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Originally posted by mrnoodle
A brief google search yielded a bunch of stuff on this, most notably that prior to 1982, we were in recession about 1/3 of the time. Since then, we've been in recession (I'll be generous, since I don't have the exact data) maybe 9 months out of 250. That's about 4 percent of the time. And Reagan is mostly responsible for it.
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Prior to Reagan, recession was traceable to real world events such as:
1) massive spending on military well beyond what we could afford and well beyond what was being spent in other times on the cold war - a war in Vietnam; while government outrightly lied about costs,
2) a spike in energy prices to the highest in the history of mankind combined with a decline in US domestic production and a massive increase in domestic consumption,
3) a sharp reduction of innovation in America as cost controllers took control of most major companies; recession preceeded by, for example, the Science and Technology index in libraries started getting thinner in years preceeding that recession.
Reagan did nothing to make the economy work. Politicians can only create bad economies. Politicians cannot fix an economy. What fixed mid - 1980 America? One could say that Reagan did nothing - permitting the economy to fix itself. But then oil prices went from highest in the history of mankind to the lowest in only two years. Reagan then profited for something he did not do. Oil prices came down so far so fast as to create an economic recovery. Then something else happened. All this computer technology that had been stifled by myopic American companies suddenly took root in companies not dominated by MBA mentalities. Ashton Tate, Lotus, Intel, Microsoft, Compaq, DEC, etc all rescued or introduced early 1970 innovations that had sat stifled by companies such as AT&T, IBM, & Xerox. Reagan only happened to be president when these many companies also developed whole new business concepts - open industry standards, venture capitalists, cooperative competition, etc. Reagan did not invent any of this. He only prospered by accidentally being in office at the right time.
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The lesson, if any, is evident in Libya's sudden cooperative spirit. They know we mean business. Of course we're not going to pick nits with Korea. Diplomacy still has a chance there, whereas in Iraq, diplomacy was doomed to fail because of the administration.
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The Libyan situation had been in negotiation long before anyone called for an unjustified attack on Iraq. Negotiations so fruitful that, for example, the first world leader to condemn the WTC attack - Kadaffi of Libya. Like all good and careful negotiations, it took some years to agree and verify what would be necessary to open Libya's entire operation. More was at stake than just admitting to the weapons. It was a very complicated deal that also included TWA 800 and many other events. Did an invasion of Iraq close the deal? Maybe. But the deal had been started during Clinton's time and was clearly going to be completed before George Jr admitted he wanted to attack Iraq.
Diplomacy was working quite nicely in N Korea until someone created a stupid "Axis of Evil" doctrine. That declaration simply made it impossible for reformers in N Korea (including Kim Jung Il) to continue negotiations. However most Americans with preconceived ideas (called hardliners or extremists) never will understand conflict of reformers verses hardliners that is ongoing both in Iran and N Korea. Hardliners see everything in black and white. They see nations as only good or evil. They see everyone inside an 'evil' nation as monolithic. Both nations are chock full of gray shades. That "axis of evil" doctrine only undermined reformers in both Iran and N Korea - making diplomacy difficult.
Those same hardliners were promoting the same 'good and evil' concepts about China only ten plus years ago as a major battle there was also being waged between reformers and hardliners. Today people forget the Buchanan speeches about how we would go to war with China (which George Jr almost did anyway) and why the Cold War really was not over. Good thing that George Sr rather than Buchanan types were in the White House.