Overall economic growth doesn’t translate to a better world. We all still need art and music – or so I’ve heard. But – can we all agree that overall economic shrinkage does equate to a worse world – since people will be starving to death and without homes and stuff?
Homeless rates in America haven’t been high since the 30’s. And the increase in homelessness around Reagan’s time was due to the recession he inherited from Carter. I think this is the source of all these false-phrases about Reagan. Reagan didn’t continue Carter’s style of pandering to the poor so he was vilified by the hippies. His was more of a – we’re going to take our lumps and fix it.
As I stated in chapter 3, Reagan raised the interest rates to curb the inflation that was making everyone bitch-broke. (that’s what we’ll have to do when the Obama inflation hits) According to the United States Conference of Mayors, the main cause of homelessness is lack of affordable housing. So, the policy of raising interest rates might be called a cause of homelessness – since it does increase housing cost.
- United States Conference of Mayors, “A Status Report on Hunger and Homelessness in America’s Cities: a 27-city survey”, December 2001.
Of course, this same policy helped – along with tax cuts – to jerk the country out of a bad recession, the worst one since the Great Depression. So I say that’s a bad argument. Yeah, high interest rates make housing go up. But high inflation makes everyone’s nest egg disappear, which means a layoff can mean a foreclosure – not to mention everything becomes more expensive.
Besides that I don’t know what Reagan did that wasn’t good for homeless rates – specifically the huge amount of job growth and increased standard of living. Maybe you could make arguments about specific cuts, or Democrat policies he wouldn’t employ. I seem to remember some stories about homeless shelters being closed – or something along those lines. That might have been around Reagan’s term and you know the Liberals would have vilified his entire administration over that or anything else. But overall more entitlements were going out – as my last message showed.
I finally found Obama’s graph. The Whitehouse took it down I guess – so I had to find it somewhere else. It was figure 9 on page 11 of Obama’s budget at the start of the year. Also, look at the source. Thomas Piketty is a French socialist economist. LOL
See? Share of total income, as if wealth were a constant. But wealth is not a constant. It’s not something you can simply divvy-up. People make it out of labor and resources. The fact that the top 1% has doubled their % of total income earned doesn’t mean they’re taking it from anyone. It just means they are increasing their own faster than others.
If we go picking mushrooms, and I run around the whole time in my own area picking hand over fist, while you four pick leisurely, when we get back home I might have picked 100, while each of you each picked 25. Statistically I have 50% of the mushrooms. Does that mean I have a greater share of the total mushrooms picked? Of course not. I have 100% of the mushrooms I picked and 0% of the mushrooms you picked. There are still more mushrooms out there and I didn’t push any of you out of my way to pick them – I just picked faster. Maybe I hired someone to help me? Maybe I developed a new technique? Maybe I developed a mushroom detector?
That’s why this dishonest use of the “income gap” is false. In Obama’s budget it was used as proof of disparity, the rich cheating and getting rich off the backs of the regular people following rules. It’s just pandering to popular anger… And why the hell did they need to turn to a French Socialist economist’s graph – ffs?
As for trickle-down and poverty due to Reagan policies, your assertion is false. Poverty rates have come down since Reagan took office. It has cycled, but I don’t see how any of Reagan’s policies could have contributed to poverty. It’s not like he raised anyone’s taxes. And just from looking at the graph it looks to me like recessions cause the up-ticks in poverty – and whatever Reagan did after taking office decreased poverty pretty well and fast.
Poverty decreased from 93 to 89. That’s basically all of Reagan’s term but the first year or so he spent setting up his policies. The rate increased from 89 to 93, which was Bush Sr.’s term. But blaming him would be foolish since the economic policies didn’t change. From there they have trended generally down – the whole time using Reagan’s tax cut small spending philosophy. That’s changing now for the first time since Carter (77-81).
Just a note: careful when looking at Number in Poverty. This rate goes up with increase in population.
Trickle-up is the idea that cutting taxes on the rich will result in more investment – hence more hiring, buying and selling.
Here is a graph of unemployment from 50 to 05. Unemployment went down during Reagan’s term – didn’t go up until the 90’s recession, right along with poverty.
Education, GDP, and standard of living have all come up since the 50’s, dramatically starting in the 80’s, like everything else that positive. So I can’t find any proof for this idea that Reagan was hard on the poor and homeless or that trickle-down doesn’t work. He most certainly wasn’t and it most certainly does.
If you want more proof, listen to some 80’s music or watch a couple 80’s movies. Times were great back then. Everything was an inspiration to do better, the underdog sticking to his values, and so on. I mean, Karate Kid. That’s all I’ve got to say.
Try to be best
’cause you’re only a man
and a man’s gotto learn to take it
try to believe
when the going gets rough (When the things get
difficult)
that you gotta hang tough to make it (to be strong)
History repeats itself
try and you’ll succeed
never doubt that you’re the one
and you can have your dream
you’re the best around
nothing is gonna ever keep you down
you’re the best around
nothing is gonna ever keep you down
you’re the best around
nothing is gonna ever keep you down
Fight till the end
‘Cause your life will depend
On the strength that you have inside you
Gotta be proud
standing out in the crowd
when they odds of the game defy you (When most of the
things in the game are against you)
try your best to win them all
and one day time will tell
when you’re the one that’s standing there
you’ve reached the final bell
you’re the best around
nothing is gonna ever keep you down
you’re the best around
nothing is gonna ever keep you down
you’re the best around
nothing is gonna ever keep you down
(instrumental)
you’re the best around
nothing is gonna ever keep you down
you’re the best around
nothing is gonna ever keep you down
Fight till you drop
Never stop
You can’t give up until you win sometime
(Fight!)
You’re the best in town
(Fight!)
Listen to that sound
A little bit of all you’ve got
never bring you down!
Chorus
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Raging Kitty