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The fact that he dozed off in a cabinet meeting or two is beside the point.
If you can justify the Commander-in-Chief of the United States falling asleep during a Cabinet meeting, then you wouldn't have made a better President than Reagan was, either.
If you can justify the Commander-in-Chief of the United States falling asleep during a Cabinet meeting, then you wouldn't have made a better President than Reagan was, either.
That's a ridiculous comment. You might as well say that Jefferson was a terrible president because he greeted the British ambassador in house slippers.
That's a ridiculous comment. You might as well say that Jefferson was a terrible president because he greeted the British ambassador in house slippers.
A wardrobe faux pas is the same thing as not being mentally alert? Yeah, right. Talk about a ridiculous comment.
Further, while you can whine about the so-called declining middle class in this country, what you fail to take into account is that, household to household, income growth has far outstripped that of Germany, France, Italy, and the rest of Western Europe, save Britain since 1982. Further, the truth of the matter is that globalization was already well underway long before Reagan took the oath of office, and globalization today has benefitted far more people in the world (Americans, too) than not.
Maybe not directly related to the topic, but wages of most Americans were stagnated for years, while the cost of healthcare, education, housing, and insurance (among others) skyrocketed. As a result, both working spouses in today's environment cannot make ends meet and many fell deep into debt. In yesterday's economy, one spouse could support his household while two could really elevate their status. As another poster pointed out, the prosperity "for all" you mention is the result of "resorting to various financial tricks to lift the economy out of a near depression". Today we are facing reality. If prosperity (from globalization) was real, we would not have been where we are, and that includes other countries as well.
It's true, European economies didn't grow much, but neither their expenses. They enjoy a long period of relative stability, something that America does not. Yes, they have less overnight billionaires then us, but... you can't have it all.
That's a ridiculous comment. You might as well say that Jefferson was a terrible president because he greeted the British ambassador in house slippers.
I usually really respect your comments on this board, but you seem to have drank some Reagan kool-aid recently that is obscuring your rationality today.
It really is a justifiable concern -- how are we to make the argument that Reagan wasn't a complete puppet being played by his entire cabinet? Afterall, he DID fall asleep in cabinet meetings, often failed to read briefings, have knowledge regarding cabinet activities, and even failed to recognize WHO the members of his cabinet WERE.
Somehow, slippers or not, I don't think the same case will be made against Jefferson. Apples and oranges?
Since you've brought up foodstuffs...wasn't Reagan the President who declared ketchup to be a vegetable? (I know, I know; he may very well have known that ketchup is actually not a vegetable. That was done to justify a lowering of standards as regards school lunches. But still--not the sort of pronouncement that goes hand-in-hand with greatness. And I don't believe Thomas Jefferson said anything similar, whether or not he had house slippers on at the time).
I have a relative who is retired from the Secret Service in Washington. He said Reagan treated everybody like he was one of the guys. While at the ranch in California he would walk down to the guard shack and sit around talking with the Secret Service for quite a while, telling jokes and just talking like they had all known each other for years. Going just the opposite, when the Service escorted Jimmy Carter to a church service, the Carters would sit in the limo until every body else was seated. During that 30 minutes to an hour, there was not to be a word spoken the entire time.
I know that has nothing to do with politics but just a little something on the personal side of the men.
I usually really respect your comments on this board, but you seem to have drank some Reagan kool-aid recently that is obscuring your rationality today.
It really is a justifiable concern -- how are we to make the argument that Reagan wasn't a complete puppet being played by his entire cabinet? Afterall, he DID fall asleep in cabinet meetings, often failed to read briefings, have knowledge regarding cabinet activities, and even failed to recognize WHO the members of his cabinet WERE.
Somehow, slippers or not, I don't think the same case will be made against Jefferson. Apples and oranges?
In so many ways he was Bush's mental and philosophical progenitor. As with Bush I can forgive Reagan just about anything except his mass murder. His support of the Central American military goons and "Freedom Fighters", Nazi style terrorists, butchers and torturers makes him a truly despicable monster in the same league as Bush.
Maybe not directly related to the topic, but wages of most Americans were stagnated for years, while the cost of healthcare, education, housing, and insurance (among others) skyrocketed. As a result, both working spouses in today's environment cannot make ends meet and many fell deep into debt. In yesterday's economy, one spouse could support his household while two could really elevate their status. As another poster pointed out, the prosperity "for all" you mention is the result of "resorting to various financial tricks to lift the economy out of a near depression". Today we are facing reality. If prosperity (from globalization) was real, we would not have been where we are, and that includes other countries as well.
It's true, European economies didn't grow much, but neither their expenses. They enjoy a long period of relative stability, something that America does not. Yes, they have less overnight billionaires then us, but... you can't have it all.
Cuba has better more affordable health care system than US. When it comes to health care, it's mainly special interests armed with scare tactics combined with certain backward obsession with certain brand of mystic individualism in the mind of large number of people in this country that are obstacles.
European countries have more equal distribution of wealth, much more stable life, more vacations and overall higher quality of life. But Europe doesn't have to or doesn't think it should spend $500 billions a year in military and throw trillions into wars. It doesn't mean Europe wasn't under the same competitive pressure as US does. Europe just has different priorities. It's either this or that, you can't have it both ways: general social safety net AND the ability to act as world police. Speaking of Europeans, a Swedish old gentleman I met in a flea market outside Stockholm told me he had been working in the US for years before he retired, and he wasn't the biggest fan of US and the rampant social conservatism/religious fundamentalism in the US (He was working in California for crying out loud and he can't stand the conservatism over there. While he's telling me his story, I was thinking what his reaction would be if he were working in deep south back then), but he was glad that Europe chose to let the US run amok in term of oversea military adventure, in his own words: "empire always overreaches, they always spend themselves into bankruptcy, truest me, no matter how exceptional Americans think they are, their empire will not be the exception.".
Maybe not directly related to the topic, but wages of most Americans were stagnated for years, while the cost of healthcare, education, housing, and insurance (among others) skyrocketed. As a result, both working spouses in today's environment cannot make ends meet and many fell deep into debt. In yesterday's economy, one spouse could support his household while two could really elevate their status. As another poster pointed out, the prosperity "for all" you mention is the result of "resorting to various financial tricks to lift the economy out of a near depression". Today we are facing reality. If prosperity (from globalization) was real, we would not have been where we are, and that includes other countries as well.
It's true, European economies didn't grow much, but neither their expenses. They enjoy a long period of relative stability, something that America does not. Yes, they have less overnight billionaires then us, but... you can't have it all.
The problem with this wistful "I wish we were Europe" attitude that seems present on this board is that European economies aren't just not growing as quickly as the US, they're basically stagnant, and have been for years. In France and Germany, the unemployment rate remains at levels that would be unacceptably high in the United States. Further, the employment regulations are so onerous that businesses are highly reluctant to hire new workers, for it's next to impossible to fire them. Meanwhile, until last year in this country, we were below the theoretical floor of employment according to Keynesian theorists. In fact, had we actually not winked at illegal immigration in this country over the past twenty years, we would have had a critical labor shortage. So if you're parroting the line that we should let people from Tampico or Guadalajara slip over the border and stay, just remember that American workers pay the price in terms of not getting a competitive wage. For, with the law of unintended consequences, one policy (Or lack thereof) always affects somebody negatively. Funny how you don't hear many sob stories about the rights of illegal aliens to stay in this country today when ordinary Americans are getting laid off by the boxcar.
I don't have the statistics at hand, but the economics writer for the Frankfurter Allegemeine, Olaf Gersemann, wrote a book titled "Cowboy Capitalism" that neatly punctured all the old knocks against the American economic system that one routinely encounters in Europe. For example, I was shocked to learn that while household income in Germany, France, and Italy was roughly 70-85% that of similar households in the early 80s, that percentage has slipped to 45-65% by around 2004. Over the past three decades, growth in both GDP and productivity have routinely outstripped Europe by a percentage point a year. Sure, that sounds like a trivial amount, but the cumulative weight over 30 years means an enormous gap, one that is not likely to be made up in our lifetimes.
Further, while American workers do indeed have less job security than their American counterparts, this is more than made up for with new job creation. What's more, the notion of wage stagnation doesn't really bear scrutiny because of the fact that there's a great deal of mobility of Americans up income scales. It's really a fascinating read by a distinguished writer who doesn't have a dog in the American political fight.
Oh, and if we're swapping anecdotes about health systems, I'll write about my British brother-in-law who returned from Manchester after burying his mother--the victim of the National Health System's botch of a routine lung disease. Because care is rationed there, despite a strong overall economy, she literally sat on the waiting list for months. Even if she were impoverished in this country, she would have received treatment forthwith.
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