spursfan101

[rickortreat]

Regan was a disaster as president.  He did NOT win the cold war.  He may have hastened it, bankrupting our country in the process.  He was a great bullshit artist, who managed to avoid criticisim with light-hearted quips.  

He did have his principles, and he stuck with them, which is more than I can say for most.  He was also a womanizer, but by the time he was in the White House, those days were over for him.

Regan was able to make us feel better about ourselves, but it was all fluff and no substance.  The problems the US faced back then are the same as today- job loss to overseas competitors, growing budget deficits, out-of-control government spending, excessive corporate greed- I could go on, but you should get the idea.

The three biggest things I remember about his presidency were, his ability to re-energize the Republican party by stitching together a coalition between conservatives and the brain-dead christian fundamentalists-turning abortion into a political issue instead of a constitutional one, Convincing people that liberalism was a dirty word - destroying legitimate political debate, and Iran-contra which showed just how lilly-white he was.  

The most disturbing thing is, many people still belive he was a great president.  In reality he accomplished nothing.  Even his deregulation program- getting governmnet out of the way caused a disaster- or do you forget the savings and loan scandal- brought about by his message the "greed is good" and removing the oversight to keep the S&L's from bankrupting themselves and foisting their losses on to the taxpayers.  He started the dismantling of the protections put in place by Congress to prevent a recorrence of the Great Depression.  Clinton finished the job- just in time for another economic crash!

[RolandoBlackman]

Hey y'all!!!

Knowing my political orientation/affiliation already, I am sure no one here expects me to say anything good about Reagan - and, you are right!

While I do not hold Reagan himself responsible for the direction the nation was guided to during his administration (he was too old and tired for that), he was the figurehead of a tightly-coordinated G.O.P. 'cell' whose prime goal was to advance their right-wing agenda at all costs.  It is this "go for broke" policy, when combined with mountains of soft money contributions that has made the 'conservative' wing of the Republican so powerful and influential.  I am always amazed that Republicans are taken aback at being labelled as 'racists' - however, the mainstream Republican pandering to the 'Dixiecrat' wing of the party (symbolized by noted civil rights advocates Jesse Helms and Strom Thrumond, not to mention the infamous Louisiana Republican gubernatorial candidate, KKK Grand Dragon David Duke) cannot be ignored.  Any person who truly believes in the principles that this country is based upon cannot be a Republican, IMHO.

Man, I'm just getting started with this...hoo, boy.

"Give Hinckley a Second Chance" - 1980s bumper sticker

-RB
 

[rickortreat]

Actually Ro, you can place a lot of blame on Regan- not that he's responsible for all of what has happened since, but IF he insited on reinsituting the Gold Standard, America would still be a great country today, instead of us loosing our jobs and economic might to a bunch of sticking commies in China!  

[Guest_Randy]

Actually Ro, you can place a lot of blame on Regan- not that he's responsible for all of what has happened since, but IF he insited on reinsituting the Gold Standard, America would still be a great country today, instead of us loosing our jobs and economic might to a bunch of sticking commies in China!

That's SOOO funny, Rick!  Blaming Reagan and the decision to move from the gold standard as the reason why companies are moving their products to China?  Yeah, doesn't have ANYTHING to do with companies looking for the cheapest labor for the highest possible profit.  

I would STILL like to see the US use reverse tariff laws and taxes -- esp. on corporations who are going overseas.  The US needs to understand that we are better off paying a little more for products and supporting our own products.  However, we also need to recognize that this issue is more complicated than it seems -- take Boeing, for instance, who are beginning to get more and more work completed overseas but why are they doing this?  Well, I wonder if unions have anything to do with that -- unions who protect their laziest workers and strive to get more people hired for top wages while neglecting any kind of quality and quantity work.  I have a friend who started there and the union told him to QUIT working so hard so they could hire another person as well.  This is a very complicated issue and it's going to take some work on a lot of different levels to solve it -- unions have to start taking pride in their work -- not their workers.  Businesses have to start looking at something other than JUST the bottom line and consumers have to stop looking at the cheapest product.  

[rickortreat]

Randy, you missunderstand how the Gold standard regulates expansion in the market place.

Under a gold standard, all balance of payments between countries are settled in Gold, and the amount of currency available in your country is based on the amount of your Gold reserves.  

China is able to build and send procucts to the US because it has pegged it's currency to  ours, as oppossed to allowing it to float.  The US $ is the world's reserve currency.  Since it isn't backed by anything, the US can print dollars like crazy, which it has and continues to do to this day.  

The easy and cheap US money, has floated our stock market, inflated assets like real estate and provided cheap financing for China and the rest of Asia to build factories to replace ours.  Under a Gold standard, this could never have happened.

If currencies floated accorrding to their true value, as a Gold standard would enforce, China would not be able to subsidize it's labor costs, or control prices in it's domestic market.  The true inneficiencies of operating a business in China would become apparent, and they would loose a good deal of their competitive advantage.

Tarrifs are only necessary under a fiat currency system.  Business expansion would regulate itself under a gold standard, as each country and each person would have to actually turn a profit to maintain it's standard of living (or increase it)

This is a complex subject only because any economics classes you took never taught you about the value or strength of a gold standard.  In the 30's statists and economists like Keynes, called Gold a barabrous relic, and Roosevelt made it illegal for US citizens to own Gold.  If Gold wasn't worth anything, why do you think Roosevelt did that!?  

You should all know that any fiat currency system that ever existed failed.  The US currency regime is the first time in history that a fiat currency has served as the World's currency, so we are in uncharted waters, but I stongly suspect this will all end badly.  Technically, all our major tradeing partners and we are bankrupt and insolvent, as our fractional reserve system is designed to fail.  When foreginers stop subsiding their manufactuirng by buying our bonds,  the leverage that has built this world-wide expansion will collapse.

Take a look at out balance of trade deficit, our buget deficit and recognize that we've  only gotten this far into debt because of artificailly low interest rates.  Then consider how many homeowners are in homes with ARM's and what will happen to them if interest rates rise.  Or what will happen to car manufacturers or inexpensive goods from Asia when no-one can borrow the money to buy these things.... :crazy: