'Blame the right people' for the financial disaster

[Craig234]

I've cited a handful of quality commentators for years - Paul Krugman, Chris Hedges, Naomi Klein, Thom Hartmann, David Cay Johnston, and a few more.

Here's one of them.

Hartmann makes a point I've been interested in, that the AIG bonus issue is a red herring and we need to look at the real causes.

In particular, he correctly cites the turning point of the Reagan presidency.

His article provides a short few points that add perspective that it's so easy for most to miss in the raging fires of the current crisis.

What's happened since Reagan is a boggling transfer of wealth in a class war from most Americans to the few at the top, and the only fix is to undo it.

Link

But the real criminals of the AIG mess - and the entire financial meltdown that was set up between 1999 and 2006 and crashed starting in 2007 - were Grover Norquist, Phil and Wendy Graham, Tom Delay, and, sadly, Bill Clinton.

The philosophy that it's possible to bomb people into democracy and torture them into being on our side drove the Bushies. It was wrong, flawed, and frankly insane, and we're paying a huge price for it.

Similarly, the philosophy that playing the game of business and investment without rules (the technical term is Laissez-faire Capitalism) has driven our government since the election of Ronald Reagan, and went on steroids during the last two years of the Clinton administration and throughout the Bush administration. It's equally wrong, flawed, and insane, and we're paying a multi-trillion dollar price for it not unlike we are for the war.

The intellectual forefathers and mothers of the insane conservative economic policies that have brought us to where we are include Ludwig Von Mises, Freidrich Von Hayeck, Milton Friedman, Alan Greenspan, Tom Freidman, Robert Rubin, Larry Summers, and Ayn Rand. Phil and Wendy Gramm pushed through the Gramm/Leach/Bliley Act (which allowed banks to get into the gambling business) and the Commodity Futures Moderinization Act (also known as "the Enron Loophole"), and Bill Clinton merrily signed them into law.

But just as it's inconvenient to hold the defense contractors and the senior politicians responsible for the Iraq debacle, and instead blame it on Lynndie England, our sound-bite corporate media prefer to focus on a few IAG traders, instead of the people who made what they did both possible and legal.

Instead of passing a 90 percent tax that is limited to the traders, let's be realistic. Ever since Ronald Reagan rolled back the top marginal income tax rate on millionaires and billionaires from 74 percent to 29 percent, our government has been disastrously in debt, sliding deeper each and every year (the so-called "Clinton surplus" was a mirage created with phony numbers, although it was still a hell of a lot better than what we have now).

David Stockman bragged, back during the Reagan administration, that the goal of Republicans was to rack up such a huge federal debt that Democrats would never be able to push forward the "socialist" programs that Americans want, like stable Social Security and single-payer national health care. He called it "starving the beast." Grover Norquist suggested it would force government to become so small it could be "drowned in a bathtub," leaving the corporations in charge. George W. Bush actually, finally, made it happen.

Thus here we are, ten-plus trillion dollars in debt, and trying to blame our problems on Lynndie England and a few traders at AIG.

Let's call out and name the real criminals, and get about the simple and straightforward solutions of putting our country back together.

Roll back the Reagan tax cuts that have done so much damage over the past 28 years. Pull out of insane trade agreements. Re-regulate banks so they're functionally public utilities again. Give oversight to the SEC on all forms of speculative investment and bring back the .25 percent STET tax on each unit of investment vehicle traded.

None of this is rocket science. From 1937 until Ronald Reagan began his wrecking-ball efforts at the stability and solidity of our nation's economy, we didn't have a single bank panic. Reagan dropped income tax rates and the almost immediate result was a bubble and crash in the stock market followed by the S&L crisis, which has been repeated over and over again with startling regularity ever since (just as they were during the 150 years preceding Roosevelt putting into place the regulatory structures and high marginal income tax rates of the New Deal that stabilized us).

Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower embraced a 91 percent top marginal tax rate on millionaires and billionaires and strong regulation of banks, including the STET tax, and the nation prospered.

It's time to return to sanity and quit swatting at the little guys, while the real criminals and thieves walk away with our nation and our wealth.

The right needs to get educated, to learn when more money for better performance passes the point of 'incentive' - a 10% premium, 100%, 1000% - and becomes exploitive, abuse of power, oligarchy, becomes a hindrance to the economy by taking out the money that is the grease for the machine offering incentives to millions, and being spent on the things that keep the economy running - and to stop citing every limit on concentrated wealth as communism.

Passing that point inevitably leads to a poorer nation with too few owning too much of the reduced wealth. A moderate disparity of wealth is the optimum.

 

[newnameman]

A left-wing writer writing an article stuffed full of left-wing talking points makes a "quality commentator"?

 

[Craig234]

Originally posted by: newnameman
A left-wing writer writing an article stuffed full of left-wing talking points makes a "quality commentator"?

That's like asking 'a restaurant serving food makes a good meal'? You are posting as an ideologue, as if simply 'right/left/center' is the determing measure of quality.

It so happens I think there is a high correlation of quality and being liberal, but not BECAUSE it's liberal, but because it has solid logic, morality and other positive attributes.

There are plenty of bad quality left-wing commentators. You might have noticed as well I said a handful are selected - out of the thousands to pick from.

Your post is the typical crap on message boards that takes up space but adds nothing to the discussion without any specific comment on the merit of the article at hand. Try harder.

 

[ProfJohn]

Someone should remind this guy that the two longest peace time expansions in American history happened after Reagan took office and lowered those tax rates.

From 1982 to 2007 we experienced 25 years of economic expansion and two very minor recessions.

Now we are in the midst of a recession that is very similar to the 1982 recession and people act like it is the end of world.

 

[Craig234]

Originally posted by: ProfJohn
Someone should remind this guy that the two longest peace time expansions in American history happened after Reagan took office and lowered those tax rates.

From 1982 to 2007 we experienced 25 years of economic expansion and two very minor recessions.

Now we are in the midst of a recession that is very similar to the 1982 recession and people act like it is the end of world.

It's probably better not to waste the time refuting PJ's proapganda a 20th time, long after he's proven he has no interest in the truth and intellectual honesty by not paying any attention to the many corrections previously, but it's not great to let him get away with it, either.

He's never grown out of the bad high school debater level of arguing - complete with cherry picking evidence and omitting inconvenitnet truths.

He grabs the cherry of the 'expansion', and that's all he needs to mention to conclude how the economy was the bestest ever for the period, for the reasons he suggests.

Don't look for any credible analysis from him. Don't look for the degree to which the positive results were paid for with an abandonment of fiscal responsibility and a skyrocketing of the debt. Don't look for 'the other side' as his high growth for the first time in history all went to the very top - zero of it to the bottom 80% of Americans after inflation for the last 25 years, a bit to the top 10%, a huge percentage to the top 0.01%, as Reagan reversed the trend and returned wealth concentration to 1920's peaks.

Don't look for the long term negative impacts of Reagan's budget priorities (and let's not even get into his foreign policy such as forming the alliance with Saddam Hussein).

Don't pay attention to it being Jimmy Carter's Fed Chairman who is widely credited with getting inflation under control (nevermind the Democrats who controlled Congress).

Don't even note that Reagan's own team realized they had to push through one of the largest tax increases in history just after the big tax cuts, to avert more disaster.

The long term effects of Reagan's policies were to massively increase the concentration of wealth, and to bankrupt middle America with the national debt. If PJ could point to all that wonderful growth with a balanced budget, it'd be one thing, but with a skyrocketing deficit - except for the Clinton presidency - now reaching a $12 trillion debt, his points are hollow.

No, I'd say just not to waste the time letting PJ derail another thread with the talking points and revisionist history.

 

[Stoneburner]

Originally posted by: ProfJohn
Someone should remind this guy that the two longest peace time expansions in American history happened after Reagan took office and lowered those tax rates.

From 1982 to 2007 we experienced 25 years of economic expansion and two very minor recessions.

Now we are in the midst of a recession that is very similar to the 1982 recession and people act like it is the end of world.

You admit there was a recession in 1982? we're making progress!

 

[Craig234]

Originally posted by: Stoneburner

Originally posted by: ProfJohn
Someone should remind this guy that the two longest peace time expansions in American history happened after Reagan took office and lowered those tax rates.

From 1982 to 2007 we experienced 25 years of economic expansion and two very minor recessions.

Now we are in the midst of a recession that is very similar to the 1982 recession and people act like it is the end of world.

You admit there was a recession in 1982? we're making progress!

Carter's fault. Now maybe we can discuss Hartmann's commentary and not let him derail.

Note the 'lack of a single bank panic' in the liberal 40+ years that he cites.

The pattern we see again and again is that the wealthy demand and get 'freedom' from the right to do something that profits them, and causes problems.

Now it was the credit default swap games20 years ago the Savings and Loan situation when they were allowed excessive risks, the Great Depression from under-regulation too.

 

[bamacre]

Similarly, the philosophy that playing the game of business and investment without rules (the technical term is Laissez-faire Capitalism) has driven our government since the election of Ronald Reagan, and went on steroids during the last two years of the Clinton administration and throughout the Bush administration. It's equally wrong, flawed, and insane, and we're paying a multi-trillion dollar price for it not unlike we are for the war.

:laugh:

What a joke.

Craig, might I suggest some reading?

I'm sorry, but anyone blaming "Laissez-faire Capitalism" for this mess either doesn't know what happened, or what "Laissez-faire Capitalism" actually is.

 

[kylebisme]

Your contest lacks substance.

 

[Siddhartha]

OP,

The problem is you do not believe the Reagan \"Conservative" dogma that the Federal government is at best imcompetent if not evil and corrupt and that the free markets should determine foreign and domestic policies.

 

[kylebisme]

Rather, he knows who the evil bastards who corrupt our government with incompetent lackeys are.

 

[bozack]

Right so lets expand inefficiency and reward incompetence with larger govt. Sorry but big social programs and massive taxes on the wealthy because they can/should afford it while we prop up the lazy aren't something I can support in good conscous.

I expect/await your usual liberal response.

 

[alchemize]

What's funny is that Obama and the Dems are making the previous "transfer of wealth" look like child's play. Sure, they are throwing the poor a bone, but you don't shove several trillion of new debt into the economy and not have the vast majority of it going into the rich's coffers.

I wonder if Craig is starting to recognize this?

 

[Zenmervolt]

Originally posted by: Craig234
It so happens I think there is a high correlation of quality and being liberal, but not BECAUSE it's liberal, but because it has solid logic, morality and other positive attributes.

You say things like this and it's other people who are the ideologues?

Pot, meet kettle.

ZV

 

[microbial]

This article names a murder's row of criminals that have F'ed our nation. It is of course, obvious--and we've known it all along. The only people who dispute it are Reagan fluffers.

Many more sins other than trickle down economics can be credited to Ronny's gang. Fanning the flames of islamic extremism in Afghanistan vs. Soviet Union was a real good idea. And why even bther mentioning Iran-Contra.

But by far, the biggest crime was selling people the idea that helping out the super rich Masters of the Universe would somehow magically be beneficial to the other 99 % of the country.

The last screw on the coffin of Reaganomics has just been drilled in. RIP, and may it never come back again.

 

[StageLeft]

Originally posted by: ProfJohn
Someone should remind this guy that the two longest peace time expansions in American history happened after Reagan took office and lowered those tax rates.

From 1982 to 2007 we experienced 25 years of economic expansion and two very minor recessions.

Now we are in the midst of a recession that is very similar to the 1982 recession and people act like it is the end of world.

We don't really expect you to get it, as even late last year you still thought this recession wasn't real. It's ok being wrong, God knows I often am, but you really ought to try and learn from mistakes more.

 

[winnar111]

Originally posted by: microbial
This article names a murder's row of criminals that have F'ed our nation. It is of course, obvious--and we've known it all along. The only people who dispute it are Reagan fluffers.

Many more sins other than trickle down economics can be credited to Ronny's gang. Fanning the flames of islamic extremism in Afghanistan vs. Soviet Union was a real good idea. And why even bther mentioning Iran-Contra.

But by far, the biggest crime was selling people the idea that helping out the super rich Masters of the Universe would somehow magically be beneficial to the other 99 % of the country.

The last screw on the coffin of Reaganomics has just been drilled in. RIP, and may it never come back again.

Is that why our economy and standard of living are 4-5 times larger now?

 

[Genx87]

Originally posted by: winnar111

Originally posted by: microbial
This article names a murder's row of criminals that have F'ed our nation. It is of course, obvious--and we've known it all along. The only people who dispute it are Reagan fluffers.

Many more sins other than trickle down economics can be credited to Ronny's gang. Fanning the flames of islamic extremism in Afghanistan vs. Soviet Union was a real good idea. And why even bther mentioning Iran-Contra.

But by far, the biggest crime was selling people the idea that helping out the super rich Masters of the Universe would somehow magically be beneficial to the other 99 % of the country.

The last screw on the coffin of Reaganomics has just been drilled in. RIP, and may it never come back again.

Is that why our economy and standard of living are 4-5 times larger now?

I read somewhere household wealth grew from 11 trillion in 1981 to 70 trillion right now. yeah, that is just terrible, awful.

 

[Red Dawn]

Originally posted by: Genx87

Originally posted by: winnar111

Originally posted by: microbial
This article names a murder's row of criminals that have F'ed our nation. It is of course, obvious--and we've known it all along. The only people who dispute it are Reagan fluffers.

Many more sins other than trickle down economics can be credited to Ronny's gang. Fanning the flames of islamic extremism in Afghanistan vs. Soviet Union was a real good idea. And why even bther mentioning Iran-Contra.

But by far, the biggest crime was selling people the idea that helping out the super rich Masters of the Universe would somehow magically be beneficial to the other 99 % of the country.

The last screw on the coffin of Reaganomics has just been drilled in. RIP, and may it never come back again.

Is that why our economy and standard of living are 4-5 times larger now?

I read somewhere household wealth grew from 11 trillion in 1981 to 70 trillion right now. yeah, that is just terrible, awful.

And how much did our personal debt grow per household during that time?
Also what percentage of that wealth can be attributed to home equity?

 

[StageLeft]

Originally posted by: Genx87

Originally posted by: winnar111

Originally posted by: microbial
This article names a murder's row of criminals that have F'ed our nation. It is of course, obvious--and we've known it all along. The only people who dispute it are Reagan fluffers.

Many more sins other than trickle down economics can be credited to Ronny's gang. Fanning the flames of islamic extremism in Afghanistan vs. Soviet Union was a real good idea. And why even bther mentioning Iran-Contra.

But by far, the biggest crime was selling people the idea that helping out the super rich Masters of the Universe would somehow magically be beneficial to the other 99 % of the country.

The last screw on the coffin of Reaganomics has just been drilled in. RIP, and may it never come back again.

Is that why our economy and standard of living are 4-5 times larger now?

I read somewhere household wealth grew from 11 trillion in 1981 to 70 trillion right now. yeah, that is just terrible, awful.

Now or Oct/07? Without knowing how wealth has grown in other countries, the numbers are not terribly insightful.

 

[Zenmervolt]

Originally posted by: Red Dawn

Originally posted by: Genx87
I read somewhere household wealth grew from 11 trillion in 1981 to 70 trillion right now. yeah, that is just terrible, awful.

And how much did our personal debt grow per household during that time?
Also what percentage of that wealth can be attributed to home equity?

Bingo. When it all comes down, the big problem that we're facing is personal debt. There was a story on the news the other day about a man who had been earning $750,000/year as a Hedge Fund manager who had lost his job and was now making $7.50/hr as a pizza delivery guy to make ends meet. The only thing I could think of was, "how on earth does a person earn $750,000/year and still have debt?".

We don't want to deny ourselves anything and now we're finding out that, one way or another, we have to pay.

I think we're in for a difficult few years. But I hope that, once we're through this, people will be more inclined to save and to stop buying on credit. If we can convince people to stop piling on debt, we'll be in a good place.

ZV

 

[alchemize]

Originally posted by: Zenmervolt

Originally posted by: Red Dawn

Originally posted by: Genx87
I read somewhere household wealth grew from 11 trillion in 1981 to 70 trillion right now. yeah, that is just terrible, awful.

And how much did our personal debt grow per household during that time?
Also what percentage of that wealth can be attributed to home equity?

Bingo. When it all comes down, the big problem that we're facing is personal debt. There was a story on the news the other day about a man who had been earning $750,000/year as a Hedge Fund manager who had lost his job and was now making $7.50/hr as a pizza delivery guy to make ends meet. The only thing I could think of was, "how on earth does a person earn $750,000/year and still have debt?".

We don't want to deny ourselves anything and now we're finding out that, one way or another, we have to pay.

I think we're in for a difficult few years. But I hope that, once we're through this, people will be more inclined to save and to stop buying on credit. If we can convince people to stop piling on debt, we'll be in a good place.

ZV

A picture says 1000 words.

 

[StageLeft]

The only thing I could think of was, "how on earth does a person earn $750,000/year and still have debt?".

Ignorant people (I was one of them) feel that the only way out of debt is more money. They are oblivious to the notion that their approach to money is fatally flawed and that if they make more they'll just spend more. A person chronically in debt at $50k will be at 150k. It's just not in their nature to live below their means. There has to be a qualitative change in how one views money and the concept of debt. Until a person makes that switch, extra money has only a limited impact on fixing their finances.

 

[Phokus]

Originally posted by: ProfJohn
Someone should remind this guy that the two longest peace time expansions in American history happened after Reagan took office and lowered those tax rates.

From 1982 to 2007 we experienced 25 years of economic expansion and two very minor recessions.

Now we are in the midst of a recession that is very similar to the 1982 recession and people act like it is the end of world.

Someone should remind you that it was the rich that have benefited from this free market expansion while the middle class and poor have seen their wages stagnate (and actually drop if you account for inflation)

 

[winnar111]

Originally posted by: Phokus

Originally posted by: ProfJohn
Someone should remind this guy that the two longest peace time expansions in American history happened after Reagan took office and lowered those tax rates.

From 1982 to 2007 we experienced 25 years of economic expansion and two very minor recessions.

Now we are in the midst of a recession that is very similar to the 1982 recession and people act like it is the end of world.

Someone should remind you that it was the rich that have benefited from this free market expansion while the middle class and poor have seen their wages stagnate (and actually drop if you account for inflation)

Ignoring nonwage compensation, anyway.