Reaganomics

[mrbiggs]

This thread grew out of a debate in the U.S. Presidents thread. So...were Reaganomics good? Or bad?

[mrbiggs]

I want to edit the poll options, but I can't. I typed them quickly, so I'ma edit the second one here. You don't have to think Reagan sucks to vote "no." And you can think that Reagan sucks, and vote "yes."

[Inquartata]

Well, there was really no such thing as "Reaganomics". It's just a reductionistic label favored by politicians as a euphemism for a congeries of policies, all of which had been used before in government. I approved of some of the policies and not of others. Overall, the economic stance of the Reagan Administration was far from the worst ever adopted by a President. But I don't think that such policies are as meaningful as, say, those of the Fed Chairman at the time.

I did like "Volckernomics".

[telkanuru]

I'd say 'Reganomics' are basically a term for deficit spending. Then again, no one ever complains about FDR-a-nomics, although the latter increased government instead of giving tax cuts. The fundimental idea is still the same, though.

[gojujay]

Originally Posted by telkanuru

I'd say 'Reganomics' are basically a term for deficit spending. Then again, no one ever complains about FDR-a-nomics, although the latter increased government instead of giving tax cuts. The fundimental idea is still the same, though.

Calling the policies of the Reagan administration Reaganomics was the way some people in the media tried to denigrate supply side economics.

[Inquartata]

Yes, until the much more useful "voodoo economics" was coined.

"Trickle down" was another pejorative one.

[telkanuru]

So many politic ways to say 'we f*ck you over'

[Inquartata]

Give me such a f***ing over again, please!

[scrapinpeg]

The whole Laffer curve thing was pretty funny. Did nobody realize that its axes were reversed?

[Inquartata]

The better to cut both ways.

[Soldier]

Originally Posted by Inquartata

Give me such a f***ing over again, please!

"Thank you sir may I have another!"

[scrapinpeg]

Originally Posted by Inquartata

The better to cut both ways.

Ow ow ow. That hurt my stomach.


Groooooannn...

[Tomas N]

Originally Posted by scrapinpeg

The whole Laffer curve thing was pretty funny. Did nobody realize that its axes were reversed?

Nope, you're the first.

Tomas

[epeeisky]

Reganomics worked in the short term, when it was most needed, but later the policies caused some havoc(nothing overly serious). So I would say Reganomics was beneficial depending on what year you lived in.

[Have At You]

Reaganomics was a 2-step idea. First, cut taxes on productivity, while offsetting the difference in tax revenue with borrowing. Then, when productivity has gone up, repay the debt with the increased tax revenue.

In theory, not a bad idea. There certainly is a tax level which maximizes government revenue -- higher than that, and productivity is stifled and there's less income to tax. And reducing the inordinately high taxes at the time down to those levels certainly did increase productivity. So in the short term, it did work.

But in the medium-term, it didn't work. Not because the theory wasn't sound, but because Reagan didn't follow his own policy. Instead of keeping government spending in check until the debt could be repaid from the vastly improved economy, he ballooned military spending. So the debt never really got under control.

In the long run, it was a success, as it lifted the economy out of the stagflation caused by Keynesian policies, paving the way for the go-go 80s and the booms of the 90s, making even the crash of 1987 a mere footnote to history rather than another depression.

[gojujay]

Originally Posted by Have At You

But in the medium-term, it didn't work. Not because the theory wasn't sound, but because Reagan didn't follow his own policy. Instead of keeping government spending in check until the debt could be repaid from the vastly improved economy, he ballooned military spending. So the debt never really got under control.

Not totally Reagans' fault. Congress wouldn't cut social spending which caused the increase in military spending to have a greater effect. The Left played the justification as greedy Republicons "punishing" the poor by not wanting to spend money on social welfare, preferring instead to give the Military-Industrial Complex the money that rightfully belonged to those in need, poor, homeless, single mothers. Typical, Leftist argumentum ad misericordiam.

I patiently await those arguing, "Well, what about Corporate welfare and kickbacks and, and...". Ad hominem tu quoque

Originally Posted by Have At You

In the long run, it was a success, as it lifted the economy out of the stagflation caused by Keynesian policies, paving the way for the go-go 80s and the booms of the 90s, making even the crash of 1987 a mere footnote to history rather than another depression.

You forgot about destroying Soviet Communism and proving the weakness of command economies.

[Inquartata]

One of my first economics professors told my class that no President would ever take the measures necessary to reverse the higher-creeping inflation-unemployment tradeoff, because they would cause so much pain that he'd never get reelected. Then Reagan did it, and somehow managed to stay popular enough to win a second term anyway...

I read a Tom Friedman column the other day, in which he made the peculiar assertion that Reagan did not have anything to do with the crumbling of the Soviet Union, but that Bush the Elder accomplished it singlehanded! I wonder what he'd been smoking that morning?

[gojujay]

Originally Posted by Inquartata

I read a Tom Friedman column the other day, in which he made the peculiar assertion that Reagan did not have anything to do with the crumbling of the Soviet Union, but that Bush the Elder accomplished it singlehanded! I wonder what he'd been smoking that morning?

Was that the one in which he expressed envy for the Chinese political system, in re the environment?

[Inquartata]

It might have been. I'd have to look it up.

That was another singular viewpoint, but at least he admitted that that one was not seriously tenable.

[Amadeus]

it seems to me that reaganomics is, like communism, perfectly reasonable in theory, but that cannot hold itself up in practice.