Progressive Ideology

[wgdsr]

don't agree at all that one side has had the stick to do something about it any more than the other over time, fiscally included, but just my perspective.

Disagree. We have been using the rightwing approach to econ. for 40 years. The libs didn't invent trickle down....the American right did.

ok. that's your theory. who invented it. it's ok to disagree.

It's not a theory. We've all seen Ferris Bueller and Ben Stein's mention of "Voodoo Economics".

He's talking about the Laffer Curve. He's the guy who came up with the stupid idea of Trickle Down in 1974. Reagan took it, and implemented it.

Not one of the things I mentioned are anything by RightWIng ideas: bust unions, cut taxes on corporations, cut taxes on the very rich.....all with the idea that the economy will boom. It doesn't work, of course.

And there's no way you can argue that a left winger came up with any one of those ideas.

And Reagan is the guy who put the cuts into practice...I can show you a ton of charts that shows that is the moment that dozens of bad things happened. Productivity vs. wages. Income disparity. Net worth of bottom 50% earners. And on and on.....

Not one of these economic ideas came from the left. They are all right wing ideas. I'm not giving you a theory. I'm telling you what actually happened.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/briandomit ... b83fc475ab

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trickle-down_economics

this is the part that you quoted from me:

"don't agree at all that one side has had the stick to do something about it any more than the other over time, fiscally included, but just my perspective"

over 40 years both parties have had ample opportunity to do something about it. imo. meaning... i don't care who "invented it". that's your cause.

[foreverlax]

don't agree at all that one side has had the stick to do something about it any more than the other over time, fiscally included, but just my perspective.

Disagree. We have been using the rightwing approach to econ. for 40 years. The libs didn't invent trickle down....the American right did.

ok. that's your theory. who invented it. it's ok to disagree.

It's not a theory. We've all seen Ferris Bueller and Ben Stein's mention of "Voodoo Economics".

He's talking about the Laffer Curve. He's the guy who came up with the stupid idea of Trickle Down in 1974. Reagan took it, and implemented it.

Not one of the things I mentioned are anything by RightWIng ideas: bust unions, cut taxes on corporations, cut taxes on the very rich.....all with the idea that the economy will boom. It doesn't work, of course.

And there's no way you can argue that a left winger came up with any one of those ideas.

And Reagan is the guy who put the cuts into practice...I can show you a ton of charts that shows that is the moment that dozens of bad things happened. Productivity vs. wages. Income disparity. Net worth of bottom 50% earners. And on and on.....

Not one of these economic ideas came from the left. They are all right wing ideas. I'm not giving you a theory. I'm telling you what actually happened.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/briandomit ... b83fc475ab

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trickle-down_economics

Yup....waiting for the horsechit covered golden crumbs to fall out way.

Mr. David Stockman has said that supply-side economics was merely a cover for the trickle-down approach to economic policy—what an older and less elegant generation called the horse-and-sparrow theory: 'If you feed the horse enough oats, some will pass through to the road for the sparrows.'

[MDlaxfan76]

don't agree at all that one side has had the stick to do something about it any more than the other over time, fiscally included, but just my perspective.

Disagree. We have been using the rightwing approach to econ. for 40 years. The libs didn't invent trickle down....the American right did.

ok. that's your theory. who invented it. it's ok to disagree.

It's not a theory. We've all seen Ferris Bueller and Ben Stein's mention of "Voodoo Economics".

He's talking about the Laffer Curve. He's the guy who came up with the stupid idea of Trickle Down in 1974. Reagan took it, and implemented it.

Not one of the things I mentioned are anything by RightWIng ideas: bust unions, cut taxes on corporations, cut taxes on the very rich.....all with the idea that the economy will boom. It doesn't work, of course.

And there's no way you can argue that a left winger came up with any one of those ideas.

And Reagan is the guy who put the cuts into practice...I can show you a ton of charts that shows that is the moment that dozens of bad things happened. Productivity vs. wages. Income disparity. Net worth of bottom 50% earners. And on and on.....

Not one of these economic ideas came from the left. They are all right wing ideas. I'm not giving you a theory. I'm telling you what actually happened.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/briandomit ... b83fc475ab

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trickle-down_economics

this is the part that you quoted from me:

"don't agree at all that one side has had the stick to do something about it any more than the other over time, fiscally included, but just my perspective"

over 40 years both parties have had ample opportunity to do something about it. imo. meaning... i don't care who "invented it". that's your cause.

Not for nuthin', but it may be that your style of writing left your meaning open to confusion. I'll admit that I read the sentence multiple times and still wasn't sure.

On the merits of the 'disagreement', it does seem to me that the critics of trickle down have been consistently from the left, the proponents consistently from the right. The power structure has been fine with the status quo.

[a fan]

over 40 years both parties have had ample opportunity to do something about it. imo. meaning... i don't care who "invented it". that's your cause.

I understand. And completely agree.

But I think you're confusing Democrats with actual liberals. Liberals haven't had power in this country for 40+ years. They're fringe.

I'm saying that Trickle Down is a Conservative ideology .....and that Republicans started it, and then Dems followed with Clinton and the Obama and maintained Trickle Down.

It's the R's and D's working together that have screwed the American working class. To the chagrin of powerless American liberals.

The irony is that American Conservative pine for the economic status of the 1950's.....and they don't understand that taxation and support of things like Unions and affordable College were the three things that led to the formation of the American middle class. And the economic success that followed.

[Farfromgeneva]

...... but it sure feels like you act more like an advocate who wants their side to have total control and no alternative.

If we're talking economics? The left has had zero---zippo----political power since Reagan arrived.

The right and center right have had TOTAL control of our economy for 40 years. And it's not even a close call. And they---both R's and Ds'------put their faith in trickle down economics this entire time. Tax breaks for multinational corporations, while charging small businesses full freight. Taxing capital far less than labor. Ripping apart unions. Taking away access to 1st world health care. Ripping apart trade barriers that protect American workers. And on and on and on. Pulling even modest regulations on big business and finance away. Moving the tax code in favor of the 1%.

It's not even a close call. The right has called the shots. The left? Totally powerless.

Yet you're worried that one side will have control? Really?

Yes, and you sound shrill in this post.

I guess expansion of HUD (Not good ultimately regardless of intention), elimination of redlining (good thing), the DOE taking full control of and now the direct lender to students cutting out the Sallie maes and a multitude of other things were on the republican agenda. Your comments aren’t correct, way too much hyperbole.

And yes, we still need opposing sides to the debate into perpetuity. Advocates are the extremes and should never have power and can grate on anyone but that’s there job to not be balanced and compromise is the adults finding areas of agreement or common ground.

Of course you’ll redefine Clinton And Obama as conservative in reply which may be modestly true of clinton but that’s only after the fact Monday morning quarterbacking as no one was saying that even in the first Obama term let alone when he was in office. Certainly not true of Obama. In the moment at time everyone thought of Ethanol mandates as a left agenda item (and it was until folks realized the science and math was flawed). Basically there’s a million examples of compromise and left of center agenda items being implemented which you ignore in your comments. It’s pretty common in your statements, but I don’t know how you could defend the complete implosion of any republican or philosophical conservative opposition to a one party system that fundamentally doesn’t trust its citizenship and therefore doesn’t fully believe in property rights, which is a logical end conclusion of a government built on not trusting its citizens and yet is critical to both democracy and capitalism. (Unless one wants complete overhaul into a heterodox paradigm for both governing and the distribution of resources)

[Farfromgeneva]

I'm probably way out of my league in this discussion.

You are 100000% not out of your league here. We're all playing in the pros here.

You're not blinded by stupid BS from politicians----and that's all you need to understand how bad they've been screwing the working class.

And in your State? It's the Dems that have been playing trickle game since the 90's.

And they'll keep playing until the lefties make them stop. Sad, right? Actual conservatives have disappeared, and so it's now up to the left to explain to Americans that you can't let businesses----let alone multinational corporations----not pay taxes, and not have MAJOR infrastructure problems, coupled with higher taxes for the suckers that DO have to pay their share.

Thank you for your kind words a Fan. You as well as I do understand the futility of having to have "empire zones" to try and coerce business to coming back to NYS. Very few people in my state seem to understand how wrong it is to do that. Then very few people in NYS understand why businesses have bailed out of NYS in huge numbers.

I still think local governance is a far bigger problem than state level. At least w respect to Sections 3&4 (sports, includes Binghamton to Watertown and west to Elmira) I’ve seen enough of state congress and local level politicians. Binghamton has signed its own death warrant by handing over tons of land and other freebies to the SUNY Binghamton System. With a aging and dying population that’s decreased for 3-4 decades and legacy pension and related costs plus a bloated infrastructure has crushed the property tax base and now they take a chunk of downtown land off the tax rolls (non profits don’t pay property taxes, state school don’t even pay pilot type programs like many private colleges do). That’s a guarantee that this once near six figure population city that’s now below 50,000 is going to become full on college town of around 25,000 because its unpalatable for younger folks to live there. That’s not a state problem, that’s a Juanita Crabb, Tom Libous Etc problem. Short term decision making and an unwillingness to restructure as the economy and demographics changed but rather pull more college kids into downtown has sealed that fate-not anything they Cuomos and Spitzer did

[Farfromgeneva]

I have no doubt you will disagree, but I would hate a world where there's no option for fiscal and monetary discipline and trust in the citizens who constitute the country. I would solemnly agree we don't have that option currently, but we will be lost if one paradigm that fundamentally doesn't trust it's citizenship controlled all functions of the country.

I can have a debate freely about where lines should be drawn and willing to give often where I even feel somewhat strongly on my position, but it sure feels like you act more like an advocate who wants their side to have total control and no alternative. Is there any limits you'd have in your shangri la type country?

By no means do i feel one party rule would be helpful in any way. Not at all. I was going off on the idea that Dems and Cons are just all the same in the constituencies they aim to help. Gave some examples...in fact, not sure WHERE in my words you see a disposition toward one-party rule?

I DO believe in vigorous regulation. Since there is ALREADY a whole lot of socialism going on, i hardly need to endorse it in any overt manner, but the word - all by itself - conjures all SORTS of wild confusion and mis-information. It's used as some sort of political cudgel. I feel capitalism has a firm place in our society, but fully unfettered, un-regulated capitalism can metastasize into a serious cancer...if only it's practionioners WOULD allow it to trickle down more effectively - more broadly - then OK, let's go for that.

Are you saying you feel that progressives want to "control all functions of the country"??

..

Not this specific post so much as the strong, somewhat vitriol laden approach to seemingly everything that even the “platonic ideal of a true conservative” or republican would believe made em wonder over time if you’d be happier abolishing the Republican Party completely.

[Farfromgeneva]

I have no doubt you will disagree, but I would hate a world where there's no option for fiscal and monetary discipline and trust in the citizens who constitute the country. I would solemnly agree we don't have that option currently, but we will be lost if one paradigm that fundamentally doesn't trust it's citizenship controlled all functions of the country.

I can have a debate freely about where lines should be drawn and willing to give often where I even feel somewhat strongly on my position, but it sure feels like you act more like an advocate who wants their side to have total control and no alternative. Is there any limits you'd have in your shangri la type country?

By no means do i feel one party rule would be helpful in any way. Not at all. I was going off on the idea that Dems and Cons are just all the same in the constituencies they aim to help. Gave some examples...in fact, not sure WHERE in my words you see a disposition toward one-party rule?

I DO believe in vigorous regulation. Since there is ALREADY a whole lot of socialism going on, i hardly need to endorse it in any overt manner, but the word - all by itself - conjures all SORTS of wild confusion and mis-information. It's used as some sort of political cudgel. I feel capitalism has a firm place in our society, but fully unfettered, un-regulated capitalism can metastasize into a serious cancer...if only it's practionioners WOULD allow it to trickle down more effectively - more broadly - then OK, let's go for that.

Are you saying you feel that progressives want to "control all functions of the country"??

..

I agree with a lot of what you write. Used to find it funny when the editor of the nation (Katrina something ill clearly misspell) who scream on a political show round table how capitalism has clearly failed and it’s all wrong to which George Will would reply, that isn’t capitalism we’ve been been practicing this whole time but rather this bastardized form of it so your declaration is dumb in principle. I don’t like a lot of what republicans have done for 20yrs because they’ve not walked the walk. People being scared of socialism are dumb. It’s the wrong path IMO and don’t agree with its advocates mostly but anyone afraid of it should just finish out their lives in a nuclear bunker and leave the rest of us alone.

On regulation, I tend to believe there’s too much and we add too much where existing regulation is already in place but can have the discussion on any individual piece. If you’re interested in hearing the argument for lesser regulation this is a pretty good podcast from about two years ago I’d recommend.

https://www.econtalk.org/dick-carpenter ... leneckers/

Not this specific post so much as the strong, somewhat vitriol laden approach to seemingly everything that even the “platonic ideal of a true conservative” or republican would believe made em wonder over time if you’d be happier abolishing the Republican Party completely.

But I do think there’s plenty on the more far left that would be happy to have total control and make no compromises (just like the right, and frankly, the political class as well). Just didn’t know if that’s how you felt. Advocates don’t care about the other side typically and that’s their job. They’re also typically not the ones to be in the position to execute their vision only get enough influence to cause the change. That power is handed to someone with similar ideals but who is willing to compromise.

[Farfromgeneva]

don't agree at all that one side has had the stick to do something about it any more than the other over time, fiscally included, but just my perspective.

Disagree. We have been using the rightwing approach to econ. for 40 years. The libs didn't invent trickle down....the American right did.

ok. that's your theory. who invented it. it's ok to disagree.

It's not a theory. We've all seen Ferris Bueller and Ben Stein's mention of "Voodoo Economics".

He's talking about the Laffer Curve. He's the guy who came up with the stupid idea of Trickle Down in 1974. Reagan took it, and implemented it.

Not one of the things I mentioned are anything by RightWIng ideas: bust unions, cut taxes on corporations, cut taxes on the very rich.....all with the idea that the economy will boom. It doesn't work, of course.

And there's no way you can argue that a left winger came up with any one of those ideas.

And Reagan is the guy who put the cuts into practice...I can show you a ton of charts that shows that is the moment that dozens of bad things happened. Productivity vs. wages. Income disparity. Net worth of bottom 50% earners. And on and on.....

Not one of these economic ideas came from the left. They are all right wing ideas. I'm not giving you a theory. I'm telling you what actually happened.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/briandomit ... b83fc475ab

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trickle-down_economics

How did all LBJs activities in the 60s fare come the 1970s? And your analysis, which is really conflating coincidence with causality, ignores a lot of externalities, not to mention that by the mid to late 1980s you had a serious surge in retirees picking up post employment defined benefits which crushed a lot of businesses not prepared for it not to mention the general demographic shift in the country by the 1990s. This doesn’t mean any actions by Reagan weren’t dilutive to the country but all these arguments you toss around are just coincidental and really misses the time time lag from policy implementation to influence broadly in a country/economy. They were the right things to do but it was under republicans that the asbestos problem was resolved and Ma bell was broken up opening up the Internet era of the 1990s. It was also under LBJ that Harold Geneen was allowed to work with the CIA to funnel dough and weapons to Latin America. This one side or the other stuff never holds up over time.

[dislaxxic]

Sorry about that. I do sometimes stray into Cradle territory when it comes to throwing out the kind of insult that ties ALL conservatives to the "FRC" fringe types that really DO seem to have co-opted the entire party in the last decade. Old Board members will tell you it used to be MUCH worse in the Shrub days...

How can you see the dinosaur known as the "moderate" conservative getting back to relevance in the party? Seriously, the powers that be in the current party have been steering them down this path for at least a decade...how do you see it changing? Especially in light of the huge number of votes cast keeping republicans in power across the country.

Perhaps a conversation more appropriate for the "Conservative Ideology" thread...?

..

[Farfromgeneva]

don't agree at all that one side has had the stick to do something about it any more than the other over time, fiscally included, but just my perspective.

Disagree. We have been using the rightwing approach to econ. for 40 years. The libs didn't invent trickle down....the American right did.

ok. that's your theory. who invented it. it's ok to disagree.

It's not a theory. We've all seen Ferris Bueller and Ben Stein's mention of "Voodoo Economics".

He's talking about the Laffer Curve. He's the guy who came up with the stupid idea of Trickle Down in 1974. Reagan took it, and implemented it.

Not one of the things I mentioned are anything by RightWIng ideas: bust unions, cut taxes on corporations, cut taxes on the very rich.....all with the idea that the economy will boom. It doesn't work, of course.

And there's no way you can argue that a left winger came up with any one of those ideas.

And Reagan is the guy who put the cuts into practice...I can show you a ton of charts that shows that is the moment that dozens of bad things happened. Productivity vs. wages. Income disparity. Net worth of bottom 50% earners. And on and on.....

Not one of these economic ideas came from the left. They are all right wing ideas. I'm not giving you a theory. I'm telling you what actually happened.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/briandomit ... b83fc475ab

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trickle-down_economics

Yup....waiting for the horsechit covered golden crumbs to fall out way.

Mr. David Stockman has said that supply-side economics was merely a cover for the trickle-down approach to economic policy—what an older and less elegant generation called the horse-and-sparrow theory: 'If you feed the horse enough oats, some will pass through to the road for the sparrows.'

I think Dis got it right replying to me that we haven’t allowed trickle down to function as it’s intended to, but you all know that trickle down is a derivative of only do the earliest theories in macroeconomics called Say’s law right? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Say%27s_law

Like long before many other theories came about.

[Farfromgeneva]

Sorry about that. I do sometimes stray into Cradle territory when it comes to throwing out the kind of insult that ties ALL conservatives to the "FRC" fringe types that really DO seem to have co-opted the entire party in the last decade. Old Board members will tell you it used to be MUCH worse in the Shrub days...

How can you see the dinosaur known as the "moderate" conservative getting back to relevance in the party? Seriously, the powers that be in the current party have been steering them down this path for at least a decade...how do you see it changing? Especially in light of the huge number of votes cast keeping republicans in power across the country.

Perhaps a conversation more appropriate for the "Conservative Ideology" thread...?

..

I never screwed around outside lacrosse threads on LP, thankfully.

I don’t know how to answer your question as a more true libertarian (agree or disagree I truly believe we’d be better off w/o FDIC insurance, mortgage tax interest deduction, GSEs, ag subsidies, etc) moderate Republicans (too much criminalization in our society, ladies can do what they want, more freedoms, less personal oversight). It’s depressing and I don’t have any ideas but I would be much more depressed if it fell apart completely and then we had a one party system and that feels like a real risk right now.

[a fan]

And yes, we still need opposing sides to the debate into perpetuity. Advocates are the extremes and should never have power and can grate on anyone but that’s there job to not be balanced and compromise is the adults finding areas of agreement or common ground.

I agree completely! The problem I am trying to communicate, is that liberals haven't had a seat at the table for 40 years, and as a result, our entire economy has pulled to the right.

You of all people know this. It terms of how our economy works, is America to the right of every other 1st world nation, or not.

The answer is a resounding yes. And why? Because every other country had a strong left that slowly added perqs for their working class over the last 40 years. So they all have health care. They all have government funding education/training. They all have strong unions.

America has none of these things. THIS is what I'm reacting to. You're acting like we're on the precipice of going hard left in America. This is silly. We're nowhere---and I mean nowhere----close to being a lefty country using any metric.

Heck, look at where we were in the 50's. Now how much further to the right are we economically from where we were then. What were tax rates on corporations and the 1% back then? How much did it cost to get an education? How many people were on the road to a pension?

I'd settle for us to move to our economic strategy back then.

Of course you’ll redefine Clinton And Obama as conservative in reply which may be modestly true of clinton but that’s only after the fact Monday morning quarterbacking as no one was saying that even in the first Obama term let alone when he was in office.

Best part about this forum is that there's a record of what everyone said. Or at least there was until Laxpower shut down. That said, disslaxxic and other long time posters will tell you that yours truly was mercilessly mocking the idea that Obama was a liberal during his very first term. And, of course, I was proven correct. But at the time, the right wing of the Water Cooler thought I was nuts. Because Rush Limbaugh said Obama was the biggest crazy liberal ever? Well, it MUST be true.

A liberal doesn't leave our troops in bases all over the world. A liberal would NEVER come up with Obamacare...a liberal would give us single payer just like every other freaking country with any common sense. A liberal would NEVER be against gay marriage in the freaking 2000's. I could go on, but you get my point....

Certainly not true of Obama. In the moment at time everyone thought of Ethanol mandates as a left agenda item (and it was until folks realized the science and math was flawed). Basically there’s a million examples of compromise and left of center agenda items being implemented which you ignore in your comments.

Ethanol mandates were a giveaway to Flyover America. If you want to cloak that in lefty politics....okay. I disagree.

It’s pretty common in your statements, but I don’t know how you could defend the complete implosion of any republican or philosophical conservative opposition to a one party system that fundamentally doesn’t trust its citizenship

You think Republicans/Conservatives trust their citizens? Do I really need to list all the things that Conservative America has done to keep Americans from making their own choices for themselves? You can't be serious.

[a fan]

How did all LBJs activities in the 60s fare come the 1970s?

My comment was for forty years....Reagan came along, and started dismantling the

This doesn’t mean any actions by Reagan weren’t dilutive to the country but all these arguments you toss around are just coincidental and really misses the time time lag from policy implementation to influence broadly in a country/economy.

So it's a coincidence that Reagan's tax cuts, and the start of corporate tax loopholes/breaks/enterprise zones/deregulation/union busting "just happens" to mark the start of absurd income gap that's only accelerating? And that during that time, i can point to 1st world country after 1st world country that started their .gov Health Care systems?

Really?

They were the right things to do but it was under republicans that the asbestos problem was resolved and Ma bell was broken up opening up the Internet era of the 1990s. It was also under LBJ that Harold Geneen was allowed to work with the CIA to funnel dough and weapons to Latin America. This one side or the other stuff never holds up over time.

You're dipping back past my 40 year mark. I have no comment on that era.

[Farfromgeneva]

I do this on my phone so can’t do the piece by piece, can barely keep my spelling functional. But, I think the principle of a true libertarian conservative trusts their citizens more than the position of a true extreme liberal. I don’t think you processed that I also noted the “political class” in my comment which should help you understand that I’ve been delineating between current republican politicians and the ideal Im talking about and have also been consistent in separating the two.

Ethanol was believed to be a major environmental coup at the time the mandate was put in place. I was balls deep in that business back then and even knew it was going to be problematic for corn spot prices long term but in having to write a white paper for approval from my Frankfurt Germany mommy and daddy for a $300mm allocation to the space I can’t tell you how many stories I read in that period of time about how it was driven by and widely accepted by that cohort of liberals and environmentalists (if not enough action).

I don’t give a crap about Europe for the purpose of comparison. I would benchmark our situation collectively as far batter than European countries of any meaningful scale (i.e. throw out Scandinavia and Switzerland, can be run differently at their size with different results). I’ve been clear on that so why do I care about comparing what benefits their politicians have concerted (often in parliamentary governmental forms). I only care about left/right for discussion based on our country. Any comparison across oceans would be so flawed as to be a worthless-can’t smooth out the differences enough.

Obama is a center left democrat. He sure sounded when running in 07-08 like a bit more left than he governed, partly because he was smart enough to realize he had to actually manage vs talking s**t from a podium with a background as a community organizer and a couple of years in a junior role in congress but it was pretty evident to me within two years he was going to govern closer to the center but I would not define that as right. He took student lending in house to the DOE. He had to deal with a horrific recession/depression too which may have ultimately influenced his ability to govern further to the left as well.

But I don’t define my left/right by Europe and think that’s crazy. I know your position but don’t agree. Obama, Biden (and especially Clinton) Center left - Bush and guys like Romney and McCain I see as generally center right. You’re center, as you’ve articulated many times, is defined further to the left than I would and I’m hardly one of these MAGA fools.

[Farfromgeneva]

How did all LBJs activities in the 60s fare come the 1970s?

My comment was for forty years....Reagan came along, and started dismantling the

This doesn’t mean any actions by Reagan weren’t dilutive to the country but all these arguments you toss around are just coincidental and really misses the time time lag from policy implementation to influence broadly in a country/economy.

So it's a coincidence that Reagan's tax cuts, and the start of corporate tax loopholes/breaks/enterprise zones/deregulation/union busting "just happens" to mark the start of absurd income gap that's only accelerating? And that during that time, i can point to 1st world country after 1st world country that started their .gov Health Care systems?

Really?

They were the right things to do but it was under republicans that the asbestos problem was resolved and Ma bell was broken up opening up the Internet era of the 1990s. It was also under LBJ that Harold Geneen was allowed to work with the CIA to funnel dough and weapons to Latin America. This one side or the other stuff never holds up over time.

You're dipping back past my 40 year mark. I have no comment on that era.

Yes in macroeconomic it takes many years for these things to impact mass citizenship. It doesn’t happen in two to three years.

But somehow you just ignore my demographic and other points altogether and I’m supposed to just agree that your coincidence with no rigor or consideration of any other variables at all in an extremely dynamic model is correct? that makes absolutely zero sense. Are your serious that you are making a rigorous analysis here?

[a fan]

But somehow you just ignore my demographic and other points altogether and I’m supposed to just agree that your coincidence with no rigor or consideration of any other variables at all in an extremely dynamic model is correct? that makes absolutely zero sense. Are your serious that you are making a rigorous analysis here?

I'm delighted to walk through the numbers.

Where shall we start? My suggestions, based on this thread?

-effective Federal income tax rates?
-State budgets in places like your NYState, and look at the share of the State's budget that corporations paid for in 1980 vs. today
-price of college in 1980 v. 2020
-percentage of Americans in unions in 1980 v. today
-price of health care in 1980 v. 2020
-income disparity 1980 v. 2020
-trade 1980 v. 2020

Care to add anything? My theory (as you put it) is that the American left has been sidelined for 40 years. And as a result.....as you put it so well.... the tug and pull of ideas didn't have a lefty pulling. So the entire nation moved to the right in terms of macroeconomic controls. Result? The working class is F'ed, and flyover America is on life support compared with other 1st world nations.

But guys like you and me are doing great.

[old salt]

...It terms of how our economy works, is America to the right of every other 1st world nation, or not.

The answer is a resounding yes. And why? Because every other country had a strong left that slowly added perqs for their working class over the last 40 years. So they all have health care. They all have government funding education/training. They all have strong unions.
...& no other 1st world nation has an economy, population & land mass as large & as diverse as the USA. Those other 1st world nations also have a lot more revenue available to plow back into their populations because our alliances allow them to spend much less on defense.

America has none of these things. THIS is what I'm reacting to. You're acting like we're on the precipice of going hard left in America. This is silly. We're nowhere---and I mean nowhere----close to being a lefty country using any metric.

Heck, look at where we were in the 50's. Now how much further to the right are we economically from where we were then. What were tax rates on corporations and the 1% back then? How much did it cost to get an education? How many people were on the road to a pension?
Look at it as a generational wave. The Greatest Generation -- from the Depression to the end of the Cold War. Catastrophic events & outsized threats required a collectivism & unity which we, as a society, are not inclined to accept, in less desperate circumstances. Thus the "never waste a good crisis" principle. In the 50's we had the GI Bill for an entire generation. We were still "the arsenal of democracy" for the war shattered 1st world, so unions had great power, which they wasted by not helping keep US labor competitive as the rest of the world recovered (with help from things like the Marshall plan) & became more competitive, with newer infrastructure, than WW-II legacy USA. We let our advantage slip away.

I'd settle for us to move to our economic strategy back then. Can't turn the clock back. We're no longer playing such a strong hand & covid has shuffled the deck.

Ethanol mandates were a giveaway to Flyover America.
Yet ethanol allows us to meet clean air standards because MBTE leaking underground fuel tanks were polluting ground water nationwide.

[a fan]

...& no other 1st world nation has an economy, population & land mass as large & as diverse as the USA. Those other 1st world nations also have a lot more revenue available to plow back into their populations because our alliances allow them to spend much less on defense.

Yes. Another Conservative choice. The working class is paying the price. So the EU gets health care, while Americans get shiny bombs, and the most expensive and inaccessible health care system in the world. This may (may) have made sense decades ago, but it doesn't make sense anymore.

In the 50's we had the GI Bill for an entire generation.

Yes. Best investment we ever made. Time to invest like that again. Tie the free school to public service. Boom, done.

.......which they wasted by not helping keep US labor competitive as the rest of the world recovered (with help from things like the Marshall plan) & became more competitive, with newer infrastructure, than WW-II legacy USA. We let our advantage slip away.

The Germans, French, English, Danes, and on and on managed to keep their Unions intact, and remain more than competitive. This was fixable. Instead? We systematically dismantled our unions, instead of fixing them. Bad choice. And yes, I completely agree they needed fixing.

[Farfromgeneva]

But somehow you just ignore my demographic and other points altogether and I’m supposed to just agree that your coincidence with no rigor or consideration of any other variables at all in an extremely dynamic model is correct? that makes absolutely zero sense. Are your serious that you are making a rigorous analysis here?

I'm delighted to walk through the numbers.

Where shall we start? My suggestions, based on this thread?

-effective Federal income tax rates?
-State budgets in places like your NYState, and look at the share of the State's budget that corporations paid for in 1980 vs. today
-price of college in 1980 v. 2020
-percentage of Americans in unions in 1980 v. today
-price of health care in 1980 v. 2020
-income disparity 1980 v. 2020
-trade 1980 v. 2020

Care to add anything? My theory (as you put it) is that the American left has been sidelined for 40 years. And as a result.....as you put it so well.... the tug and pull of ideas didn't have a lefty pulling. So the entire nation moved to the right in terms of macroeconomic controls. Result? The working class is F'ed, and flyover America is on life support compared with other 1st world nations.

But guys like you and me are doing great.

This means little though if you don't compare the environment which we were operating in. I know I've made this comment to you before and you insist on ignoring it. As if the world is the same execpt these outcomes in every single other way.

Yes, I'd add change in average age, average disposable income, average housing cost, average fed funds, 10yr treasury and mortage rates. Also include average lifespan, % of employers offering defined benefit plans and how long the average plan was in place vs defined contribution. Average household cost. You get my point yet. You're just looking at flat changes and assumign everything in the environment around it was "ceterus paribus" (the same/controlled, they aren't). How about value of subsidy to education (higher ed cheap loans?) which affects the price of college, but cheap money for college was at a minimum a bipartisan, if not more left, agenda. What you hopefully will understand here is those bullets you threw up are at best correlation without showing the relationshop which also includes a lot on environmental factors and has to inlcude an analysis of prior periods as well and what effects might have lagged those actions and come into consideration since 1980. How much of the behavior of the 70's feeds into this stuff? Even second half of 60s? How much of this problem is a result of the end of the cold war, which came just before an 8yr democrat run? 16/40yrs in 40% which Democrats have held office.

In particular though I think it completely lacks an analysis of demographics, aging of the population, changing dynamic of defined benefit vs contribution which may feel more like a "republican" ideal but is really a business reality that was happening no matter what once these cats realized they couldn't pay for 30-40yrs of poste employment benefits for thousands of employees. I also think a lot that happened in the 70s structurally lead to these declines, it doesn't happen as fast as you suggest at all. Not really ever on macroecnomic changes.

(BTW, I grew up in NY State, spent around 4-5yrs in Washington DC after college and some additional travels, then 4-5yrs in NYC and the last roughly decade in Atlanta, GA, so I've only been in NYS maybe 5 of the last 20yrs, obviously spent the better part of the first half of 2020 in Bingo dealing with my mother and would go up somewhat regularly, much more often in my NYC years, so I have my finger on the pulse of what's going on in upstate NY reasonably well, especially spending half month on and half month off through June up there this year, but it's not my state anymore. In fact I have no parents or grandparents left, only a sister in Oakland couple of not yet dead aunts and uncles spread out between NYS, PA & NC and beyond Hobart no more ties to the state - within a handful of years it's possible I'm done with NY altogether except for an occasional business trip to the city.)