Yep, they occured on the middle class basically. Reagan's policy essentially seemed to be "lower the burden on the rich, increase the burden on the rest".

I don't know whether or not we're debating, here, I'm a little confused, because neither of us are countering each other, we're just saying the same things.

I just like to say, in case I need to clarify this, I am not a believer in "Reaganomics".

He never raised taxes on the middle class.

Reagan raised the Buisness Tax, The payroll tax, created excise taxes on "unpopular" goods like cigarrettes and alchohol and closed tax loopholes... mostly for the wealthy in reforming the tax code to make it more simple.

The loopholes tax was actually revenue nuetral but it hit a lot of special interest groups and evened out who paid what at the higher end.

The tax increases were put there, because he couldn't raise income tax after having just lowered it and having such huge job growth... however the deficit was spiraling out of control and they weren't bringing in enough revenue.  He needed to agree to tax raises somewhere to get Democrats to agree to spending cuts.

Essentially the same issue we have now, except they found ways to make it work back then.

I hold similar views to the speaker. While studying economics I understand the theory behind low taxes on the wealthy but they seem to not incorporate economical environments. There must lie a point, which varies among circumstances, that those with high levels of wealth no longer efficiently improve the economy with increased capital. Diminishing returns on wealth. While the rich are more able to invest and innovate at an expensive level, the middle class still contributes and in greater numbers. The middle class is also the largest group of consumers, which is indeed the building blocks of business. The upper class consumes as well, but they can potentially consume products that are extravagant and more wasteful than most. I am interested in a ratio breakdown by economic class of how much they invest and consume, or in the case of this video employee, as part of their income.

I still support business ethics like that of Henry Ford

"It is not the employer who pays the wages. Employers only handle the money. It is the customer who pays the wages."

"There is one rule for the industrialist and that is: Make the best quality of goods possible at the lowest cost possible, paying the highest wages possible."

Great words from a man who ensured his workers made enough money to afford his products!

I wonder what is considered "too political" for TED. Someone sent me this talk on the nature of evil, and systemic reasons for people doing evil. It looks at the Stanford prison study as one of them. The views express run fundamentally against what a number of people on forums like this, which is that everything is on a personal level, and there isn't systemic evil. Pretty much presents a liberal case for why there is evil, in that the system is responsible for a lot of it. Anyhow, the video is here:

http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/79JTiv

The presentation shows a number of pictures from the Abu G prison in Iraq.


I believe this video wasn't pulled off the TED site, but it does get into politics.

I don't know if i'd say the stanford prison expierment presents a liberal case for why there is evil.

If it did, liberals wouldn't be for a large overarching government in charge of most things people do.

More libretarian if anything, though again, if you read the links i provided....

it wasn't released because it was a political arguement.

It wasn't released because it was a poorly done arguement with a number of factually incorrect statements, and which blatantly attacked one political party.

They've done speeches like this before that were much better done trying to convey the same point.

I know because i've watched them before.

Dude just hired a good PR firm to make it look like the left leaning think tank like orginization was some conservative group trying to stifle them.

When I was saying liberal, I meant modern liberal, not classic liberal.  Modern liberal orders that problems are primarily systemic and need to be dealt with government intervention.  The focus is on us doing things, rehabilitation, and people as victims of circumstance.  Modern conservative ends up putting a focus on consequences, personal choice and responsibility and fault finding.  What comes from this is the idea that there is a social contract, of which a Libertarian would end up arguing against, and anyone who is against there being a state.

Ok, maybe the best term to describe "modern liberal" is "progressive".  There is a belief in progress and collectively governing things.  The belief is you make the system of coercion responsive to oversight and have people oversee it, and then the system works to make everyone into heroes, because the environment governs all this, far less than the individual.  In this also is a liberal trait of defiance of the system also, in case of personal expression, as opposed to conformity to tradition.  So, pretty much I would stand this piece here is an argument that liberals would use, well at least "progressives".

That's exactly my point.

The Stanford Binet prison expierment shows that when you put one group of people in control of another they start looking down on them and let there baser instincts take control.

Therefore the Stanford Binet Prison expierement would argue AGAINST progressivism's wish for a powerful caretaker government in charge of everything.

It doesn't argue either way as far as I can see. The prison experiment really showed what happens when there is no accountability along with power, neither progressives or libertarians want an unaccountable government.

It does perhaps show why organisations with low accountability (eg. the CIA) are perhaps dangerous ideas.

These experiments are one, and what the speak spoke on, that can be interpreted different ways, based on one's political views.  The progressive will argue it is proof that you need more oversight and democratic processes to insure that corrupt systems can be broken and not allowed to take root.  They would argue also that government is a tool for addressing these.  The libertarian side would argue against such structures period.  You will then run into conservatives, who aren't libertarian leaning, and likely take issue with things, because they would argue strongly in personal responsibility and the bad apple theory.

And then, there is the Millgram experiment, which was discussed in the video also:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment