Sarkozy DonnÉ Gagnant

[OzzyKP]

Originally posted by Oncle Boris
Also, nice try at painting restaurants as 'pop and mom shops'.

Ladies first

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Originally posted by Oerdin




Did you even read that link? The graph shows total government spending for only Reagan's first three years but even that fudged graph shows total government spending increasing 6.8% per year for the first three years. I notice it completely ignores Reagan's massive deficits. In any event your claim is debunked by your own link.

http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2006/12/cbo_outlays_percent_gdp.png

That link shows what really happened with the national budget from 1965-2005 (a 30 year period). Please notice Reagan's term was 1980-1988 which saw HUGE increases in government spending along with HUGE decreases in government tax revenue. Basically, it is just the same failed policies of borrow and spend Republicanism which has landed us in debt up to our ears.

As superficial as ever I see.

So to rebut.

1) Yes the post I put forward was only 3 years in but was the only one I could gather immediately that contrasted W to Reagan.

2) The difference, if you would take to actually reading, is the ways in which government spending took place. In almost every case save defense spendings Reagan was aggressive about limiting the scope of government. While the overall spending did increase as a consequence, it was not for willingness to be fiscally conservative in areas that Reagan thought the government had no business being in. In contrast W is unprincipalled spender to both military and domestic giveaways.

3) Now one can argue any which way one likes about the massive defense spending in the 80's. I prefer to think of it as an investment. One that ensured we did not go to war and bankrupted the Soviets. In so doing, it set forth the ability to achieve a peace dividend in the 90's where in defense spendings could be cut significantly with the fall of the Soviets.

4) Do you understand key terms such as deficit? Revenue as expressed in terms of % GDP? Spendings in terms of % GDP? It would appear not so much.

A primer. Deficit - is not spendings but moreover the difference between spendings and revenues gathered. 1980 through 1982 marked a severe recession handed to Reagan by your hero Jimmuh. ( I presume him your hero as you have signed onto truther fiction re: October Surprise BS. ) recession - A recession marks a contraction of the economy and likewise a reduction in revenues gathered. The terms as a % of GDP mark a normalization of revenue streams and spending streams depending the size of the GDP. Since the graphs are normalized the denominator (size of GDP becomes a bit important)

Perhaps my little Oerdin, one should have actually lived and voted in the 80's to have the slightest grasp of what happened.

PS - You should be happy. I gave you validation of being half right. (the part about W). This is a far better effort than your norm.

[Whoha]

Ask ... professors about Reagan and he comes out on bottom

What a shocker.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Originally posted by Oerdin
Ask real history professors about Reagan and he almost always comes in at the bottom 25% of American Presidents

You are a liar. Look at the polls done of US presidents by historians, etc, and Reagan is far more likely to be in the Top 3rd.

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
You are a liar.

Shocking, isn't it?

[Kuciwalker]

Unbelievable!

[dannubis]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui


You are a liar. Look at the polls done of US presidents by historians, etc, and Reagan is far more likely to be in the Top 3rd.

who were polled ?

[Fake Boris]

Originally posted by DanS
To be honest, I can't fathom what your point is.

I was referring to an article I read a while ago where they interviewed the advisors who devised the liberalization plan (in a Baltic state) after the fall of the USSR.

What the guy said was that he realized, while he was doing his job with the new government, that the Western economical theories had never been truly put in practice as they were described by our prominent economists. In other words, he realized that by enabling the proposed reforms that pass as Gospel here, he was threading in unknown territory. His conclusion was that they're not necessarily bad, but that in a way they're purely ideological, because applying them as is (for instance in the context of the aftermath of the Cold War) would have been a disaster.

When you listen to the discourse of liberalism, you can easily hear that very same ideological emptiness. They keep banging on that you need more wealth to solve poverty, cautiously avoiding the issue of redistribution : "Just let us increase the GDP and huh, you'll see that you'll benefit too". So they create their financial papers and venerate numbers, numbers, numbers... In the meantime, you look at France, where unemployment is supposedly its greatest disaster, and you realize that when you look at methodology, it's not all that bad (with the trick of jail population and soldiers/veterans not counting in the active population). Then you see what the French enjoy in exchange : free universities, the best medical coverage in the world, one of the best system of mass transit, lots of vacation, 35-hour weeks, etc. If I recall, France's GDP per hours worked is the same as America, it's just that French workers work less.

Sarkozy and Martin Bouygues don't like it when people don't work. Guess why ? Are you sure we're talking about 'removing rules' ?

[C0ckney]

fakeboris, isn't the point that's been made (in this thread as well as in the wider world) that the present situation is unsustainable?

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Oncle Boris

When you listen to the discourse of liberalism, you can easily hear that very same ideological emptiness. They keep banging on that you need more wealth to solve poverty, cautiously avoiding the issue of redistribution : "Just let us increase the GDP and huh, you'll see that you'll benefit too".

Actually neo classical economics explicitly addresses distribution, and tends to show that certain kinds of market restrictions are inefficient ways to redistribute income, which can be redistributed more directly. The third way movement has picked up and run with that, focusing on market reforms while at the same time supporting some redistribution and anti-poverty programs - for example here in the US, the Earned Income Tax Credit, etc. Now you could be using liberal in the Euro fashion, to refer only to those free market supporters to the right of the Third Way, who also oppose all redistribution, but AFAIK the economists who proposed major reforms in the Baltics, Poland, etc were NOT opposed to Third Way type redistribution. That simply wasnt the key issue in those countries at the time.

[Fake Boris]

Originally posted by C0ckney
fakeboris, isn't the point that's been made (in this thread as well as in the wider world) that the present situation is unsustainable?

It's easily sustainable. The French public debt is at acceptable levels, the problem right now is the deficit.

If you want the money, you need to tax enterprises. The problem is that it's become extremely easy for them to shift production and location where taxes are low or subsidies high (or labor cheaper). The end result is that most industrialized countries have become their b1tches. Since the 70s, in Canada for instance, the share of taxes paid (wrt profit) by enterprises has gone down dramatically (I assume most countries have followed a pattern like this, though I can't be sure).

[Lawrence of Arabia]

you dont need to tax enterprises, or labor. we should tax pollution from now on.

[Dinner]

Oggie, you're acting like a ****** again. You're attempting to make an artificial explanation about what the government is spending it's money on just so you can ignore how much it is spending. Just own up to the fact that you are wrong. I'd be shocked if you ever did it but it would be nice.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Do you even remember the 80's it was very well covered and explained?