PDA

View Full Version : In response to Suzanne bringing up the tired old cliché



The Last White Fan
July 21, 2002, 06:00 PM
In response to Suzanne bringing up the tired old cliché

“the rich get richer and the poor get poorer”

suzanne, It simply picking up on a very old democratic party tactic used during the Regan re-election that seems to keep being fed to young minds in less than reputable community colleges.

The deal was that during the Regan administration there was 8 years of economic growth that quite honestly had little to do with Regan, however since the economy was growing there was very little need for social programs of the previous administration, along with massive amounts of deregulation Regan drastically reduced public spending. Ergo there was less of a need for taxation, Regan’s tax plans chose to reward the “rich” well these were the people who were making the economy grow and Regan look good.

What the democrats did was come up with this slogan that said
“The Rich get richer and the poor get poorer”
Well that wasn’t exactly true, they used some funny math to get that statement to work out. They counted the increase income of the richer Americans, as well as the money they saved as addition income, to make the rich look even richer,

For example say if I made netted 1,000,000 after taxes under Regan, and I would have only netted 800,000 under the former Carter tax code in the democrat calculations they estimated that I made 1,200,000 even though I only have 1,000,000 in my pocket.
So even though the rich did get richer they over estimated how much they did increase.

The inverse side of the statement had funny math as well, almost everyone prospered during the economic growth of the 80s, lower income families did have a slight increase in income, however the democrats calculated all the funds that were cut in social programs and subtracted it from the net income of the lower tax bracket in their estimations,

For example say I make 20,000 under Carter and 24,000 under Regan even factoring in the 9% inflation of the time they poor guy was still doing better. However the democrats factored in a loss of $16,000 of POTENTIAL benefits from social programs that were no longer available to American’s. So the democrats reported that the guy with 24,000 had only 8,000.

So by their skewed math “The Rich got Richer and the Poor got Poorer”

Like I said the economic growth of the 80s had very little to do with Regan, but it is true that most American’s across the board did better in the 80s as opposed to the Carter years.

Please keep in mind politicians react to the economy not the other way around, people have a tendency to feel that the economy is a direct result of the actions of politicians.
When the fact remains that politicians actions are a direct result of the economy, sure they can make minor tweaks here and there but by in large do have a great impact.

Now if anyone is interested, during the Carter years, across the board everyone did worse except for the Ultra rich who made MEGA money. This was do to a direct result of the Carter administration’s blunder.

Let me know if you would like me to explain in detail.

Cheers,
LWF

suzanne
July 21, 2002, 07:10 PM
how about this fact:

you are comparing Reagan to Carter. That is highly irrelevant to today's economy, and especially irrelevant to anything we've been talking about. The year 2002 is not 1982, and i'm sad that you are attending a school that is apparently stuck in that time warp.

Fact: Americans were making their highest wages in the 1970's across the board. Even with the inflation being what it was, the poor were in a better position to support themselves, simply because the wages more evenly matched what they could afford. In the course of nearly 30 years, the minimum wage has only risen about $3. This is thanks to the Fast Food lobby. The last time i checked, in the year 1975, a new dependable car wasn't about $20,000. A house wasn't about $70,000+ or more, or at least rent for an apartment in many areas hadn't risen to about $600. Most people didn't have gigantic student loan debts leaving college because tuition was cheap if you went to a public school and the economy was good enough that your livelihood didn't depend on one if you didn't want to get one. The cost of healthcare hadn't sky rocketed to what it currently is, either.

So to make up for all of that, people are getting credit cards and maxing themselves out. I know a teacher who works in the poorer part of town and she says a good many of her students not only have parents who work about 2-3 jobs, but 90% of the students are receiving free or reduced lunches.

Fact: economic cycles generally don't have much to do with anyone who is in office. Wages, tax breaks, and incentives however, have more to do with the administration. Companies are not driven out of business by this, even if they like to make it sound like they are (i work for sales people and they will tell you any sob story they can to make a buck because that's how worthless they are). Instead, what drives companies out of business are: a product nobody wants to buy. Bad spending/investment decisions. Fraud (my current favorite). Bad management.

Instead, what these shit stains will say is that it wasn't their fault. Of course they aren't going to take blame! Like Enron, the upper management mysteriously walks away with millions of dollars even if the company is not worth a dime. But as the pharmaceutical industry well demonstrates, you can take any drug, even if its not necessary for sustaining life, market it as the "miracle drug", put any price on it they want, and they can sell loads of it. Why? Because people WILL pay any amount of money if you convince them they need it, and if people want it badly enough.

Fact: The economic "boom" of the 90's was brought on by a punch of pie eyed investors running out and investing in the dot.com craze. Its not just the stock market that was affected by it, even if most of the people who ended up getting rich off of it were investment bankers who knew to sell it off quickly before everyone else started realizing that most of these companies were crap and had no wares that anyone had any use for. These start ups not only hired lots of people for big sums of money, but they also pumped loads of money into advertising and marketing, and also found new and inventive ways to throw money around. Of course, media reports are highly skewed about this. they make it sound like "everyone" is making huge amounts of money thanks to this new economy, but in truth, as usual, it only benefitted a small group of people, and the ones that didn't lose their shirts in it, the upper management and the corporations who were recipients of this money before the companies went under, held onto the money for themselves, boasting "record profits" while the people who actually worked for the company barely saw any of that money. After all, how can you have "record profits" if you are turning around and giving it to your own employees?

All of that money is pretty much gone.

But anyhow, i somewhat understand where you are coming from. I took Radio-TV-film cultural studies classes. These people had their own ideas as to what was going on out there in the world. They made it sound convincing, but its only a half truth, taught by people who have never actually held a real job and taught by people who have never been in the field. What they do in classrooms is teach you an idea of what was going on if you don't factor the shit stains in, and especially in something like economics because they especially base it in some delusional fantasy world. Do they ever address greed? Fraud? Tax evasion? Human desire? not in any economics classes i took.

NORTHER FURY.
July 22, 2002, 12:03 AM
Yawn.

Fox in the Snow
July 22, 2002, 01:11 AM

The Last White Fan
July 22, 2002, 05:01 AM
> But anyhow, i somewhat understand where you are coming from. I took
> Radio-TV-film cultural studies classes. These people had their own ideas
> as to what was going on out there in the world. They made it sound
> convincing, but its only a half truth, taught by people who have never
> actually held a real job and taught by people who have never been in the
> field. What they do in classrooms is teach you an idea of what was going
> on if you don't factor the shit stains in, and especially in something
> like economics because they especially base it in some delusional fantasy
> world. Do they ever address greed? Fraud? Tax evasion? Human desire? not
> in any economics classes i took.

Pepperdine is an amazing school that has very much real world active people in the class room, not a bunch of people who hide behind publishing jibberish in journals, people who really have made a difference.

Go there if you can, it's so much more than traditional education.

LWF

The Last White Fan
July 22, 2002, 05:23 AM
> you are comparing Reagan to Carter. That is highly irrelevant to today's
> economy, and especially irrelevant to anything we've been talking about.
> The year 2002 is not 1982, and i'm sad that you are attending a school
> that is apparently stuck in that time warp.

No it is very relevant, because there is so much propagana that is being used based on the flakey stats of the 70s and 80s

> Fact: Americans were making their highest wages in the 1970's across the
> board. Even with the inflation being what it was,

This is hardly true, I suggest you check your data with the US dept of labor.

> in the year 1975, a new dependable car
> wasn't about $20,000.

Don't forget inflation, I remember my dad bought a new Chevy Caprice Classic in 1979 for $7000, adusting for inflation that same car would cost $8277.42
So the cost of a dependable car has only gone up $2000, in the last 20 years
not too bad!

check the math yourself

http://www.westegg.com/inflation/

I think if you adjust most of your "facts" with inflation
you will quickly learn, not all that much has really changed

> house wasn't about $70,000+ or more,

Most parts of the US you can buy a very nice home for 70k
the cost of living in a metropolitian are like Los Angeles is the price you pay for civilized society.

> Most people didn't have gigantic student loan debts leaving college because
> tuition was cheap if you went to a public school and the economy was good
> enough that your livelihood didn't depend on one if you didn't want to get
> one.

Yes I agree on that one when I got my B.S. 10 years ago it cost 1/10th of what I am currently paying to get my MBA at Pepperdine. $850 a unit is completely insane, but then again... You get what you pay for

> The cost of healthcare hadn't sky rocketed to what it currently is,
> either.

My company pays for my insurance, doesn't yours?
I really have no pity for people who didn't pay enough attention in school and cannot find a job that pay bennifets. Jesus even starbucks will pay your health insurance.

The US stock market is a pimple on the global economy.
You should be more worried that Dick Cheney is doing everything he can to devaule the dollar...

LWF

Billy Budd
July 22, 2002, 11:59 AM
Oh yes and its so important to spell that bastards name right isn't it, I have so lttle respect for the man, I would deliberately spell his name wrong, its about time I switched on the news to hear he had keeled over and died.

Ken Dodd
July 22, 2002, 04:22 PM

Fox in the Snow
July 22, 2002, 10:52 PM

Fox in the Snow
July 22, 2002, 10:56 PM

Fox in the Snow
July 22, 2002, 11:07 PM

Fox in the Snow
July 22, 2002, 11:09 PM

Fox in the Snow
July 22, 2002, 11:22 PM

Fox in the Snow
July 22, 2002, 11:27 PM

Fox in the Snow
July 22, 2002, 11:38 PM

Fox in the Snow
July 22, 2002, 11:42 PM

Fox in the Snow
July 22, 2002, 11:53 PM

Fox in the Snow
July 23, 2002, 12:02 AM

Go Waves!
July 23, 2002, 03:45 AM