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Originally posted by demonk:
CatKnight, you made it sound in previous posts like you did live in California, so I'm sorry if I miss inturpreted your posts. And when I do say the world does not revolve around you, and do me you, the individual. Yes, the world does revolve around very large groups of people, but not just the size of California. More like the entire population of the US, or China, or India. I know it sucks that people are having rolling black outs. Even you said it would take 10 years for new power plants to be built, so what are the people to do till then? Just suffer through the blackouts for 10 years? Shit no! I can guarente you that there will be a lot of people moving when that little bit of insight comes out. And then, suddently, there will be enough power for everyone left. Then everyone will cheer Bush saying it was all his world and legislation. Then, 10 years later, when the plants are finished, and if there there is a Democrate in the White House, they'll start to blame him(or her, you never know) about all the pollution problems and bald babies and whatnot that people always seem to find(I'm not going to bebate what pollution causes, just that people will say these things), so he'll be forced to shutdown these plants in favor of cleaner power. Now he's the big, bad Liberal and a tree huging hippie, right CatKnight?

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hahahah thats funny

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you were being sarcastic, right?

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About the Reagon, Bush shit you've been saying the the Liberal Manifesto threat. The economic boom we had in the 90's was not from Reagon or Bush, or even Clinton. It was because of a lot of technology companies going public. Inversters in general didn't understand them and just jumped on the bandwagon. So, the economy boomed on the back of technology companies. Clinton just happened to be in power at the time. But of course, if a Republican had been in the White House the 90's, then it would be him that caused it in your eyes. Isn't it also odd that at the same time that the technology bubble burst, so did our economy? Hmmm, you think they might have been linked? I think so. But of course, all good things must come from Republicans who where in power 20 years ago, and not from hard working people here and now.

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that was like 2 years ago. im talking about early-mid 90's.

This message has been edited by CatKnight on May 30, 2001 at 10:20 AM

then again, clintonites are hardly going to agree with doing anything that pisses off china or cuba. after all, they're the ones who spent 8 years selling nuclear secrets and super computers to china, and sending little boys back to a life of slavery in cuba.

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kuru
'dancing is the vertical expression of horizontal desire.'
-robert frost

We know why the technology came about. That's easy. The application of that technology came in the form of spreadsheet apps, word processing apps, business apps, factory automation, project tracking, HR databases, calculators, etc. These tools allowed for businesses to slim down their workforce, while still improving productivity. And, that 15 years was probably the fastest business/tech growth period ever, and probably will be ever.

The thing that Reagan's administration did was introduce a bunch of money back into the system. Through trickle-down economics (ie, give money to people, they will spend it and wealth will be created), there was enough of a boon that the technology could catch on and grow.

This wave rode through roughly 15 years (with a minor recession in 1992?) until the internet debacle. That was an artifical consequence of increased numbers of hands in the market, and the speed of information. Prices were overinflated and rightly corrected itself.

What Clinton did is get out of the way, for the most part. Even he couldn't screw up the freight train economy, only tax it a little more. It was a very good decision of him not to tax the internet. Very good.

The same situation came about around the depression. I'm going to screw up the names (because i always do), but basically this: The 1929 economic crash hit. The current president (a Republican... Hoover?) attempted to recover the country by using a sort of Trickle Down economics. That didn't work because it was just too dead. That president got voted out, and the next president (a Democrat... Rosevelt? i might be off by one administration...) brought back the economy by a series of social programs and government work programs and social security and all sorts of other crap... and then, of course, WWII.

So, at times, a conservative approach is appropriate.. sometimes a liberal one. In the 80's, Reagan's approach was appropriate to create an environment that allowed for the technology to bring about a good economy. We've rode a wonderful wave up to 1996 ish (when the world started suffering), and then the artifical late 90's wealth... which I attribute to people's greed.

except for the part about trickle-down economics.

In the 70's and into the early 80's, the economy was stagnant while inflation was going crazy. We had a situation where too much money was chasing too few goods. The country was still very wrapped up in fears about the Great Depression, so the Fed was loathe to contract the money supply until it became blatantly obvious that we were going to have a recession no matter what they did - their only choice was whether to take steps to control inflation or not.

So they hit the brakes on the money supply by jacking the interest rate sky-high. Instead of slowly spiraling down, the economy went into a recession almost overnight. But it also began to recover a few months later. When inflation eased off, the Feds slowly dropped interest rates, raising them slightly whenever inflation showed signs of rearing its ugly head again.

That's pretty much how they've been running things ever since. They try and keep the market running at optimum temperature, rather than letting it thrash around like a wild beast as it tries to right itself.

The Federal Reserve Bank is a prime example of the government doing something right - unless, of course, you think things like the Great Depression are good 'cause it was The Market, Unregulated.

(Yes, I know the FRB was around then, but at the time they weren't nearly as active in managing the economy as they are now. For that matter, they barely knew that the economy could be managed... thank you Mr. Keynes...)

"Trickle-down" economics was a lot of flash and showmanship. Like I said, all politicians try and take credit for a good economy, and blame the other side for a bad one. Post hoc, ergo propter hoc.

they're not controlled under the department of treasury, as the US mints are. it's a common misconception, but the government really doesn't own the Federal Reserve Banks that are operating across the country... at least, not any more so than it owns the "first federal bank" in your hometown.

the last thing we'd need is the largest and wealthiest banking system in america controlled by people who potentially lose their job every four years and do things that are less in the interest of a good economy, and more to just irritate the party that's not in power.

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kuru
'dancing is the vertical expression of horizontal desire.'
-robert frost

I just thought of something to ask. How many of you here would vote for Colin Powel if he ran for president? I've heard aproval ratings on him were around 70-80\% for president. I think I would vote for him, because he is the right mix of liberal and conservative in just the right areas.