The Reagan Legacy

No offense, but at your age you never had to face the music of living under Reagan's time in office. I'm not going to say the guy was the worst, as living under both Bushes has given me perspective that there could be worse, but he was only helpful for a very small percentage of Americans.As far as your list goes:1. "Stopped run away inflation..."
This he may have done, but it is hard to say at this point whether it was his policies or not. And the effects were not across the board. If you tried to get a college education during this time you were painfully aware of how high inflation was and continued to grow.2. "Ended the energy crisis by deregulating the oil industry..."
I would love to see supporting evidence for this statement. It is pretty well documented that the energy crisis we were suffering up until he took office was MANUFACTURED. There was no crisis beyond greedy corporate execs having power over vital resources, with little oversight. Deregulation of energy rarely helps anything as Enron and Co proved a number of years back in California.3. "Increased the number of jobs in America."
By which I take it you missed out on the depression he caused in the later years of his administration, leading into the first Bush's term. His policies may have increased the number of unskilled garbage jobs, but there was a DECREASE in the accountability of employers for employees (meaning your job was never sure for long), and a decrease in real jobs for which you needed a diploma and earned enough money to pay for your education.4. "Supply side or not, he did vastly improve the way of life for most middle class Americans."
This is if you define middle class as those who were upper middle class and not the rest who down shifted into lower class. How convenient such lines are. I was part of the group that went down. They simply redrew the line and then claimed life got better for most middle class people. Although I will admit for his first term things improved, his second negated the first.(5) "Cold War..."
I do agree with you that he deserves some credit for "ending the cold war", though this ignores the fact that anyone else in office might have helped it's demise just the same or even more. The Soviet Union was crumbling all by itself. What RR did was overcome his public hyperbole to reach agreements with Gorbachev that allowed for its demise without major conflict. For that he stands head and shoulders above the Bushes, and we do owe him some credit.The fact that Gorbachev himself credits RR with helping end the Cold War, sort of undercuts anyone saying the guy gets NO credit.(6) What you did not mention was education. I was a student for much of the Reagan years and he was TERRIBLE for education. His track record on this score went back to his days of governing CA where he ENDED public funded education. The damage he caused was still being corrected when Clinton hit office (who went on to do quite a bit of good for education).Back in those days I was kind of punkish and wore a t-shirt that said "Reagan Hates Me". That's how I felt then, but looking back on those days now (being forced to with all this nostaliga TV going on) I must admit his hate is almost a warm glow of affection compared to the vitriole I felt (and still feel) emanating from both Bush and son.Yeah, I can see why Republicans are looking back to him with such nostalgia. He was the last Republican that managed to do SOMETHING right in office.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

Shoot, I forgot about Reagan's contribution to the AIDs crisis, and the ostracizing of gays by using it as a tool of hatred and fear against them. See the other Reagan "tribute" thread for my post regarding that.In short, part of Reagan's legacy was ensuring that HIV became a worse threat to world health than it had to be. The idea that it was a punishment from god, began with his endorsement of the false idea that AIDs was a gay disease and they deserved the fruits of their lifestyle.Whoops apocalypse. Which horseman does that make him?

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

That was point #6 in the post I made directly before the one you replied to.Let me just say that I actually share your pain. It is one of the many reasons I began wearing a "reagan hates me" t-shirt in college, and why I had to continue wearing cheap t-shirts long after college.Not sure if you got hit with the triple whammy of having your education funding cut, as education costs were tripled, and then graduated just in time for the economic depression resulting from his policies, but even 2 out of 3 had to be bad. I got the trifecta.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

Thanks for that link. I found Koop and Elders' contributions quite interesting.Unfortunately Satcher and Frist came along to put things back into another context. Reading their statements I get the feeling we are essentially right back in 1981-1986 era.I couldn't believe Satcher tried to derail HIV as the issue he should be discussing and bring in abortion. Oh man and what were his efforts at prevention? Going to churches and gospel singers to reach out to the ostracized communities? Where the hell is this guy's head?I can't wait till we get someone as plain spoken or as crafty as Elders or Koop back in charge of the "Surgical Army".

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

Did he actually say those words at some point, or are you just saying he forced them to confront the issue of condom use? If he said those words I'd really have to hang a poster of that guy on my wall.As it is I loved the part of his statement where he said members of the administration were uncomfortable discussing condom use in front of Mrs. Dole, then he said "this was obviously in the pre-viagra days."It was like reading bizzaro-Koop when Satcher started speaking. I couldn't believe his concern was that we make sure we don't offend anyone with science, thus they have to have meetings with ultra-conservatives and ultra-liberals to understand how to correctly apply science. The facts are the facts ya idiot!

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

After a ridiculous job search, I thought I was totally screwed when I finally got stuck managing a theater for not much more than minimum wage.Then all these people from college with great degrees came by and were jealous that I had THAT GREAT job. I was like what the???? Soon afterword I realized I was actually very very lucky to have gotten what I did.I remember even a few years later going to a Chemistry convention and the area for employment had this line that was incredibly long. It was just supposed to be for recent graduates but it was filled with people of all ages and massive experience. One poor older guy trying to hustle for a simple entry position was almost brought to tears as they wouldn't except his resume because it was too long.Ah yes, those WERE the days. Soup lines for the well-educated.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

ehhhhh... no.Did you read any of the posts between me and schraf or understand them?Following the pattern he started in California, he gutted education which stranded countless students who were trying to improve their lives in an economic pit. And then his 'trickle-down' economics theory went dry stranding people without jobs, including those who were now stuck with massive debts.I wasn't trying to say its okay for people without degrees to be out of work.What I was trying to suggest is that it is an even WORSE SIGN OF MISMANAGING AN ECONOMY when highly educated and experienced people are forced into fighting for entry level jobs and scraps of whatever they can get.Any amount of mass unemployment is bad... across the board unemployment is much much worse.I can't believe your sympathy runs so deep you have to try and excuse everything. I suppose if I complained how he was always farting, you'd have to say "yeah but it always smelled like roses."

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

I saw a recent interview with Gorbachev on CNN (or BBC, I can't remember now). The point he made was that although the "arms buildup" argument made by Republicans is fallacious, Reagan had to be given credit for helping end the Cold War and as an extension of this... communism in Russia.He did this by preventing things from escalating beyond hyperbole to actual armed conflict with the "Evil Empire". Instead of avoiding talks with his sworn enemy (which is what Bush Jr does), RR would go ahead and have meetings and work with Gorbachev on COMPROMISES (something else Bush Jr has no conception of).Now personally I believe that the credit Gorbachev gives RR is a little too much. As your link showed, it is unlikely the arms race did anything positive and perhaps worked to slow change in Russia. And RR's hyperbole at home certainly did not help build bridges between the nations... same goes for his funding of other entities that fought the Soviet military (as in Afghanistan).So while he managed to avoid the pitfalls his other actions caused, it can be reasonably argued that someone else may have been able to do a much better job than RR by not creating the pitfalls at all.The Soviet Union was crumbling anyway. We can be thankful RR kept things from exploding (ie it could have been worse), but that to me is a job done right (and he gets the cred), rather than a job well done (so he shouldn't get a medal).

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

Just so's there's no hard feelings, you came on after I left for a time, but when I cam back I've liked a number of your posts.Your last two posts attacking me so virulently in defense of Reagan seem out of character, and thankfully or me they are wrong. Or at least, inaccurate. Here's a two-bit lesson, don't act like you know more than your opponent, when you have no knowledge of who he is. I have worked in the US government and know quite a bit how it functions... apparently more than you... whoops!You'll have to point out where I said that the Democratic Congress had NO responsibility for the trainwreck that was the 80's. Go on and show me. See I'm an independent. I hold ALL members of government responsible where the responsibilities lay.All I did was shoot down the idea the Reagan did all these things that were attributed to him. What I really love is that (as crash has already pointed out) you rush back and forth saying his responsible and he is not responsible, depending on what suits your argument best.Given that RR and all the Reps take credit for the early 80's economic boom, it seems more than laughable how they don't take credit for the bust.If RR and the Reps were really against the budgets which were passed they could simply not have signed it. You may remember that that is EXACTLY what Clinton did in order to force the congress to bring him a better budget. Not sure if you worked in the US government during those times, but it was bizarre as entire agencies (including my own) were shut down during his stalemates.I know Reagan could beat the commies in Russia, but not the Democrats in Congress... raspberries! Oh custard. How I wish I had gone to a cheaper school! Yet that does not reflect any understanding on your part of how this all worked. Once everything was cut, and in some cases it was dramatic, many (like me) were forced to continue school but now use more loans at much greater rates, or quit and immediately start working to pay back the loans they already had.It was essentially a national bait and switch, with college costs increasing well beyond inflation every year.By the way, eventually I did go to a cheaper school. But the damage was done. And before you cut RR some slack on this, he was a MAJOR proponent of cutting education funding. I am unsure how you cannot be aware of this fact, especially if you are from CA. No, why don't YOU show me the data proving he stopped the "energy crisis" through deregulation. This was asserted before without any data and I pointed out that it was not. You should pretty easily be able to look up the facts about the "energy crisis" at this point and you will see it is widely acknowledged as having been manufactured (and no not by some vast conspiracy... just more assholes like Ken Lay).In fact, I believe somewhere at EvC I have already posted a link on energy deregulation studies done by the gov't and in it the US gov't itself says the 70's crisis was manufactured. For once I want the shoe on the other foot.You prove to ME that Reagan CAUSED the end of the crisis, rather than it just ended on his watch. I want to see that especially given your stripping the Presidency of any power in deference to the Congress. Uhmmmm... how old are you custard? You really talk as if you never lived through the 80's and early 90's.As it stands I said there was a boom through the early portion of the 80's, perhaps even up till 86. Past that it was a decline into a pretty massive Recession. It was the early boom that put us on top, the slide put us under.Or do you not remember the concerns in the late 80's of Japan destroying us in the high tech sectors and even Bush boo-hooing that we had to turn our industries around? Are you for real? You have no knowledge of the massive shifts in organizations which stranded workers? I suppose Springsteen's "born in the USA" album was popular amongst all those paper millionaires in the rust belt happy to see their jobs disappear. Oh yeah and EVERYTHING Michael Moore says is a lie, too... raspberries.In the town I was living in during most of this period, many many companies went under or shipped away, stranding locals with nothing until the JAPANESE came in to employ them (and let me tell you they couldn't employ everyone).Really, how old are you, or where were you living 83-94? It just doesn't seem to have been in the US. Holy f'n!!!! Okay, do you even live on this planet? Lowest levels? Cable TV, computers, VCRs, DVDs (uh they didn't even have those back in the 80's), cars, and HEALTHCARE?That seals the deal, if I move back to the states I am definitely moving to SF, because it must be a dreamboat. Buddy, visit the southside and westside of Chicago and THEN tell me about how the poor live. Oh yeah, and lets have you visit West Virginia, Kentucky, and Indiana.Oh yeah again, and then go visit the poor in places like Sweden and Denmark. Their poor live better than I did on a government salary! I did give him credit for this. I just don't give him the demigod status being tossed at him on that subject. Are you seriously telling me with all the facts available to you that he actually ENDED the COLD WAR?Like the energy crisis, he was in office when it happened. That does not make him the person who DID IT. Unlike the energy crisis, RR should get credit for keeping things together enough that it never went hot and Gorbachev was able to institute reforms.What I don't get is how you can come off giving him no, or begrudging credit, when I not only said people could have done worse, but that Gorbachev's own commentary ends anyone being able to give RR no credit. How? Please tell me the exact words Gorbachev used which allows you to say RR deserved MOST of the credit. There was nothing like that in the interview I saw. Yes it is. That's why I'm independent. Bush 1 did nothing of noteworthiness while in office.I suppose it was to his credit that he sent troops to check Saddam Hussein's advances. But even the Reps rip him for not finishing the job, and worse still having essentially greenlighted Hussein's advance into Kuwait as well as reneging on helping the rebellion in the south after the war.I don't think Clinton helped the economic recovery. I think the economy started fixing itself. Please let me know what policy he put in place (or was it the Democratic congress) which turned the economy around.Economies go up and down. Sometimes this can even be out of the grasp of those in power (pres and congress). There is no question policies in the early 80's led to the resulting collapse late 80's and 90's. I saw no evidence that any policy was ever put in place to fix this.Clinton did manage to overhaul the education system (college anyway) and was able to pull the government together (yes even with some republicans) to get the government's books back in order. They all get credit for this.I was also with Reps ripping into Clinton foreign policy. So I guess there goes your stereotyping.Bush Jr makes Clinton and Reagan look like diplomatic and economic geniuses. He may make me vote for the first Democrat in quite a while. Heheheh. Of course the freedom of Kuwaitis means nothing, that's why we didn't set them free. Or can you SHOW ME THE MONEY on how the Kuwaitis were freed?If you know ANYTHING REAL about that war, when Iraq invaded the Royalty, who had a long standing practice of abusing their populace as well, fled Kuwait to let their people suffer.Other than a small handful, the rest partied in around the world, until the US removed Hussein's forces from Kuwait. At that point the US kindly reinstated the totalitarian regime over your average Kuwaiti.Had we allowed those within the nation to form their own government, instead of holding them until the original despots returned, I guess I might buy your argument. I was talking about secondary education, not highschool and below. For the college system, the federal gov't stripped grants and scholarships and general funding (which is what pays stipends and tuition coverage), compunding that by letting banks walk all over students. In fact, if you had a loan ~1986- ~1988 you were actually prevented from real consolidation of your loan, in order to protect banks. Not that I'm a big Clinton fan, but outside of the tail end of his term in office, didn't Clinton have MOST people's support? I could be wrong, but I thought that was the case.That said, Hitler had the greatest support German's ever gave anyone. That didn't make his policies right, and that's all I'm concerned with. Uh... didn't I already say this myself somewhere? Maybe it was in the other Reagan thread.Here's something for you to reflect on. In the midst of all of this great wonderful gosh golly economic times he brought to us, was one of the worst economic scandals. Do you remember the Savings and Loans scandal? You know where Republicans decided to have taxpayers foot the bill for corrupt bankers so that people like Bush's sons (who ran corrupt banks) didn't really have to face any hard time?Do you remember that? Do you remember the number of people and businesses taken out by that? Oh that's okay I guess, they all went to work as secretaries for IBM and became paper millionaires!AND AS FOR AIDS. The fact that you can throw a number of dollars around as if that means RR did anything positive for the AIDs crisis, is truly the height of partisan support.
Here is a document Dan linked to in post 14 of this thread where you can read RR's own surgeon general describing his having to trick RR and Company into getting anything done.If that is not enough, please read actual histories of the discovery of the HIV virus. After not funding research enough, Reagan and his administrators wanted to make sure the French did not succeed in identifying the virus first, and had US researchers actively hinder global research. They treated it as if the important thing was getting the medal for solving it first, rather than getting it solved sooner by anyone. The canonization came first, and I simply shot it down. What good this man did was NOT what the author wrote. His contributions were rather small (or perhaps modest is the word) and consisted more in improving morale rather than actual lives.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

Hmmmmm. I'm always one for eating humble pie when I order it, though I have yet to have it served by a side of custard pudding.However, given your having ripped into my "partisanship", boasted your own nonpartisanship, and then to support your argument you supplied graphs from an outdated anti-Clinton report from the Cato institute, I'm thinking some custard is looking to eat his own slice of humble pie.First of all let's get this straight. I am not a Democrat. Neither did I say anything about what the economy was like under Carter. In fact if Carter had died and someone came on saying that Carter was a great President, especially for the economy, I would dispute THAT just as much. In fact I believe I have in some earlier thread.Second I have no position on taxes versus national economy, which was the focus of your link. I am only concerned with how actual policies (regulations and distribution of taxed monies) affect the trend of justice and living conditions for those within the nation. I don't like utopian tax schemes, but do NOT believe raising or lowering taxes has a specific affect (at least not all by itself).There were assertions that Reagan did X, Y, and Z. I simply disputed those claims, pointing out his policies did not solve X, Y, and Z and some ended up having disastrous results despite their initial successes.Your graphs on productivity and economic growth are not relevant to anything I said. I did agree that there was REAL growth during the early 80's, probably up till 86 when things started falling apart. I find it somewhat interesting that you and Cato still seem a bit confused as to how to distribute credit and blame, but I won't dispute that there was growth and improvement in the US from the late 1970's.Even if I were to completely accept your median income graph as representing actual individual WAGES, I could point out it doesn't do anything but shift what I said by a couple of years. This does not remove the culpability of Reagan policies for causing this, unless you buy into the UNSUPPORTED claims of Cato, that Bush's policies reversed the economic climate of the entire nation right out of the gate (including laughably their listing of initiatives passed at least a year AFTER the downward trend had occured).Yeah, for some reason in all of this Cato managed to miss the fact that there were many negative economic scandals toward the end of the 80's, including the S&L scandal, whose effects were felt THEN, even if they didn't get addressed by the Prez and Congress till after Bush was in office.Then again, they also claim the energy crisis was solved by deregulation which managed to smash OPEC, when it was not OPEC who directly gouged the american public. No partisanship in this paper.Anyway, there are some reasons to look at the median income graph with a bit of skepticism, especially as it relates to quality of life of those in the regular middle class and below.First, you will note that it is FAMILY median income and not INDIVIDUAL median income. The graph does not take into account the number of families that had to send previously NONemployed members to work in order to keep the median household income where it was originally. If you want this graph to stick then you will need an individual median income.Of course even income is not as accurate as hourly WAGE. The graph does not capture the fact that in some families people had to work longer hours (including taking on second jobs).Interestingly Cato does address this, but you appear to have missed that little tidbit. Check out Table 1, which shows that compared to both the pre and post Reagan years, the individual worked more hours (in fact many more when compared to the 70's). This tends to support, when looking at the rather small increase in income, that the new jobs being created were not really better, and when you take into account that many families began to have both partners working (remember latch key kids were the new phenomena of the time) those jobs may have been nothing better than schlep jobs.Whoops.And then we can look at what those "higher incomes" had for the average citizen. This is something else that Cato soft-shoed, but you simply avoided (or missed).According to the Cato report you are citing from: Heheheh. Now are you really going to tell me that middle and low income citizens were holding all those "assets" which ended up increasing, and so Cato says we don't need to worry about the loss in savings?The picture being painted ought to be pretty clear by Cato's own findings, even if one leaves out the fact that many families began adding income earners just to stay afloat. People in the middle class ended up working more for a bit more money, but in the end were unable to save as much, though those who were able to afford certain capital assets, were able to offset their loss in savings through capital gains.In fact, Cato goes on to ADMIT that job WAGES did go down, but as usual tried to explain what that means away... What Cato is saying is that AVERAGE benefits and compensations granted to workers rose, and that offsets the real dollar drop of the average wage. Of course what they do not bother showing at all is whether those with real wages dropping are having benefits added at all, much less to help increase the total AVERAGE benefits and compensations Cato uses to say it all evens out. Most lower income and middle class nonUnion jobs do not have great benefits and compensation packages.Whoops.I guess the only thing which I have to agree with the Cato paper on, though you did not bring up and does not affect our dispute, is that everyone including the lowest classes did improve relatively to where they were in the 1970's. The fact that the Rich gained wealth at a much greater rate, and the middle to poor had to work even more than they had in the past, I guess can be seen as neglible by certain types... certain partisan types.As far as inflation goes, I am a bit confused, though again it doesn't matter to anything I said. According to the Cato figure 5 inflation began going down during Carter's administration (or at least during the last portion where his policies still held sway). And while they did go down at first, they seem to follow exactly what I described as the general economic trend during RR's time in office. Everything was fine until 1986, and then it went back up.While I get that this indicates the 80's and perhaps RR was better in general for the economy than Carter and the 70's, how does it show that RR's policies did anything other than what I said? Things started by improving and then reversed and deregulation and lack of oversight and the hope that money would trickle down came back around to bite the average guy in the ass.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

Uhmmm, I didn't. You acted like you were giving me some bit of knowledge about how the government works. Oooooooo. I knew this, and apparently more than you regarding how the President and Congress are responsible for the policies which get produced.As I have said repeatedly, both RR and the Congress get the credits and blame for things that happened during the 80's. The Congress does NOT get the credit for managing things with Gorbachev, because they were NOT involved.I'm still unsure why my initial crediting of RR for helping end the Cold War, yet placing a cap on deity-hood for it, keeps getting thrust back at me as if I said he gets no credit. You missed the point. This shows that a President cannot be separated from the Congress when talking about policies and budgets. You have tried to argue that some policies were Congress's and not RR's and they should get the blame. I am arguing they all take credit/blame.Is this unreasonable?As far as asking for evidence... I wrote my piece (and posted it) before I saw your post with evidence. Bad timing on my part. I have addressed the evidence you presented (in my previous post). Ahhhhhh yes, the armchair ideological general. I should have just quit school and somehow got this great paying job that could not only start paying off the initial loan I took, but also allow me to save for school later!Too bad even your own source indicated that I could not save sufficiently. Boo hoo.Hey, I don't blame Reagan for my entire life pal, but it was a terrible time for everyone who suddenly had their funding cut and tuitions raised. This was a result of HIS (and republican) policies, which he started in California.Guess what? I did deal with it. That doesn't make it better, and your BS about having to win the cold war while fighting a depression is ludicrous. Even according to the stats you presented, his taxes (if he had kept them high enough to back grants and scool funding) would not have affected either. Got it: anecdotes work for you, but not for me. Well I'll tell ya that you got me on that anecdote anyway. I was not there personally. Would friends who live in the region count? How many do I have to have before their anecdotes outweigh yours? Freedom is relative. Boy that just brings tears to my eyes.Let me put it this way, freedom is NOT relative. You have it or you don't. They didn't have it under their original regime, then they got taken over by a worse regime, then we freed them, and then we put BACK IN PLACE the original regime. They were free when they had the ability to choose their own destiny, and we took that away.But your quote above is really great for a guy defending RR. Can you please explain why RR was correct in backing Hussein and sending aid so that he could oppress ordinary Iraqis? Or was that freeing them relatively from Islamic Fundamentalists Iran?Oh yeah, I got friends from there too. You got some great Saddam stories you want to share for why the Iraqis were better off from Reagan's policies? I'm definitely NOT an expert on economics, but I do know enough that it (like most things that are active) move to equalize drastic shifts. Remember, markets go up and down up and down all on their own. Your own article blasted Bush for not doing anything right and in their eyes caused the bust, and Clinton did nothing to help. So uhmmmm... why are you ripping me if that is the same conclusion a source you cite came to? I was talking Reagan, not Bush. And if you think the S&L scandal was about poor investment strategies... sheesh. If there was proper oversight AND CORPORATE ACCOUNTABILITY the S&L fiasco would not have occured.One could argue that there was a bit of naivete at play here. Everyone trusted the markets and growing wealth through corporate activity and so could not conceive of how something that bad could happen. I call that poor policymaking.By the way, Bush held off dealing with the S&L problems until after the election, and those involved (including one son) were not prosecuted as they should have been. That did not send the right signals at all, which is why corporate crime continued to grow as a hot way to make money. Oh yeah, I guess it was just gee wonderful in that sort of relative way you were talking about.Of course it had some impact which was SLIGHT. It was not what was NEEDED, and HINDERED progress. It also took a lot of work to get that out of him.Maybe an analogy would help. A cow tips over a lantern which starts a fire in a barn within city limits. The mayor says, serves people right for having cows in a barn, and only lets one old engine out to fight it, despite the fire chief and several firefighters screaming for more. After several blocks are gone and it looks like its about to hit a street his friends live on he sends out the bare minimum his fire chief is asking for. Then it is evident it is further out of control and he says he'll do what he can, but within limits.Well yeah the mayor helped, but the result was a fire which took much more property and lives than it ever should have if the mayor had been diligent in his duties. It gets worse when you find out he didn't allow engines to come in from neighboring towns because it would look bad for him.Yeah, do some research on HIV. You could start with that link to what the Surgeon General said, and he was being diplomatic! When a plague starts one has to take steps immediately. I suppose it is more accurate to say his policy making on the issue endured HIV became worse, rather then RR ensured. I'm sure he wouldn't have intended to make things worse. But by his own statements at the time it was clear he was not interested in making things better, not until it was clearly an issue beyond just the gay community. Uhmmm that would be ridiculous, what's more ridiculous is your assertion that I claimed such a thing.How many times do I have to say that he gets credit for his work with Russia to end the Cold War, and that there was an economic boom?I'm sorry that the economic thing only worked for so long and then started to fall apart toward the end of his term. Maybe Bush made some things even worse, but the economy was starting to change and tank within Reagan's term which is seen in your own link (as I pointed out in my last post).I suppose declining wages and unemployment may have hit the area I was living in sooner than the rest of the nation as a whole, and so I pictured it as having started a tad sooner for everyone else, but again it's like missing the fact that a plague was starting to enter the US population.Things were starting to go bad within the US before Reagan left office... as a result of his policies, not Bush's.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

That slice of humble pie is sitting in front of you custard. It looks more foolish for you to pretend it doesn't exist, than to simply eat it. and "Failed to prevent a great many deaths" and "many more people died from AIDs... than might have if the RR administration had been more responsive" is different from "ensuring that HIV became a worse threat to world health than it had to be" in what way, exactly?If it makes you feel better I'll "change" my worded position to yours (specifically those two statements).I really really hate semantic games.And by the way I DO hold the rest of his administration responsible, including many DEMOCRATS that were in Congress. Your continued insistence that I pin everything on one single man is galling since I've already said otherwise.The subject OF THIS THREAD was REAGAN. He was president at the time and so the leader... the chief executive... of this nation. This means that he takes a bit more heat for failures just as he gets more accolades (including from you) than others. And since HE and NOT OTHERS were the subject of this thread I was addressing his role in creating a legacy of a greater epidemic.And as it is his role was large. It was his responsibility to be taking care of the nation's business, part of that responsibility was accurately assessing threats and making sure his administrators were not hindering him from getting good info to make those assessments.It appears you still haven't read the link given to Koop's statement about RR and the administration he was running, and the damage it caused. Either that or you are going to sweep its indictment under the rug, with a very partisan "well he could have done more but how could he KNOW?" excuse.In addition, and something I have discussed before, is his contribution to the "homophobia" issue you keep raising. Reagan contributed to that atmosphere of fear and hate by allowing his friends to openly blast gays and link them to AIDs even when the evidence was firmly against such things. He never took the role of leader to prevent those vicious attacks that made everything worse, and as Koop said, helped create the violent atmosphere we have today toward gays.Even if Reagan wasn't certain about the amount of money to put toward the threat, it was irresponsible not to condemn the outrageous claims of his... let me repeat again... POWERFUL FRIENDS. By letting that stuff slide it gave the impression that the administration backed the accusations.In the context of this and the other RR thread, that point becomes even more important. No one was supposed to speak ill of the dead, and people came to his defense, but where was Reagan's coming to the defense of those dying of a terrible disease when FALSE public commentary was against them?He failed as a leader all over the place on this issue. More people died than were necessary, and it didn't take 20/20 hindsight to have done a much much better job, including defusing the rising anger against gays.So if you want me to blast the roles of others in this, you just start any old thread you want on those others. This one is about Reagan's legacy, and if he gets the "legacy" credit for things like the Cold War and economic boom, he gets the "legacy" ball and chain of the worsened AIDs crisis, and economic crash.By the way, the way the US treated the AIDs crisis did effect the world. It was a world crisis even before it hit the US. Its just no one knew about it until those in Europe and the US detected the incoming threat. It was at that point that any credible leader should have realized (history points to this again and again) that plagues are world issues, not state ones.He assbacked that end of the problem as well, and it was only him that had the responsibility for handling it.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

No, I put your exact quotes right before the sentence I used edited portions in order to point out they effectively said the same thing as mine. I included the FULL QUOTE before the sentence in order to show I was not quote mining.If you want to pretend that my editing out superficial aspects of the original quotes (while actually including full quotes so people see the original intent of the quote I am using) is quote mining, well that's just ad hominem by me.Feel free to use the full quotes against my full quote. I want to know how they are different besides semantics.Oh yeah, you said "US" and I said "world".#1... if more people were dying in the US as a result of the policies, how could they not be dying in greater numbers elsewhere? Research and policies were needed and only the US and Europe had the capabilities to spearhead this campaign.#2... when a US scientist (Dr. Gallo) decided to create a science fraud in order to get credit for discovering the virus, he actively undercut world research and the Reagan administration backed his claims and worked to support him even though it threw off world research (confusing people about possible strains) just to ensure the US got credit where it was not due. So yes, his administration was actually responsible for undercutting world research.If you need info on any of this, just google on AIDs virus discovery France and Gallo... I'm sure you'll hit something. Or get a good book on the discovery of the AIDs virus.I'd recommend "And the Band Played On" but it IS semi-fiction and I'm sure (given your yen to quote Cato Inst, yet discredit Michael Moore, you wouldn't trust it). This confused me for a while and then I realized that you were the one making a mistake. I suppose I could have included your quote about hindsight, but I simply addressed that subject instead. If anyone could possibly take from the quotes I included that your post agreed with mine, then I apologize as that was not my intention.I was merely pointing out that there is little difference between a legacy which ensured more died than had to, and having set policy which meant more died than would have if they had done a better job (hindsight or no). The end result is that more people died than would have if better leadership had held sway.And as it stands your hindsight argument is bogus. While yes today we can see some things more clearly, it was clear to many physicians at the time (including his own surgeon general) that measures needed to be taken.But let's clear the field here on something because I am definitely NOT LIKING a trend in your posts. You built a strawman of my position from the very beginning and continue to act as if you were right.FROM THE BEGINNING I have felt that the Prez and Congress share credit and blame for almost all events which take place during an administration. In many cases the prez takes more of both to the degree that it was his personal policies that shaped any particular national policy.I never said otherwise, and never meant to suggest otherwise. I am NOT a democrat and so have no care who gets blamed (or credited) for what.I did not come on any of these RR threads and just start ranting about the guy. In each thread I came on to address POSITIVE CLAIMS of CREDIT that not only had no backing, but are pretty inconsistent with anything but base propaganda.Now you can feel free to poke fun at my not presenting any data to you, including your unwillingness to page through material I present as if that means I am not presenting supporting evidence for my position.But I don't like your misrepresenting my position.So let's review... it seems like we'd agree that Presidents and Congresses take near equal blame or credit in proportion to their work on any policy, for the result of that policy... right?Let's acknowledge this and remove it from further arguments.On policy credit/blame:I believe RR worked on the Cold War (spec. negotiating with Gorbachev) more than Congress, and so he deserves more credit for that than members of congress. My ONLY limit on this credit is that he did not do anything to make the SU crumble (which some claim), and he did some things which hurt the process (and so he could have done better... though he did good enough).If someone wants to present real evidence which proves the harder claims, then I'll take a look. I believe some have already presented counterevidence and I will also suggest looking up Gorbachev's own assessments, which can be found on CNN (transcript should still be on site)Economics I will get to in my reply to your other post (it should follow this one).AIDs policy, especially as it grew to include anti-gay climate, is more his responsibility than members of Congress. It was his cabinet that mangled info and he personally allowed phobias and fallacies to go unchallenged. Kind of a Nero fiddled while Rome burned deal. But I will agree that the Dems didn't do too much either... does that make you feel any better? In the end Reagan left a legacy for AIDs in the US and the WORLD and it was bad.As far as evidence goes... like I said you can look up the history of its discovery, including the Gallo controversy. I'm not sure why reading the entirety of Dan's link would hurt you (it's pretty interesting stuff actually), but might I recommend scrolling through the TRANSCRIPT till you see Koop's name? I don't know what page it starts on, but I found his name pretty easy when I first looked at it.You can also look into one of RR's official biographers who has admitted (though I forget the title of the book or article now) that RR was "asleep at the switch" on AIDs. I believe his last name is Cannon.Then again, I'm still a little non-plussed that you pretend like the evidence is not present in Dan's link, when it's been talked about by others and you refuse to go look for it. That's a little odd isn't it? If that doesn't cut it, just imagine what looking back from 2004 and saying he didn't ef up, especially knowing now what we (and he) knew then.Just to make sure you understand something. I am under NO illusion that HIV would be cured by now if RR had done something different. I suppose it could have been contained, though admittedly many including Koop may have stopped that from happening.But there is no question he displayed no leadership and allowed its impact to grow beyond what it should have had, including its synergistic effect of breeding more hate for gays which made people ignore AIDs which made etc etc.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

I just wanted to start with this little circle jerk so we can stay on the right mood.I don't really mind if you get ascerbic. I don't get offended with tones or hyperbolic language as I view this type of thing as not "real world". My only concerns are a person actually deal with facts I present (and it is fair to say I am not presenting any documentation) BEFORE name calling, and that a person not continually address a strawman and insist that is what I believe.I actually like your writing from other threads and so I go into all of this respecting you and meaning no disrespect. Heheheh, I still don't understand how you cling to some of your positions (or came to them since you seem so reasonable), but that's what the world is like.Okay on with the freak show... You are correct that I am not doing a good job of presenting counterevidence, or positive evidence for some of the blame I am heaping on poor RR (AIDs excepted as some good stuff has already been presented).The main reason is that RR is not that interesting to me anymore, and I do not have any links or book credits readily available on the subject. It does irk me that not three months ago I threw out a book on white collar crime which had a whole chapter dealing the oil crisis... but I realize you can't take my word that I had a book which backs me up.Neither am I in the mood to spend vast amounts of time looking through materials to prove the position I have taken on his economic policies.However, I am fine with perusing info anyone else cares to provide PROVING that RR's policies solved this or that. In truth, I feel more justified asking for proof he did something, than others asking me to prove he didn't. After all I was more intending to call BS on the claims being made, than to extend them into further criticism.I realize I did though, so I guess I'll eat my slice of pie for that. Yeah, if anyone wants to disbelieve my positive statements that RR should be blamed for policies which fed corporate irresponsibility and eventually led to the degree of economic bust we had... that's fine. I guess people can even say he never cut education if that's what people really want to believe (though that would be odd as you can find it in his speeches if you look).MMmmm... mmmm... oh yeah, delicious. And I guess I'll even eat a slice for my misunderstanding the nature of what "deregulation" policies were being attributed to Reagan as having helped "solve" the energy crisis. On further reading (a Cato paper nonetheless) I found that there was evidence that some of his policies helped remove impediments to the oil markets.In my defense I believe the term "deregulation" was a bit of an equivocation, or easily misunderstood as those policies are not the same kind of "deregulations" people are talking about with respect to energy industry today. Thus I thought you and they were talking about one thing, and it really meant something else.Also in my defense on the energy issue... the one bit of counterevidence I will present... here are three links (1 , 2, and 3) which examine the history of the 1970 energy crisis.The first two show oil prices and present an outline which to some extent supports the idea that RR's initiative are what ended the crisis. However, I think if you look at the details of the timeline and read the third link on the history of percentage sharing between producers and sellers (so Arab and US companies) you may notice there is reason to question that RR solved the oil crisis.First of all there are several historical events outside the US which removed domination of prices by certain Arab nations... setting the stage for their lowering anyway... right at 1981. Second, percentage sharing was set to peak at 1981 (as contracted between Arab and US companies) and so incentive to raise prices was there up until 1981. All of these could explain what happened post 1981, perhaps more easily than RR's deregulation (though that would help to some degree in reducing prices from inefficiency).This of course does not address gouging by industries and I am sad to see the graph did not include PROFITS by US corps during this time. I claim this was also bad, but I have nothing to actually show and so people can disbelieve as they will.As far as the rest of the economic stuff goes, it is up to people to show some evidence that RR's policies did what people claim they did.In your defense you did offer a Cato Institute study which purported to show how great RR's supply side economic and tax reform policies were for the nation. And you did a good job presenting their data which appeared to support your position. As its stands I readily admit there was a broad growth in productivity and the general economy through the 80's as a result of RR's policies.However... and I think I did not make my point clearly enough... productivity and general economic growth does NOT translate to better living for everyone, especially when the quality of life diminishes relatively between top earners and bottom earners as well as what one had before and what one has now.Not only did the study's evidence contradict your position (and ironically their own) and so do not support your positive claims, I feel like I can use it as evidence for what I was saying. Actually I don't. The claim being made was that there was all this growth of great new jobs... which is why unemployment went down. I pointed out this growth was not real as eventually the jobs were no more than schlep jobs.You countered that this was not true and pointed to the median family income. Unfortunately as I pointed out, the authors themselves admit that the actual wages decreased significantly. Their only defense was to then add in average benefits to say average wages increased.But that should obviously not work. You cannot take AVERAGE benefits which apply to all levels (and MUST get skewed to the rich as all graphs show it was the wealthy that grew in salary above the poor) and simply add it to the AVERAGE wage decrease as for a REAL WAGE that probably means nothing.As wages DECREASE the level of benefits offered, much less in amounts given, rapidly decrease. You mentioned 401K plans, these simply did not exist for most low level workers until the 90's. Health insurance? Get real.So this is really disingenuous. Benefits increased more for those whose wealth was increasing to a greater degree and were already earning more than the middle to lower class. The mid to lower class jobs which already did not pay much, while perhaps growing in numbers, decreased in what they paid out INCLUDING BENEFITS.I might add that for a person with mid to low wages in a growing economy, one does not easily live on BENEFITS, and I find it highly suspect when people who advocate less taxation because people need to control their own money would turn around and argue money is better spent by the company for the employee than by handing it to the employees themselves. Heheheh. The seventies were NEGATIVE .5, while the eighties were POSITIVE .8. That means while people gradually worked less during the 70s they ended up working more than just 41 hours.Then again this stat really means nothing. While it shows people did work more it does not actually say how much more, and how much more according to income level. You will note that Cato conveniently chose an obscure measure of hours worked by dividing over the entire population of available workers. Well how the hell does that tell you anything about the LIVING AND WORKING CONDITIONS of the MID to LOWER class.Aren't you curious why they used averages and medians and no income breakdowns with no real consistency OTHER than when it provides a nice statistical picture... or allows them to make a "hey it looks bad, but remember this other stuff" commentary.The real picture has to be kept in mind here. Look at what the stats or other evidence DO show. While the economy was growing, the money was shifting towards the wealthy faster than to the poor, making the poor relatively poorer than where they were at before even if the entire economy increased.In order to get the increase they managed to get they admittedly had to work for lower actual wages. That meant longer hours, or more jobs, and to possibly have more family members begin working. That is what MUST account for the rise in median family income, or I would like to know what you think could be the answer as BENEFITS ARE NOT INCLUDED in the estimation of family median income....This is where you have to start eating because there is no alternative interpretation of the data once you look at all of these things together. Yeah, and just like comp you don't just get to "assume" them into being. You notice this also does not appear in any documented table, especially broken down by class. You were the one that seemed to understand freedom in terms of relativism. Now picture this, you work longer than you did in the seventies for less money and end up saving less, while those that make more work less and end up having their salaries and benefits go up even more than your do over time.Oh yeah and in the mean time, what chances you had at an education... so you could try and get any of the higher paying jobs that were being created... gets cut so you can't go to school or you are forced to take out loans at higher than normal rates.Relatively your quality of life goes down.It's sort of ironic that you punk on socialism when true socialist nations (scandinavian countries) maintained a much higher standard of living than the US, and the rich there were still pretty well off... improved even. Maybe this was my error in not making it clear I was refering to INFLATION (seen in figure 5) which appeared to mirror my statement about the general economy. Look at that figure again if you must. Starting in 1986 inflation and all the rates started climbing.Obviously that kind of puts into questions that his policies were what ended inflation, if in fact inflation began again and climbed and you will note hit its height at the end of his term (or shortly after). I know Cato and RR apologists like to throw everything on Bush,but he didn't retroactively cause interest rates to go back up.Indeed the actual INFLATION RATE can be seen coming back down before RR's years (make sure not to confuse inflation rate with prime rate). If you have an explanation for how RR managed to turn them around without having even set policy according to Cato, you let me know. Again, they admit that actual wages went down. Their only defense to the criticism that this meant garbage jobs were what were being created, is to simply STATE that AVERAGE BENEFITS, which have NO CONNECTION to median family income made up for this issue.It is you... or Cato... which must provide better stats to justify the unstated but necessary premise that the bulk of the benefits went to those of the mid to lower income earners. That seems fallacious on its very face. You are right, the economy only started crumbling under Reagan and did not enter a full recession under Bush. The warning signs were ignored.You are playing semantic games when you pretend there is a difference between a depression and a recession. Hmmmm what was that joke? If you're out of work it's a recession, if I'm out of work it's a depression? Well I will go so far as to agree I haven't done a great deal of getting my own data for substantiation. However, I believe it has been shown that your claims are not only not substantiated by the data, but in reality substantiate my own claims.While I agree that things for the nation improved, when I said people (even the poor) were better off relative to the 70's that was NOT to say that the situation was maintained for longer than 1986, and many (of mid to low income) were relatively worse off at the end of RR's term than at the beginning.I suppose it could be said that all had advantages in a growing economy which were not present in the 70's economy and so it is "fair" to say everyone was "better off". The rising tide does lift all, and lucky people (of any income) can rise more than others.But did the policies create anything more than an artificial rise, for which we would all have to pay later... kind of a storm surge, rather than a real rising tide? I don't think the evidence points to more than a surge.Thank you too for your posts.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

Uhm.... I demonstrated why this was NOT so.But I'll put it to you again. According to Cato's "analysis" the working poor admittedly had to work at LOWER WAGES, and for LONGER HOURS. This means to create that MEDIAN rise, a great many had to work many more hours than just 1-2 extra hours, including taking another job and/or having spouses go into the work force.That speaks to real quality of life issues, despite the real growth of the economy and increased wealth of those who didn't have a hard time making ends meet before Reagan entered office.While everyone's "wealth" rose up, the poor were left behind in a relative way. In a growing economy (especially post '86 when interest rates started back up) you tell me how that makes the poor better off.I should also point out that if you look at the bar graphs Cato used to measure the rise of the water, you will notice some inconsistencies in measurements which pretty well skew the results of what you are looking at.The improvement of the top quintile was measured from the bottom of that quintile. This means that if the top quintile's performance was also relatively greater at the top of that same quintile, the bar is skewed to make it look like the rich got less rich than they actually did.In addition, the lowest quintile was measured from the top. I'm still unsure why they'd have to do that if EVERYONE improved. Again, this can skew the lowest quintile to show a greater improvement than they actually had.Thus Cato cannot wash away the fact that while of course when an economy improves, in general everyone moves up (and indeed I will agree are given more chances to improve their lot than they had before) in this case the rich did get richer and the poor did get poorer. Oh yeah, and when the bust came, it is pretty easy to see who got hit worse... the people with the garbage jobs.I do not understand your willingness to hang on to that study at this point. Well I'm kind of suspicious that you used it in the first place. Perhaps you did not notice, but it was written in 1996 to discredit Clinton's tax and economic policies. Uhhhhhh... now that we're in 2004, we can see that Cato's projections in this study were WRONG.This should not be confused with my endorsing Clinton as some great guy, just pointing out that Cato was wrong.And I really am stunned that a guy that can state Freedom is relative, cannot understand that quality of life is relative as well. Especially in a captialist economy it is relative to the people you live next to, and how well you lived before. On both counts the Reagan years sent the mid to lower classes downward. Come on Custard. None of us have said that, and it does not logically follow from anything we have said.At this point you are simply ignoring the real arguments being made and the evidence at hand to take some sort of mistaken ideological position.PS--- In another post you tell people that if they are poor they have the ability to get grants and scholarships and loans! Since everyone was talking about the Reagan years I will repeat to you ONCE MORE... REAGAN CUT GRANTS AND SCHOLARSHIPS AND LET BANKS RIP STUDENTS ON LOANS. And during that time college costs were also zipping upward in growth that had not been seen before.It appears from your writing that you not only have no idea what poor actually is (if you had a car, tv, and vcr going INTO college you did not come from a poor background), you experienced "student life" and "poverty" at a time that was NOT the Reagan years.I am still a little bit uncertain how old you are, but it sounds like you went to school in the Clinton years. If so, double bad on you for extolling the virtues of Reagan.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)