Were Raeganomics really all that bad?

[Rolling Thunder]

False analogy is false, friend.

...in that 19th century ideas about medicine are demonstrably false, whereas 19th century ideas about economics can still be justified given a sufficiently shaky grasp on history and econometrics?

Yeah. Because we're still using Supply and Demand. We're still using Revenue concepts, and Free Trade, and Comparative Advantage. So, yes, 19th Centuary ideas are still very much part of modern economics. Ricardo, Mathlus, Smith (well, he's 18th Centuary, but the point still stands), as you should well know.

 

[GreyWolf257]

No. They actually pulled the country out of a recession, even though many people like to forget that.

 

[Remember_the_name]

snip epic postage.

I support a "throw the fucking bums out" strategy, and implore all my american brethren to consider it as well. Republican? Democrat? Who cares. Replace the Incumbents at the polls next year-- a freshman congress might actually accomplish something if they don't have to fight through all the lines of entrenchment established by career senators, representatives, and lobbyists.

Won't happen though, the democrats and republicans have a stranglehold over our political system, and we're going to be stuck, mired in the same bullshit until the country collapses in on itself.

Heh my view exactly I always vote for getting the incumbents out unless they are just wonderful, ron paul I think I would vote to remain even if I don't always agree. I've been one to wonder if a proportional representation system would fix the DNC GOP strangle on politics.

 

[Worgen]

Ive always been confused by this, republicans seem to be more spend crazy them dems but they always say they are for fiscal responsibility, I mean the seem to love to throw as much as they can into the military but when it comes to infrastructure or citizens of the US they balk and call it wasteful. From what Ive been reading under every republican pres in the last 30 years our deficite has gone up while under the dems it tends to go down or at least slow in growth.

Well, I could wax poetic about how the republican party and the democratic party are nothing more than different names for the same bullshit. However, that deficit up and down business is really quite meaningless, you can pick and choose specific numbers and indicators in order to make any case you want.

The president, however, matters little; honestly, its the congress. Under clinton the republican congress helped drive an enormous economic expansion... and president clinton was great for staying out of the way of Bush and Reagan policies. The deficit decreased through revenue expansion, not due to changes in spending-- spending has gone up continuously.

Now when the neoconservatives took control under the republican banner, well, revenues fell, spending went up, and our overseas adventurism took a turn for the more-violent. Worse, years of power had corrupted the republican members of congress, and the scandals are still sorting themselves out. These are not natural republican tendencies-- remember, we elected Nixon, the republican, to end vietnam-- he was only disgraced by the political machinations of watergate but the election of the republican party signaled the real end of support for that war.

After they've been in charge for a few more years, it will hit the democrats hard in exactly the same way.

I support a "throw the fucking bums out" strategy, and implore all my american brethren to consider it as well. Republican? Democrat? Who cares. Replace the Incumbents at the polls next year-- a freshman congress might actually accomplish something if they don't have to fight through all the lines of entrenchment established by career senators, representatives, and lobbyists.

Won't happen though, the democrats and republicans have a stranglehold over our political system, and we're going to be stuck, mired in the same bullshit until the country collapses in on itself.

it sounds all well and good to throw out all the old ones and vote in new ones but it wouldnt fix the problem, in fact it would make it worse since lobbyists would become essentual to the new guys finding out how things work. Also I have yet to see any good evidence for reagans policies that acutaly helped the deficite, ppl love to say "oh its all his fault that we had a good recovery under clinton" but untill I see some good evidence that he had anything to do with it Im going to keep making jokes about giving him a blowjob

 

[thiosk]

Im going to keep making jokes about giving him a blowjob

You joke about blowing Reagen?

weirdo

 

[Worgen]

Im going to keep making jokes about giving him a blowjob

You joke about blowing Reagen?

weirdo

in retrospect I could have phrased that better

 

[Horticulture]

Yeah. Because we're still using Supply and Demand. We're still using Revenue concepts, and Free Trade, and Comparative Advantage. So, yes, 19th Centuary ideas are still very much part of modern economics. Ricardo, Mathlus, Smith (well, he's 18th Centuary, but the point still stands), as you should well know.

Fair enough, but Molinari doesn't make the list for good reason.

 

[Rolling Thunder]

Yeah. Because we're still using Supply and Demand. We're still using Revenue concepts, and Free Trade, and Comparative Advantage. So, yes, 19th Centuary ideas are still very much part of modern economics. Ricardo, Mathlus, Smith (well, he's 18th Centuary, but the point still stands), as you should well know.

Fair enough, but Molinari doesn't make the list for good reason.

I agree entirely, but you shouldn't dismiss economic theory because it's old. Molinari's theory can be dismissed because it's inaccurate and has been disproved several times.

 

[tan-z]

You fail to demonstrate how the two are different in the context of the free market, other than the way they're derived.

Key part there is 'in the context of the free market'.

This becomes a debate on semantics. If you're going to say that self-proclaimed and almost universally accepted Communist nations like the Soviet Union, China and Cuba aren't, in fact, Communist at all, then it becomes extremely difficult to discuss anything until we agree on the precise definitions of the subjects we're discussing. To be honest, I'm getting tired and I don't feel it's worth the effort just to keep this debate going, especially since we're going so far off-topic.

I never said I was a fan of Milton Friedman, and I haven't done enough homework on the Chile issue to give you a proper response.

You mentioned Friedman in response to someone else mentioning Keynes. But nevermind that

This is a perfect example of why there is such a disconnect between your point of view and my own. In all of my comments I am talking about the real-world implementations of these political ideologies whereas you're talking about them in the context of their most idealistic definition.

While the article is interesting, it is primarily a critique of Reagan's actions on the economy, not Reaganomics itself. In fact, for each principle that the author mentions, he actually demonstrates how Reagan failed to follow his own economic rhetoric (ie. Reaganomics) on the matter, the end result having a negative impact on the economy. This actually results in the author supporting Reaganomic principles instead of disproving them.

Don't you see the hypocrisy in these two statements? In the first your arguing against communism on the basis of several real world examples which although generally thought of as communist actually violate several of the key principles of communism. In the second you're defending reagonomics for the exact same reasons I was defending communism. These examples of both communist and reagonomics violated several of the key principles that they were supposed to be based on. I'll strike you a deal then, you don't try using those three to attack communism and I won't use the failings of the reagan administration to attack Reagonomics.

My opinion is that you, and others like you, often spend too much time working within a theoretical mindset and not enough time examining historical precedent, the impact of human nature on economics, and the real wold practicality of the ideas you propose or support. I think that many members of academia are too concerned with research and hypothesis, and not concerned enough with testing and result analysis. The former is easy and gives you freedom to explore new ideas, but the latter destroys false notions and gives you the real answers about what works and what doesn't. People naturally accept ideas that support their own pre-existing notions about the world, and unless we continually put our own ideas through the fire by testing and (re)validation, we end up with grand ideas with very little substance.

I'm sure you can produce insurmountable evidence to show the superiority of your economic ideals.

 

[Highlandheadbanger]

The answer: Yes.

 

[Horticulture]

I agree entirely, but you shouldn't dismiss economic theory because it's old. Molinari's theory can be dismissed because it's inaccurate and has been disproved several times.

Agreed. In the future I'll proof my flippant comments more thoroughly for accuracy

 

[Novan Leon]

This is a perfect example of why there is such a disconnect between your point of view and my own. In all of my comments I am talking about the real-world implementations of these political ideologies whereas you're talking about them in the context of their most idealistic definition.

While the article is interesting, it is primarily a critique of Reagan's actions on the economy, not Reaganomics itself. In fact, for each principle that the author mentions, he actually demonstrates how Reagan failed to follow his own economic rhetoric (ie. Reaganomics) on the matter, the end result having a negative impact on the economy. This actually results in the author supporting Reaganomic principles instead of disproving them.

Don't you see the hypocrisy in these two statements? In the first your arguing against communism on the basis of several real world examples which although generally thought of as communist actually violate several of the key principles of communism. In the second you're defending reagonomics for the exact same reasons I was defending communism. These examples of both communist and reagonomics violated several of the key principles that they were supposed to be based on. I'll strike you a deal then, you don't try using those three to attack communism and I won't use the failings of the reagan administration to attack Reagonomics.

The big difference is that Reagan's economic policies at least partially (I would say mostly) follows the principles of Reaganomics, which gives us some basis on which to draw conclusions about the validity of these principles. Communist ideology, on the other hand, suffers from a lack of real world implementations from which to draw conclusions. The examples we do have seem to omit the most important prerequisites of Communist ideology, and thus can't be used as validation (correct?). This is why Communist ideology, and your arguments in support of Communism, remain largely theoretical.

NOTE: It's important to realize that even though Reagan's presidency might for the most part follow Reaganomic principles, it still doesn't change the fact that Reagan's presidency and Reaganomics are two entirely separate things and should be examined with their differences in mind.

Totally unrelated and off-topic, and this might be a stupid question, but I am curious why nations that don't follow Communist ideology claim to be Communist, while some of the examples you mentioned such as the Mondragon Cooperative which sound like a closer fit, make no claim to the Communist moniker whatsoever.