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The Regan Administration was the architect of the modern American economy that relies on finance, insurance and real estate to pay its way in this world. When Ronald Reagan came to power, American industry employed nearly 35 million people, today only 12 million Americans are employed in an industrual job. For example GM had over a million workers in 1980 but only employs 300,000 tofay. So GM has fewer factories but turns out about as many trucks and cars as it did in the late 1970s. Part of this is due to the rise of the robotic worker and in part due to the fact it just makes more sense for GM to make parts that require skilled machining in China, Brazil and Mexico. Now you wonder why this is so. Well GM spent its capital often obtained form the liquidation of an American operation to constuct the infrastructure and factories, educate the new workers and resume operations in China, Brazil or Mexico. The real genius of Deng Xiaoping and Jiang Zemin was to let the Americans come in and invest hundreds of billions of dollars and create more than 70 million new modern industrial jobs in China. This all began in the 1980s and has gained steam in the 30 years since then. BY retstructiring Tax laws to favor non-earned income, transfers of American capital overseas and removing any real tariff barriers to protect American industries or their workers this sort of globalization of American busiess which has turrned most major American businesses like GM, IBM, GE or HP into finance or marketing organizations is a no brainer. The other thing that really took off as a result of Regan administration policies was the type of anything goes greed is good finance that has taken over American investment, insurance and banking. The idea that you could write some worthless paper, use it to take over a viable business, tear the said business apart and sell off valuable pieces (for a profit) and discard the rest like a banan peal was given the green light and still goes on today. When the Carlyle Group, Bain Capital or Cerbues gets its hands on a business you can assume they haven't the least interst in runing the business or even investing any more in than they have to . Another great idea was the securitization of debt which made the writing of ever increasing amounts of debt a financial asset if you could find the suckers to by they debt based bonds. It got so bad that banks were tripping over their shoes to write mortgages for evcen the most ridiculous mortgages or loans to have the means to issue even more mortgage backed securities. In the 1980s they destoyed the Saving and Loan industry and later after the overthrough of Glass-Steagle which completed the liberalization started under the Presidency of Ronald Reagan they got their hands on the money center banks . The continuing legacy of Ronald Reagan and the men who pulled his strings, wrote his scripts and and made sure the camera angles were all good continues to bite Americans in the ass.
mwruckman, this was a thoughtful and intelligent post ... but ... may I make a suggestion?
Please try breaking up your posts into paragraphs. Believe me, it's much easier to read. Thanks.
The Afghanistan war is Americas war, but the Iraq war is the GW Bush's White House's war (without the Bush White House's 935 untrue statements about Iraq we never would have invaded Iraq.)
That claim ("935 untrue statements/lies") has been discredited. The Democrats in Congress were making the same exact statements; were they "lying," too?
But why are you bringing up wars when the topic of this thread is the economy?
#3 a recession that started 6 weeks into GWB's term, and declining industrial investment for the past half year of Clinton's presidency
#4 a NASDAQ dot-com bubble that had just blown up
#5 a Housing bubble that started forming in 1997
#6 Deregulation of Glass-Stegall (bipartisan, that Clinton asked for and was proud to sign into law)
The above things that Clinton left hurt the budget and the economy under GWB. GWB handled these Clinton-era messes poorly and made messes of his own...but let's not tell half truths.
Clinton was is protected by Dem's as will Obama will when he leaves office. Thank you for a short, sweet post!
The Afghanistan war is Americas war, but the Iraq war is the GW Bush's White House's war (without the Bush White House's 935 untrue statements about Iraq we never would have invaded Iraq.)
I don't know what W Bush has to do a comparison between Reagan's economic policies and Obama. If you want to discuss it, this is the thread for you. You seem to be confused about the definition of "lie." Lie | Define Lie at Dictionary.com
Quote:
a false statement made with deliberate intent to deceive
In 2002/2003, everyone, including Saddam's own senior officers, believed that he still had a stash of WMD. Here is what the generally anti-Bush admin Carnegie Endowment had to say about it. http://carnegieendowment.org/files/Iraq3Chap2.pdf
Quote:
Prior to 2002, most national and international officials and experts believed that Iraq likely had research programs and some stores of hidden chemical or biological weapons and maintained interest in a program to develop nuclear weapons
So I'll give you a pass this time, and chalk this up to ignorance. But now that you're informed on the matter, next time you post this garbage you are ipso facto a liar (and W Bush is not).
Your forgetting the fact Clinton handed GW Bush a balanced federal budget. Then GW Bush turned that balanced budget into huge deficits and high debt growth rates (with trickle down tax cuts and a unneeded Iraq war.)
And your also ignoring the causes of Obama's deficits.
"Recession, President Bush’s tax cuts, and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq explain most of the deficits that have occurred on Obama’s watch — based on the latest Congressional Budget Office projections."
Are you referring to the "balanced budget" which occurred when Republicans in Congress wrote it and Clinton vetoed it twice before finally signing it? Then takes credit for it? That balanced budget?
The national debt was about $10.7 trillion when Obama took office. It is now over $17 trillion. That is bringing down the debt growth rate???
First thats because the GDP climbed, which was far more important since the GDP is what dictates the nations economy, (meaning you JUST admitting the Bush tax cuts stimulated),
and Second, tax revenues as a % of GDP floats around, regardless of the tax rate. Its still rather similar to what it was when we had a 90% tax rate..
GDP always climbs. Only in years where we're in deep recession does it drop. The point is that tax revenues did not climb with it.
Tax revenues as a percentage of GDP were at 20.6% in 2000. By 2004 they were down to 16.1%. That's a massive drop. Don't blame it on the early 2000's recession either--tax revenues stayed relatively steady during the early 90's recession, and that economic downturn was significantly worse.
Compounding matters was the fact that we were a nation at war. Who cuts taxes during war time? The worst president ever, that's who. Revenues rose briefly due to the housing bubble, but that was fool's gold, obviously.
some use estimates for 2012 and on
or
2001 1,862,846
2002 2,010,894
2003 2,159,899
2004 2,292,841
2005 2,471,957
2006 2,655,050
2007 2,728,686
2008 2,982,544
2009 3,517,677
2010 3,457,079
2011 3,603,059
2012 3,537,127
2013 3,454,605
matches up with the figures found on Federal Budget Receipts and Outlays which cites its resource as "Historical Tables, Budget of the United States Government, Fiscal Year 2013" (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 2012).
Either way the argument that spending is lower under Obama is silly. Not saying you're saying it.
The blue line in your source is federal receipts, and the red line is federal expenditures. The following graph from your previous source clearly shows that no president has slowed inflationary federal spending like Obama has.
#3 a recession that started 6 weeks into GWB's term, and declining industrial investment for the past half year of Clinton's presidency
#4 a NASDAQ dot-com bubble that had just blown up
#5 a Housing bubble that started forming in 1997
#6 Deregulation of Glass-Stegall (bipartisan, that Clinton asked for and was proud to sign into law)
The above things that Clinton left hurt the budget and the economy under GWB. GWB handled these Clinton-era messes poorly and made messes of his own...but let's not tell half truths.
Your above treasury department link contains the exact same information as this source.
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