A Concise Summary of Recent Presidential Economic Policies and Consequences - RP-BP is Apolitical

Four Deformations of the Apocalypse
DAVID STOCKMAN
NYT, July 31, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/01/opinion/01stockman.html


Petey Wheatstraw Says:
August 1st, 2010 at 4:05 pm
Curmudgeon:

I don’t think it’s political revisionism. Actions have reactions. Decisions have consequences. It takes a while for seeds to bear fruit.

Nixon defaulted on our debt, causing massive inflation and unemployment (since that moment, the middle class hasn’t had a raise).

Carter had to deal with the aftermath, so, he hired Volker.

Reagan invented borrow and spend in response to his own complaints about tax and spend — resulting in massive deficits that we haven’t even contemplated paying. In addition, he foisted Stockman’s utterly foolish and naive concept of “trickle down” and regressive taxation onto the adoring middle class. Reagan sowed the seeds of corporatism and began the great transfer of wealth to the top 2%, or so. He also began the push for deregulation of industry that is arguably at the heart of our current crime spree. He appointed Greenspan.We are living the results of those actions.

In addition, and OT: Reagan was the Great Divider, using disdain for liberal philosophy (as diffuse a term as there could be) and faux wedge issues like abortion, religion, class (race) warfare and welfare queens — coupled with an absolutist stance on those issues — to create a rift in the middle class that has yet to heal (if you think the USSR folded primarily due to RR’s policies, that would be tunnel vision in the extreme). At best, “Morning in America” was a really good acid trip.

Bush ’41 was helpless to do anything with what Saint Ronnie left him.

Clinton ran a tighter ship than most, in terms of economics, but the gulf between the Reagan right and anything else (now exclusively deemed “liberal,” regardless of merit or basis in conservative principles), guaranteed a state of perpetual gridlock. Clinton’s negative contributions (with which we are still dealing) were NAFTA and the bipartisan self-fuckery that was Gramm, Leach, Bliley.

Then comes Bushco and the Great Crime Spree. The Treasury was looted by insiders. Crony-capitalism and criminality were conducted in the open without a law enforcement agent in sight. The Constitution was consigned to the trash heap of history. The Supreme Court was stacked with Corporatists. Money was borrowed in the name of the middle class US taxpayer and distributed to the uber wealthy.

Obama? Well, exactly what’s a brother to do? When you’re the mayor of a company town where everybody in management is a crook, it’s not a stupid thing to go with the flow.
Now, he’s just another Corporatist.