in the long term it destroys the company. It's a golden parachute and it's wrong.

If looked at from a strictly cost issue, labor costs are the biggest expense to a company so naturally 'most' executives look to reduce this. Do I think its right? no. I think that cutting labor should always be your last resort but i'm not an executive. I also happen to think that nowadays it requires a frontal lobotomy to be an executive, but thats just me.

Quote:

Originally Posted by pan6467

I love how neo-cons don't believe they nor the industries have any civic duty to the community, yet they expect the police to protect, the fire department to be ready, the roads to be good, the schools to be decent and teaching kids for the future, and so on.

this kind of business philosophy isn't just a 'neocon' philosophy. how many decades have we dealt with major layoffs in companies now? The 'golden parachute' has been around since the mid 70's now. In the beginning there was a decent reason for it, but now its gotten out of hand.

Quote:

Originally Posted by pan6467

Sorry but it's wrong. If I own a company it is for me morally wrong to ask my employees to take cuts and give myself bonuses. What needs to be done is for Delphi to say, We're going to cut wages 25% including managements and together we are going to work to save the company. We'll streamline production, we'll find better ways to market and we'll do it together.

when you become a CEO, let me know. I'll come work for you.

Quote:

Originally Posted by pan6467

Where exactly did I say the wealthy should take care of us? You are putting words in my mouth, now?

maybe a little. my apologies.

Quote:

Originally Posted by pan6467

No, that is not my belief. My belief is that we are a nation and we need to work together, and find ways to save our country from economic failure. If you want to believe that means I expect the wealthy to pay for everything..... then you have no understanding of me whatsoever. You CHOOSE to believe what you want. The truth is, I believe both sides need to give and compromise.... but I see the rich not doing either. They are taking all they can. It's wrong and it shows that they have no faith in the country or in Bush's so called economy.

Quote:

Originally Posted by pan6467

I shop at all the locally owned places I can. They maybe more expensive (not by much) but it helps my local economy.

same here.

reaganomics, or supply side economics, has its advantages. The problem is its not a long term policy. the rest about tax base and all of that....if people in local and state governments would use the same philosophy fiscally as they do for their household, then debt would be easy to deal with.

Ustwo · 12-04-2005, 09:44 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dksuddeth

rif people in local and state governments would use the same philosophy fiscally as they do for their household, then debt would be easy to deal with.

Oh really?

Quote:

# Total consumer credit: $1.7 trillion.
# Credit card debt carried by the average American: $8,562.
# Total finance charges Americans paid in 2001: $50 billion.
# Percent of U.S. households deemed credit worthy by the lending industry: 78%.
# Number of credit card holders who declared bankruptcy last year: 1.3 million.

The problem is people in local and state governments act JUST like they do at home, (as a rule) the problem is that its a bit worse since its not 'their' money they are spending.

dksuddeth · 12-05-2005, 03:11 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ustwo

Oh really?

The problem is people in local and state governments act JUST like they do at home, (as a rule) the problem is that its a bit worse since its not 'their' money they are spending.

thats based upon the philosophy of people treating finances as Pan put forth in the post. not based in reality. sorry i didn't clarify that.

scout · 12-05-2005, 03:23 AM

All I know is the Democrats had eight years to fix anything Mr. Reagon screwed up. Instead, they chose to [1] get a blowjob in the Oval Office {which btw I don't give a damn}. [2] appoint a committee headed by Mrs Clinton herself to fix the healthcare problems and give us some sort of national healthcare. She failed to do either. [3] Take guns away from law abiding citizens.

host · 12-05-2005, 03:45 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by scout

All I know is the Democrats had eight years to fix anything Mr. Reagon screwed up. Instead, they chose to [1] get a blowjob in the Oval Office {which btw I don't give a damn}. [2] appoint a committee headed by Mrs Clinton herself to fix the healthcare problems and give us some sort of national healthcare. She failed to do either. [3] Take guns away from law abiding citizens.

scout...since you, [1]"Don't give a damn" and [2] Is explained, if you are willing to read about what happened. You got [3] Clinton responding to the pleas of the wife of Reagan's shot and horribly wounded press secretary, Jim brady....and she had to wait through twelve years of republicans to achieve her modest and reasonable goal.

Quote:

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php...th_care_reform
In 1993, Childs recalled, "The insurance industry was real nervous. Everybody was talking about health care reform. ... We felt like we were looking down the barrel of a gun." Forming coalitions, he explained, is a way to "provide cover for your interest. We needed cover because we were going to be painted as the bad guy. You [also] get strength in numbers. Some have lobby strength, some have grassroots strength, and some have good spokespersons. ... Start with the natural, strongest allies, sit around a table and build up ... to give your coalition a positive image." For the health care debate, his coalition drew in "everyone from the homeless Vietnam veterans ... to some very conservative groups. It was an amazing array, and they were all doing something."

Instead of forming a single coalition, health reform opponents used opinion polling to develop a point-by-point list of vulnerabilities in the Clinton administration proposal and organized over 20 separate coalitions to hammer away at each point. "In naming your coalition ... use words that you've identified in your research," Childs said. "There are certain words that ... have a general positive reaction. That's where focus group and survey work can be very beneficial. 'Fairness,' 'balance,' 'choice,' 'coalition,' and 'alliance' are all words that resonate very positively." The Coalition for Health Insurance Choices (CHIC), for example, focused on opposing the Clinton plan's proposed "mandatory health alliances."

To drive home the message, CHIC sponsored a now-legendary TV spot called "Harry and Louise," which featured a middle-class married couple lamenting the complexity of Clinton's plan and the menace of a new "billion-dollar bureaucracy." The ad was produced by Goddard*Claussen/First Tuesday, a PR and election campaign management firm that has worked for liberal Democrats, including the presidential campaigns of Gary Hart, Bruce Babbitt and Jesse Jackson. According to Robin Toner, writing in the September 30, 1994, New York Times, "'Harry and Louise' symbolized everything that went wrong with the great health care struggle of 1994: A powerful advertising campaign, financed by the insurance industry, that played on people's fears and helped derail the process."

CHIC and the other coalitions also used direct mail and phoning, coordinated with daily doses of misinformation from radio blowtorch Rush Limbaugh, to spread fears that goverment health care would bankrupt the country, reduce the quality of care, and lead to jail terms for people who wanted to stick with their family doctor. Every day 20 million Americans tune in and turn on to the Limbaugh talk radio show, which is aired on 650 stations across the United States. However, few people realize the degree of technologically sophisticated orchestration behind Limbaugh's power.

Childs explained how his coalition used paid ads on the Limbaugh show to generate thousands of citizen phone calls urging legislators to kill health reform. First, Rush would whip up his "dittohead" fans with a calculated rant against the Clinton health plan. Then during a commercial break listeners would hear an anti-health care ad and an 800 number to call for more information. Calling the number would connect them to a telemarketer, who would talk to them briefly and then "patch them through" directly to their congressperson's office. The congressional staffers fielding the calls typically had no idea that the constituents had been primed, loaded, aimed and fired at them by radio ads on the Limbaugh show, paid by the insurance industry, with the goal of orchestrating the appearance of overwhelming grassroots opposition to health reform. "That's a very effective thing on a national campaign and even in a local area if the issue is right," Childs said. He said this tactic is now widely used, although few will discuss the technique.

Childs also stepped in to provide corporate resources where members of the coalition were unable to do it themselves: "With one group we wrote a large portion of their direct mail package which went out to 4.5 million people and generated hundreds of thousands of contacts. We worked with a number of [business trade] associations to finance fly-ins to Washington, DC, where people lobbied their Representatives. ... In some case we funded them entirely, in some cases funded part of them, in others we didn't have to fund, we just provided the background and message. In other cases we actually wrote the stuff. ... With our coalition allies in some cases we were totally invisible. ... We actually ended up funding some advertising that our coalition partners ran under their names, mostly inside the Beltway to effect lawmakers' thinking."

By 1994, the barrage had substantially altered the political environment, and the Republicans became convinced that Clinton's plan - any plan - could be defeated. Their strategist, William Kristol, wrote a memo recommending a vote against any Administration health plan, "sight unseen." Republicans who previously had signed on to various components of the Clinton plan backed away. GOP Senator Robert Packwood, who had supported employer mandates for twenty years, announced that he opposed them in 1994, leading the National Journal to comment that Packwood "has assumed a prominent role in the campaign against a Democratic alternative that looks almost exactly like his own earlier policy prescriptions." In desperation George Mitchell, the Democratic Party's Senate majority leader, announced a scaled-back plan that was almost pure symbolism, with no employer mandates, and very little content except a long-term goal of universal coverage. Republicans dismissed it with fierce scorn.

In 1994, notes author James Fallows, the Wall Street Journal tested the reaction of a panel of citizens to various health plans, including the Clinton plan. First they tried describing each plan by its contents alone, and found that the panel preferred the Clinton plan to the main alternatives. "But when they explained that the preferred group of provisions was in fact 'the Clinton plan,'" writes Fallows, "most members of the panel changed their minds and opposed it. They knew, after all, that Clinton's plan could never work."

What's it like....always being on the side that is most manipulative and unresponsive to the best interests of most Americans?

pan6467 · 12-05-2005, 03:46 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by scout

All I know is the Democrats had eight years to fix anything Mr. Reagon screwed up. Instead, they chose to [1] get a blowjob in the Oval Office {which btw I don't give a damn}. [2] appoint a committee headed by Mrs Clinton herself to fix the healthcare problems and give us some sort of national healthcare. She failed to do either. [3] Take guns away from law abiding citizens.

1 & 2 = he wasn't given much of a chance when hounded ceaselessly by the GOP. Plus any effort he did try to put forth was dismissed by the GOP controlled Congress. Therefore, he did have problems achieving his agenda, but blame needs placed equally (at the very least) on the GOP for not working with him.

3 = the only weapons I know of were those classified as semi-automatics and the GOP Congress passed the bill he signed. So again, put the blame equally where it deserves to go.

stevo · 12-05-2005, 10:01 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pan6467

Instead what you are saying is, FUCK YOU workers, we're going to take all we can and when the company goes under..... too bad.

That's what you are saying. You've said it many times. But that is not what the executives are saying. A (public) company's #1 responsibility is to its sharholders, not its employees. If it wasn't for the shareholders the company would not have the capital it needs to hire those employees in the first place. The fact of the matter is, a good executive can change the share price of its company by being hired or fired. Just last week the AOL executive who pioneered instant messaging left his position to start a new job in january at an investment venture capital firm. AOL's stock fell on the news. Companies give bonuses as incentives to top executives to stay because their presence affects the price of their shares. Now I'm not saying no executive ever got a bonus that didn't deserve one, but for the most part that is the logic and reasoning behind giving executives bonuses, whether you agree or not.

scout · 12-06-2005, 02:13 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pan6467

1 & 2 = he wasn't given much of a chance when hounded ceaselessly by the GOP. Plus any effort he did try to put forth was dismissed by the GOP controlled Congress. Therefore, he did have problems achieving his agenda, but blame needs placed equally (at the very least) on the GOP for not working with him.

3 = the only weapons I know of were those classified as semi-automatics and the GOP Congress passed the bill he signed. So again, put the blame equally where it deserves to go.

OHHH I see, and Mr. Bush hasn't been hounded ceaselessly by the Liberal wing of the Democratic party? Perhaps that's why Mr. Bush has had a few problems achieving his agenda this second term? Equally, the blame must be placed at the Democrats feet for not working with Mr. Bush.

No damn wonder nothing ever gets accomplished in Washington, so much bickering and placing the blame on the other party neither side can get anything done. Noone wants to work with the other side anymore to help anyone out but themselves. BOTH parties are equally guilty of this.

And... I must remind you once again, the Democrats had a slight majority in the House and also the Senate I believe {if memory serves me right, it's early and I don't have time to look it up} but at the very least in the House until they passed the AWB in '94. They have continually lost seats since then. Wonder why?

scout · 12-06-2005, 02:30 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by host

scout...since you, [1]"Don't give a damn" and [2] Is explained, if you are willing to read about what happened. You got [3] Clinton responding to the pleas of the wife of Reagan's shot and horribly wounded press secretary, Jim brady....and she had to wait through twelve years of republicans to achieve her modest and reasonable goal.

What's it like....always being on the side that is most manipulative and unresponsive to the best interests of most Americans?

So, alienating someone of their UNalienable rights is modest and reasonable? Where the fuck are you coming from? I'm trying to understand, I really am at least attempting ...... I fail to comprehend extreme Liberalism. Equally, I fail to comprehend extreme Conservatives. Both sides are impossible, both want to deny the other of UNalienable rights that are assured us ALL under the Bill of Rights. This country is being run by a SMALL minority of extremists from both sides of the aisle.

We need a Centrist party in this country in a BAD BAD way.

pan6467 · 12-06-2005, 10:52 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by scout

OHHH I see, and Mr. Bush hasn't been hounded ceaselessly by the Liberal wing of the Democratic party? Perhaps that's why Mr. Bush has had a few problems achieving his agenda this second term? Equally, the blame must be placed at the Democrats feet for not working with Mr. Bush.

Thank you for playing but wrong answer. Last time I checked Bush had a GOP majority in BOTH houses. Something Clinton has in only 2 of his 8 years.

So what if Bush is hounded, if he was strong enough, his policies good enough and his party truly believed in him, his whole platform would be rubber stamped.

You cannot even come close to comparing the hounding Bush gets to what Clinton got.

Does Bush have an independant counselor looking into every single move he's ever made? NO...... maybe a Micheal Moore, but that's not official and if he can't get his policies passed because of him, that says more about Mr. Bush than it does MM and whatever he spins.

Quote:

No damn wonder nothing ever gets accomplished in Washington, so much bickering and placing the blame on the other party neither side can get anything done. Noone wants to work with the other side anymore to help anyone out but themselves. BOTH parties are equally guilty of this.

And... I must remind you once again, the Democrats had a slight majority in the House and also the Senate I believe {if memory serves me right, it's early and I don't have time to look it up} but at the very least in the House until they passed the AWB in '94. They have continually lost seats since then. Wonder why?

On 1 hand you are complaining about the bickering and partisanship, saying nothing gets done. Then the very next paragraph you try to shred the Dem party to pieces. You seemingly want to blame the Dems. for everything. That is your right.

You are right about the partisanship, but then your next paragraph shows one reason why it is rampant, BLAME. Don't like something blame the other guys for it. Same with the Dems now with Iraq. Some voted for it (hack cough.... not 1 Ohio Dem Rep. voted for it.) Same with the AWB, some GOP voted for it. But ignore that, just focus on the majority party, which is natural, but it also adds very much to the partisanship and division.

Ok...... well in 1994 the Dems had both houses and the Presidency. But then the GOP came out with "Contract for America" it was going to set term limits on the GOP reps. and Senators, they were going to be more responsive to the people.... yada yada yada.....

They won on that. Guess what? A MAJORITY of those who ran on that platform and signed it are still in office, where is their loyalty and honesty about term limits, answering to the people, and so on?

OK, so the AWB was passed, Bush could have changed it and I believe he did...... so why bitch about it now? WTF why keep rehashing the past, when things have been changed back to the way, I assume, you like?

You also did a nice job of changing the subject of this thread and not allowing the RR policy debate go further. You could have very easily made this particular opinion a new thread. Pretty effective, pretty sly.

filtherton · 12-06-2005, 11:11 AM

Did you guys know that Socrates was required to drink hemlock to end his life after being found guilty of corrupting the youth of Athens?

Ustwo · 12-06-2005, 01:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by filtherton

Did you guys know that Socrates was required to drink hemlock to end his life after being found guilty of corrupting the youth of Athens?

He could have gotten out of it had he just agreed to be exiled, he was always a bit of a drama queen.

12-02-2005, 05:38 AM	#2 (permalink)
dksuddeth Junkie Location: bedford, tx	Host, as much as I'd like to respond to this post and point out the correct and incorrect theories regarding your information, i'm not willling to read the enormous amount of text from articles you have posted. Suffice it to say, in my opinion, that Carter had great domestic policies but was seriously lacking in foreign policy knowledge or execution. This is evidenced by two major things, the iran hostage crisis and the gas shortage issue. Reagan had great fiscal and foreign policy advisors when it came to the soviet union and defeating communism. The major downside to this is the adaptation of 'deficit spending'. While a great short term boost to the economy to get people and companies spending and investing, in a long term sense you do end up with serious budget deficits that can, and usually will, accelerate in a downward spiral. This is evidenced today by major players from the reagan presidency still in politics today that have the 'deficits don't matter' ideology. It's very important to note that communism in russia was defeated mainly because of the arms race. __________________ "no amount of force can control a free man, a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything. You cannot conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him."

12-02-2005, 06:13 AM	#3 (permalink)
stevo Rail Baron Location: Tallyfla	I shudder to think what this country would be like if the 8 years of the Regan presidency were replaced by jimmy carter - 12 years of carter - the thought makes me tremble. and we all know how you think of regan, host. __________________ "If I am such a genius why am I drunk, lost in the desert, with a bullet in my ass?" -Otto Mannkusser

12-02-2005, 06:21 AM	#5 (permalink)
dksuddeth Junkie Location: bedford, tx	just think, we could all be sharing the energy price burden like those in europe. and we could have our own succinct islamic community practicing their own sharia laws and courts in our country. __________________ "no amount of force can control a free man, a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything. You cannot conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him."

12-02-2005, 08:57 AM	#7 (permalink)
Cimarron29414 Still Free Location: comfortably perched at the top of the bell curve!	Not touching this thread with a 10 foot pole. But I will hit and run: Carter's policies had lowered petroluem consumption by 10 percent in two years. Not hard to reduce consumption when your customers have to sit in gas lines for 3 hours in order to get 5 gallons. __________________ Gives a man a halo, does mead. "Here lies The_Jazz: Killed by an ambitious, sparkly, pink butterfly." Last edited by Cimarron29414; 12-02-2005 at 09:05 AM..

12-02-2005, 09:06 AM	#8 (permalink)
pan6467 Lennonite Priest Location: Mansfield, Ohio USA	Carter meant well his term was plagued by scandal by his advisors, an economy that had been built on war and defense and was torn apart, high interest rates and well intentions but unfortunately he didn't have charisma or the moxy it took to be president. Reagan on the other hand had the charisma, and his way to bring back the economy was through defense contracts. Which worked. His economics (not trickle down, but the massive military build up spending) helped grow the economy immensely. However, the USA could not keep the military spending up the way they had in his terms. It led to record deficits, poor education, an infrastructure that has eroded. Mainly because he didn't put anything into social spending. So short term, Reagan's policies were good, they did provide a burst, long term they have very effectively destroyed us. There are no mom and pops left, mergers and leveraged buyouts are huge..... in other words consolidating companies into one huge enterprise that is heavily indebt. The infrastructure is pretty much wasted, we are far behind the rest of the "civilized industrial" world in education, healthcare, standard of living, we have grown farther in debt but if we stop spending the economy will fall apart. We learned greed was good and the poor were poor for a reason. What Bush is doing is similar, cutting heavily into the infrastructure and internal health of the country (Education, healthcare, small business loans, etc) and deficit spending hugely into the military. So while the rest of the world is producing educated children that will lead tomorrows tech world we're falling behind faster. We are turning into a has been and a non entity, the albatross around the rest of the world's neck. In that we are not moving forward, our economy is based on debt owed to the rest of the world and we consume far more than we make. This is what we owe Reagan and Bush for. The debt is coming due, the world is moving to the Euro and the Chinese Yuan. Soon very soon the rest of the world will no longer need the US and we'll be trying to play catch up. If the economy is so strong now.... why is GM laying off 30,000 jobs. Why as Delphi claims bankruptcy and wants to lower wages 50% does upper management seek record bonuses and "incentives". Bonuses for what? Incentives for what? The very rich are making sure their golden parachutes are in place, because when this economy fries and it will they'll be like rats jumping ship faster than you can blink. The problem is 2 fold, we're losing our manufacturing base and small businesses, along with decent waged jobs..... and we're facing having to fix the system pay the deficit and our personal debts with less while the demand for more money is ever increasing. It's impossible to continue this way, there has to be a break sometime. __________________ I just love people who use the excuse "I use/do this because I LOVE the feeling/joy/happiness it brings me" and expect you to be ok with that as you watch them destroy their life blindly following. My response is, "I like to put forks in an eletrical socket, just LOVE that feeling, can't ever get enough of it, so will you let me put this copper fork in that electric socket?"

12-02-2005, 10:23 AM	#10 (permalink)
Rekna Junkie	I think host should start posting using refrences with links instead of posting entire articles (like a research paper), unless you are forming a direct commentary on a single article itself. I just find it hard to read all of the stuff you post.

12-02-2005, 11:53 AM	#14 (permalink)
ArellaNova Upright	Oh Good Lord Almighty Host. Well, let me make a print off of what you have written, and I will make a point to get back to all of your posts. They wern't kidding about your love of resources. Impressed I am. Let's see what I can come up with.

12-05-2005, 03:23 AM	#21 (permalink)
scout Psycho	All I know is the Democrats had eight years to fix anything Mr. Reagon screwed up. Instead, they chose to [1] get a blowjob in the Oval Office {which btw I don't give a damn}. [2] appoint a committee headed by Mrs Clinton herself to fix the healthcare problems and give us some sort of national healthcare. She failed to do either. [3] Take guns away from law abiding citizens.

12-06-2005, 11:11 AM	#28 (permalink)
filtherton Junkie Location: In the land of ice and snow.	Did you guys know that Socrates was required to drink hemlock to end his life after being found guilty of corrupting the youth of Athens?