For economy fix, Americans pick Reagan over Roosevelt

[Hittanryan]

It doesn't change the fact that FDR was a kiss up to Joseph Stalin. He trusted the Soviets far too much for my comfort.

McCarthy? Is that you? Or has Liberty Prime risen again?

Nobody trusted Stalin, it was a case of "my enemy is the enemy of my other enemy." Ever hear of the Red Scare? Anti-communist sentiments were so high during the 1920s and 30s that there was no way in hell anyone in the West would support the Soviet Union. The USSR was for all intents and purposes, isolated, and for good reason, Josef Stalin was a paranoid, evil bastard.

Then, Western Europe gets its ass handed to it by Nazi Germany, and the US and UK couldn't afford to be so picky with their allies. What would you have done in their position? Back up one of the few remaining powers with a chance of stopping Hitler, or leave the Soviets to be possibly conquered by the Nazis, granting them access to vital oil reserves, agriculture, and manufacturing that would turn them into a new superpower? One, I might add, that would promptly shift its attentions back to the West once more. If you pick the second option, you are stupid, plain and simple.

[Wikkiwallana]

It doesn't change the fact that FDR was a kiss up to Joseph Stalin. He trusted the Soviets far too much for my comfort.

How dare he trust the Soviets, didn't he know that decades after he died they would become murderous oppressors? It's his own damn fault for not being precognitive, obviously.

[Caninope]

It doesn't change the fact that FDR was a kiss up to Joseph Stalin. He trusted the Soviets far too much for my comfort.

How dare he trust the Soviets, didn't he know that decades after he died they would become murderous oppressors? It's his own damn fault for not being precognitive, obviously.

>Implying the Soviets weren't murderous or oppressive under Stalin

[Revolutopia]

It doesn't change the fact that FDR was a kiss up to Joseph Stalin. He trusted the Soviets far too much for my comfort.

That is called keeping a needed ally your ally during a war, Roosevelt died before he could really place any pressure on Stalin without jeopardizing the war effort.

[Farnhamia]

How dare he trust the Soviets, didn't he know that decades after he died they would become murderous oppressors? It's his own damn fault for not being precognitive, obviously.

>Implying the Soviets weren't murderous or oppressive under Stalin

*gleefully rubbing hands together* You know who else was Stalin's ally? That's right.

[Wikkiwallana]

How dare he trust the Soviets, didn't he know that decades after he died they would become murderous oppressors? It's his own damn fault for not being precognitive, obviously.

>Implying the Soviets weren't murderous or oppressive under Stalin

I was under the impression that Stalin was in power into the 50's, and that the worst stuff started after WWII. If I'm wrong, please show me, I would be happy to learn and have my timelines straightened out.

[Anitgrum]

>Implying the Soviets weren't murderous or oppressive under Stalin

I was under the impression that Stalin was in power into the 50's, and that the worst stuff started after WWII. If I'm wrong, please show me, I would be happy to learn and have my timelines straightened out.

This comes to mind. http://www.answers.com/topic/holodomor

[Occupied Deutschland]

>Implying the Soviets weren't murderous or oppressive under Stalin

I was under the impression that Stalin was in power into the 50's, and that the worst stuff started after WWII. If I'm wrong, please show me, I would be happy to learn and have my timelines straightened out.

This is a pretty famous one.
This would apply (though it overlaps with the Holodomar below)
If you "count" it the Holodomar would also apply.
Theseare also mainly pre-WWII events.

[Hittanryan]

>Implying the Soviets weren't murderous or oppressive under Stalin

I was under the impression that Stalin was in power into the 50's, and that the worst stuff started after WWII. If I'm wrong, please show me, I would be happy to learn and have my timelines straightened out.

Holodomor: 1932-1933, famine that killed somewhere between 2.5-7.5 million Ukrainians.
Great Purge: 1937-1938, Stalin being a paranoid asshole.

There's more, but those are two of his worst crimes before WWII. Arguably the Great Purge helped weaken the USSR and was what allowed Operation Barbarossa to achieve its initial success. No one's saying Stalin was a good guy when FDR and Churchill decided to join forces with him (or at any other point, really). It was an alliance of convenience.

[Biop]

Im an American and Honestly think Democracy is a Joke, Look at Rome the Later Republic, with Cesar and his Heirs, They ruled Absloutly, and the empire flourished, Then some nuts came in, that shit, But my point is, Dictators work, as long as they are kept in check or are Just

[Wikkiwallana]

I was under the impression that Stalin was in power into the 50's, and that the worst stuff started after WWII. If I'm wrong, please show me, I would be happy to learn and have my timelines straightened out.

This comes to mind. http://www.answers.com/topic/holodomor

Thank you.

I was under the impression that Stalin was in power into the 50's, and that the worst stuff started after WWII. If I'm wrong, please show me, I would be happy to learn and have my timelines straightened out.

This is a pretty famous one.
This would apply (though it overlaps with the Holodomar below)
If you "count" it the Holodomar would also apply.
Theseare also mainly pre-WWII events.

And thank you as well.

I retract my earlier statements about FDR being criticized for lack of precognitive powers.

[Maineiacs]

Yeah, it was so much more fun living under a senile man who had no regard for human rights or international law.

Yup. Rather him than a socialist cripple.

Way to go, Hath. Doubly offensive.

[Maineiacs]

Im an American and Honestly think Democracy is a Joke, Look at Rome the Later Republic, with Cesar and his Heirs, They ruled Absloutly, and the empire flourished, Then some nuts came in, that shit, But my point is, Dictators work, as long as they are kept in check or are Just

Not sure which is more appropriate here.

[Jagalonia]

No one ever really said that Americans were smart....>.>

[Tahar Joblis]

*snip*

>Ignores facts that tax cuts weren't only part of Reagan's plans
>Gives no sources

No, but they were an integral component. And it is the failure of tax cuts to produce revenue(!) which drove much of the inaccuracy of the Reagan administration's forecasts. Reaganomics' central feature is the proposition that the US was riding high on the Laffer curve and that tax cuts, particularly on the rich, would stimulate economic growth. As we've seen over and over again, it doesn't work that way; it didn't work that way in 1981, 2001, or 2009; and it didn't reverse itself in 1982 (when Reagan passed a significant tax hike, which would then be effective for 1983), or 1993 (when Clinton and a Democratic Congress passed a significant tax hike), both of which were followed by economic growth; and Bush I's tax hike in 1990 (falling heavily on the poor) was simply followed by more of the same, economically, as preceded it.

As described in "The Triumph of Politics," by David Stockman, who was Reagan's "wunderkind" economic advisor, Reagan's economic policy boiled down to "yank government services and cut taxes." The idea was to shrink government. This neither actually happened, as Reagan rubber-stamped anything related to "security" and didn't have the political capital to touch Medicare or Social Security (resulting in no net reductions in government spending), and the abuse of the Laffer curve carried out by his budget team proved empirically incorrect when revenue time rolled around.

If you want hard GDP figures showing that the most precipitous drop happened after Reagan's tax cuts took effect, go to BEA.gov and spend five minutes. If you really promise to listen, I'll roll out and explain what happened to (A) government deficit spending and (B) economic growth year by year before and after the Reagan administration.

It seems to me as if the only thing Reagan did that might have caused economic growth was stimulative spending in the form of massive government projects [military spending] and encourage a budding real estate / banking bubble [S&L crap]. Both of these were beneficial only in a short-term way; one was a classic Keynesian example of paying people to perform non-productive labor, and the other was creating the illusion of growth (financial fiction).

As I've mentioned before on these forums, I feel that Hamsternomics is more credible, empirically speaking, than Reaganomics:

Allow me to introduce, in mono- and bi-syllabic verbiage, the utter simplicity of Hamsternomic Theory, in a reductive list of humorous principles.

Rich people are hamsters.
Hamsters hungry for money.
They will run for money to get more money compared to other hamsters.
When we tax rich people, we put them in hamster wheels.
These hamster wheels do nice things.
Also, they make the hamsters run more.
They become in better shape.
Hamsters will do anything to eat more money.
Even create jobs.
Bill Clinton made them hamsters run faster by putting them in wheels.
So then we all were happy.
George Bush took away the hamster wheels.
Then we all got covered with hamster shit.

Can I have an up or down vote on Hamsternomics vs Reaganomics?

[The Black Forrest]

No one ever really said that Americans were smart....>.>

Trolling effort 1/10.

Seriously, put some effort into it.

[The Black Forrest]

It doesn't change the fact that FDR was a kiss up to Joseph Stalin. He trusted the Soviets far too much for my comfort.

And you base this on what exactly?

Maybe FDR found them to be useful. How much of the German War effort got tied up by the Russians.

Seriously. One battle alone involved 3 million men.

[Pope Joan]

Deregulation was the single worst thing ever done to the economy in the last 90 years.

We are now reaping its bitter fruits.

[Caninope]

>Implying the Soviets weren't murderous or oppressive under Stalin

*gleefully rubbing hands together* You know who else was Stalin's ally? That's right.

Stupid Churchill.

[Caninope]

I retract my earlier statements about FDR being criticized for lack of precognitive powers.

Also, Stalin died in 1953, for the record.

[Vetalia]

I was under the impression that Stalin was in power into the 50's, and that the worst stuff started after WWII. If I'm wrong, please show me, I would be happy to learn and have my timelines straightened out.

Uh...no. Remember it was Khrushchev who dismantled the GULAG system Stalin created; that's not to say there wasn't oppression in the USSR but it wasn't like what went on during the Stalinist era. Not by any stretch of the imagination; in fact, part of the reason the Soviet system collapsed was how lax and corrupt it became allowing people both important and insignificant to steal from the country.

[Rio Cana]

Reagan was the first really good republican.

Not really.

[-Ancient Rome-]

For a second I thought it was Teddy, ironically this is just as bad as anti Teddy to me, FDR was a good man and they want Reagan back? we need to reeducate ourselves and quick.

[Caninope]

As described in "The Triumph of Politics," by David Stockman, who was Reagan's "wunderkind" economic advisor, Reagan's economic policy boiled down to "yank government services and cut taxes." The idea was to shrink government. This neither actually happened, as Reagan rubber-stamped anything related to "security" and didn't have the political capital to touch Medicare or Social Security (resulting in no net reductions in government spending), and the abuse of the Laffer curve carried out by his budget team proved empirically incorrect when revenue time rolled around.

Which is why there was an increasing tax revenue as a % of the GDP during Reagan's term. I would say that the initial drop came from a combination of recession and of the implementation of the Kemp Roth tax cuts, which were soon supplemented by other tax changes. A Joint Economic Council of the House in '96 condoned the ERTA as beneficial to growth, at least in that decade. I'm not an economist though, and I don't feel like arguing, but go ahead and post your argument, anyways. It's always good to listen to other sides. Might learn something.

[Senchi]

Reagan didn't fix it, the 90's boom is what brought the US out of the ongoing 70's-80's Oil Crisis.