The U.s. National Debt Has Grown By More Than A Trillion Dollars In The Last 12 Months

[eagle1462010]

We have the lowest tax rates in a half century right now....

we need to reduce spending, raise tax rates, and have one heck of an economy going, to make any kind of reduction in the National Debt...

don't see any of this happening to the degree that it needs to happen.

simplify taxes........raising taxes doesn't necessarily raise revenues as history has shown. Revenues have a historic average of 18.1 % since WWII irregardless of the rates.............People just offshore their money when taxes increase.

A simplified code at a set rate with NO DEDUCTIONS is the answer.........a 15% income flat rate would generate 200 plus Billion a year in revenues

 

[Care4all]

We have the lowest tax rates in a half century right now....

we need to reduce spending, raise tax rates, and have one heck of an economy going, to make any kind of reduction in the National Debt...

don't see any of this happening to the degree that it needs to happen.

simplify taxes........raising taxes doesn't necessarily raise revenues as history has shown. Revenues have a historic average of 18.1 % since WWII irregardless of the rates.............People just offshore their money when taxes increase.

A simplified code at a set rate with NO DEDUCTIONS is the answer.........a 15% income flat rate would generate 200 plus Billion a year in revenues

I don't think we can legally do that without a Standard deduction for everyone..... Income or earnings that we are taxed on, has to be our PROFIT, even for individuals, we are taxed ONLY on our supposed PROFIT from our income/earnings....thus the Standard Deduction BEFORE we are taxed on our incomes....

So even with a flat rate across the board, everyone must be given a standard deduction....

When income taxes first began, the Standard deduction was the equivalent of $65,000 a year, NOT taxable....it's changed a lot since then and now it is only a few thousand that is not taxable, but there are other programs that reduce our taxable income that were not available when income taxes first began....child tax credit, and earned income credit, and lots of other things over the years....primarily focused on the poorest.

bottom line, even with a flat tax, there will be a standard deduction amount that is not taxed, the same amount for everyone....as example, something like the first $9000 earned per person, is not taxable, then anything earned above that could be taxed at the flat 15%.

 

[eagle1462010]

We have the lowest tax rates in a half century right now....

we need to reduce spending, raise tax rates, and have one heck of an economy going, to make any kind of reduction in the National Debt...

don't see any of this happening to the degree that it needs to happen.

simplify taxes........raising taxes doesn't necessarily raise revenues as history has shown. Revenues have a historic average of 18.1 % since WWII irregardless of the rates.............People just offshore their money when taxes increase.

A simplified code at a set rate with NO DEDUCTIONS is the answer.........a 15% income flat rate would generate 200 plus Billion a year in revenues

I don't think we can legally do that without a Standard deduction for everyone..... Income or earnings that we are taxed on, has to be our PROFIT, even for individuals, we are taxed ONLY on our supposed PROFIT from our income/earnings....thus the Standard Deduction BEFORE we are taxed on our incomes....

So even with a flat rate across the board, everyone must be given a standard deduction....

When income taxes first began, the Standard deduction was the equivalent of $65,000 a year, NOT taxable....it's changed a lot since then and now it is only a few thousand that is not taxable, but there are other programs that reduce our taxable income that were not available when income taxes first began....child tax credit, and earned income credit, and lots of other things over the years....primarily focused on the poorest.

bottom line, even with a flat tax, there will be a standard deduction amount that is not taxed, the same amount for everyone....as example, something like the first $9000 earned per person, is not taxable, then anything earned above that could be taxed at the flat 15%.

The code needs simplification. The disagreements on the final rate could be hashed out. It needs to be done. The code is too dang big. Simple solutions for complex problems are not agreeable to the powers to be.

 

[Bfgrn]

Our military was NOT degraded. Reagan turned it into a behemoth using his welfare queen approach to spending. Between 1980 and 1988 the Defense Department budget rose by 45% in real value, and substantially as a percent of GDP; all of it debt-financed.

I served then on a rust bucket from hell. I saw the degradation with my own eyes........Ships that had outlived their service life without replacements. Your post on this alone is a joke to me...........

You are right on Nixon being another lying Politician, but Carter didn't fix jack squat during his term and allowed our people to be held hostage for over a year in Iran...........

He was another Fool on Foreign policy and Reagan took over when the economy was in the dump.............the economy came back under Reagan with more Debt.........Our Foreign policy grew a set of balls, and it created a long lasting economic recovery used by Presidents in the future.............The main malfunction was removing regs to control the Fiat Machine and Speculators that would sell their own kids to make a buck.

Anecdotal evidence is not acceptable. Military spending increased under Carter. HOW it was spent is a valid question.

Our hostages in Iran were released because Reagan was a FUCKING TRAITOR....

In 1980 Carter thought he had reached a deal with newly-elected Iranian President Abdolhassan Bani-Sadr over the release of the fifty-two hostages held by radical students at the American Embassy in Tehran.

Bani-Sadr was a moderate and, as he explained in an editorial for The Christian Science Monitor earlier this year, had successfully run for President on the popular position of releasing the hostages:

"I openly opposed the hostage-taking throughout the election campaign.... I won the election with over 76 percent of the vote.... Other candidates also were openly against hostage-taking, and overall, 96 percent of votes in that election were given to candidates who were against it [hostage-taking]."

Carter was confident that with Bani-Sadr's help, he could end the embarrassing hostage crisis that had been a thorn in his political side ever since it began in November of 1979.

But Carter underestimated the lengths his opponent in the 1980 Presidential election, California Governor Ronald Reagan, would go to screw him over.

Behind Carter's back, the Reagan campaign worked out a deal with the leader of Iran's radical faction - Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khomeini - to keep the hostages in captivity until after the 1980 Presidential election.

This was nothing short of treason. The Reagan campaign's secret negotiations with Khomeini - the so-called "October Surprise" - sabotaged Carter and Bani-Sadr's attempts to free the hostages. And as Bani-Sadr told The Christian Science Monitor in March of this year, they most certainly "tipped the results of the [1980] election in Reagan's favor."

Not surprisingly, Iran released the hostages on January 20, 1981, at the exact moment Ronald Reagan was sworn into office.

The "October Surprise" emboldened the radical forces inside Iran. A politically weakened Bani-Sadr was overthrown in June of 1981 and replaced with Mohammed Ali Rajai - a favorite of Khomeini's. These radical forces today are represented by people like former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, hard-liners who oppose any deal with the United States and, like Khomeini in the 1980s, will jump at any chance to discredit the current moderate presidency of Hassan Rouhani.

The October Surprise also led to the deaths of thousands of innocent people around the world, and in Central America in particular. Reagan took money from the Iranians and used that money to kill nuns in Nicaragua.

But those are just the most obvious results of the October Surprise. Again, if Carter were able to free the hostages like he and Bani-Sadr had planned, Carter would have won re-election. After all, he was leading in most polls in the months leading up to the election. And if Reagan were never elected, America would be a much more progressive nation. ref

 

[Vigilante]

You idiots don't take into consideration that the supposed unemployment went down because LESS PEOPLE ARE COUNTED, nothing to do with taxes! Damn!

You mean like in 1993 when unemployment dropped from 6.8% to 5.7% following Clinton's tax hike and the labor force participation rate increased from 66.4% to 66.6%, employment was even better than the unemployment rate indicated?

You actually spent YOUR TIME, over half an hour, looking this shit up to find ONE EXCEPTION?....

Wasn't that the start of the Dot Com bubble?

No, it wasn't. And looking that up took only seconds to bring up the BLS page on the LFPR. Don't think just because you're glued here means everyone is.

1993 was the start with the mosaic web browser.... You probably weren't able to walk then!

You probably are stupid enough to think you can pull off a bait and switch, but as usual, you fail. You didn't ask if 1993 was when the mosaic web browser started, you asked if that was the start of the dot com bubble. The dot com bubble started years later.

Bursting bubbles

The year 2000 marked the end of the “Internet bubble,” a five-year period when the paper value of publicly traded stock in Internet-based companies rose far above the real earning potential of the industry.​

Yes, I hit you with a FACT and you go off on one of your HALF HOUR searches to see if you can find something to refute it!

While the latter part was a boom and bust cycle, the Internet boom is sometimes meant to refer to the steady commercial growth of the Internet with the advent of the World Wide Web, as exemplified by the first release of the Mosaic web browser in 1993, and continuing through the 1990s

Dot-com bubble - Wikipedia the free encyclopedia

 

[AVG-JOE]

The only option is to throw all the career politicians out of office, but that isn't going to happen as they continue their self serving agenda over the interest of the Nation they were elected to serve.............

When it blows, and it will, they will simply use propaganda to blame each other for it which is nothing more than a smoke screen for what they are doing.

When interests rates go up, the bubble will pop. A Correction by those in the markets and we'll get smoked again. Doing the same that caused it to hit the fan in the first place. The Foxes run the hen house.

One more reason to demand something quantifiable from them, like a fair and simple tax code.

And we should insist that congress write the legislation themselves without 'help' from the mercenary lobbyists who work for those interested in keeping things just the way they are.


Fair and simple.

Would it help if the federal government could boast a 0% corporate tax? Ass-U-Me-ing fair enforcement, I'll bet a dollar that we could pay the federal bills and aggressively service the debt with just 18 & 3 at the federal level.

18% on every dime of every personal income stream with one and only one deduction of $40,000 per year for each income stream, plus a 3% sales tax on all retail transactions, and let the states end their use of personal income taxes in favor of taxing the commerce conducted within their borders.




The question that must be asked is why?

Why would a corporation or individual be willing to give million$ to both political parties in any given year, if not the expectation of something in return?

Step one in eliminating the corruption plaguing congress is to remove from them the power to customize the tax obligations of their special friends and political donors.

Government contract reform needs to be a close second, but that should come easily with true and genuine tax reform.

 

[AVG-JOE]

You will need more revenue if you are really committed to reducing the deficit.

No.

You will need less spending, significantly less, if you want to cut the deficit.

If you want to pay down the debt, then lessen the burden on Government to fund unnecessary programs.

Like The Military and Medical Industrial Complexes that both rely so heavily on tax dollars to feed their fat?

January 17, 1961 - A Discussion on the Rise of The Military Industrial Complex in America

 

[AVG-JOE]

We have the lowest tax rates in a half century right now....

we need to reduce spending, raise tax rates, and have one heck of an economy going, to make any kind of reduction in the National Debt...

don't see any of this happening to the degree that it needs to happen.

simplify taxes........raising taxes doesn't necessarily raise revenues as history has shown. Revenues have a historic average of 18.1 % since WWII irregardless of the rates.............People just offshore their money when taxes increase.

A simplified code at a set rate with NO DEDUCTIONS is the answer.........a 15% income flat rate would generate 200 plus Billion a year in revenues

I don't think we can legally do that without a Standard deduction for everyone..... Income or earnings that we are taxed on, has to be our PROFIT, even for individuals, we are taxed ONLY on our supposed PROFIT from our income/earnings....thus the Standard Deduction BEFORE we are taxed on our incomes....

So even with a flat rate across the board, everyone must be given a standard deduction....

When income taxes first began, the Standard deduction was the equivalent of $65,000 a year, NOT taxable....it's changed a lot since then and now it is only a few thousand that is not taxable, but there are other programs that reduce our taxable income that were not available when income taxes first began....child tax credit, and earned income credit, and lots of other things over the years....primarily focused on the poorest.

bottom line, even with a flat tax, there will be a standard deduction amount that is not taxed, the same amount for everyone....as example, something like the first $9000 earned per person, is not taxable, then anything earned above that could be taxed at the flat 15%.

Indeed!

The only way for a flat tax to be fair is for everyone to have exactly the same deduction. And it should be a number that means something to the poor and means little to the truly wealthy. Also, all streams of income, be they from labor, interest, dividend or commission should be treated EXACTLY the same.

 

[AVG-JOE]

Tax credits, be they personal or corporate, need to go bye-bye.

Doling out welfare via the tax code is almost as stupid as tying our health insurance options to our employment.

 

[EconChick]

How about we demand a fair and simple tax code?

A requirement to balance public budgets is a DAMN good idea, but until We demand a fair and simple tax code, We, The Peeps remain clueless as to what our economy is actually worth.

Yep. Needs to be simplified without a doubt. Fair and Flat both have their problems but lessor of all the other evils.

 

[EconChick]

Oh geeeze, my favorite intellectual. Dear, you're brainwashed with Keynesian indoctrination. You don't know you don't know.

Study the Reagan years a little more and stop listening to the dumbasses in academia. I know from experience.

GREAT idea...

"The debt explosion has resulted not from big spending by the Democrats, but instead the Republican Party's embrace, about three decades ago, of the insidious doctrine that deficits don't matter if they result from tax cuts."
David Stockman - Director of the Office of Management and Budget for U.S. President Ronald Reagan.

Stockman was a nut job. That's why Reagan fired him. Somebody indoctrinated with Keynesian theory just like Warren Buffet.

Was this guy a 'nut job' too?

The Myths of Reaganomics
Mises Daily: Wednesday, June 09, 2004 by Murray N. Rothbard

I come to bury Reaganomics, not to praise it.

Also, the excuse cannot be used that Congress massively increased Reagan's budget proposals. On the contrary, there was never much difference between Reagan's and Congress's budgets, and despite propaganda to the contrary, Reagan never proposed a cut in the total budget.

more

ONe area I really know well about economics was the Reagan years because I had just started on my econ grad degree in late 80s and had to pour over the numbers for the decade. And anyone painting a picture of Reaganomics being bad is a nut job. Now at the micro level, there are things that can be criticized but the overall strategy was brilliant.

Reaganomics wasn't just 'bad', Reaganomics was the BIGGEST economic failure in American history. It took every president from George Washington to Jimmy Carter to create 1 trillion dollars of debt...Ronny the welfare queen took only 5 years to create the 2nd trillion dollars of debt.

Under Ronald Reagan, the US went from being the world's largest creditor nation to the largest debtor nation in just a few years - and we have remained the largest debtor nation ever since.

Where did our debt come from? When did massive debt become part of the American economy? Was it New Deal Democrats? No....they PAYED for what they spent. It all started with the 'welfare queen' mentality of Ronny Reagan who switched the federal government from what he critically called, a “tax and spend” policy, to a “borrow and spend” policy.

Reagan switched the federal government from what he critically called, a “tax and spend” policy, to a “borrow and spend” policy, where the government continued its heavy spending, but used borrowed money instead of tax revenue to pay the bills. The results were catastrophic. Although it had taken the United States more than 200 years to accumulate the first $1 trillion of national debt, it took only five years under Reagan to add the second one trillion dollars to the debt. By the end of the 12 years of the Reagan-Bush administrations, the national debt had quadrupled to $4 trillion!

Ummmm. NO

 

[EconChick]

Oh geeeze, my favorite intellectual. Dear, you're brainwashed with Keynesian indoctrination. You don't know you don't know.

Study the Reagan years a little more and stop listening to the dumbasses in academia. I know from experience.

GREAT idea...

"The debt explosion has resulted not from big spending by the Democrats, but instead the Republican Party's embrace, about three decades ago, of the insidious doctrine that deficits don't matter if they result from tax cuts."
David Stockman - Director of the Office of Management and Budget for U.S. President Ronald Reagan.

Stockman was a nut job. That's why Reagan fired him. Somebody indoctrinated with Keynesian theory just like Warren Buffet.

Was this guy a 'nut job' too?

The Myths of Reaganomics
Mises Daily: Wednesday, June 09, 2004 by Murray N. Rothbard

I come to bury Reaganomics, not to praise it.

Also, the excuse cannot be used that Congress massively increased Reagan's budget proposals. On the contrary, there was never much difference between Reagan's and Congress's budgets, and despite propaganda to the contrary, Reagan never proposed a cut in the total budget.

more

ONe area I really know well about economics was the Reagan years because I had just started on my econ grad degree in late 80s and had to pour over the numbers for the decade. And anyone painting a picture of Reaganomics being bad is a nut job. Now at the micro level, there are things that can be criticized but the overall strategy was brilliant.

Reaganomics wasn't just 'bad', Reaganomics was the BIGGEST economic failure in American history. It took every president from George Washington to Jimmy Carter to create 1 trillion dollars of debt...Ronny the welfare queen took only 5 years to create the 2nd trillion dollars of debt.

Under Ronald Reagan, the US went from being the world's largest creditor nation to the largest debtor nation in just a few years - and we have remained the largest debtor nation ever since.

Where did our debt come from? When did massive debt become part of the American economy? Was it New Deal Democrats? No....they PAYED for what they spent. It all started with the 'welfare queen' mentality of Ronny Reagan who switched the federal government from what he critically called, a “tax and spend” policy, to a “borrow and spend” policy.

Reagan switched the federal government from what he critically called, a “tax and spend” policy, to a “borrow and spend” policy, where the government continued its heavy spending, but used borrowed money instead of tax revenue to pay the bills. The results were catastrophic. Although it had taken the United States more than 200 years to accumulate the first $1 trillion of national debt, it took only five years under Reagan to add the second one trillion dollars to the debt. By the end of the 12 years of the Reagan-Bush administrations, the national debt had quadrupled to $4 trillion!

In fairness to all your work to post data, if we could have one definitive thread on the Reagan economy, I'd take the time to show you why you're wrong. The problem is when I've started to go down that path of providing exhaustive data, only 2 or 3 people are left posting while everyone else has moved to the next econ thread. There is no incentive to provide hours of substantive posts when everyone else has left. That's the downside of not consolidating threads. However, if I owned this site, I'd want lots of little threads.

Unfortunately, though, that's why I typically don't wade into the data and just give rollups.

As we get a week away from the election, I might be willing to spend tons of time.

 

[EconChick]

For simple folks, maybe. Still, I just gave two examples where taxes were raised and unemployment dropped. So you can spout your "theories" all you want -- the real world proves your "theories" are pipe dreams.

Oh geeeze, my favorite intellectual. Dear, you're brainwashed with Keynesian indoctrination. You don't know you don't know.

Study the Reagan years a little more and stop listening to the dumbasses in academia. I know from experience.

GREAT idea...

"The debt explosion has resulted not from big spending by the Democrats, but instead the Republican Party's embrace, about three decades ago, of the insidious doctrine that deficits don't matter if they result from tax cuts."
David Stockman - Director of the Office of Management and Budget for U.S. President Ronald Reagan.

Stockman was a nut job. That's why Reagan fired him. Somebody indoctrinated with Keynesian theory just like Warren Buffet.

Was this guy a 'nut job' too?

The Myths of Reaganomics
Mises Daily: Wednesday, June 09, 2004 by Murray N. Rothbard

I come to bury Reaganomics, not to praise it.

Also, the excuse cannot be used that Congress massively increased Reagan's budget proposals. On the contrary, there was never much difference between Reagan's and Congress's budgets, and despite propaganda to the contrary, Reagan never proposed a cut in the total budget.

more

In the fall of 2008, George W Bush's policies proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that George Sr. was right when he called Reganomics "Voodoo Economics".

The answer isn't tax cuts any more than the answer is tax hikes - the answer remains a fair and simple tax code, emphasis on 'fair'.

Completely disagree. Please see my last post.

I agree about a simpler tax code but that's just one piece of a 500 piece puzzle.

As for taxes, we have the highest level of CUMULATIVE taxes if you add taxes from all levels i.e. state, local, federal, phone, etc. etc.

You have to look at what the cumulative effect is on Susie's overall budget to know how it's dampening the economy.

 

[EconChick]

GREAT idea...

"The debt explosion has resulted not from big spending by the Democrats, but instead the Republican Party's embrace, about three decades ago, of the insidious doctrine that deficits don't matter if they result from tax cuts."
David Stockman - Director of the Office of Management and Budget for U.S. President Ronald Reagan.

Stockman was a nut job. That's why Reagan fired him. Somebody indoctrinated with Keynesian theory just like Warren Buffet.

Was this guy a 'nut job' too?

The Myths of Reaganomics
Mises Daily: Wednesday, June 09, 2004 by Murray N. Rothbard

I come to bury Reaganomics, not to praise it.

Also, the excuse cannot be used that Congress massively increased Reagan's budget proposals. On the contrary, there was never much difference between Reagan's and Congress's budgets, and despite propaganda to the contrary, Reagan never proposed a cut in the total budget.

more

ONe area I really know well about economics was the Reagan years because I had just started on my econ grad degree in late 80s and had to pour over the numbers for the decade. And anyone painting a picture of Reaganomics being bad is a nut job. Now at the micro level, there are things that can be criticized but the overall strategy was brilliant.

Reaganomics wasn't just 'bad', Reaganomics was the BIGGEST economic failure in American history. It took every president from George Washington to Jimmy Carter to create 1 trillion dollars of debt...Ronny the welfare queen took only 5 years to create the 2nd trillion dollars of debt.

Where did our debt come from? When did massive debt become part of the American economy? Was it New Deal Democrats? No....they PAYED for what they spent. It all started with the 'welfare queen' mentality of Ronny Reagan who switched the federal government from what he critically called, a “tax and spend” policy, to a “borrow and spend” policy.

Reagan switched the federal government from what he critically called, a “tax and spend” policy, to a “borrow and spend” policy, where the government continued its heavy spending, but used borrowed money instead of tax revenue to pay the bills. The results were catastrophic. Although it had taken the United States more than 200 years to accumulate the first $1 trillion of national debt, it took only five years under Reagan to add the second one trillion dollars to the debt. By the end of the 12 years of the Reagan-Bush administrations, the national debt had quadrupled to $4 trillion!

Then during the 90's there was a rule in place called PAYGO wherein congress had to pay for new spending with cuts to current spending or tax increases and Clinton got credit for a balanced budget. Unfortunately PAYGO had a sunset clause in 2003, giving GW Bush just the opening he needed to try Reganomics on steroids, resulting in the Great Recession starting in 2008.

Fair and simple taxes.

Public budgets that are balanced by law.

Transparency in spending.
​

Not rocket science, y'all.

Definitely agree with THAT part!

 

[EdwardBaiamonte]

You have to look at what the cumulative effect is on Susie's overall budget to know how it's dampening the economy.

yes its painfully obvious that taxes hurt the economy. Cumo in NYS is eliminating taxes for 10 years for new companies. Is it a secret why he is doing this? Taking money from a company or individual hurts it economically. Would anyone say it helps?

 

[Faun]

Was it your goal to show how the unemployment rate rose after every Republican president except Reagan; but never after any Democrat president?

 

[EdwardBaiamonte]

Was it your goal to show how the unemployment rate rose after every Republican president except Reagan; but never after any Democrat president?

dear, liberals say Obama is not responsible because of what he inherited and because of Republican obstruction. Now you are saying Obama is indeed responsible for current never ending recession?

 

[eagle1462010]

Was it your goal to show how the unemployment rate rose after every Republican president except Reagan; but never after any Democrat president?

It was to show that Reagan Inherited an exploding unemployment rate and high interest rates when he took office. A Recession nearly equivalent to the one in 2008. His actions created a recovery even though it took a couple of years to get it under control. Obama has been in their a while and still can't get it together.

Either way, it was a hit on Carter which was clearly in the posts of this op.

 

[EdwardBaiamonte]

Either way, it was a hit on Carter which was clearly in the posts of this op.

Clinton inherited a booming economy from Bush 41, Bush 43 inherited a bust from Clinton
, and Obama inherited a bust from Bush '43 which goes to show that the president often does not control the economy at all!

 

[Faun]

You mean like in 1993 when unemployment dropped from 6.8% to 5.7% following Clinton's tax hike and the labor force participation rate increased from 66.4% to 66.6%, employment was even better than the unemployment rate indicated?

You actually spent YOUR TIME, over half an hour, looking this shit up to find ONE EXCEPTION?....

Wasn't that the start of the Dot Com bubble?

No, it wasn't. And looking that up took only seconds to bring up the BLS page on the LFPR. Don't think just because you're glued here means everyone is.

1993 was the start with the mosaic web browser.... You probably weren't able to walk then!

You probably are stupid enough to think you can pull off a bait and switch, but as usual, you fail. You didn't ask if 1993 was when the mosaic web browser started, you asked if that was the start of the dot com bubble. The dot com bubble started years later.

Bursting bubbles

The year 2000 marked the end of the “Internet bubble,” a five-year period when the paper value of publicly traded stock in Internet-based companies rose far above the real earning potential of the industry.​

Yes, I hit you with a FACT and you go off on one of your HALF HOUR searches to see if you can find something to refute it!

While the latter part was a boom and bust cycle, the Internet boom is sometimes meant to refer to the steady commercial growth of the Internet with the advent of the World Wide Web, as exemplified by the first release of the Mosaic web browser in 1993, and continuing through the 1990s

Dot-com bubble - Wikipedia the free encyclopedia

You must be insane. When I read your post about the LFPR, it took literally took less than 30 seconds to do a Google search and bring up this page...

Bureau of Labor Statistics Data

At any rate, you asked about the dotcom bubble. Now I understand you want to change that since I bitch slapped with the dotcom bubble, but that's your problem, not mine.

Oh, by the way ... your link to Wikipedia says the dotcom bubble began in 1997.