skews13
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- Mar 18, 2017
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If you, like me, grew up in the United States of America, youāve probably heard a story of the late 1970s and early 1980s that goes something like this: āIn the 70s, Carterās liberal big-government policies resulted in runaway inflation. Reagan came in and defeated inflation, and produced an economic boom with deregulation and tax cuts. Reagan also embarked on a massive defense spending binge which, although it increased the deficit a lot, forced the USSR to bankrupt itself trying to keep up, and thus won the Cold War.ā
That might sound like a straw man, but the narratives we tell each other about the past often consist of exactly such straw men. And debunking those narratives might feel like shooting at easy targets, but itās helpful for taking a closer look at history.
Anyway, the above narrative is almost entirely wrong. Carter was a deregulator who didnāt increase deficits much, and appointed the Fed chair who beat inflation. Reagan didnāt do much deregulating, nor did he increase defense spending much as a share of GDP ā and the USSR didnāt fall because of the arms race. Letās go through these points one by one.
noahpinion.substack.com
Good article that disspells a lot of the BS that will be coming after Carter passes.
That might sound like a straw man, but the narratives we tell each other about the past often consist of exactly such straw men. And debunking those narratives might feel like shooting at easy targets, but itās helpful for taking a closer look at history.
Anyway, the above narrative is almost entirely wrong. Carter was a deregulator who didnāt increase deficits much, and appointed the Fed chair who beat inflation. Reagan didnāt do much deregulating, nor did he increase defense spending much as a share of GDP ā and the USSR didnāt fall because of the arms race. Letās go through these points one by one.

Much of what you've heard about Carter and Reagan is wrong
Debunking our narratives of the late 70s and early 80s

Good article that disspells a lot of the BS that will be coming after Carter passes.