Your weekly excerpt from one of my books. This week: "The Hidden History of Neoliberalism: How Reaganism Gutted America and How to Restore Its Greatness"
What has happened in my home town is that most of the former Blue Blood Republicans (ala late Sen. John Heinz, former Govs Richard Thornburg, Raymond Shaffer, etc, mostly Presbyterians and Methodists) are anti MAGA and the former ethnic Democrats (mostly Catholics) are pro-Trump.
When I speak to those MAGA, they don't want to lose their Social Security and other governmental benefits. But mostly they are in denial that Trump/MAGA is the threat.
IMHO most of this can be traced to Nixon. Thom laid out what happened with the gold standard, but also our economy was undermined by competition from our "allies" like Germany and Japan. In my home town USSteel closed the Ellwood Works in 1972, and oil prices shot up, courtesy of OPEC at the same time the dollar was inflated. Japan put Youngstown Sheet and Tube, the 5th largest steel maker in the world out of bujsiness in 1977. As a result, Youngstown, already "Murdertown USA", became the unemployment and depression capitol of America, and this phenomenon spread throughout the rust belt.
Reagan took advantage of the situation. Made people believe that "altruism" was bad. Demagogued people on welfare. Ridiculed alternative energy. IMHO but for the October Surprise with the help from the Iranian Mullahs, he would not have been elected.
Among his first acts as president were to cut benefots for people on Social Security disability without a hearing and take the solar panels from the White House.
Had it been up to people like the late Jim Bunning, would have returned SSI to the states. IMHO Clinton acquiesed to this mentality when he "ended welfare" in 1996.
This chapter begs the question of how it came to pass that voters began to view the Republican Party as the party most qualified to run the US economy.
Clearly, Elon Musk's chainsaw metaphor seems an apt symbol for their reckless running of the economy. Republican presidents lied, cheated, and stole to change the economy, but they always ensured that their policies greened up their own cash stash, and just like today, administration corruption is the norm, starting with the First Family. As some historians have pointed out, the National Debt always soars when the GOP is in the White House, while it often tends to shrink a bit with those libtard commy Democrats in charge.
Yes we wuz robbed, but what can we do about it now? Can we reverse course? How can we evict Trump before he finishes his job of deconstructing America?
Yep, I see the polls on MSNOW, but as you said, you don't believe the polls.
That MAGA is sinking simply means that the Republicans are going to double down on poll watchers, armed at that, voter caging, voter suppression and a Republican operative bought Dominion voting machines, so there is that.
But doesn't answer the question, what can we do about being robbed?
A tangent, how is that? You said "As of today MAGA are sinking" I agree, but I fear that that doesn't matter much with all of the voter suppression, laws and activities in force and planned.
Personally I think it is asking for disaster to sit back and relax, just because the pollls show that MAGA is sinking, but you did chastise me saying that you don't believe in polls.
If you laid out what we can do, to rectify the fact that "we wuz robbed" I missed it, and I am sure that others did as well. It is surely worthy of an article to explain what we can do to reclaim the election. The world would appreciate it.
Certainly you have a blueprint, with your legal background.
2. Doesn't take the FACT that Trump admitted that Musk stole Pennsylvania into consideration.
3. As someone who heard expert testimony from statistictians, nobody tested the results for validity. E.G. give the respondents an MMPI. Most respondents try to anticipate the "push" of the poll.
Thanks Thom for once again making a period in history that was at best murky crystal clear.
It’s ironic how history repeats itself and we as a people seem to allow these repeats as a natural course when it fact it’s a sign that we need to wake to the obvious, and REMEMBER as a society.
Like Charlie Brown we once more kicked and missed the ball and both literally and figuratively fell for the same old lies.
A solid encapsulation of what happened to us. However, I should also remind that a perhaps equal cause for the end of the gold standard and for the wild rise in inflation was the US Federal government's increased printing of dollars needed to pay for the Vietnam War (which was costing one Billion dollars a day -- that's '60s dollars!) under LBJ. France's DeGaulle had objected to this as it was causing inflation in his country and when the US failed to stop the practice, began returning US dollars and demanding gold in return.
I love graphs, charts. You can see major changes to systems more easily and often more clearly by the visual representation than by descriptions or just looking at the numbers.
One of the most important, and probably most familiar, that illustrates the points Thom has made is one that shows the disconnect between productivity and labor. The productivity line goes upward, left to right, at about a near 45% angle for many decades, almost completely monotonic. The line for real wages track productivity perfectly for a long time. Until 1980. Then it goes flat. So while productivity continued (continues) to increase every year, wages have been stagnant for 40 years. Google "productivity vs. wages over time", you'll see what I mean.
This is a commonly shown chart. But there are many others. Whenever you find charts that measure social, economic, or political trends, and which go back prior to 1980, you'll often find similar breaks at a small window around 1980. This happens with almost any economic measure, education, health, happiness, corruption - even average lifespan vs. healthcare spending. It's shockingly consistent.
One of Reagan's worst changes was to education. The thinking ability of Americans has tanked. US citizens will believe so much that is bullshit, and so little that is true, because they are either unable or unwilling to check facts for themselves.
I still consider Reagan as the most destructive president in history. More than Bush even, who started two wars, was in charge on 9/11, botched hurricane relief, and saw the largest economic disaster since 1929. But Reagan set up many of the systems that failed Bush. tRump? He is a weak version of Reagan, just mean and nasty. Reagan smooth-talked Americans into accepting a loss of economic security and their civil rights. tRump is attempting to do the same, by force. But there are 3 more years for him to destroy everything left.
I graduated college in 1973. I lived all this. Minimum wage was $3.50 even with a college degree if you could even find a job during the embargo. My goal was to make $5/hr. We bought our first house in 1978. We got lucky. Mortgage rates dipped to 9% from 12%. In 1981, one week into the air traffic controllers firings, I flew with my infant daughter to take her to see her grandparents in SD. We took off and landed 3 times on one flight because of the air traffic controllers shortage. They installed administrators to do the job, scarey. That was fun. Nixon signing the EPA started all the partisan vitriol in this country along with the Koch family and John Birch Society and they have now gotten the message ingrained that there is no climate crisis and to deregulate all the sane rules put into effect with the EPA. We boomers lived through all this Nixon/Reagan bullshit and it wasn’t easy, but we are still here.
So, it seems that people who come up with supposed solutions and bright ideas and who then sell them as panaceas or as belief systems (neoliberalism, deregulation, small government, greed is good, oil is magic, scorched earth will be fixed in the Second Coming", etc., can make out like bandits, screw everything up royally and then, the more reasonable and cautious people (the true conservatives who appear as liberals) have to eventually take over and clean up the mess. We do have a couple of things going for us. This time they have really, really screwed things up and people are totally fed up, clean, green energy allows people to manage and survive without having to depend solely on dirty fuel, and the government-hating, tax-evading, religious fanatics and elitist billionaires are being exposed as the fools that they are. If only people were not so gullible and easily misled by snake oil (or crude oil) salesmen. When are we going to get to work on critical thinking? Oh, and by the way, it is a skill that must be practiced. A course taught in schools where critical thinking is anathema is an exercise in futility.
The wealthy British Lords were the first economic vampires to latch onto the American colony. The founding fathers to their surprise won the Revolutionary War. They had dislodged the British leeches. The next round was the Southern Plantation owners. The North wanted to end slavery, the South wanted to establish it across the entire Nation. This led to the Civil War. The South had Robert E. Lee, and the North had Ulysses S. Grant. Lee was a genius as a soldier; Grant was a hard drinking bad ass. The North won. Lincon had saved the Nation, and it cost him his life. Round 3 started at the beginning of the 20th Century with the Robber Barons. They almost took everything, then they ran into FDR. He saved America from the ravages of the Great Depression that the Robber Barons had caused, then guided America through WWII. After the war America built the strongest middle class that ever existed. Then came Reagon and neo-liberalism. The share of taxes paid by the rich was lowered from 70% to 24%. Then came Bush with his 20-year war that again increased the deficit. Then came Trump. His ineptitude in his 2nd term has the deficit tied to a rocket. If the American People don't pull their heads out of their ass and stop the wealthy from decimating this planet which will eliminate any chances for future generations to have a livable life we will have failed any chance for a future.
Yep, the notion that Republicans have been the fiscally smart ones is pure myth. Debt through the roof, prices and inflation up, policies that hurt working people over and over and over again. I'm hoping this time, finally, the myth gets put to rest and we the people get serious about redesigning the currently rigged economic system.
Well, Captain my Captain there is a history here. What a great layout of making me understand these things. They can work for you or against you. I, understand. Thanks, Captain.
What has happened in my home town is that most of the former Blue Blood Republicans (ala late Sen. John Heinz, former Govs Richard Thornburg, Raymond Shaffer, etc, mostly Presbyterians and Methodists) are anti MAGA and the former ethnic Democrats (mostly Catholics) are pro-Trump.
When I speak to those MAGA, they don't want to lose their Social Security and other governmental benefits. But mostly they are in denial that Trump/MAGA is the threat.
IMHO most of this can be traced to Nixon. Thom laid out what happened with the gold standard, but also our economy was undermined by competition from our "allies" like Germany and Japan. In my home town USSteel closed the Ellwood Works in 1972, and oil prices shot up, courtesy of OPEC at the same time the dollar was inflated. Japan put Youngstown Sheet and Tube, the 5th largest steel maker in the world out of bujsiness in 1977. As a result, Youngstown, already "Murdertown USA", became the unemployment and depression capitol of America, and this phenomenon spread throughout the rust belt.
Reagan took advantage of the situation. Made people believe that "altruism" was bad. Demagogued people on welfare. Ridiculed alternative energy. IMHO but for the October Surprise with the help from the Iranian Mullahs, he would not have been elected.
Among his first acts as president were to cut benefots for people on Social Security disability without a hearing and take the solar panels from the White House.
Reagan took away Social Security college benefits for the children of survivors.
Had it been up to people like the late Jim Bunning, would have returned SSI to the states. IMHO Clinton acquiesed to this mentality when he "ended welfare" in 1996.
This chapter begs the question of how it came to pass that voters began to view the Republican Party as the party most qualified to run the US economy.
Clearly, Elon Musk's chainsaw metaphor seems an apt symbol for their reckless running of the economy. Republican presidents lied, cheated, and stole to change the economy, but they always ensured that their policies greened up their own cash stash, and just like today, administration corruption is the norm, starting with the First Family. As some historians have pointed out, the National Debt always soars when the GOP is in the White House, while it often tends to shrink a bit with those libtard commy Democrats in charge.
As I keep sayin', we wuz robbed. I don't think that voters think Republicans are better qualified. Its mostly the cuture..... The election was stolen.
Yes we wuz robbed, but what can we do about it now? Can we reverse course? How can we evict Trump before he finishes his job of deconstructing America?
Goes to what the public thinks. As of today, MAGA are sinking.....
Yep, I see the polls on MSNOW, but as you said, you don't believe the polls.
That MAGA is sinking simply means that the Republicans are going to double down on poll watchers, armed at that, voter caging, voter suppression and a Republican operative bought Dominion voting machines, so there is that.
But doesn't answer the question, what can we do about being robbed?
As usual, you are off on a tangent....
I lay this out...you disregard.
A tangent, how is that? You said "As of today MAGA are sinking" I agree, but I fear that that doesn't matter much with all of the voter suppression, laws and activities in force and planned.
Personally I think it is asking for disaster to sit back and relax, just because the pollls show that MAGA is sinking, but you did chastise me saying that you don't believe in polls.
If you laid out what we can do, to rectify the fact that "we wuz robbed" I missed it, and I am sure that others did as well. It is surely worthy of an article to explain what we can do to reclaim the election. The world would appreciate it.
Certainly you have a blueprint, with your legal background.
The data appear to favor my view of how voters view vis a vie the GOP and the economy, even though they are factually wrong.
https://news.gallup.com/poll/511979/neither-party-liked-gop-holds-advantage-issues.aspx
1. This is old.
2. Doesn't take the FACT that Trump admitted that Musk stole Pennsylvania into consideration.
3. As someone who heard expert testimony from statistictians, nobody tested the results for validity. E.G. give the respondents an MMPI. Most respondents try to anticipate the "push" of the poll.
Thanks Thom for once again making a period in history that was at best murky crystal clear.
It’s ironic how history repeats itself and we as a people seem to allow these repeats as a natural course when it fact it’s a sign that we need to wake to the obvious, and REMEMBER as a society.
Like Charlie Brown we once more kicked and missed the ball and both literally and figuratively fell for the same old lies.
A solid encapsulation of what happened to us. However, I should also remind that a perhaps equal cause for the end of the gold standard and for the wild rise in inflation was the US Federal government's increased printing of dollars needed to pay for the Vietnam War (which was costing one Billion dollars a day -- that's '60s dollars!) under LBJ. France's DeGaulle had objected to this as it was causing inflation in his country and when the US failed to stop the practice, began returning US dollars and demanding gold in return.
DL
I love graphs, charts. You can see major changes to systems more easily and often more clearly by the visual representation than by descriptions or just looking at the numbers.
One of the most important, and probably most familiar, that illustrates the points Thom has made is one that shows the disconnect between productivity and labor. The productivity line goes upward, left to right, at about a near 45% angle for many decades, almost completely monotonic. The line for real wages track productivity perfectly for a long time. Until 1980. Then it goes flat. So while productivity continued (continues) to increase every year, wages have been stagnant for 40 years. Google "productivity vs. wages over time", you'll see what I mean.
This is a commonly shown chart. But there are many others. Whenever you find charts that measure social, economic, or political trends, and which go back prior to 1980, you'll often find similar breaks at a small window around 1980. This happens with almost any economic measure, education, health, happiness, corruption - even average lifespan vs. healthcare spending. It's shockingly consistent.
One of Reagan's worst changes was to education. The thinking ability of Americans has tanked. US citizens will believe so much that is bullshit, and so little that is true, because they are either unable or unwilling to check facts for themselves.
I still consider Reagan as the most destructive president in history. More than Bush even, who started two wars, was in charge on 9/11, botched hurricane relief, and saw the largest economic disaster since 1929. But Reagan set up many of the systems that failed Bush. tRump? He is a weak version of Reagan, just mean and nasty. Reagan smooth-talked Americans into accepting a loss of economic security and their civil rights. tRump is attempting to do the same, by force. But there are 3 more years for him to destroy everything left.
I graduated college in 1973. I lived all this. Minimum wage was $3.50 even with a college degree if you could even find a job during the embargo. My goal was to make $5/hr. We bought our first house in 1978. We got lucky. Mortgage rates dipped to 9% from 12%. In 1981, one week into the air traffic controllers firings, I flew with my infant daughter to take her to see her grandparents in SD. We took off and landed 3 times on one flight because of the air traffic controllers shortage. They installed administrators to do the job, scarey. That was fun. Nixon signing the EPA started all the partisan vitriol in this country along with the Koch family and John Birch Society and they have now gotten the message ingrained that there is no climate crisis and to deregulate all the sane rules put into effect with the EPA. We boomers lived through all this Nixon/Reagan bullshit and it wasn’t easy, but we are still here.
So, it seems that people who come up with supposed solutions and bright ideas and who then sell them as panaceas or as belief systems (neoliberalism, deregulation, small government, greed is good, oil is magic, scorched earth will be fixed in the Second Coming", etc., can make out like bandits, screw everything up royally and then, the more reasonable and cautious people (the true conservatives who appear as liberals) have to eventually take over and clean up the mess. We do have a couple of things going for us. This time they have really, really screwed things up and people are totally fed up, clean, green energy allows people to manage and survive without having to depend solely on dirty fuel, and the government-hating, tax-evading, religious fanatics and elitist billionaires are being exposed as the fools that they are. If only people were not so gullible and easily misled by snake oil (or crude oil) salesmen. When are we going to get to work on critical thinking? Oh, and by the way, it is a skill that must be practiced. A course taught in schools where critical thinking is anathema is an exercise in futility.
The wealthy British Lords were the first economic vampires to latch onto the American colony. The founding fathers to their surprise won the Revolutionary War. They had dislodged the British leeches. The next round was the Southern Plantation owners. The North wanted to end slavery, the South wanted to establish it across the entire Nation. This led to the Civil War. The South had Robert E. Lee, and the North had Ulysses S. Grant. Lee was a genius as a soldier; Grant was a hard drinking bad ass. The North won. Lincon had saved the Nation, and it cost him his life. Round 3 started at the beginning of the 20th Century with the Robber Barons. They almost took everything, then they ran into FDR. He saved America from the ravages of the Great Depression that the Robber Barons had caused, then guided America through WWII. After the war America built the strongest middle class that ever existed. Then came Reagon and neo-liberalism. The share of taxes paid by the rich was lowered from 70% to 24%. Then came Bush with his 20-year war that again increased the deficit. Then came Trump. His ineptitude in his 2nd term has the deficit tied to a rocket. If the American People don't pull their heads out of their ass and stop the wealthy from decimating this planet which will eliminate any chances for future generations to have a livable life we will have failed any chance for a future.
Yep, the notion that Republicans have been the fiscally smart ones is pure myth. Debt through the roof, prices and inflation up, policies that hurt working people over and over and over again. I'm hoping this time, finally, the myth gets put to rest and we the people get serious about redesigning the currently rigged economic system.
Well, Captain my Captain there is a history here. What a great layout of making me understand these things. They can work for you or against you. I, understand. Thanks, Captain.