True, true. I couldn't decide if Haynes Johnson was full of it or not. His take was, don't blame Reagan, he didn't know about it until Hudson passed away. But Johnson wrote the book "Sleepwalking Through History", which I suppose is not the most positive take on the Reagan years <grin>.
The focus of the book is more focused the increase in the national debt not Lebanon, Grenada or much on the Iran Contra. Nixon, Ford, and Carter had left us big government, easy money, soaring expenditures on "Great Society" income-redistribution programs, a regulatory regime that invaded every industry, and confiscatory state-federal tax rates that in some cases exceeded 80 percent. The Reagan "fix it" formula was tax-rate cuts, free trade, more entrepreneur and business friendly, and the dollar was as good as gold again. Did it mention victory in the Cold War..describing the Soviet Union as an "evil empire," the "focus of evil in the modern world." Horrified,that remark brought the sensitive liberal intellectual elite out of the woodwork.
1982 the Dow Jones had hit a low of 800. After the final nip and tuck of his tax cuts were installed, the market sored upward for 18 years - the Dow rose from 800 to 10,000 — creating between $15 trillion and $20 trillion in new wealth and industries. The Dow would have to climb to 100,000 by 2020 to match Reagan's economic performance. As a result U.S. companies became far more productive investing more money into research and development; therefore, more profitable, and investors..yes Reagan made it possible for many Americans to start investing and reap the new fortunes for which the Clinton(the Fox) Booster Club likes to lay claim to having achieved for us.
Reagen's newly recovered economy created 15 million new jobs. Textbooks still argue that Reagen's (the Hedgehog) economic policies were flawed because they created record budget deficits (social programs mentioned above) failing to mention that as the national debt rose by $2 trillion, national wealth rose by $8 trillion... nor to mention the Laffer curve achieved lower tax rates generating more tax revenues at the federal and state levels. Free men and free enterprise(Hedgehog-one big idea and getting it done). Federal tax collections rose from $500 billion in 1980 to $1 trillion in 1990.
Johnson wrote of the threat of other countries to the US economically (writing this book 1987- 1991). He didn't know at the time that Japan would go into a recessive sleep for the next 10 years. True, the upscale jewelry and designer stores in Hawaii,for example, a favorite spot for the Japanese to vacation; saw a loss from the Japanese trade, but now American's had more money to spend on such luxury items and did so freely.
When Johnson wrote Reagan said "I do not recall", he was well into the stages of Senility.
Sources: http://www.newcriterion.com/weblog/armavirumque.html
President Reagan: The Role of a Lifetime by Lou Cannon
Berlin, Sir Isaiah (1953), The Hedgehog and the Fox, New York, Simon & Schuster
http://www.nationalreview.com/
..sorry stammered at the beginning or my comment to you..sleep is needed!