Ronald Reagan

[smc]

Originally Posted by randolph

I would like to post more of the Stockman article.

Stage 1. Nixon irresponsible, dumps gold, U.S starts spending binge

Richard Nixon's gold policies get Stockman's first assault, for defaulting "on American obligations under the 1944 Bretton Woods agreement to balance our accounts with the world." So for the past 40 years, America's been living "beyond our means as a nation" on "borrowed prosperity on an epic scale ... an outcome that Milton Friedman said could never happen when, in 1971, he persuaded President Nixon to unleash on the world paper dollars no longer redeemable in gold or other fixed monetary reserves."
Remember Friedman: "Just let the free market set currency exchange rates, he said, and trade deficits will self-correct." Friedman was wrong by trillions. And unfortunately "once relieved of the discipline of defending a fixed value for their currencies, politicians the world over were free to cheapen their money and disregard their neighbors."
And without discipline America was also encouraging "global monetary chaos as foreign central banks run their own printing presses at ever faster speeds to sop up the tidal wave of dollars coming from the Federal Reserve." Yes, the road to the coming apocalypse began with a Republican president listening to a misguided Nobel economist's advice.

Apocalypse?

I have long argued with colleagues that the two most important dates in twentieth century history may well have been:

August 15, 1971: The day Nixon ended the Bretton Woods system and ended trading of gold at the fixed price of $35/ounce.

August 4, 1914: The day "socialists" in European parliaments sided with their bourgeois governments and voted in favor of extending war credits so that World War I could be waged (thus compelling the Bolsheviks to declare the end of the Second International and the need for a new Third International).

What is it about August?

[Enoch Root]

Maybe it's in the word, august.

[The Conquistador]

Originally Posted by smc

I have long argued with colleagues that the two most important dates in twentieth century history may well have been:

August 15, 1971: The day Nixon ended the Bretton Woods system and ended trading of gold at the fixed price of $35/ounce.

August 4, 1914: The day "socialists" in European parliaments sided with their bourgeois governments and voted in favor of extending war credits so that World War I could be waged (thus compelling the Bolsheviks to declare the end of the Second International and the need for a new Third International).

What is it about August?

According to the Terminator franchise, Judgement Day occurs on August 29th. Just sayin'...

[alexvela]

it's all about the ALIENS!!!! and nuclear weapons...come on people everybody should know by now...
I hope they don't come to earth and they keep it the way it is...it will change life on earth forever...it will ruin everything!!!, I don't mind having a males bathroom, female bathroom or unisex bathroom, I can use all 3 of them very comfortable, but an alien bathroom,, I wouldn't wanna go in there..or at least I'm not ready or correct me please...

[TracyCoxx]

Originally Posted by alexvela

it's all about the ALIENS!!!! and nuclear weapons...come on people everybody should know by now...
I hope they don't come to earth and they keep it the way it is...it will change life on earth forever...it will ruin everything!!!, I don't mind having a males bathroom, female bathroom or unisex bathroom, I can use all 3 of them very comfortable, but an alien bathroom,, I wouldn't wanna go in there..or at least I'm not ready or correct me please...

Finally, back to the thread subject. I think you've really nailed one of Ronald Regan's pet peeves about aliens.

[merelypink]

he may have been the worst president ever... he started the debt cycle we are currently in

[randolph]

Originally Posted by merelypink

he may have been the worst president ever... he started the debt cycle we are currently in

Yep, the Republican delusional idea that you can cut taxes in order to reduce the deficit. Ronnie had to bite the bullet after cutting taxes the debt soared and he had to raise taxes several times. Nevertheless, the Republicans cling to the tax cutting mantra as the solution to all our problems.
Although, currently they are making a big issue of cutting public benefits. Its hard to take them seriously when they just want to give it to the Pentagon.

The Pentagon, the biggest welfare program the world has ever seen. It keeps thousands of workers busy building bombs and tanks and guns.
Things that are so useful!

[TracyCoxx]

Originally Posted by merelypink

he may have been the worst president ever... he started the debt cycle we are currently in

Hmmm now let's see. Who was that that controls the money?

[Buddy]

Reagan was great like Ghadaffi is great.

[Enoch Root]

Originally Posted by smc

August 4, 1914: The day "socialists" in European parliaments sided with their bourgeois governments and voted in favor of extending war credits so that World War I could be waged (thus compelling the Bolsheviks to declare the end of the Second International and the need for a new Third International).

If they were not socialists then what were they?

[smc]

Originally Posted by Enoch Root

If they were not socialists then what were they?

This date in history is part of the origin of "social democracy" (about which you have written on this site). To explain more would be to take the thread far from its subject, Ronald Reagan, so I'll give you an assignment to figure it out. If you run into difficulty, my friend, you know where to find me.

[Enoch Root]

Originally Posted by smc

This date in history is part of the origin of "social democracy" (about which you have written on this site). To explain more would be to take the thread far from its subject, Ronald Reagan, so I'll give you an assignment to figure it out. If you run into difficulty, my friend, you know where to find me.

I will try, Mentor.

[smc]

Originally Posted by Enoch Root

I will try, Mentor.

Mentor, eh?

Like David, Cal, and Jay in "The 40-Year-Old Virgin"?
"You plant the seed … then you wait for the seed to grow into a plant, and then you fuck the plant."

Or Mister Miyagi in "The Karate Kid"?
"We make sacred pact. I promise teach ... you, you promise learn. I say, you do, no questions."

Or Obi-Wan Kenobi in "Star Wars"?
"Use the force, Enoch."

Or Yoda in "Star Wars"?
"Adventure. Excitement. Capitalism. A Jedi craves not these things."

Or just complete the damn assignment and be sure to turn it in when it's due!

[Enoch Root]

You've seen the 40-year-old virgin? You surprise me every day.

I am Telemachus. You are Mentor. I can't believe I had to look up this shit. All this time I had my Greek mythology confused and thought Mentor was the centaur that trained Achilles (assuming I'm getting that right...).

[randolph]

Stage 2. Crushing debts from domestic excesses, war mongering

Stockman says "the second unhappy change in the American economy has been the extraordinary growth of our public debt. In 1970 it was just 40% of gross domestic product, or about $425 billion. When it reaches $18 trillion, it will be 40 times greater than in 1970." Who's to blame? Not big-spending Dems, says Stockman, but "from the Republican Party's embrace, about three decades ago, of the insidious doctrine that deficits don't matter if they result from tax cuts."
Back "in 1981, traditional Republicans supported tax cuts," but Stockman makes clear, they had to be "matched by spending cuts, to offset the way inflation was pushing many taxpayers into higher brackets and to spur investment. The Reagan administration's hastily prepared fiscal blueprint, however, was no match for the primordial forces -- the welfare state and the warfare state -- that drive the federal spending machine."
OK, stop a minute. As you absorb Stockman's indictment of how his Republican party has "destroyed the U.S. economy," you're probably asking yourself why anyone should believe a traitor to the Reagan legacy. I believe party affiliation is irrelevant here. This is a crucial subject that must be explored because it further exposes a dangerous historical trend where politics is so partisan it's having huge negative consequences.
Yes, the GOP does have a welfare-warfare state: Stockman says "the neocons were pushing the military budget skyward. And the Republicans on Capitol Hill who were supposed to cut spending, exempted from the knife most of the domestic budget -- entitlements, farm subsidies, education, water projects. But in the end it was a new cadre of ideological tax-cutters who killed the Republicans' fiscal religion."
When Fed chief Paul Volcker "crushed inflation" in the '80s we got a "solid economic rebound." But then "the new tax-cutters not only claimed victory for their supply-side strategy but hooked Republicans for good on the delusion that the economy will outgrow the deficit if plied with enough tax cuts." By 2009, they "reduced federal revenues to 15% of gross domestic product," lowest since the 1940s. Still today they're irrationally demanding an extension of those "unaffordable Bush tax cuts [that] would amount to a bankruptcy filing."
Recently Bush made matters far worse by "rarely vetoing a budget bill and engaging in two unfinanced foreign military adventures." Bush also gave in "on domestic spending cuts, signing into law $420 billion in nondefense appropriations, a 65% percent gain from the $260 billion he had inherited eight years earlier. Republicans thus joined the Democrats in a shameless embrace of a free-lunch fiscal policy." Takes two to tango.



Tracy should red this.

[smc]

Originally Posted by Enoch Root

You've seen the 40-year-old virgin? You surprise me every day.

I am Telemachus. You are Mentor. I can't believe I had to look up this shit. All this time I had my Greek mythology confused and thought Mentor was the centaur that trained Achilles (assuming I'm getting that right...).

Why wouldn't I have seen the film? I enjoy a good comedy.

Telemachus, eh? How's mom holding up?