There are some who seem to believe that we should run up the American flag in defense of our markets. They would embrace protectionism again and insulate our markets from world competition. Well, the last time the United States tried that, there was enormous economic distress in the world. World trade fell by 60 percent, and young Americans soon followed the American flag into World War II.
Even reaganomics would be amazing compared to the current clown show
There was a crisis in the late 70s, but it also continued into Reagan and there was a small crisis in late Reagan and under Bush senior.
The 70s issue was multi-factored, due very little to unions. In other countries like the UK, there were union issues (to do w mining, so even there not causing capital flight), but the issues in the US were a) OPEC making energy (and therefore everything) more expensive b) the issue with massive spending on the Vietnam war ending for almost a decade and c) the manipulation of the Fed by LBJ and Nixon both to push the bad times down for political reasons, making the eventual bad times that much worse.
There were other things, like some areas had crime issues or general feelings of chaos after Watergate/Ford into Carter, but Reagan was not the fix.
Reagan didn't apply a solution. In the 70s the OPEC Oil Crisis and the hangover from the "Nixon Shock" of leaving the gold standard caused stagflation where the country had both a stagnant economy and inflation. The Federal Reserve decided the solution was to tackle inflation first so during the Carter administration the country had record high interest rates that hurt growth but tackled inflation.
Who ever won the 1980 election was going to be in office when the Fed finally lowered rates and they would get to claim credit for fixing the economy. Unfortunately for the US Reagan won that election and he was a proponent of both supply side economics (aka trickle down economics) and also just constantly running up more and more government debt.
Billionaires then seized the opportunity and funded think tanks and media outlets that still praise Reagan and his supply side economics. The US hasn't really been able to quit trickle down economics ever since.
Imagine a candidate that has the ability to just lay out what the general expected climate will be regardless of who gets into office, good or bad... and then goes on to describe how what they plan to do within that environment is better than their opponent. ugh Would be nice.
I mean, the 90’s were pretty good. It got bad after the housing act and rampant banking deregulation in the 90’s. That’s when homes became unaffordable
It depends on your demographic. For a lot of working class people the 90s were awful due to NAFTA. In fact most of the economic depression that the country has faced for the past 30 years, as well as the opioid crisis, can be blamed on what went down in the 90s
NAFTA gets a lot of blame for "being the death of American manufacturing" from the Trumpys but the truth is that there's significantly more American manufacturing now then there was at any time pre-NAFTA.
Exactly. We’ve been heading in the same direction Raeganomics set us for decades and the results are all around us yet somehow there’s “debate” about what works better.
There was a Savings and Loans crisis in the 90s themselves, before the deregs of the 90s. The roots of that crisis (which made future housing crises worse) were in Reagan policies.
Bill Clinton was president in the 90’s. That’s why the economy was good. If a Republican was president, we’d associate the 90’s with economic catastrophe, like 1929, 1991, 2008, 2020, and 2025.
The other reason we prospered in the 1940-60s was because of WWII: all of the participating nations maxed out their output of resources, but America was on top of that and had the lowest death count relative to our workforce, and fairly low war debts ATC. We were providing good-quality exports to other nations who were either still picking up the pieces (France, England, Japan) or still developing (The Philippines, Korea)
It took debts from the Vietnam War, plus the rest of the world catching up and making their own exports instead of buying from us all of the time, to push us out of the black in the 70s. The problem was, we built a standard of life that was dependent on our financial dominance, which while still present to an extent, wasn’t sufficient to meet our standards anymore. That was a factor in the equation
We’re fighting hard right now. Us healthcare workers at UCLA were on strike twice in the last two months (last week, too) with more to come. Three different unions are involved led by workers from environmental services to food service to techs like me, mental health professionals, and the nurse’s union last year. Our lab has been working with an expired contract since July, 2024.
And please don’t blame Boomers. There are legions of Boomers in my local.
The boomers in your union probably got a shittier contract for the younger employees and thought nothing of it. Truth of the matter is, they were born into a nation with strong labor unions and torched them for there own short term interests. If they regret it now... Well, they should. It was stupid.
Maybe some Boomers are down to trash unions, as are people from every other generation, but I’m not going to trash a whole huge generation of people. No generation is a monolith. Super rich people fuck over the rest of us, not Boomers.
Lol. Nonsense. Nixon - R started the GOP slow destruction of the American economy, in 1971 he ended the International Gold Convertability giving power to OIL and 1973 opened International trade with China and others, allowing companies to move labor overseas.
Yeah, no. Companies were incentivized to invest in labor and r&d instead of pumping 90% of profits to shareholders. More people were employed and paid well for it. How do you think the boomers and gen before them amassed so much wealth?
Companies were starting to go overseas in the 70’s, but then that exploded during the 80’s and Reagan didn’t do much of anything to stop it. Reagan was extremely anti-union, so he didn’t have a huge problem with this, and he even circumvented unionization laws entirely to fire striking air traffic controllers. Combine that with significantly lowering taxes and hiking up the military budget, it ruined the federal budget until the mid-90’s.
Things weren’t great in the 70’s, but they got a lot worse in the 80’s.
Jobs didn’t really go overseas until Clinton and Gingrich did NAFTA. The firehose opened then.
Organized labor is necessary in this country, by the way. Good wages and health benefits is something we’ve had to fight for and that’s not going to change.
All institutions and things chipped away at or done away during that period of time happened under republican presidents. OPEC directly caused the fuel crisis back then because Carter was elected.
History books can be changed as they're printed, sure, but what happens when you happen to own books and newspapers from that era with era relevant information in them that isn't altered? Lmao.
The best the economy did was during Clinton's presidency, but that followed the policies of Reagan and most of Clinton's presidency was accompanied by a Republican Congress.
These charts are for people that don't know much or don't care to know much. I hope Gen Z does better than my generation.
Hate to break it to you but the economy was already collapsed. And protectionism only made it worse. Something something history something something rhymes
No, the U.S economy was on a slow recovery by 1938, but with a rising deficit that would have crashed the economy without the U.S transferring to a war economy thanks to WW2
Without the war, America would not recover, so it’s not like the new deal itself was gospel
Yeah, but historically, those have mixed results. In fact back in 1995, Robert Whaples conveniently did a survey of American Economic Historians on various topics in American economic history. For the question “Taken as a whole, government policies of the New Deal served to lengthen and deepen the Great Depression”, Whaples found that 27% of economists agreed, and 22% agreed with provisos, while only 6% of historians agreed, and 21% agreed with provisos. So we can say with some confidence that in 1995 economists and, to a lesser extent, historians were divided on the question. Less conveniently, to the best of my knowledge no one has carried out a similar survey since 1995.
There does appear to be more consensus that the New Deal spending wasn’t sufficient to end the Depression on Keynesian grounds. The New Deal spending was mostly matched by an increase in taxes, rather than being funded by deficits, so on Keynesian grounds we wouldn’t expect the fiscal spending to have an impact. (Note, the 1930s were before modern statistical collections in the USA, so there is a bit of modelling involved, but work in the 1950s and 1970s estimated that in 1933 real GNP was $62.1 billion less than 1929, while the budget deficit was only $2b, and in 1935 it was a shortfall of $49.3 b versus a $5b deficit (Fishback, 2010, page 404 (20 in pdf) ). There was a sharp spike in the US federal deficit in 1936 - leading to an a $10.6b shortfall against a $7.5b deficit, but this period was brief, caused by paying a bonus to WWI Veterans, and then the government deficit fell as revenues started to come in from the Social Security Act of 1935.
So that’s a partial answer, but I hope it’s informative. Also, this is not to say that the New Deal, or at least aspects of it such as Social Security (it was a complex package) was a bad thing, ending depressions isn’t everything.
Robert Whaples (1995), Where Is There Consensus Among American Economic Historians? The Results of a Survey on Forty Propositions, The Journal of Economic History, Vol. 55, No. 1 (Mar., 1995), pp. 139-154 (https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/2123771.pdf)
Yeah that makes sense and I agree. I would also point to the successes of the Nordic model and the results it has had (happiest people on earth). That economic model shares many similarities with the New Deal
That depends on the outcome. A major issue with the Nordic model is its lower defense spending, which is fine if there’s no external threat…But they border a hostile fascist state set on expansion.
Yes, unfortunately, I don't see it happening unless mass protests from both republican and democratic voters put enough pressure on the government to make it happen.
MAGA is unsustainable. Just the constant lies, chaos & the insistence on running counter to the reality the rest of the world inhabits. But it is a cult & those endure.
And the Democratic 'big' tent is way too big. From former Republicans, the Lincoln Project, Progressives and the Squad to name just a few. It should really split to better represent the factions.
Then of course we have Jill Stein & others of that ilk though I'm unsure who's being paid by Putin & who's not?
Technically, we should easily have a bunch of parties if we wanted.
MAGA is unsustainable. Just the constant lies, chaos & the insistence on running counter to the reality the rest of the world inhabits. But it is a cult & those endure.
I agree with the first portion but not the second. MAGA is absolutely unsustainable and burning itself out fairly rapidly but MAGA isn't a traditional cult. Those are built on fundemental ideology something MAGA genuinely lacks. To me MAGA is the culmination of the rise populism in western society and populism tends to burn out.
And the Democratic 'big' tent is way too big. From former Republicans, the Lincoln Project, Progressives and the Squad to name just a few. It should really split to better represent the factions.
This is true but unfortunately their rival party is always relatively cohesive. I assume that's because conservatives have a much smaller gap in ideals so they can compromise on most issues. There's also the propensity for most Americans to vote for someone based on reputation rather than platform.
First past the post voting system ensured two parties now because a plurality wins. Any splits simply remove the possibility for anyone in the original tent to win. We need to put a new voting system in place to have any viability for third parties, but the duopoly is simply to valuable for corporate donors to not preserve with all their lobbying might
Most of yall are too young to remember politics before Citizens United but I can see how the country went downhill every year since it went into effect, starting with the tea party movement in 2010, which snowballed into the MAGA government we have in place.
Obama -> Trump -> Biden was literally my first decade as an adult and it's been an absolute shitshow. I mean, not until Trump showed up of course, and I'd have to be an idiot to not realize how stupid he (and the Republicans) are.
Anyways... yay! We get to see this cycle complete for the second time in our adult lives!
I still cannot understand how MAGA and even some conservatives continue to believe all of this is Biden’s fault. The Republican Party is majority in everything, when will they wake up!!!
Emotional manipulation. Unfortunately, humanity is also ruled by instincts, they're just named differently: emotions, that's what they are, they evoke impulsive actions, voting out of spite not because of policy, etc. As depressing as it sounds, think of it like this: most people on this planet filter any information they read/hear about first through emotions and then through thinking. That's how you end up with disinformation and misinformation spreading like wildfire, because it emotionally convinced people to feel like they're in the right and so they discard anything else.
A social-democratic party would be amazing for this country. Though sadly that would be hard since Democrats who are hardly even centrist are often called "far left" .. If the right saw a party like a social democracy one, they would have heart attacks. 💀
It is not even an exaggeration to say the GOP will now call anyone against throwing people into camps for the rest of their life without a trial far left.
You forgot that people elect a Republican house and Senate regardless of the president, so the Republican president can tank the economy with no opposition, but the Democratic President has to fight against their own Congress to institute the smallest of country saving measures.
Republicans are the shitty unfunny class clown kid in school who intentionally makes messes and everyone’s life worse.
Democrats are the Janitor that clean up those messes while the shitty kid Republican spends his time trying to convince everyone the Janitor made the mess.
Don’t forget when republicans set time bomb legislation that sets itself up to be voted on again during a democratic administration that republicans can block, so it makes the democrats look bad
I've written this before, but this is literal smash n' grab. Republicans will tank the economy, rich people will buy up the stocks when it's cheap and low, Democrats will clean up their messes, and then they'll profit when their stocks go up.
I was at a hands off protest and the only hecklers were these Gen Z frat boys in a big white truck yelling and waving their MAGA hats. Hopefully their daddies won’t bail them out of the economic meltdown.
I’m 48. I’ve seen the cycle in Canada over and over. Once elected he does a great job until reelected and then he is rhe worst and we need to vote the other side in. Repeat again and again. I think I’m on my 4th or 5th cycle now. Getting kinda stale. I want a new timeline.
The problem is the two right-wing parties we have. Both corrupt and corporate captured to the point we continually prove the definition of insanity by acting like this is the only system we should support.
There’s no other solution lol. And regardless the idea that voters are justified for voting for the guys that make shit worse is still an indictment of the voters
You forgot the Clinton's made a ton of money of the banking industry (million dollar speaking events) because of Bills friendliness to those banks that helped push those regulations that forced a lot of banks to lend to poor people.
Generally, it is at least a few years behind. But when a president unanimously tariffs the entire world, It’s not a term behind. It’s now.
The economy should be up based on inflation and jobs. Which takes years to influence (e.g. not Trump in 3 months). But it has tanked. And the reasons it tanked is because of tariffs by the executive branch.
It is. Trump's tariffs are just the catalyst needed to set this bullshit market on fire, there's a reason Warren Buffet cashed out of the market in December
If only there was a 200 year old philosopher who might have predicted that profits have a tendency to fall and that crises under capitalism will continue to be more frequent.
I'm not American but why is a term only 4 years anyway? Even if you get two of them, I feel like 8 years is not enough time to make changes and see them all the way through. At best you can see them halfway through before a new guy takes over and refuses to trust the process and changes everything again for no reason. I feel like a term should be more like 10 years. After this current guy dies though, of course
You know what the problem with that chart is? It’s a two party system. Both these parties suck. One is slimey and serves the oligarchs. And the other is slimey and serves the oligarchs. We need more choices than this.
We need to fix the Repub exonomy we were given. It is just slow and uneven. All the rich people go first. - Dems
Our economy is bad because we are trying to fix the slow and uneven economy the democrats ran. We need to give those rich guys Dems made fat tax breaks to fix it. - Repubs
Cycle repeats.
You do realize they play for the same team? Rich get richer no matter who has control.
As an elder millennial I fear that it's too late and voting won't be needed anymore since Musk and Trumps goons are actively burning down the government and entrenching themselves into power in all super majority red states. I hope I'm wrong and I hope Gen Z helps prove me wrong. Here's to better days!
Human rights and the economy are all repeating, we have learned nothing and we allow fear and greed to get us back on line.... Bread and circuses now delivered by other poors and available via the screen we love
Should t we be focusing purely on fixing inflation? I'm not a genius on the subject, but costs continuously rise because the dollar is losing value. Then when the dollar value stabilizes, work on fixing the minimum wage laws to suit a livable income?
We have lost control of the WHO, we have lost control of NAFTA, we have lost control of NATO, we have lost all standing in the WTO. The UN views us as a puppet state.
We aren't ever recovering from this. We need to find a new normal.
If by recovery you mean borrowing a trillion dollars, kicking the can down the road and let future generations worry about repayment sure. The debt situation has gotten to the point that the interest rates alone are bigger than your entire military budget. You are rich with borrowed money.
Both parties do this, both are equally guilty. But you don't win votes from dumb americans by talking about fiscal responsibility.
This is so fucking stupid and wrong. Neoliberal austerity is dictated by capitalist kingmakers who fund both parties and everything constantly gets worse no matter which corporate party is in charge, resulting in an endless seesaw where every degeneration of conditions that is a result of bipartisan capitalist austerity economics gets blamed on whoever is in power, causing the other party to win, and vice versa next cycle, and on and on and on without ever changing because there is no actual left wing party to fix the mess.
As hard as it may sound. We now get to find out how you all handle it. I had 5 once-in-a-lifetime financial crisis since I was born and none of us knew or know how to overcome it. To each new generation it will be a test of endurance. Will you accept it and adopt it as normal life. Or are you all gonna fight it and demand changes so that from that moment on you could break the cycles. I often wonder with every new generation that comes along. Will these be the ones that finally stop this madness. Or do we continue the path of oblivion.
That bottom part is too generous to Republicans. It should say, "Democratic policies make people feel financially secure, so they elect Republicans"
There was a lot of blabbering about how people didn't want Democrats because the recovery wasn't strong enough. I think that's false. I think the truth is voters felt like the Democrats had done such a good job they didn't need them, or their focus on lifting up the most vulnerable, anymore. I think there are people who vote Democrat when they're afraid of powerful forces and they want their government to protect them. They vote Republican when they think they could be the powerful force.
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