Your history is impaired my friend.

It wasn't a matter of industries being destroyed during WW2 which caused US to be the dominant manufacturer in the world - Bretton Woods was responsible for that, which gave the US a massive advantage  in trade since the agreement regulated the exchange rate which was favorable - essentially what China does now. You bring up car manufacturers, which is interesting as they are still (in America) paid extremely well - their quality of life is still very good. The only issue with it today is that they have competition from non-union companies which can produce a better car that is cheaper in most respects.

Stagflation didn't occur in the 1980s under Reagan. It occured in the 1970's under Carter (and the seeds were sown under Nixon as well). Reagan fixed stagflation. Look it up - http://economics.about.com/od/useconomichistory/a/stagflation.htm .

You argue that $13 trllion in debt made us great. If that is the case, then you should turn your eyes to every European country which have spent vastly, VASTLY more money per capita than we have. US debt per person is $45,000 per person. In the UK it is more than three times that amount. Germany, Finland, Spain, Portugal, Sweden, Denmark and so on are all much higher as well. By your logic then, all of the argued European countries are in a far worse position, as they've spent sums of money far in excess of the United States. For example, Norway's public debt is ten times higher per capita than Americas.

Don't get me wrong, I agree that debt is a very bad thing - thus why I deride the European system. They have taken on amounts of debt that border on insanity.

The US isn't running on empty fumes and debt. If you believe so, then I highly suggest moving away from here. America has the potential to be great, the question is if we utilize our resources and our people to be great. Due to excessive regulations and restrictions, that is a difficult proposition, but I believe that given our unique blend of society and resources, we could do many things that others cannot if we are allowed to.

I just gave you an example that says you are wrong,  private insurance for my grandfather that would match what he recieves from medicare would total $30K a year.  A perfectly healthy 65 year old would have a tough time getting health insurance for even close to that $4900. Hell my insurace is $5000 a year, and Im only 31.  You are the one claiming this is possible, you provide me with that information

The only impairment in history I have is that I thought Carter was also in the early 80s, causing the staglfation. Everything else stands.

You cherry-pick and deflect matters in a very artful and tactful manner though. I love how you just dismiss a very simple economic fact like the one wehre every industrialized nation was completely in ruins by the end of WWII, except for the US which was literally untouched. Then you try to play it off to a, relatively, minor fact for the times. Yes, being dominant currency is important, but it pales in comparison to being the only supplier of  many goods. I also did not bring up car manufacturers, I rbought up the workers who worked on the assembly lines in factories, which ended up getting kicked out once other nations began to be competative again and US businesses realized they needed to pay them less and lay them off to remain profitable.

I also need to point out that Reagan's deregulation is not what fixed stagflation, is was the ridiculous amount of money he spent on constructing bombs. As I mentioned earlier, there is no difference between making bombs and building roads or waging an army. What deregulation did was cause a nuclear meltdown over in Japan a few months ago, which I am sure you have heard of, among many other atrocities from businesses.

As it stands if you look at the best living and worst living (within reason, obviously we don't count Ghana and Haiti, etc.) you will notice that the countries with the lower living conditions have less debt as % of GDP, meanwhile the ones with the best living conditions are the ones that have the obscene amounts of debt. This trend is almost without fail. Basically, well being is directly linked to the amount debt a country has and the US has a lot of it.

Just as a side note, Paul Krugman is one of the most intellectually dishonest economists out there and after repeately getting "schooled" on his inaccurate heavily biased blog posts by average people making comments he closed his blog to comments. At many points in time these commentors demonstrated that his views on economics depended mostly on what the Democrats or Republicans were doing at the time, and he has repeatedly been found to condemn an approach taken by the Republicans and then support the same approach when taken by the Democrats.

Or to put it another way, listening to Krugman on economics is kind of like listening to a nutritionist that has been hired by McDonalds on whether fast food is good for you.

Ad hominem. And if you want to play that game, I can always point to his shiny Nobel Prize.

He's been heavily critical of Obama BTW, and he is basing his views on what he said 10 years ago after his studies on Japan (liquidity trap). He did criticize the Obama stimulus and even predicted the political implications (it's failure would lead to discredit stimuluses in general and prevent a proper one being proposed).

The only impairment in history I have is that I thought Carter was also in the early 80s, causing the staglfation. Everything else stands.

You cherry-pick and deflect matters in a very artful and tactful manner though. I love how you just dismiss a very simple economic fact like the one wehre every industrialized nation was completely in ruins by the end of WWII, except for the US which was literally untouched. Then you try to play it off to a, relatively, minor fact for the times. Yes, being dominant currency is important, but it pales in comparison to being the only supplier of  many goods. I also did not bring up car manufacturers, I rbought up the workers who worked on the assembly lines in factories, which ended up getting kicked out once other nations began to be competative again and US businesses realized they needed to pay them less and lay them off to remain profitable.

I also need to point out that Reagan's deregulation is not what fixed stagflation, is was the ridiculous amount of money he spent on constructing bombs. As I mentioned earlier, there is no difference between making bombs and building roads or waging an army. What deregulation did was cause a nuclear meltdown over in Japan a few months ago, which I am sure you have heard of, among many other atrocities from businesses.

As it stands if you look at the best living and worst living (within reason, obviously we don't count Ghana and Haiti, etc.) you will notice that the countries with the lower living conditions have less debt as % of GDP, meanwhile the ones with the best living conditions are the ones that have the obscene amounts of debt. This trend is almost without fail. Basically, well being is directly linked to the amount debt a country has and the US has a lot of it.

Mentioning the Nobel Prize is an appeal to authority ... and not even a good apeal to authority. After all, Nobel prizes are given out for political reasons more than anything else, as can be seen by the Nobel Peace prize won by Obama.

http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/08/paul_krugman_gives_up_1.html

"..."

"For example, Robert Barro, the distinguished Harvard economist, noted that Krugman "just says whatever is convenient for his political argument. He doesn't behave like an economist." The New York Times ombudsman Daniel Okrent observed that Paul Krugman has "the disturbing habit of shaping, slicing and selectively citing numbers in a fashion that pleases his acolytes but leaves him open to substantive assaults." James Taranto at the Wall Street Journal, after listing the falsities in Krugman's latest piece on climate last week, hazarded that perhaps "Krugman makes himself ridiculous merely to make our job easy.""

"..."

"For example, when Krugman a month ago drew one of his famous "trend lines" based on a single point, a blogger named rjh immediately responded, "These trend lines you are drawing all over the place. Pardon my French, they are complete garbage." And nearly half of Krugman's commenters joined to point out that Krugman was arguing junk. Krugman was forced to make two defensive replies; both were immediately refuted."

"But things got worse for the professor. Matching Krugman's repeated claim that the "stimulus" was too small, Sean produced peer-reviewed economic science from Alesina, who examined 92 attempts at stimulus since 1970 in OECD countries and found that tax cuts, but not spending, stimulated. Krugman stammered a reply, but the damage was done; his acolytes had learned that economic science existed that contradicted Krugman's claim (central to Obama's "stimulus" legislation) that government's spending your money helps an economy."

"..."

"Krugman's blog commenters were especially relentless in pointing out his inconsistencies. In one post, Krugman admitted that "politicians will always find ways to shield the powerful." Posters piled on, pointing out that Krugman's universal policy prescription gave politicians more power under the assumption that they would defend "the proletariat." Krugman replied that he was "sure that there's a large literature" on government cronyism and corruption. Secure in his big-government ideology, he admitted that he had never read that literature. But like the ideologue that he is, Krugman then expressed his faith (the only word appropriate) that "bureaucracy will do a heckuva job" if it is not "downgraded and devalued." Bloggers responded by citing the latest economic science showing the impossibility of Krugman's "utopian dictatorship-by-bureaucracy.""

"..."

"Krugman had also had enough. On July 23, Krugman showed that he was clearly no longer "in love" with his commenters. Now he called them "ranters" and "trolls." On July 28, Krugman changed his comment moderation policy. Claiming that "ranters ... say the same thing every time," Krugman announced that he was going to throw away posts longer than "three inches." His thinking must have been thus: Three inches are sufficient to write "Krugman is brilliant," but not sufficient to present a documented and persuasive rebuttal to whichever of Krugman's standard arguments he was peddling that day.

So, what do you suggest we do right now? Interest rates are near zero, yes Businesses aren't investing yet. Consumers still aren't spending as much as they used to, and we have a lot of cash just sitting in banks. We've been under the Bush tax cuts for so long, yet we're still in a period of stagnation. We're essentially becoming Japan, and like Japan, we ended up doing half assed poorly executed stimuluses that don't really translate into job creation.

I mean, the fact is that we're out of options. We can keep the tax cuts for the rich, but that just simply keeps up where we are. Balancing the budget would cause more insecurity, rather than more business confidence (and we can see how the UK did after its attempt at austerity). I mean, the whole problem I have with Freshwater econ, is that it all sounds so mythical or the principles they go under are just way too unbelievable.

Once government gets smaller, people will sigh and start spending again. Businesses will start investing again (even though they can borrow money cheaply) because they know government is off their backs (even though investment is based on expectation of demand). Keep taxes for the rich, since we don't want crowding out (even though savings have gone up and the treasury pumped money in). Watch out for inflation (even though we even had a moment of deflation during the recession), maybe we should go back to the gold standard (Milton Friedman would roll in his grave).

Fuck, at least Milton Friedman was skeptic, which is always good and reasonable (skeptical at how the government can execute discretionary policy properly). Now the new conservatives are religiously fixed onto taxes and the budgets (ironically they're both conflicting things).

The only impairment in history I have is that I thought Carter was also in the early 80s, causing the staglfation. Everything else stands.

You cherry-pick and deflect matters in a very artful and tactful manner though. I love how you just dismiss a very simple economic fact like the one wehre every industrialized nation was completely in ruins by the end of WWII, except for the US which was literally untouched. Then you try to play it off to a, relatively, minor fact for the times. Yes, being dominant currency is important, but it pales in comparison to being the only supplier of  many goods. I also did not bring up car manufacturers, I rbought up the workers who worked on the assembly lines in factories, which ended up getting kicked out once other nations began to be competative again and US businesses realized they needed to pay them less and lay them off to remain profitable.

I also need to point out that Reagan's deregulation is not what fixed stagflation, is was the ridiculous amount of money he spent on constructing bombs. As I mentioned earlier, there is no difference between making bombs and building roads or waging an army. What deregulation did was cause a nuclear meltdown over in Japan a few months ago, which I am sure you have heard of, among many other atrocities from businesses.

As it stands if you look at the best living and worst living (within reason, obviously we don't count Ghana and Haiti, etc.) you will notice that the countries with the lower living conditions have less debt as % of GDP, meanwhile the ones with the best living conditions are the ones that have the obscene amounts of debt. This trend is almost without fail. Basically, well being is directly linked to the amount debt a country has and the US has a lot of it.

haha, great picture xD