MaryT63NC, that was an excellent point. You know, I voted Bush the last two times but I didn’t get the results I wanted.

Understatement of the year.

“Reagan proved deficits don’t matter.”—Dick Cheney

Oh, yeah?  Would you care to repeat that, Dick-Head?

The ENTIRE financial mess we are in (and it’s going to get much, much worse before it gets better—we aren’t anywhere CLOSE to the bottom) was ignited by Bush’s turning the budget surplus into a deficit and beginning the pressure on the credit markets.  It started there, way, Way, WAY back in the summer of 2001 (before 9/11) when President Willie Sutton robbed the surplus and created a deficit.

(Willie Sutton when asked why he robbed banks said “Because that’s where the money is”)

A deficit means the government must either borrow money or print it (creating inflation overnight).  When it borrows, it’s going into the market for money as the 900,000 lb gorilla—prices jump because of this HUGE additional demand.

When he went to war in Iraq, the deficit pressure quadrupled and has NEVER let off. 

All the other aggravating factors make it worse, but it is and always was the gargantuan appetite for credit dollars that has destroyed America’s and much of the world’s economy.

So, when John McSame says he’s going to continue ALL of these failed Bushian policies, including the war in Iraq, isn’t it time to get rid of those folks?

At least Obama is a clean slate.

Meanwhile, start figuring out how to protect your savings—maybe buy Euros—because the worst is yet to come and it will be far, far worse.  1929 is right around the corner and maybe worse.

Nothing to add here that hasn’t already been said.

Except….

If the Democrats gain a veto-proof control of Congress this November, I’d like them to change the name of our nation’s capital airport back to WASHINGTON NATIONAL.

(Bugs me no end they named that airport after Reagan. And don’t even get me started on Houston Intercontinental.)

http://www.helium.com/items/1104526-what-dramatic-d ifference-terms-foreign-policy-between-president-john-mccai n-president-barack

The Death of Reaganomics?  Reaganomics is still around it’s the middle class that’s in jeopardy.

Excellent point, KMarx!

Warning Ranting Here:

Now that few of us see the handwriting on the wall.  Involvement in foreign wars, dilapidated infrastructures, faltering economy, failing schools, broken health care systems, the shrinking middle-class, destruction of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, we few feel and know we are fucked, should empathize and appreciate how a few people must have felt in 1930’s Germany and Japan.

Okay not so crass, instead lets just say we are doomed to watch helplessly as the whirlpool sucks us down, down into the huge septic of trickled down crap the elite have waiting for us.

Watching the pigs fighting at the trough, like flies we get the leavings on the bottom. We see the cherry on the top, Bush and his cronies taking and lying with impunity, absent of accountability,  rule of law is a joke to them as they play their stacked deck of cards against no odds, US. 

Remember,  accountability is not an option.

....when I’d be agreeing with Barney Frank.

And I hear all these pundits on TV screaming, “What does Obama stand for? What does he stand for—it’s all been a themeless pudding!”

HE DOES stand for something, and it’s GOVERNMENT INTERVENTION. Those are two bad words in Washington, but that’s what he stands for and, to a certain degree, I say ‘go for it.’

truththreader: Truer words were never spoken.

ApprxAM, (is that like your standard tee-time by the way), I’m gonna kinda sorta try to answer your question about the money and the globalization thing, but first for Louise, because I can’t take credit for this.

By Louise, July 12 at 8:12 am #
cyrena:

“…One thing I have on my mind about all these highfalutin economics is why this is only considered a threat to our national security when it affects the ‘elites’? It seems the few could hardly give a tinker’s damn if a whole class of people go through very devastating hard financial times but the ‘richies’ get to call out the military to protect their ill gotten gains….”

Good point. Underlines “Reaganomics” is not dead, but the republican party is definitely suffering from cancer.

Any good that Reagan may have done is lost to memory while the very bad policy of “Reaganomics” will be remembered as his for all time. And that’s not fair…”
~~
Actually Louise, that wasn’t my post. I think it was from SamoSamo, and I copied and pasted that part in a response to him, because I agreed as well. As I do with you. (no kidding about any good that Regan may have done being ‘lost to memory’. It was obviously lost to HIS memory, but I never saw a damn bit of good about it to remember.) For me and most of the folks that I knew at that time, it was a depression. (I missed the ones of the 1920’s)

And yes, of course it’s still alive, because the effects are still alive. It’s been pissing down on us non-stop.

Something else to note from your excellent post about these easily led leaders, and how they are chosen specifically by the repugs because of it, is something that amazes me even more, that I’ve never been able to grasp. I simply cannot understand how or why their VICTIMS keep giving them the tools to use to kick their asses? How on God’s earth does it happen that SO MANY people who have to climb up to lick dirt, actually keep putting republicans in power? Bukko in Australia asked this the other day, thinking that the American population couldn’t possibly be so stupid as to allow repuglicans to continue the massacre. It’s like, how long does it have to slap everyone in the face before they figure it out? He suggested that he didn’t think they would be THAT stupid, but that he’d also left the country awhile back, (ergo..Bukko in Australia) just in case.
But, what can we say? Just have a look at these blogs. Most of us are sane, but there are far too many people here, (because there should be NONE) who still don’t get it. I have a cousin that I simply cannot talk to, because of his repuglicanism. And, he’s a typical one, and NOBODY UNDERSTANDS WHY! It can ONLY be ignorance, because it’s NOT like he’s getting any of this wealth. (though for him, it probably seems like it).

So, how does this brainwashing manage to take over enough people that they cannot connect the dots between the reasons why they are climbing up to lick dirt, and the fact that it’s because of REPUGLICANS? I mean sure, control the mind of the malleable leaders, (or like in GW’s case, pick one that doesn’t even HAVE a mind) and that keeps the Congress from doing anything. But hell, what about the PEOPLE?
Yeah, Yeah..I know. I could and should answer my own question. Brainwashed, in shock or some other worse pathology.

At the end of all the discussion, it is exactly what you say it is. The republican party is a cancer, and it’s long past time for the chemo therapy. Otherwise, we won’t survive this one. That picture you remarked on in the photo with the moron with that dumb ass look on his face did indeed say it all.

By BobZ,re #168975 BRAVO and Thanks!

Louise,
Took a minute to get there, but thanks for the chuckle! 

And thanks for doing such a clear and concise analysis of the center. Never thought about it that way!
~~~
I’m absolutely delighted that you could follow it..the thing on the ‘center’ that is. I’ve never minded admitting that my thinking isn’t always easy.
I could have said it a whole lot simpler by just saying that a ‘center’ position, -can- (it doesn’t always) be the way to serve *most* of the people, *most* of the time. I had to use my own ‘formula’ when I was trying to understand the mechanics of weight and balance in conjunction with aerodynamics, and some of the standard ‘teaching’ wasn’t working for me. (learning impaired? Who knows…I’ve heard that Einstein was);)

But, it seemed to work. And, there is a mechanical truism to it. Matter of fact, one of the *only* accidents/fatalities that Alaska Air suffered, (they have the best safety record – or at least they did, of all US carriers) was an accident resulting from a weight/balance problem. It was determined in the course of the investigation, that a piece of freight had come detached from its anchoring/latching in-flight, and apparently slid across the belly of the aircraft. It was a freakish sort of thing, (as most stuff is like that) because *if* it had occurred later in the flight plan, it may not have caused the plane to lose balance, because even 20 or 30 minutes further into the flight, there would have been several hundred pounds less fuel, since that would have been used up. But, it didn’t. So in that space of time, even a two foot move for such a heavy piece was enough to throw the entire aircraft out of balance, in a way that would have been impossible for the crew to correct for. The airplane crashed into the ocean, killing everyone on board. A similar issue is what brought down an American Air DC-10 in Chicago, back in 1978. It lost one of its wing engines just after take off, and that did it. It was tragic. The lead mechanic on that crew ended-up taking his own life some years later, because he felt responsible, thinking that maybe he hadn’t double checked or triple checked the mechanisms there, prior to the departure. That was never suggested, but it was apparently something that he couldn’t live with.

A decade or so later, a 727 lost one of its engines between DFW and San Diego, (somewhere over Arizona) and nobody on the flight even NOTICED it. They didn’t realize it until the thing landed in San Diego. Go figure. Maybe there is a God. Just depends I guess.

Anyway, I’ve learned to put a lot of life’s events in terms of balance, and it’s nearly always true. Damn near close enough to be science. Thing is, most stuff is designed to take some malfunction, while the other ‘parts’ take up the slack, at least temporarily. We rarely think of common things in those terms, but even the Constitution can take a TEMPORY malfunction here or there, without bringing the whole house down.
(Dick Bush has taken that WAY beyond the pale of course.)

Same with societies. We know we’d be hard pressed to find any society that was completely equally balanced, all of the time. It just doesn’t really happen, because societies are made up of people. There aren’t many absolutes with humans, individually or collectively. Still, there is a semblance of balance that has to be maintained, or it crashes too. Rome did. Others have. We appear to be real close.

Scares the crap out of me, which means that I’m frequently tempted to beat the shit out of some folks who just don’t seem to ‘get that’. It’s like some dingbat deciding to punch out all of the windows on an airplane at 38,000 feet, and gleefully laughing along the way. “Oh what fun, I’m taking out all of my frustrations, and the rest of you locked up here with me are gonna pay for it.”
Thanks Jersey Girl.

The current de facto definition of the political left in the media is anyone who tries to reveal anything large corporate interests don’t want the public to know. It is also anyone who believes in helping the less fortunate in any kind of politically meaningful way other than donations to charity. Yet, being branded as a leftist is to some almost the same as being a communist.

As a people, we fail to understand that the human environment is also extremely important and determines how much we can do about the natural environment. When we surround ourselves with large masses of those we shamelessly exploit, we degrade the human environment. Then we get to reap all kinds of general misery, not to mention heinous crime.

It’s time to accept that it’s a good thing to care for others and their well-being and that believing it is not a virtue to negotiate with others to the point of cruelty for our own selfish benefit is not communism.

Seventy-five years later the Republican’s are still mad at the New Deal. They thought life was just great under Hoover, Coolidge, and Harding. Never mind that 1929 was a “bubble” just like the three bubbles we have experienced in the last eight years. Unfettered free market capitalism doesn’t work with federal controls in place. Why? We are just too greedy - making a fast buck will always be in fashion even if unethical or even illegal. Every accountant in the world knows that you have to make it easy for people to remain honest - don’t tempt them. Convervative Republican’s and there aren’t any other kind these days, recite the same old bromides every election and on Wall Street every day - Supply side economics, deregulation, free trade, lower corporate taxes, no estate taxes or dividend taxes, and no trial lawyers, or unions - they are for everthing that makes the richer richer and the poor poorer. The middle class gets the scraps while it tries to make it up the ladder - a ladder provided them by the New Deal, which took seniors out of poverty, established the 40 hour work week, established the minimum wage, and put millions of people to work establishing much of the national infrastructure that still exists to this day. And yet the Republican’s hate it after 75 years. The Phil Gramm’s of the world and his wonderful wife Wendy who personally shafted the state of California with Enron’s version of economic terrorism. They have the nerve to call the U.S. a “nation of whiners” - the same people whose “trickle down” theories were flat out failures. They have been the perpetrators of a massive fraud on the American people in the name of capitalism - they knew their theories and ideologies would only benefit them and not the middle or working classes and certainly not the poor for whom they only have contempt for. In November, the voters will vote overwelmingly to veto that type of thinking and it will be long overdue.

cyrena:

“That said, I still don’t care what any of it is ‘called’ at any given point in time. It changes with the time, and names/labels are definitely superficial and cosmetic. Sometimes these labels are helpful in sorting things out. All too often though, they are used by lazy people who don’t want to bother thinking beyond the surface. Like you.”

Took a minute to get there, but thanks for the chuckle!

And thanks for doing such a clear and concise analysis of the center. Never thought about it that way!

Reading DuncanId certainly puts a whole lot of puzzle pieces in formation. So here a question/comment I have:

Based on what I think I’ve noticed over the last 15 years or so, and with no particular knowledge of matters of the economy, I’ve had the sense of an intentional process of diluting the wealth/value of the American worker (blue/white). Could globalization, as generally understood, be that tool, and if so, why would devaluing the American’s worth help?

Osame (I didn’t get it at first; it’s funny, though) may very well be the tract Obama is taking.  He’s tarred with the liberal label, mostly because the right has no other tactic at this time. But his 2004 convention speech showed and was made clear of his less than left political leanings. The trucated speech he gave about black parentage was broach during the his convention speech when spoke of the “acting white” phenomenon along with the “blue state, red state” synthesis;AND THEY LOVED IT.

That’s fine because liberal social policy has only lead to more problems. But equally dangerous was Bill Clinton Republicrat BS.  Remember, his triangulation was a performance [not that welfare was changed, but the way it was done] conducted mostly in the mode of the Pr(D)ick Morris school of jackassedness. Obama’s association with Harold Ford and DLC is going to be a problem. 

If as EJ Dionne suggests that the falling away of Reaganomics is true, then the Third-Wayers are going to find a way, not to save capitalism, because I think most of us here are not communist, but to change it just enough to make us feel a little bit less bad and fearful.  He’s already back tracking on one of Clinton’s largest national betrayals; NAFTA and Chpt 11. (Which should be granted cert because it violates “states’ rights” to regulate locally).

We must do away with the NeoClowns first, then Reagnomics, redemptive liberalism and the DLC’s disguised ring wing slant, recognizing that the former is much more right than center.

By scottk, July 12 at 5:06 am #
Cyrena and Donna,
I call him Osame for the same reason you call the repug McSame, Mccain is the same as bush fine, but Obama is the same as Clinton, remember the one before Bush who alan greenspan called the best repugican president we ever had. Osame could easily mean the same as mcCon, at least when in comes to rule by the plutocracy and selling out constitution government.
~~~~~

Scottk….

I didn’t and still don’t care why you call anybody what you call them. I was responding to Donna F, since she may not have previously noticed that you were a confused ideologue, lacking in any reason, or capable of any nuanced logic.

As for what anybody ‘calls’ anybody else, I’m not all that concerned about that either, since it’s all relative to the moment, and whomever is doing the ‘calling’. Matter of fact, I have referred to William Jefferson Clinton as the best republican president we ever had myself. But that depends on labeling by ideology based on party, and that really doesn’t count for much at all. Bill Clinton (despite his flaws and mistakes that did in fact cost the rest of us a great deal) clearly cannot be considered the same type of ‘republican’ that the Dick Bush thug regime is. So again, it’s all relative. Clinton was always a centrist and a large supporter of neoliberalism. But centrist is better than radical, any day of the year or century.

The people that have sent us over the cliff ‘call’ themselves republicans, but they are of the most radical in the last couple of centuries. So, needless-to-say, they aren’t ‘the same’ as the Bill Clinton style republican, which is more to the center, or the center right.

And again, that changes, dependent upon what one’s interpretation is of it all. As a general rule, the center isn’t a bad place to be, at least from an operational or administrative standpoint. It allows for interaction with more of the whole, more efficiently. Good example would be the operations in my own former career, the commercial airline industry. Most of the major operations were located in the ‘center’ of the country, generally referred to as ‘hubs’. Or, if they weren’t in the ‘center’ of the country so-to-speak, their major ‘hubs’ were at least at the center of their own area of operation. Still, most of the largest ones had active operations at the ‘centers’. That’s because the ‘hub & spoke’ model provided more service with less spoilage. The trucking and other transportation industries work much the same way. So do irrigation systems.

Societies operate much the same way, unless they are transient types of groups who move around according to their own group structure, and whatever it is that they do to maintain an existence.

But in societies like ours, where the dominant culture is still broken down into classes and sub-groups, (including ideologies) a center position maintains a balance that would otherwise crash under a more extreme location/position. In short, the closer the thing is to the center of gravity, the more ‘stable’ it is. The further out the ‘thing’ is to the edge, the more precarious the balance becomes, and the stability becomes impossible to sustain.

So in theory, a ‘center’ position is not a bad one. Just depends on what one does with it. If the periphery becomes rotten, it can either be repaired or readjusted to regain the balance. If the center becomes rotten, things are pretty much done for. The whole thing goes down.

That said, I still don’t care what any of it is ‘called’ at any given point in time. It changes with the time, and names/labels are definitely superficial and cosmetic. Sometimes these labels are helpful in sorting things out. All too often though, they are used by lazy people who don’t want to bother thinking beyond the surface. Like you.

Duncan for President of the People’s New World Order ! Talk about nailing it. You sir, have my utmost respect.

“THE PARTY WITH THE BEST RECORD OF SERVING REPUBLICAN ECONOMIC VALUES IS THE DEMOCRATS, AND IT ISN’T EVEN CLOSE!”    -Michael Kingsley-

FEDERAL SPENDING: since 1960 Republicans increased Federal Spending by 71% more than have Democrats

FEDERAL DEBT: since 1960 Republicans have increased the National debt by 100% more per year than have Democrats.

GROSS DOMESTIC PRODUCT: since 1921, adjusted for inflation,  Democrats out-produce Republicans by 43% .  Starting in 1940 the Democratic advantage is 23% better.

REAL PER CAPITA INCOME: since 1960 Democrats have outperformed Republicans by 30%.  (This is perhaps the most important economic statistic of all)

INFLATION: since 1960, Democrats outperform Republicans 3.13% to 3.89%

UNEMPLOYMENT: since 1960 it decreases in an average Democratic year by 0.3% to 5.33%, and increases in average Republican year by 1.1% to 6.38%.

JOB CREATION: from 1945 to 2003, Democrats produced 174,200 jobs per month, Republicans have only produced 60,600 per month. Every time a Democrat succeeds a Republican, job creation soars.  Every time a Republican succeeds a Democrat job creation plummets.  NO EXCEPTIONS!

DOW JONES AVERAGE: since 1921 the DOW has increased by 52% more under Democratic administrations

THE BOND MARKET: since 1940 the value of 10 year Treasury bonds rose 1.2% under Democrats and fell 0.5% under Republicans

SOURCES-Bureau of Labor Statistics,  Economic Policy Institute, Christian Science Monitor, “The Los Angles Times -Michael Kingsley-

by mike kohr   3/7/2006

                          RESULTS MATTER, VOTE DEMOCRATIC!

Of course Bushonomics would just about spell the end of any economic system. 

One can only plunder the U.S. Treasury for so long before it colappses.

We are freakin’ doomed…

By DuncanIdaho, July 12 at 11:33 pm #

“You’re all missing the point: there is no way out of the debt cycle. If the US were a corporation it would have been bankrupt by 1968 at the latest. Short term debt is now equal to 6 times total revenues and long term debt around 40 times. Even if you raised corporate taxes equal to the highest in the world (which of course will never happen) and completely eliminated ALL discretionary spending you’d still be fucked.”

Wow!  There you go.  We truly do not get it!  Never will; because we can never accept our worst fears realized.

DuncanIdaho,

Sad to say, your premise makes sense and explains why we see what we are getting from the White House and Congress.  Global plutocracy, dost explain many things.
As Tao Walker said “we are all Indians now”.  How insignificant we all are in this grand scheme of things.

Jackpine Savage,

In the end we will get what we deserve, it would also be nice if the elite got what they deserved, I guess they are.  HST? Harry Truman said that?  Now we know what the change will be, what is the hope?

Excellent post, DuncanIdaho…that pretty much drives the nail clear through the board.

Dionne is just talking leftist smack.  As someone else pointed out, “Reaganonomics” is really neoliberal economics…the same practiced by Clinton, the same that will be practiced by Obama.

Moreover, exactly what will we replace Reaganonomics with?  Our manufacturing base is all but gone.  The service arm of manufacturing is basically gone too.  And the latest reports suggest that product development, design, and marketing are quickly headed out the door as well. (Though you can still get a decent job building cars for Honda and Toyota…i.e. we are now Asia’s Mexicans.)

And how are we going to bartend and burger flip our way out of a recession?

I’m with Duncan: this is planned.  Our patriotic leadership on both sides of the aisle is willfully turning America into a third world country.  It pisses me off, but as one who’s traveled in the third world and one who lived in Russia when we almost broke them…i have to say that no people on this planet deserve to become third worlders more than Americans.

HST called it years ago: “We’re a nation of pigs and we’ll get what we deserve.”

You’re fooling ourselves if we think that any change that may take place will be directed toward the disadvantage. The pressure that’s being responded to at the moment is that of the upper-middle class, the group most likely to move policy.

More politically flexible than the strata below them, they are, in large part, the reason both parties, Republican and Democrat, has betrayed the nation economically. From Reagan/Bush to Clinton to Cheney, they played the tune politician dance to. The one mass group noticed by them and after pocketing their kick-backs, the only other group they listen to.

Nothing, so far, proferred will benefit the working class and working poor.  McCain nor Obama will do nothing because as Bush II has shown, the president is only a microphone and has no influence over such things.

Scottk,
The Wall Street Journal says that Obama is more likely to be Bush’s third term than McCain.  They think he is even more the corporate candidate than McCain.  This explains why Rupert Murdock likes Osame so much.  Your nickname for him is an apt one, but I take it to mean that he is the same as Bush, not Clinton (not that there is much difference).

What is wrong with the concept that the more one benefits from a system, the more one contributes back into the continuing success of that system? If a system allows some to double their income, why shouldn’t they pay a slightly higher rate to support that system?  Where is the logic in paying less?  Can anyone deny that the wealthier a person is, the more that person benefits from all the systems of infrastructure our country provides?  Who educates their employees?  Who protects their patents and intellectual property?  Who distributes their products?  Who protects their physical property?  Where does the money come from that pays for government contracts that some of them benefit from directly?  Who supports the system that manages their Wall Street investments?  Why should they pay a lower rate to support all this than those who work for them?  Can they do any of this without a government that functions on their behalf? 

Imagine a simple tax system where every person files as an individual and all income is the same as ordinary income.  Sure, there could be some differences in deductions but they should be constructed fairly.  Imagine a straight line function for tax rate that cannot discriminate on anything except what is earned.  The more the system pays you, the more you contribute back into the system.  Everyone wins when there is success.  This function would begin with a zero tax rate at the bottom and every time income is doubled, the tax rate would go up by the same amount.  With a simple ten dollar calculator from any office supply store, anyone could instantly know their tax rate. 

Imagine paying no tax on an income of $1000.  Pay 3% if that income is doubled.  Pay 6% on $4000.  9% on $8000 and 12% on $16000.  For those making $100,000, it comes to 20% and this is a tax break.  For those making one million, is 30% too much to ask?  Those making less pay more now.  That may or may not be a tax break but you should be able to see by now that this system would reduce taxes on most Americans, as much as 10% for some in the middle class. 

So why can’t someone making ten million a year pay a tax rate of 40%?  Is the remaining six million really that hard to live on?  Are they paying their fair share now for what they get?  Are the real Phil Gramm whiners those who make this much and expect even more?  What about those who make one hundred million?  Is there any reason they would have trouble living of half that, on 50 million?  I think not.  I know I would have no trouble with that. 

If this were done, we would have a near revenue neutral system that rewards success.  The middle class would receive significant tax reduction (the Republicans believe in this don’t they?) and the wealthy would contribute to their own success by investing more in the system that makes their wealth creation possible. 

Try it yourself: How much would you pay if:

Tax Rate = 0.0434 x Ln (Taxable Income) – 0.3

The “Ln” may be unfamiliar but it is no more complicated than pushing one button on a cheap calculator.  So with this simple equation, you can know exactly what your tax rate is.  Can you say that now? 

Realize this is just the idea.  This equation could be adjusted a little to make the numbers work out correctly.  But do not change the concept.  Actually, I believe this equation is pretty close to correct except it should be indexed for inflation. 

Please help me spread this around…  It is the answer to so many ills.  I could go on about how this would restructure our society for hours.  It will bring jobs back home.  It will reduce excess executive salaries and keep that money in the companies where it improves products, customer service and employee performance.  American companies will become stronger.  We would all invest more into our country based on our success. 

The Republicans have it exactly backwards!  And only We The People can change that.  Please help me spread this around.

cyrena:

“…One thing I have on my mind about all these highfalutin economics is why this is only considered a threat to our national security when it affects the ‘elites’? It seems the few could hardly give a tinker’s damn if a whole class of people go through very devastating hard financial times but the ‘richies’ get to call out the military to protect their ill gotten gains….”

Good point. Underlines “Reaganomics” is not dead, but the republican party is definitely suffering from cancer.

Any good that Reagan may have done is lost to memory while the very bad policy of “Reaganomics” will be remembered as his for all time. And that’s not fair. The greed that created his financial policy belonged to and was implemented by others. Those same others who have caused the disease that is the republican party today. Nobody seems to be able to distinguish between the man and the policy, or recognize the policy is the thing that led and leads to the collapse that today is identified as synonymous with republican.

When a “leader” allows himself to be led, he needs to pay attention to who’s doing the leading, and more important, why they want to do it. Reagan, like every president is a single individual. That’s why they have Congress. They need others to confer with to develop policy. 

When a president makes the decision to abrogate power, they need to realize whatever comes of it will become their legacy.

The person[s] truly responsible for any bad coming out of that abrogation of power, will never get the credit or the condemnation they deserve. And I’m not talking about Congress here. I’m talking about appointed “officials” and Vice Presidents who receive their power directly from the president.

Uniquely Republican, the notion that the presidency is “The First Branch” of government and therefore above the Congress has led us to most of the horrors in our history.

We need to ask ourselves, why have the republicans been so eager to build a wall between the presidency and the Congress? The answer is simple. It’s much easier [and cheaper] to control the malleable mind of ONE weak leader than ALL the minds in the Congress.

I believe Reaganomics is a misnomer. Because the policy that became defined as belonging to Reagan has been around since the beginning.

The “trickle down” theory [albeit called something else] guided the Robber Barons of the 19th Century. And was helpful in bringing this nation to the Great Depression of the early 20th century. And has led us through a series of recessions since. And now brings us to the edge of the Great Depression of the 21st century. Reagan has not earned credit for all of that. But the Republicans have.

There are always exceptions. George W. Bush will always get credit for the War in Iraq. And he has earned it. He made a deliberate decision long before he was the party candidate that if he became president he would attack Iraq.

His reasoning, the belief that his dad lost re-election because he didn’t get Saddam, is irrelevant. Other than it clearly demonstrated why George W. Bush would not make a good leader. He was, is completely incapable of grasping the big picture.

But then, so was Reagan. Greedy people love presidents like Reagan and Bush, because all they have to do is make something sound good, while crafting it around that presidents pre-conceived notions, and they will get whatever they want.

In any case, the Republican Party appears to be on the verge of collapse, if it’s not soon seriously re-organized!

“BILL MOYERS: Now, controlling the party, the Presidency, and Congress, conservatives had what historian Rick Perlstein describes as their first chance in the modern era to govern on their own terms - to prove themselves. They were euphoric. And they blew it.”
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/07112008/transcript3.html

But Reaganomics, will live forever. Perhaps with a name change, but greed and licentiousness are eternal.

“Cutting taxes increases revenue” . . . even Kennedy bought this stupidity. Yes, revenues have increased every year, but so has the population, which is the basic reason for it. So, revenue increases whether you increase or decrease tax rates, or do nothing.

“Social Security is paying out the money it takes in today to pay off the people it took the money from yesterday.”  . . . if that is so, then they really do have to change their ways, because if that is even partly true, it is nothing but a con game: you HAVE to maintain a “lockbox” which guarantees the payout to recipients, or you have to note that payees in the future will receive a government paycheck of a certain size REGARDLESS of what was paid in and what happened to THAT money.

Trickle down theory, really means pissing down theory. Some of us know what they really meant.

Trickle down theory never worked as all the trickle down evaporated from all the hot air at the top. What we actually got was p-ss-d on from the higher-ups outhouses.

Trickle down theory makes as much non-sense as fighting a war on terror. Unattainable.

Thanks, E.J. Dionne, it’s nice to see bad policy getting its due, finally, a little late, etc.

If anyone is interested, here’s a link to the organization Power in the Public Interest which follows electricity deregualtion specifically.
They conducted a study, updated in February, and it shows how badly deregulation fails. It tracks states in “deregulated” energy markets and shows that prices are HIGHER, period, by a wide margin. The study and website can be found at: http://www.ppinet.org/

“Reaganomics” never was a comprehensive, intellectual advocacy of economic freedom. It was a confused melange of half-baked notions and platitudes. In the end, it was little different from the policies of every other president.

The biggest problem we have (as only, seemingly, Ron Paul understands) is that our money is controlled by the quasi-private “Federal Reserve,” which works hand-in-glove with all administrations (D or R) to inflate the currency in order to pay those high up in the system (that is, governments and their favored corporate buddies).

Inevitably, this policy of funny-money currency leads to boom and bust cycles. This is explained in great deal by any of the Austrian School economists.

Because of legal-tender laws, we are all shackled in irons on the same sinking ship. D’s and R’s are both complicit in this monumentally immoral and duplicitous system.

AT: right on.  They don’t need that ole trickle down theory anymore.  Globalism is quicker and deadlier.

I guess my problem with regulation and deregulation has always been WHAT is regulated and WHY it’s regulated.

Safe employment environment?  Gotta have it.
Pure food and drugs?  Gotta have it.
Can’t poison the river? Gotta have it.
Can’t cheat a borrower?  Gotta have it.
No price fixing? Gotta have it.
Safe toys for the kids?  Gotta have it.
Cars that don’t explode and turn into a fireball in a simple rear-end collision?  Gotta have it.

But….
Barriers to entry in an industry?  Why?
Prevent new airlines? Why?
Can’t have cable TV competition? Why?
Only buddies of the powerful get licenses? Why?

I could go on and on.  Healthy capitalism is the only way for society to prosper, but it requires watch-dogs to keep the unscrupulous from taking our money and killing us. 
It requires corporate law that ensures that management MUST comply with law, and cannot cheat the investors.
It requires the clear-cut delineation between private goods and public goods and prevents those public goods from being over-exploited and ruined for the rest of us.
It requires infrastructure that is in the best interests of all of us, not just Exxon.

It requires eminent domain laws that solely create public use, not to say WalMart is better for Smallville than 20 private Mom&Pops;so we’ll condemn the Mom&Pops;to get a WalMart.

It prevents a Ken Lay from manipulating the energy market with phony traders and bankrupting a sovereign state so reap a windfall profit.

It requires all of us to pay a FAIR share of taxes to support our nation.

Reaganomics:

Borrow or print massive amounts of money (debt), make thousands of your friends, associates or fellow political party members millionaires and cut their taxes.

Wage war.

Reagonomics, was really the taking over of the apparatus of American governement by the plutocrats.

Under the guise of privatization, the Federal Government and it’s reguatory agencies, it’s great departments were gutted to make room for more profitable free enterprise.

After a slight pause under Clintion the process accelerated under Bush, with dire consequences to the people.

However the plutocrats that control this country now, like their position of power.

Don’t underestimate their ability to sabotage reforms, or corupt reformers.

They believe this country rightfully belongs to them, after all they bought it.

Despite the peoples growing poverty, they retain much of their wealth, power and political influence, they care very little about our Democracy and even less for our suffering.

Well, a lot of the money is greatly inflated.  Part of the government’s manipulation of the economy has been the creation of a huge amount of money whose distribution was mostly limited to rich people—hence ballooning real estate and stock prices.  But when you “print” a lot of money—in this case, just declare that it exists—it stops being worth very much.  We are apparently all going to be going through quite a wringer to correct the monetary system.  Reagan was only a part of that problem, although certainly an enthusiastic participant.  But after decades of abuse, some of the spring may have gone out of the real economy.

How am I to accept Scottk’s premise when he thinks the Democratic candidate’s name is Osame?  Get your facts right!  Donna F.

~~~~~~

Donna, you CAN’T accept Scottk’s premise, for the reason you just noted, among many others…including that facts are not of interest to him.

Such as it is. No need to even consider paying any attention.

The reported demise is premature. Check the pulse ...

While the premise of the article is correct, and the notion of Reaganomics never was. The fact remains, until we have a restoration of a fair distribution of wealth, that horrible rotting body will still be sitting in the corner pumping blood.

Decades of theft takes a bit longer than one election cycle to restore. In fact if any of the wealth stolen is restored to those victims of Republican/Reagan policy, it will be nothing short of a miracle!

So hold off on paying for the Funeral just yet ...

Samosamo…

You said it so well…

“…One thing I have on my mind about all these high faluting(sp) economics is why this is only considered a threat to our national security when it affects the ‘elites’? It seems the few could hardly give a tinker’s damn if a whole class of people go through very devastating hard financial times but the ‘richies’ get to call out the military to protect their ill gotten gains….”

THIS is exactly what EJ means about the ‘reality setting in’. And this is why we see that regonomics is dead. It doesn’t work even for them anymore. Even when they call out the military to protect their ill gotten gains, the gains have become worthless. Kind of like being stuck on a patch of a deserted island with tons on money. Find a way to spend it. The money will still be there after they’ve shriveled up and died.

samosamo

Reagonomics fan club is not facing reality, they took it with them.