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In Reply to: there you go again posted by Mart on February 25, 2000 at 21:53:44:
i don't think reagan even had the nomination at that point, but near the end of the movie i had this feeling. It was a cold feeling, part shocked disbelief, that Reagan would win. At that moment i knew for a cetainty he would win. Tell me, did you the book his first Budget Director ( the wonder kid, i forget his name) wrote? I did, his statements about Reagan's abilities were largely seconded in the memoirs of his other cabinet officers. That was one bizarre presidency.
I don't think even a specialist can help your delusions. Has the nurse misplaced your meds?Wake me as soon as Al Gore walks on water.
hi,
since we can't seem to stop, here goes. One fo the things that still echoes in my mind is your unhappiness over the lack of economic progress
in your area. Same situation here, we both live in economic backwaters.
I mentioned those books in the hope you would get an understanding of
the web ( the plain old spider kind ) that an economy forms of producers, and suppliers, and why they cluster where they do, at polls of labor and capitol.
Then there is the thorny matter of the realtionship between an economy and the political structure that accompanies it. The two form a kind of marriage.
It's funny the things that stick. Nixon was a terrible president, but the thing that i will never let go is this. He cut the budget on Hubble so that it could not be tested, then cut it again, which wound up consigning it to a garage for about 20 years. My mother, an avid amateur astronomer, died just before Hubble was repaired in space. That, along with the poor
treatment NASA always seems to get at the hands of Republicans, alienates
me from that lot. My best judgement is that NASA is vital to the future of the human race, and to treat it cavalierly is criminal.
There are other issues, but the only one i will mention today is the peculiar way they handled the banking crisis. When Reagan took office, he inherited some serious bank problems. The commercial problem was entirely
ignored ( Carter's group never got that far either ); but Don Regan's
choice to drive the Savings and Loans under, draining their assets into the stock market, was venal. It also will cost over $600 billion when the payments get finished. The Commmercial problem also got worse during this period, and the neglect of that pushed the total bill over a trillion.
The fact that this was illegally concealed is not particularly savory either.
There is a reason i mention it. When Nixon flooded the economy with money to win his second term, the economy was not able to absorb it; and it kicked off a nasty inflationary spiral. This time, the flood of money
from the bank diaster that Don Regan created was absorbed. And it provided
part of the economic background that created our current boom.
One of the more impportant elements of the boom is also the most obvious, the 'baby boomers' are in their peak earning years; and they
are investing heavily in the market for their retirement. What has not apparently occured to them is that they will also want to withdraw funds to
cover retirement expenses, again all at about the same time. If there is not a counterbalancing inflow of funds from outside the country; this could easily result in the reversal of the market gains of the last decade.
1st & foremost, I can't do anything for your mom's misfortune & even the most valid explaination won't do squat to heal your very real wounds. To that extend, I won't rub any more salt into them by trying.2nd, I don't know about your situation but we've got enormous economic infrastructure. Easy access to super-highways, tons of colleges (Union, RPI, SUNY-A, Sienna, St.Rose, HVCC, SCCC, a about 5 more I can't recall right now).
3rd, Nixon's money flood was SOP at taht time. It worked for the entire decade before & he saw no reason to not adopt his predecessors conventions, which is why I already stated was one of the reasons I didn't care for him either.
4th, Bush Sr's proper handling of the S&L situation started the 90's economic recovery & when the market went Bull, it was only enhanced by the said 401Ks which seemed to arrest the typical business cycling via Ponzi scheming.
3) LBJ was a piece of work; no argument there. His mishandling of the economy, and his financial irregularities contributed greatly to the problems we faced in the 70's.
It would not be fair to say it was SOP for IKE, or those who went before.
4) This is something of a footnote. Did you know George W Bush chaired the committee that deregulated the banks? He was part of that crisis, and the coverup that followed.
None of this is intended to mean that the Dems are better. We have a corrupt goverment that is poorly suited to dealing with rapid change.
If someone said to me, pick the candidates for this race; i would choose
a Colin Powell vs George Mitchell contest. To tell you the truth i hold both in the highest respect, and am not at all sure which way i'd vote.
As to the theme of reform, implicit in many of your comments; i have been working towards saying this: this goverment is what it is. The problems it has now will continue to worsen (example: The Agricultural Dept. now writes govt payroll checks- just try messing with Ag the way Carter did, and see how far you get). Piecemeal solutions try to move the sand off a beach with a teaspoon. There is only one possible solution, and that would be a Constitutional Convention. We, however, lack something our forefathers had, it will never happen.
So, there is a rule of thumb from Chaos theory, make small moves, avoid the big risks. And mostly that is my intent when i vote for someone.
that was precisely what the forefathers had in mind when they designed our constitution. An impotent, inefficient system where a miniscule amount of power is subdivided into overlapping jurisdiction. Thus, nobody had enough power to warrant corruption. However, I think we can both agree that the present day colosus has little to do with its founding document.PS: Do you get the feeling we'd get along in reality?
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