'The Third Depression'

[palemale]

Fellow progressives:

Say—do you think Republicans see what they want to see? In at least three cases, in this very thread, Republicans have left out vital parts of arguments.

I think JUB should change the name of the forum from CE&P to "Fantasyland," because the Republicans and Conservatives who post on here seem to operate in a world completely devoid of reality.

 

[CowboyBob]

Palemale, the thing is I really do like some of them personally.

But when it comes to politics, they seem to see what they want to see, and remember what they want to remember.

Our correspondent Laika, for example, remembers the inflation situation in Carter's era, while completely forgetting the very low deficits. Someone else remembers FDR's relative failure during the 30s, while completely forgetting his booming economy in WW2.

Jack Springer thinks we're badly overtaxed, while completely forgetting the 70-90% marginal tax rates for the rich in the 1940s-1970s...

Oh, hell, I don't know. Trying to understand the Republican brain is confounding sometimes.

Johann, there are a couple things wrong in your post here. (by the way, love the puppy in your avatar!)

Laika "remembers" the inflation in the Carter era? What he knows is what he's been misinformed of by talk radio and Fox. Most likely he wasn't born until well into Clinton's first term. Young and against authority and loves radical thinking. Mostly inaccurate.

And you used the words "Republican" and "brain" in the same sentence without using the words "doesn't have a" between them.

Otherwise you're spot on.

 

[palemale]

Palemale, the thing is I really do like some of them personally.

But when it comes to politics, they seem to see what they want to see, and remember what they want to remember.

Our correspondent Laika, for example, remembers the inflation situation in Carter's era, while completely forgetting the very low deficits. Someone else remembers FDR's relative failure during the 30s, while completely forgetting his booming economy in WW2.

Jack Springer thinks we're badly overtaxed, while completely forgetting the 70-90% marginal tax rates for the rich in the 1940s-1970s...

Oh, hell, I don't know. Trying to understand the Republican brain is confounding sometimes.

I like (almost) everyone on this forum. I don't dislike any of the conservatives, even if some of them get a little snippy at times.

But yes, there is very selective memory (or knowledge of historic facts). I'm old enough to remember the "WIN" buttons of the Ford era. For those of you who don't know, "WIN" stood for Whip Inflation Now." How's that for an effective, Republican policy? Carter inherited a bag of shit. Nixon fucked up the economy by prosecuting the war in Vietnam without raising taxes or any other sort of revenue. I suppose none of the young Republicans here remember that inflation was so bad under Nixon that his government instituted wage and price controls. So, for example, if you worked in a factory and you union negotiated a 5% wage increase, the employer was lawfully unable to give you the raise once the wage controls were enacted.

They also seem to forget the 1973 oil crisis under Nixon. For laika to opine that Carter inherited a mild recession is ludicrous. I remember the mid-1970s to be a pretty grim economic time in this country, before Carter ever became president. He may have been ineffective in turning the economy around, but he surely was handed a bag of shit for an economy.

 

[laikaNYC]

Johann, there are a couple things wrong in your post here. (by the way, love the puppy in your avatar!)

Laika "remembers" the inflation in the Carter era? What he knows is what he's been misinformed of by talk radio and Fox. Most likely he wasn't born until well into Clinton's first term. Young and against authority and loves radical thinking. Mostly inaccurate.

And you used the words "Republican" and "brain" in the same sentence without using the words "doesn't have a" between them.

Otherwise you're spot on.

Radical thinking? Is that what you call it when people don't share your views? The fact that you need to disparage every Republican as brainless shows a little something about you.

 

[Nomenclature]

Laika, I have to give that label to George W. Bush.

The elections were held in 2000, and he didn't get into office until 2001. Both of those years were the beginning of the 21st century.

One of the most-forgotten things about the Carter administration is the fact that budget deficits were very low. In 1978, for example, the budget deficit was in the $700 million range; in 1979, it was in the $900 million range. That's million with an "m". It seems like science fiction nowadays to have had budget deficits that low.

You're not even bothering to factor in inflation here. How much was 1978's 700 million dollars in 2010 dollars?

What cost $700000000 in 1978 would cost $2276657839.10 in 2009.

http://www.westegg.com/inflation/

You could very accurately say that the Democrats taxed and spent, while the Republicans borrowed, and spent even more.

The truly ironic thing, is that every time we've had a "conservative" in office, they've pissed away a LOT of our nation's money. . .yet every time we've had a democrat in office, they've worked to try to get our money back and to solve the stupid things they've done. Of course, a few of them have done things even stupider, but the fact remains: America had its best economy ever during the Clinton years, who was a Democrat.


Conservatives are supposed to be. . .uhm. . .CONSERVATIVE spenders, aren't they? George W. Bush went around saying he was a "compassionate conservative", yet he blew a trillion dollars on a war we didn't even need, finally justifying it only as "nation building". . .after he promised that we'd never do that.


Bullshit. All of it.

 

[laikaNYC]

America had its best economy ever during the Clinton years, who was a Democrat.

Thanks to Republican Gingrich's congress

 

[iman]

Liz Alderman had a NYT front page piece on the economic troubles in Ireland following austerity measures and belt tightening as opposed to increased spending. Ezra Klein picked up on the Times story in the Washington Post which also includes a link to the Times piece.
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2010/06/the_luck_of_the_irish_vs_the_e.html

I know the Republicans dislike facts, but the evidence is becoming clear that spending inspires confidence not austerity.

 

[NickCole]

Thanks to Republican Gingrich's congress

Cute. But wrong.

Not one single Republican voted for Clinton's 1993 Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act, which is sometimes referred to as the Deficit Reduction Act or the Revenue Reconciliation Act, and was the bold reform needed to seed the longest period of prosperity in our nation's history.

It's only a shame we didn't have a Clinton in the White House to address the unemployment and foreclosures, and true health care reform and banking regulation sorely needed, now.

 

[Jack Springer]

Frankly, I don't care who caused this recession or any other in the past. Let's just get out of this long one.

Get people back to work so they can pay taxes.

Obama isn't doing anything to get us out of this one and is too stubborn to admit it.

 

[T-Rexx]

Those who say Obama (and Bush) "haven't done anything" (or haven't done anything effective) ignore the fact that the entire banking industry of the USA, most of the insurance industry, General Motors, and Chrysler would not exist today without the recent government interventions. We would have had a collapse of the entire US economy which would have made the Great Depression look trivial in comparison. To say that Obama has done nothing effective is absurd. He has (temporarily) saved this nation from complete and utter financial destruction.

What Krugman is arguing is that a $1 trillion bailout is not nearly enough. FDR made the mistake of committing far too few funds to the recovery during the first depression. The many tens of millions of $$$ he committed seemed insane at the time. FDR kept pulling back from pouring more money into recovery out of fear of the enormous deficit this was causing. But, in retrospect, we know it was not nearly enough to have been effective.

Depressions happen when too much money becomes concentrated in the hands of a very few. We have had decades of financial policy in the USA aimed at making the rich richer. That policy has been remarkably successful, especially during the GWB administration, which saw a massive shift in income distribution toward the wealthy. Only once previously in American history has income distribution in the USA been so disproportionate. That was the Fall of 1929.

The USA now has the income profile of a third world nation, with the top 1% of American income earners now owning 33.8% of the wealth of the country. There is no other first world nation that comes anywhere near such disproportionate wealth distribution. This pattern is very characteristic of third world nations, however.

The USA is becoming a banana republic. Banana republics are not efficient economies because permanently massive disproportionate wealth distribution leads to a state of permanent depression.

Krugman is arguing that far more massive reforms are necessary. Obama has bought us only a temporary reprieve. If the problem of wealth distribution in America is not corrected, most all of us can look forward to a future of relative poverty in a permanently-depressed economy.