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Margaret Thatcher, the great conservative PM of England is quoted as saying,"The trouble with Socialism is that eventually you run out of Other Peoples Money"!
Thatcher was definately not a 'great conservative'. I remember growing up under thatcherism. She deliberately destroyed the Welsh economy to dismantle the miners unions. It took until 1997 for the economy in Wales to to show any real degree of recovery- only after the 'new' Labour goverment was elected.
Many of those products and/or services described in the OP may be regulated by the federal government but are produced for consumption by the private sector. It may be the place of government to provide and regulate an atmosphere throughout the country whereby individuals and companies may develop and produce those goods and services but it is not the place of government to be an actual provider, other than for national defense and general welfare. General welfare, not to be confused with redistribution of wealth.
Thatcher was definately not a 'great conservative'. I remember growing up under thatcherism. She deliberately destroyed the Welsh economy to dismantle the miners unions. It took until 1997 for the economy in Wales to to show any real degree of recovery- only after the 'new' Labour goverment was elected.
Au contraire mon frere!? On the contrary my friend. That and for many other reasons Margaret Thatcher is a "Great Conservative" with a capital "C"!
Anytime you can dismantle a leftist controlled union; that is a great day.
I wish we could do the same here for the corrupt United Autoworkers Union and the leftist controlled Teachers Unions.
This may all be accomplished in 2010 and 2012 when the pendulum swings back from the American voters short infatuation with Obama and the DOPe's (hopey/changey) experiment in Redistribution of Wealth and forced Socialism on America.
Happy New Year to all real Americans!!!
and may the zit-fairy kiss all the lefties!!!
Your cherry-picking history and "liberal effect and cause", doesn't work for me.
Maybe it's just my distaste for the "cause and effect" of the NAZI's (National Socialist Party...) during WWII
It's spelled "you're". To the best of my knowledge, I don't own any cherry picking history.
I also wish you all could get beyond your ideologies. The minute you see anything positive from the liberals, you have to bash.
The FACT of the matter is that it was government spending that pulled us out of the Great Depression. All the New Deal / stimulus spending cut unemployment in about half (from 24% - 14%), which was pretty good, and then it was the massive government spending in the 1940s that took it down to 4%. The markets were able to take over after that for the most part and create the thriving 40s-50s.
Is that sustainable? No. Do I advocate we live in a constant state of war just to get government expenditures? No. Am I even a liberal? No.
But facts are facts, and when people try to suggest we used to live in a state of free market bliss before "the liberals took over", it should be pointed out that we didn't - at all.
And, to the larger and more important point (that GDP comment was just an after thought), US was the epicenter of innovation in the 90s and can be again with regard to renewable energy if conservatives would stop fighting it wth "drill, baby, drill" chants and use the markets and government investments to innovate (just like we did with the Internet, as evidenced by the siginificant role the private sector innovation and government demand played in building both Silicon Valley and the Tysons Corner tech corridor outside DC).
And before half lifes depended on government to control or regulate everything described in your OP, we as a society were the most innovative and fastest developing nation on the planet. We were able to provide a positive budget, while government provided the defense necessary for us to continue our capitalistic free trade. We had a solid middle class and a hard working populace which was paid fair wages in a competitive market.What happened since then?
Were you around before electricity was "invented" too?
Didn't have those roads, etc., etc., etc. back at the time you're "remembering"?
I think we're on the road to socialism. Our social welfare programs are bringing the poor more in line with the middle class while the middle class is being brought down under the weight of supporting those social programs. Eventually it will even out. One side will be very happy for what they are getting and the other side will be very angry for what they are losing.
The FACT of the matter is that it was government spending that pulled us out of the Great Depression. All the New Deal / stimulus spending cut unemployment in about half (from 24% - 14%), which was pretty good, and then it was the massive government spending in the 1940s that took it down to 4%. The markets were able to take over after that for the most part and create the thriving 40s-50s.
Don't you find it a little dishonest to claim that FDR's new deal was responsible for the thrive of the 50's while just completely ignoring the war which was responsible for most of the "government spending"?
Don't you find it a little dishonest to claim that FDR's new deal was responsible for the thrive of the 50's while just completely ignoring the war which was responsible for most of the "government spending"?
I explicity stated precisely what you just wrote. Read what I wrote again. I said the New Deal cut unemployment in half (down to 14%) and then war spending cut it down to 4%.
The FACT of the matter is that it was government spending that pulled us out of the Great Depression. All the New Deal / stimulus spending cut unemployment in about half (from 24% - 14%), which was pretty good, and then it was the massive government spending in the 1940s that took it down to 4%. The markets were able to take over after that for the most part and create the thriving 40s-50s.
You're partly right. It was WWII that brought us out of the Depression though. It gave people savings only because they had nothing to spend their money on with rationing and all. It gave men jobs (soldiers) and women jobs (US jobs) to support a war.
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