Reaganomics is a failure

I know that Reaganomics refers to "supply side economics" and it is a failure, why? Commonsense dictates that having more of something doesn't increase its value or demand. There is a theory in economics that says more of something increases its demand but it's a poorly constructed theory from early 1800s France. Let's test that theory. Does more poop mean more demand for eating poop? No clearly not.

Theory defeated.

Now what's wrong with supply-side economics? It says that if you give Rich people more money they will invest that money in businesses which employ workers.

But what if you have no more demand? What if there is no more demand for burger-king? Or for kinkos? Or for Home Depot? Home Despot? Lol.

Anyway, if there is no more demand, then there won't be business creation.

So the rich just end up with more money.

 

What good is money to the rich if they don't spend it? When they spend $$$ it trickles down. If millionaires stopped buying yachts, planes, limos, then the people who make and repair them are out of jobs.

 

When Reagan left office, over 18 million jobs were created. Are you saying those people weren't spending money to make a demand on goods and services?

 

You don't create 18 million jobs if people aren't buying.

 

Damned funny that when Clinton was president and his "GREAT ECONOMY" that democrats still talk about was brought about by reaganomics.

 

I remember when Carter was in office, the prime lending rate was up to 21%. How many people can afford to buy at that rate? I bought the home I'm in now in 1978 and had an interest rate of 12 1/2%. Take that back, wife said it was 11 1/2%. Still sky high under Carter.

 

Ye gods I feel dumber just having read that claptrap. First off the law of supply and demand states the the larger the supply in comparison to the demand for a given item the lower the price will be which means you got the theory inside out. 2nd you pick an example of an item to be used in a way in which it would never be used. And then claim it disproves a theory that you misstated to begin with. Then you misstate supply side economic theory. And then you, in a dishearteningly pathetic manner, attempt to disprove it by creating a worst case scenario that is about as likely to happen as you are, in your life time, to be able to walk about the surface of the sun in your skivvies and then state that the rich would wind up with all the money. The problem with that nonsense is that under the situation you describe money would be worthless and useless because we'd be back to a barter economy so fast it would make your head swim..

 

In The End of Prosperity, supply side guru Art Laffer and Wall Street Journal chief financial writer Steve Moore point out that this Reagan recovery grew into a 25-year boom, with just slight interruptions by shallow, short recessions in 1990 and 2001. They wrote:

We call this period, 1982-2007, the twenty-five year boom–the greatest period of wealth creation in the history of the planet. In 1980, the net worth–assets minus liabilities–of all U.S. households and business … was $25 trillion in today’s dollars. By 2007, … net worth was just shy of $57 trillion. Adjusting for inflation, more wealth was created in America in the twenty-five year boom than in the previous two hundred years.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/peterferrara/2011/05/05/reaganomics-vs-obamanomics-facts-and-figures/

 

What Reaganomics did for Black America

I cast my very first presidential ballot for Ronald Reagan. That set me apart from most of my fellow black Americans, 90 percent of whom gave their votes to Jimmy Carter in 1980 and Walter Mondale in 1984.

Even as the nation mourns Reagan's passing this week, many blacks retain their animus toward the 40th president, as evidenced by the uncharitable remarks by several black leaders.

"Black grandmothers like mine said always speak well of the dead or keep quiet," Rep. Major Owens, the New York Democrat told The Hill, a newspaper that covers Congress. "I choose to keep quiet."

"Many in the African-American community strongly disagreed with his domestic policy," said Rep. Al Wynn, a Maryland Democrat.

"In terms of being a president for African-Americans," said Diane Watson, a Los Angeles Democrat, "he was not."

Based on the remarks by Reps. Owens, Wynn and Watson, and similar sentiments expressed by other black leaders, one might conclude that the Reagan era was a period of retrenchment for the black population.

But the reality is, the 1980s, with a conservative, free-market Republican in the White House, were a boom time for black America.

Indeed, Andrew Brimmer, the Harvard-trained black economist, the former Federal Reserve Board member, estimated that total black business receipts increased from $12.4 billion in 1982 to $18.1 billion in 1987, translating into an annual average growth rate of 7.9 percent (compared to 5 percent for all U.S. businesses.

The success of the black entrepreneurial class during the Reagan era was rivaled only by the gains of the black middle class.

In fact, black social scientist Bart Landry estimated that that upwardly mobile cohort grew by a third under Reagan's watch, from 3.6 million in 1980 to 4.8 million in 1988. His definition was based on employment in white-collar jobs as well as on income levels.

All told, the middle class constituted more than 40 percent of black households by the end of Reagan's presidency, which was larger than the size of black working class, or the black poor.

The impressive growth of the black middle class during the 1980s was attributable in no small part to the explosive growth of jobs under Reagan, which benefited blacks disproportionately.

Indeed, between 1982 and 1988, total black employment increased by 2 million, a staggering sum. That meant that blacks gained 15 percent of the new jobs created during that span, while accounting for only 11 percent of the working-age population.

Meanwhile, the black jobless rate was cut by almost half between 1982 and 1988. Over the same span, the black employment rate – the percentage of working-age persons holding jobs – increased to record levels, from 49 percent to 56 percent.

The black executive ranks especially prospered under Reagan. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission reported that the number of black managers and officers in corporations with 100 or more employees increased by 30 percent between 1980 and 1985.

During the same period, the number of black professionals increased by an astounding 63 percent.

The burgeoning of the black professional, managerial and executive ranks during the 1980s coincided with a steady growth of the black student population at the nation's colleges and universities in the 1980s.

Even though the number of college-aged blacks decreased during much of the decade, black college enrollment increased by 100,000 between 1980 and 1987, according to the Census Bureau.

Meanwhile, the 1980s saw an improvement in the black high school graduation rate, as the proportion of blacks 18 to 24 years old earning high school diplomas increased from 69.7 percent in 1980 to 76 percent by 1987.

On balance, then, the majority of black Americans made considerable progress in the 1980s.

More of us stayed in high school, graduated and went on to college. More of us were working than ever before, in better jobs and for higher wages.

The black middle class burgeoned to unprecedented size, emerging as the dominant income group in black America. And black business flourished, creating wealth in the black community.

Reps. Owens, Wynn and Watson may think that all of those wondrous developments were simply happenstance.

But the credit goes to Ronald Reagan, who initiated the policies that fostered the economic growth and job creation of the 1980s, which produced the prosperity that most black Americans enjoyed.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/peterferrara/2011/05/05/reaganomics-vs-obamanomics-facts-and-figures

 

Reagan said he was happy with what he accomplished while in office. His only regret was not being able to eliminate the debt he ran up trying to bring down the Soviet Union. Even the Soviets give Reagan a lot of credit for doing that.

"Ronald Reagan’s determination to destroy communism and the Soviet Union was a hallmark of his eight-year presidency, carried out through a harsh nuclear policy toward Moscow that softened only slightly when Gorbachev came to office.

He is vividly remembered in Russia today as the force that precipitated the Soviet collapse.

“Reagan bolstered the U.S. military might to ruin the Soviet economy, and he achieved his goal,” said Gennady Gerasimov, who served as top spokesman for the Soviet Foreign Ministry during the 1980s."

http://www.nbcnews.com/id/5145921/n...helping-bring-down-soviet-union/#.VMMT8-k5A5t

 

Okay, let me stop you right there. Allow me to point out the fallacy you've already presented before you've even gotten to the crux of your post. When have people who opposed Reagan ever believed in common sense? Common sense to them is an act of bigotry. Which is why they use political correctness to reach all of their conclusions. It might be completely inaccurate every single time, but at least it always feels good.

And as much as it might sound like I'm trolling here, I'm really not. You know as well as I do that political correctness is the cornerstone of liberalism. And that it is the antithesis to common sense.

 

Reaganomics? Well, there is the theory, but in actual practice the country accumulated a tremendous amount of debt during Reagan's term.
Not saying that supply-side economics caused the country to get into debt, but that the reason the country seemed to do so well is that the government was spending more money than it had to collect in taxes.

 

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Reagan said he was happy with what he accomplished while in office. His only regret was not being able to eliminate the debt he ran up trying to bring down the Soviet Union. Even the Soviets give Reagan a lot of credit for doing that.

"Ronald Reagan’s determination to destroy communism and the Soviet Union was a hallmark of his eight-year presidency, carried out through a harsh nuclear policy toward Moscow that softened only slightly when Gorbachev came to office.

He is vividly remembered in Russia today as the force that precipitated the Soviet collapse.

“Reagan bolstered the U.S. military might to ruin the Soviet economy, and he achieved his goal,” said Gennady Gerasimov, who served as top spokesman for the Soviet Foreign Ministry during the 1980s."

http://www.nbcnews.com/id/5145921/ns.../#.VMMT8-k5A5t

 

That debt was caused by Reagan building up our armed and nuclear forces to match and pass the Soviets buildup under Carter. He also started Star Wars. But he did much more than that. But that is what brought on the debt.

 

You have a lot to learn.

Stick around, by the time you hit several thousand posts you'll be doing a lot better.

(If you aren't, you'll get your trial by fire sometime around the 500th post)...

Welcome aboard.

 

I learned a lot being on these boards. People will make statements and if I didn't think it sounded right, I looked it up. I also learned a lot from other posters. There is a lot of things said on these boards that isn't true and if your interested in learning and not just want to believe partisan politics, you can really get a good education on these boards. Just don't take everything you read on these boards and web sites as gospel. Double check. Yes, welcome aboard.

 

Are you serious? Most of the wealth of the rich are in stocks, how does spending money on high priced stocks "trickle down" to the 80% of Americans who do not own stocks or other investments such as bonds?

 

You don't understand what political correctness is; read 1984 and pay particular attention to the "newspeak". Political correctness is only one form of newspeak. Other forms are the logical structures created by mainstream (and Fox) media. These logical structures prevent thinking outside the box or formulating real ideas.

I guarantee you're just as much a blind fool as a liberal. I'm enlightened compared to you but I lived in a fascist dictatorship; you are still living in one.

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No one with half a brain believes Reagan defeated the Soviet Union. I'll let you in on a secret (being a former Soviet citizen); the USSR was doing fine until Chernobyl which destroyed most of our bread farms and agriculture.

You probably don't know much about Chernobyl or the fact it cost 400,000 lives to cancer, and destroyed 1/4th of all Soviet Farming, because you are probably a typical American and can't find Mexico on a map.

Gorbachev himself blames the fall of the Soviet Union to the Glasnost policy. Which revealed to the Soviet people for the first time all the crimes against humanity that the CCCP was committing. Which before that the CCCP citizens believed the CCCP was entirely noble and had their best interests.

Sort of how if America revealed to its people that it is a prison nation with more prisoners per capita than North Korea.

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This is a lie. The US has not built a Nuclear bomb since 1973. What money was spent on "Star Wars" anything? Please site the budgetary figure. US conventional weapons also decreased during the 1980-1990 period. Get your facts straight before blowing them out your ass.

 

FACTS.

1. The Reagan Tax cuts created the greatest economy in the entire history of America, with expansion reaching almost to the year 2000.

2. The Reagan economy lifted ALL boats, making EVERYONE more prosperous.

3. The Reagan tax cuts got MORE money from the achievers, bringing in an additional TRILLION DOLLARS in new revenue to the Treasury by 1989.

4. The tech boom of the 90s was made possible by the Reagan tax cuts and banking deregulation ("Investor's Business Daily"). What? You dumb enough to give Clinton any credit for that?

5. Nobody GIVES the achievers anything. Unlike typical left wing (*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)s who are on welfare, the achievers EARN their money. They do it by working harder and smarter than the rest.

6. So far, nobody intelligent has ever been able to dispute this truth.

 

A) 2009 to 2015 less than 2% mean GDP growth.



B) 1981 to 1987 4% mean GDP growth.

One economic plan worked, one plan failed.....which one worked?

 

Lol...It's more accurate to ask, when have people who worship Reagan ever believed in common sense?

 

LMAO...Reaganomics was nothing more than voodoo economics and led to the crash in 2008 and the unsustainable income inequality that we see today.
Let's not forget that this was the guy who saved money on school lunches by classifying ketchup as a vegetable so he could ladle even more money into the pockets of the rich.
His disciples are delusional reactionaries who have no grasp of reality.

 

Exactly backwards. The Reduction in capital gains and other taxes resulted in a growth of economic prosperity such that until Bush 1 went back on his no new taxes pledge the economy grew fast enough to offset the accumulated debt. Economic growth had noting to do with government spending and everything to do with a rapid growth in the middle class driven by a rapid growth in new businesses created.

 

Laffer's trickle down theory applied to a very narrowly defined situation. Right wing authoritarians took that theoretical pronouncement and applied to any tax cut under any circumstance. In other words, they are nutjobs looking for a free lunch. "Reduced tax rates means more tax revenue." That is a patently false statement accepted as gospel by the American right wing.

That's not only offensive to math, it's offensive to any sort of common sense. But the right wing authoritarians will support and believe anything that supports their prejudices whether class based or race based. That's how they roll.

 

Go back to school. You have a lot to learn.