Posted on 01/02/2011 8:06:22 AM PST by Chunga85
How: Gold. Tax cuts. Debts. Wars. Fat Cats. Class gap. No fiscal discipline
ARROYO GRANDE, Calif. (MarketWatch) -- "How my G.O.P. destroyed the U.S. economy." Yes, that is exactly what David Stockman, President Ronald Reagan's director of the Office of Management and Budget, wrote in a recent New York Times op-ed piece, "Four Deformations of the Apocalypse."
Get it? Not "destroying." The GOP has already "destroyed" the U.S. economy, setting up an "American Apocalypse."
Yes, Stockman is equally damning of the Democrats' Keynesian policies. But what this indictment by a party insider -- someone so close to the development of the Reaganomics ideology -- says about America, helps all of us better understand how America's toxic partisan-politics "holy war" is destroying not just the economy and capitalism, but the America dream. And unless this war stops soon, both parties will succeed in their collective death wish.
(Excerpt) Read more at marketwatch.com ...
I was just laughing at how you described it.
Stockman? Nah, I don’t care what he has to say.
However, I wouldn't pessimistically observe that FR is firmly in the pro big-gov't corner, and that there doesn't seem to be any remaining bastion of free market sentiment.
Rather, I view it as an exciting revelation that there is simply nothing whatsoever that is going to prevent this cluster$uck from occurring.
There are few things in life that are lock solid absolutes - the coming CWII is one of them.
Like almost everybody else in DC, Stockman thought Reagan was a mediocre intellect who needed help to see the Big Picture.
Stockman understood fiscal policy, and saw that the USG could not perpetuate the Welfare State and ramp up defense spending by simply cutting tax rates. Eventually the piper would have to be paid for racking up deficits year after year.
Unfortunately for Stockman, he did not understand that fiscal policy is only part of the Big Picture, which Reagan in fact understood much better than his critics. In the Big Picture, there was a Cold War, an existential threat from the USSR and international Communism, that was an overwhelming priority.
Reagan understood that defeating international Communism required deficit spending, and had faith that future Congresses would recognize that they had to pay off Cold War debts as they had after wars in the past two centuries. It was also argued at the time that these deficits would “starve the beast” and constrain future expansion of the Welfare State. Unfortunately, Reagan was wrong about that. Even Ronald Reagan overestimated the the USG’s potential to be good and responsible. But he’s still by far the best president of the past century, especially when you consider the Congress he had to work with.
Stockman’s still alive? Or did they dig him up just for this?
No more
I could not agree more.
The innovation and hard work I was talking about includes such things as defining new biological therapies, new paradigms for information technology, innovative energy technology, new products based on advanced materials science etc. Every economic boom we've had in this country has been associated with some kind of innovation and advancement.
The issue of huge corporations controlling the economy is a valid one, but this is exactly where government is supposed to play a role, in making sure that everyone plays by the rules and that the proper rules exist to prevent monopolies and suppression of competition. This is quite different than controlling outcomes, which is what social engineering types of politicians have been trying to do.
Biotech and pharmaceuticals is an example of how our government policies are actually undermining our ability to lead the world and profit from it. We have been the major source of the major advancements in medical technology and biomedicine in the world over the past many decades. We have produced major advances in molecular biology that is the intellectual underpinning of new biological therapies. However, instead of realizing that medicine, biotechnology, medical device development, medical imaging, and pharmaceuticals are a major success area in the American economy, and allowing that sector to grow, our government is suppressing this sector of the economy, and refusing to protect our patents abroad.
In the meantime, the Chinese are sending students and early career researches to the US to learn and take back the expertise of this sector, as they recognize it as an important and growing area. We, on the other hand, are bailing out GM.
I’m speaking of the out-sourcing of US jobs, initially in manufacturing and now in everything else. I remember when Bush I lost in ‘92 (I voted for him). As a recent graduate in a bad job market there was no doubt in my mind as to why he lost. The was 15 years before 2006; now the Dems are getting creamed on the same issue.
“But this financial mess is not all the GOP’s fault, obviously. The Dem’s were a willing partner, and perhaps the senior partner. Stockman should have made that point as well.”
No doubt.
The problem which both parties share is that our manufacturing seed corn has been exported to the world. Trade means we buy product from you and you buy product from us. Trade is not we buy product from you and send jobs, factories and Treasuries in return. Clinton started it, Bush put it on steroids and Obama continues it.
Look at the products you buy and see where they were made, that’s where the jobs went. We have to make more of what we import or only Wall Street will recover.
“instead of realizing that medicine, biotechnology, medical device development, medical imaging, and pharmaceuticals are a major success area in the American economy, and allowing that sector to grow, our government is suppressing this sector of the economy, and refusing to protect our patents abroad.”
I think you are right and in most ways I agree with you. I would take it even further. The National Institutes of Health have become a controller of what we do in research instead of an enabler. They are focusing research on what they think is important. I think that Pasteur, “Chance favors only the prepared mind,” would probably not be successful in the modern grant system. He was willing to look at things with a fresh mind. Today’s system favors the old boy system just like the rest of the political system. If I had my druthers I would keep the money in the States where you could fund many more bright and innovative ideas that don’t always follow the academic orthodoxy. Remember they (NIH) drain much of the money away on internal research.
The use of foreign grad. students comes from two primary directions. Foreign grad. students work cheaper, and in some cases come with funding from their own governments. A liberal PC mindset of prejudice against Americans, and the belief that we have an obligation to the rest of the world. I am speaking strictly about the medical university environment as I haven’t been involved with the typical university in a long time. PC trumps survival of this country every time IMHO.
I’m involved with a 16M study that could have done much cheaper and faster and better if the Feds weren’t involved. You do what you must to pay the bills. Administrators aren’t cheap these days.
I think the bottom line is that, which I think you implied, government is supposed to stay off the playing field except as a Referee.
During Ronald Reagan’s administration we started running trade deficits every year and the FIRE (finance, insurance, real estate) sector of the economy started its rise. We slowly gave up being a producing nation and started to become a consumer nation
I’m not blaming RR necessarily but this flip took place when Paul Volker finally let up on interest rates in summer 1982. Volker had started his interest rate clampdown in 1979.
We started running trade deficits each year in RR’s first administration. Actually 1976 during the peanut farmer’s presidency but RR didn’t seem concerned about reversing it and they got more entrenched under RR
“In 1975, U.S. exports had exceeded foreign imports by $12,400 million, but that would be the last trade surplus the United States would see in the 20th century.”
“Maybe this has been posted already”
Yes, and more than once.
David Stockman has been out of the public limelight for so many years, he now longs to be noticed again, at least one more time, and decided the best way to do that was to get the Lib-Left media to WANT to give him a public audience.
What he demonstrates most is that he is and always was more an opportunist than an economics-finance guy, and further, why it was a good thing that Reagan fired him.
He has learned well the media art that understands that - to get noticed and get your words turned into a media mantra - it is the severity of the charge that is more important than the presentation or veracity of evidence.
Why yes, as a matter of fact, I do!
We have elected officials to handle the policys [sic] of this country.
Elected? Selected by the powers that be and pushed into office via massive vote fraud, propaganda and down right lying is more like it in many cases.
November showed them what the people want.
And December showed us what they think of what we want!
Please don't come back with the "but the new members haven't been seated yet..." crap. The message was to ALL members of both parties, not just the new guys. They couldn't crawl over each other fast enough to rush through the most despicable commie legislation they could come up with.
stop the wars and bring our troops home
When in the H... did that enter into this equation? Are you a Paulite?
When you talk about storming Washington, you’re talking about war between the states. We did that once remember? Over 500K American citizens died then. I’m not for doing that again.
As for the troops, these wars are things that are draining our economy. It needs to stop if we are to ever get financially stable..........among other things.
No I am not a follower of Paul. Just an independent with an opinion. If we don’t listen to all possibilitys and close our minds and follow one persons opinion, we will lose for sure.
Stockman reminds me of Scott Ritter.
Wasn't he the architect of Reagan's first economic plan and then stabbed him in the back?
No more
I could not agree more.
Stockman reminds me of Scott Ritter.
I was referring to his comment, not who he reminded me of.
Clearly, you have no idea what I'm talking about so don't presume to speak for me!
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another...We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,
--That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government...
Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.
But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism,
it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
“it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government...”
This is accomplished by the vote, not “storming” Washington. If this cannot be done or will not be allowed by a government, then your allternative may be necessary.....but not until then.
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