The Great Bush Recession (Page 10): PS: It was Clinton, and the Republican Congress, who cut annual deficits. The national debt goes up even if annual deficits are cut. You still have...

Hungry Freaks

PS: It was Clinton, and the Republican Congress, who cut annual deficits. The national debt goes up even if annual deficits are cut. You still have the vig to pay. And Clinton only submitted balanced budgets in two of the eight years he was in office. But the annual deficits did start to decline, just as they're doing now.

Timeforreality

Dennis: Thanks for the pie chart showing the rich getting the vast majority of Bush's tax cuts. It's part of why the economy sank. In addition the working classes pay almost all the payroll taxes, don't get raises equal to inflation, and more and more of the health insurance costs are pushed on to them by their employers. Cheap as he was, Henry Ford knew you had to pay workers enough to buy what they produced or he wouldn't sell much. How can the new $16/hr workers at Ford ever be able to buy a new Ford and how many of the $9.50/hr workers at Harley Davidson ever afford to buy a Harley?

Timeforreality

Vernon: rwr got the economy going by deficit spending---the very action you have been railing against. Go look at the numbers. The deficit went from $50 billion under Carter to $200 billion under Reagan. He never kept his promise to balance the deficit and in eight short years doubled the nation debt.

Timeforreality

Dennis: You called me another well trained parrot but I can't help but wonder did you even look at the pie chart you posted? It clearly shows the bulk of Bush's tax cuts going to the rich and supper rich. Yea, everyone got something---I got about $300/yr on a solid middle class income. Problem is our kids will be paying higher taxes for decades to pay back the money borrowed to pay for them. A person making $1 millon/yr got $40,000 and I got $300. Start thinking for yourself and stop being a dupe of the rich. I'm sure the people writing things here have far more in common with you then the supper rich.

vernon

Timeforreality wrote:

Dennis: You called me another well trained parrot... (show quote)

maybe you should take care of your self and not worry about who got what.

Coos Bay Tom Loc: coos bay oregon

You are just flat being silly "getting even with whitey"? get a grip. this conversation is over silly man.

DennisDee wrote:

Once again trying to avoid the issues. You want freebies , open borders, want to give our jobs for illegals. You can't have it all. It is you who are avoiding. You want to give give give from someone elses wallet

Your racist comment was expected.

VladimirPee

You have become so rabidly partisan you are even trying to claim inflation is good for the middle class despite economics 101. Inflation of 12% can devastate the poor and middle class especially when wages do not follow. Inflation rate is also compounded. Whatever you made on your home you lost in higher costs elsewhere and lower real wages. High inflation can destroy an economy and has in many cases like Argentina and Venezuela.

Here is an interesting article explaining how Reagan and not Volker deserves credit.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/briandomitrovic/2011/02/07/volcker-and-the-reagan-legacy/

Hungry Freaks wrote:

Tell me, Dennis, exactly what can a president do about high interest rates?

The answer: nothing but appoint a new head of the Federal Reserve Board. Which is exactly what Jimmy Carter did in 1979.

While the Fed can succumb to political pressure, it can also thumb it's nose at attempts by the government to set interest rates, one of the main functions of the Fed.

After the oil price spirals of 1973 and 1974, inflation was rising, in 1974 at 12.5 %. The fed usually uses interest rate hikes to control inflation, which was then what Nixon appointee of Chairman of the Fed did. In1978 President Carter name William Miller to be chairman of the Fed and in the following year, Miller did nothing as interest rates closed in on 20%. (They never did reach 20% except in non-Fed regulated markets).

In 1979, Carter was fed up with Miller and named Paul Volcker to chair the Fed. More than anyone, including Carter and Reagan, Volcker tamed high interest rates while not allow inflation to spike. By the end of Reagan's first term, interest rates had gone up to 10%, but dropped rather quickly.

It was Volcker, not Reagan that saved the economy.

The inflation of the early 70s actually helped the Middle Class, Those who owned land or other real estate actually saw gains in net wealth due to the 70s inflation. I had land worth $24,000 in 1969 that sold for $84.000 in 1984. As did the high interest rates of the late 70s help others. I know a guy, one of the people who traded US dollars as it tanked in the late 1970s, who bought bonds at 15%. and 17%. All he did for the next 20 years was collect annual interest payment as he sailed his yacht between ports.

Since Greenspan was name Fed chair in 1987, the interest rates have been kept artifically low, hurting those who save. We continue to have artifically low interest rates and low inflation, although there are signs that inflation is making a comeback. It will be interesting to see what happens if it does.

Just as another poster mistook the fed as a branch of the US government, it's not. REad 'The Creature from Jekyll Island" if you want to ready a scary story.

Repeat: The president can do little about interest rates except replace the chairman of the Fed, which is exactly what Carter did. It was that new Carter-appoiinted chairman, Paul Volcker, who did what Reagan gets credit for.

Tell me, Dennis, exactly what can a president do a... (show quote)

VladimirPee

You know I have you figured out

fom wrote:

You are just flat being silly "getting even with whitey"? get a grip. this conversation is over silly man.

Hungry Freaks

So Forbes told you so? Forbes is a mouthpiece for the 1%ers.

12% inflation over time is definately destructive to everyone but the wealthiest. But the inflation of the early 70s, despite being caused by the oil spikes of 73, 74 and 79, did inflate the values of those with real estate. As you said, econ 101.

Inflation in SSA countries runs 50,60, 90% a year or more. THAT'S very destructive.

Fact-the Fed uses interest rates to control inflation-econ 101. Fact-The fed chairman in the 1970s were free marketeers who had a hands-off police, until Volckner came in.

Other than putting in place price controls, which presidents, have done, their is little for a president to do to control interest rates. Except name a new Fed chairman.

I look to more unbiased sources than Forbes.Didn't Forbes try an presidential run as a....Republican?

Talk about partisan gibberish.

DennisDee wrote:

You have become so rabidly partisan you are even t... (show quote)

VladimirPee

I agree real estate did increase in value but for many of us this was a horror since we could not afford a mortgage at 16% and we watched in equal horror knowing prices were going up as we watched.

Speaking to the Volker issue. Yes Carter appointed him and deserves credit for reversing HIS mistake of appointing William Miller who was terrible. Carter had to promote him to a cabinet position just to get him out of the Fed.

While it is true that Presidents have little or no direct control over interest rates they do have indirect control. Interest rates were raised to slow inflation but it was not working so Volker kept raising them. Eventually we entered into a recession and experienced a spike in unemployment. The perfect storm of high interest, unemployment, recession and double digit inflation. I found an interesting interview with Volker. Yes on PBS so it should be acceptable to you.
PAUL VOLCKER: I think there was a Reagan revolution in terms of the cutting edge of this moving back from this feeling that [if] you've got a problem, the government would answer it. Here's a big brother here to help you, as Mr. Reagan used to mock, but if it's true that we needed some cutting back in this exuberant view of government, which I happened to share, he certainly did it with some vigor. He did it in a way that helped restore the confidence of America in America, which had been lost, or at least greatly eroded, during the 1970s.

INTERVIEWER: Was the air traffic controllers' strike a watershed?

PAUL VOLCKER: Yes, I think it was, and that's not often appreciated. One of the major factors in turning the tide on the inflationary situation was the controllers' strike, because here, for the first time, it wasn't really a fight about wages; it was a fight about working conditions. It was directly a wage problem, but the controllers were government employees, and the government didn't back down. And he stood there and said, "If you're going to go on strike, you're going to lose your job, and we'll make out without you." That had a profound effect on the aggressiveness of labor at that time, in the midst of this inflationary problem and other economic problems. I am told that the administration pretty much took off the shelf plans that had been developed in the Carter administration, but whether the Carter administration ever would of done it is the open question. That was something of a watershed.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/commandingheights/shared/minitextlo/int_paulvolcker.html#4

Hungry Freaks wrote:

So Forbes told you so? Forbes is a mouthpiece for ... (show quote)

vernon

fom wrote:

You are just flat being silly "getting even with whitey"? get a grip. this conversation is over silly man.

:thumbup: :thumbup: :thumbup: :thumbup:

Hungry Freaks

Problem is that Reagan didn't decrease government spending. It went up every year he was in office, although priorities switched from domestic to military spending.

And, as he was increasing spending, Reagan was cutting revenues. His tax cuts never produced the amount of revenues stated, and with his failure to control spending, it caused annual deficits that doubled and tripled during his first term.

Also, inflation was brought under control, by the fed, but that also decreased government revenues. And masked the true extend of Reagan's increased spending.

Reagan wanted to bankrupt the Soviet Union by spending them out of existence. That may have worked, although the Soviet system was virtually bankrupt much earlier, but it has also helped to bankrupt our nation. Anyone looking back at the history of our structural deficits and current national debt will find their genesis in the first Reagan administration.

DennisDee wrote:

I agree real estate did increase in value but for many of us this was a horror since we could not afford a mortgage at 16% and we watched in equal horror knowing prices were going up as we watched.

Speaking to the Volker issue. Yes Carter appointed him and deserves credit for reversing HIS mistake of appointing William Miller who was terrible. Carter had to promote him to a cabinet position just to get him out of the Fed.

While it is true that Presidents have little or no direct control over interest rates they do have indirect control. Interest rates were raised to slow inflation but it was not working so Volker kept raising them. Eventually we entered into a recession and experienced a spike in unemployment. The perfect storm of high interest, unemployment, recession and double digit inflation. I found an interesting interview with Volker. Yes on PBS so it should be acceptable to you.
PAUL VOLCKER: I think there was a Reagan revolution in terms of the cutting edge of this moving back from this feeling that [if] you've got a problem, the government would answer it. Here's a big brother here to help you, as Mr. Reagan used to mock, but if it's true that we needed some cutting back in this exuberant view of government, which I happened to share, he certainly did it with some vigor. He did it in a way that helped restore the confidence of America in America, which had been lost, or at least greatly eroded, during the 1970s.

INTERVIEWER: Was the air traffic controllers' strike a watershed?

PAUL VOLCKER: Yes, I think it was, and that's not often appreciated. One of the major factors in turning the tide on the inflationary situation was the controllers' strike, because here, for the first time, it wasn't really a fight about wages; it was a fight about working conditions. It was directly a wage problem, but the controllers were government employees, and the government didn't back down. And he stood there and said, "If you're going to go on strike, you're going to lose your job, and we'll make out without you." That had a profound effect on the aggressiveness of labor at that time, in the midst of this inflationary problem and other economic problems. I am told that the administration pretty much took off the shelf plans that had been developed in the Carter administration, but whether the Carter administration ever would of done it is the open question. That was something of a watershed.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/commandingheights/shared/minitextlo/int_paulvolcker.html#4

I agree real estate did increase in value but for ... (show quote)

VladimirPee

Revenue doubled. How much was stated? Did he project more than a doubling?

The Fed did not control inflation. Did you read the Volker Interview? He said Reagan did it. He called it a " Watershed" event.

Hungry Freaks wrote:

Problem is that Reagan didn't decrease government ... (show quote)

Timeforreality

Vernon: I do take care of myself and as noted I'm a very successful capitalist and for the last tens years of my working life paid over #30,000/yr in federal taxes. Are you also so helplessly a dupe of the rich that you don't care about fairness? Are you such a pathetic angry old white man that you just sit around on your probably fat ass at your computer all day and attack those of your fellow citizens that demand fairness in our economic system? It's only with the help of fools like you and Dennis that the rich have been able to pervert our system to their greedy ends.

VladimirPee

Time

Was such a hateful racist comment called for? Whitey not paying enough to your liking?

I had no hand in Al Gores scheme to get rich off global warming.

Timeforreality wrote:

Vernon: I do take care of myself and as noted I'm... (show quote)