Reaganomics Beats Obama's 'Middle Class Economics' By A Country Mile

Investor's Business Daily ^ | 01/30/2015 | IBD Staff

[IBD editorial writer]

Growth: President Obama has taken to touting his "middle class economics" as a big success. That's difficult to believe, given the latest GDP numbers, and impossible when you look at his complete record.

[Buckeye McFrog]

Economically this is true. Your article is factually sound.

Politically it’s a non-starter. Our low-info majority has convinced itself that the market is the reason they are stuck in their current predicament.

And, as Winston Churchill wisely noted, we are about to try all of the alternatives.

[griswold3]

Merely need to compare the business birth/death rates of the two administrations to see the truth.
At least during the Reagan administration, folks believed the future was bright. Now, the destructive policies of Communitarian redistribution that have been proven a failure by history is now our bleak future.

[MulberryDraw]

The Keynesian economic multiplier effect sorta-kinda worked in the economic climate of 40-50 years ago. It’s not working in today’s economic climate yet politicians like Obama keep acting like is or will work. We need a new paradigm to replace the worn out policies of the likes of Obama and the Democrats.

[Beagle8U]

“The Keynesian economic multiplier effect sorta-kinda worked in the economic climate of 40-50 years ago.”

Except that isn’t what was effecting the economy back then.

In the years that followed WW2 our economy took off and grew the middle class beyond anything ever seen in history.

It wasn’t unions that did it either, they just went along for the ride.

What caused the booming economy was the fact that every other industrialized nation in the world had been bombed back to the stone age during the war. Nothing more, and nothing less than that.

[headstamp 2]

You’ve hit on something. I remember as a high school student in the late 70’s wondering what job I could get in such a horrific economy.

Then my first presidential vote went to RR. There was never so much optimism at the time after such a horrible decade of the 70’s. Especially Carter’s rein.

Now, I have the same feeling I had in the late 70’s for the past 6 years and there is really is no RR waiting in the wings. Some are close though. Times have changed and a different generation is running things now. We also have a horrendously uninformed electorate.

[ExTxMarine]

What caused the booming economy was the fact that every other industrialized nation in the world had been bombed back to the stone age during the war. Nothing more, and nothing less than that.

DING! DING! DING! We have a winner!

The United States was poised to be an industrial juggernaut after WWII, because we had all the facilities, money, and drive to provide for all the wants and needs of the WORLD! We quickly provided cars, processed foods, furniture, etc... while the rest of the world was bulldozing bomb rubble out of their streets! That growth continued all the way into the 1970's!

The problem is, the rest of the world caught up with and, in many ways, surpassed American manufacturing capabilities. Destructive regulations, oppressive taxation, and dwindling purchases from other countries caused America to falter and fall from a manufacturing-lead country to a user-lead country.

History shows that once a country moves into the "user" mode, it is only a matter of time before it becomes too dependent on others and ultimately FAILS! See most of Europe! See most of Africa! See the Roman Empire!

[Alberta's Child]

That’s exactly right. Now, we’re being surpassed by a country like China simply because it is more than four times larger than the U.S. in terms of population.

[Beagle8U]

“The problem is, the rest of the world caught up with and, in many ways, surpassed American manufacturing capabilities. Destructive regulations, oppressive taxation, and dwindling purchases from other countries caused America to falter and fall from a manufacturing-lead country to a user-lead country.”

Yep, it took a little over 20 years for those other countries to rebuild after the war, and build new factories.

The problem for American manufactures was they built new modern factories in Europe and Japan, and filled them with new modern machinery. We were left trying to compete with old machines, old dysfunctional factories, and saddled with communist unions used to having their sustainable demands met.

American factories were forced by the unions to either build new factories in RTW states, or move their operations out of America altogether. Private sector unions are now toothless tigers of their former selves.

Our next battle for survival of America will be to get rid of the public sector unions that are bankrupting cities and states. That is a battle we can easily win, because middle class taxpayers see them as the reason their taxes keep going up.

[MulberryDraw]

I agree. I had my time frame wrong. I was trying to reference the Reagan era, 25-35 years ago. The government borrowing and spending rose dramatically during Reagan’s term and helped drive the economy up. Increasing government borrowing and spending isn’t doing that now.

[Buckeye McFrog]

You and me both. Every day for the past 6 yrs. I’ve awoken with this strange deja-vu feeling that I was 13 again and that Jimmy Carter was about to appear on my television wearing a sweater.