its funny how stupid republicans really are
Could be, but liberals are even dumber voting for trickle up poverty.
bear513,
Remember when you wrote that brilliant paper comparing the economic growth of the liberal postwar apex (50s & 60s) to the 80s-90s, the high tide of Reaganomics?
Remember how you talked about the high taxes, strong regulations and pro-labor controls under presidents like Truman, Eisenhower, Nixon (all of who followed, more or less, FDR's Big Government/New Deal policies which meant the government invested in infrastructure, eduction and middle class solvency along with preventing capitalists from seeking higher profits by using labor from tyrannical freedom-hating nations like China/Mexico). I remember it so well. You talked about how the Fed, during the liberal postwar years, was concerned with maintaining full employment, which is why they "primed the pump" to counter recessionary pressures so we didn't have spiraling job losses. And then you compared those policies to the low taxes, deregulation, free trade and anti-Labor policies of the Reagan boom of the 80s-90s - a time when the Fed's role shifted to austerity for workers and maximum freedom for capital to seek lower operating costs in China and the developing world. It was brilliant Bear! And then you concluded by comparing the unprecedented economic growth of the 50s-60s to the unprecedented deficits of the 80s-90s, when our robust low-wage job growth was tragically coupled with crippling middle class debt (to make up for slashed wages/benefits and the rise of Chinese manufacturing).
Do you remember Bear?
Do you remember when you were the kind of person who studied actual economic data rather than merely spewing tired talking points and over-used cliches?
I want the old Bear back, the one who went to college and could speak intelligently about monetary policy.
Lay off the crack, WWII was the cause..between 1945~1980
Bear,
My friend. My mentor. Do you have amnesia?
Remember your paper about how WWII was the largest single
government spending project in US History? It was government who deployed tax dollars and funded/managed the greatest industrial output the US has ever seen. You alone understand how
government spending on war manufacturing had an immense multiplier effect, not least because those factories were converted to domestic commercial uses, laying the foundation for our postwar manufacturing supremacy.
Indeed ol' Bear. We could have dumped the bombs and tanks in the ocean, but the result would have been the same: evil government spending both saved & created factories and put millions of people back to work. Indeed, ol' Bear friend, if there was no government large enough to deploy the financial and infrastructure needs to mobilize the war effort, than people like you would have been sitting ducks for Hitler, with your Tea-Party thumbs up yer bums.
FYI: Eisenhower borrowed this logic when he put people to work building our interstates. We not only got commercially necessary infrastructure (see domestic shipping & tourism), but we put more spenders on main street. Indeed, ol' Bear, because of war and infrastructure spending, those newly hired government workers, with their new
government jobs, flocked into main street stores, which, as result, could hire even more people. And those newly hired people put even more spenders into the economy, which further incentivized capital to expand production and create great things (and, psst, put
even more people to work). It was one of the most virtuous cycles this nation has ever seen.
You called it Military Keynesianism, which was the basis of your follow-up paper about how the Cold War & NASA budgets funded the technological R&D for the consumer electronic boom of the 80s and 90s. You laid it out so brilliantly ol' BearMan. You demonstrated how our satellite, computer and internet technology started in the State Sector because the military and space programs required advanced technological infrastructure to be successful. Then you showed how that technology was seeded to the private sector where great innovators completed the deal (albeit standing on the shoulders of Big Government subsidies and technological infrastructure). We saw a golden age of profits (based on the world's most advanced satellite system, put there by big government. And then we watched as every new large corporation crawled on all fours to Washington begging for subsidies and Patents. Ah geez ol' Bear, don't you remember your paper about how our great corporations depend on big government patents so that their investments are protected by the nanny state? I have to say, I am amazed at how insightful your economic analysis was. I want the old Bear back ).
I also loved your paper about the Hoover Dam, which was a depression-era
spending project that not only put tens of thousands of people to work (i.e., main street spenders), but provided the water and energy resources to develop the modern Southwest, with all its thriving profit centers. [Seriously Mr. BearManFriend, don't you remember that incredible paper you wrote in college how the Hoover Dam literally increased the carrying capacity of the Southwest so that it could support modern cities with thriving populations and profit centers? Remember? And then, in a follow-up paper, you talked about the trillions in government spending that ultimately (over 40 years) went into settling the Colorado tributary, which created thriving cities and profitable agriculture zones across the entire Southwest.] I marveled at your ability to cut through rightwing talking points and present the data on the many complex partnerships between government and the private sector. You showed us how companies like Boeing, who lived off government subsidies (mostly through the Defense budget), developed into some of the most profitable companies in US history.
You are a treasure Bear because you don't just repeat simplistic talking points about how government is evil. You have always shown both sides of the story. You're not just a partisan hack who parrots the mammer-jammer of talk radio.