Lets make fun of Obama while he is still relevant.

[Bob Butler 54]

(12-04-2016, 08:47 PM)Warren Dew Wrote:

(12-04-2016, 07:39 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(12-04-2016, 05:15 PM)Warren Dew Wrote: You're confused about what supply side economics is.  See my to playwrite for an explanation.  It's not about investment at all.

As I see it, Mikebert is using the Reagan era's original meaning for 'supply side', but like 'neocon' the phrase 'supply side' has come to take on new meanings.  You probably shouldn't argue about which use of the phrase is the correct one, but rather each might try to understand what the other is trying to say.

Radical thought, I know...

Actually, I'm the one using Reagan's original meaning.  Mikebert is using the leftist propaganda version, though he may not realize it.  Apparently you've bought in to the leftist propaganda version too.

Granted Reagan played up the Laffer curve, which is a rather minor aspect of supply side economics, to sell it to the Republicans who preferred austerity.  His job was to fix the economy, after all, not to turn everyone into economists.  That said, it should be obvious that supply side economics is primarily about the supply curve and the supply of goods and services, and not primarily about the laffer curve.

The University of California at Santa Barbara has an American Presidency Project, featuring notable speeches and documents from various presidencies.  Reagan's entries include "White House Report on the Program for Economic Recovery" from February 18, 1981.  Four key paragraphs provide the summary.

Quote:The leading edge of our program is the comprehensive reduction in the rapid growth of Federal spending. As shown in detail below, our budget restraint is more than "cosmetic" changes in the estimates of Federal expenditures. But we have not adopted a simple-minded "meat ax" approach to budget reductions. Rather, a careful set of guidelines has been used to identify lower-priority programs in virtually every department and agency that can be eliminated, reduced, or postponed.

No doubt or question that small government is a key element of Reaganomics.  While the cuts might arguably have started as 'careful', as time passed, deficits grew and confrontation between parties escalated, one might argue that a meat axe came into play.

Quote:The second element of the program, which is equally important and urgent, is the reduction in Federal personal income tax rates by 10 percent a year for 3 years in a row. Closely related to this is an incentive to greater investment in production and job creation via faster tax write-offs of new factories and production equipment.

This is where I am coming from, and likely Mikebert.  Cut taxes and tweak tax codes to increase investments is one of the four pillars of Reaganomics.

Quote:The third key element of our economic expansion program is an ambitious reform of regulations that will reduce the government-imposed barriers to investment, production, and employment. We have suspended for 2 months the unprecedented flood of last-minute rulemaking on the part of the previous Administration. We have eliminated the ineffective and counterproductive wage and price standards of the Council on Wage and Price Stability, and we have taken other steps to eliminate government interference in the marketplace.

The following has nothing to do with prior posts, and goes on at length, but I'm in a mood to ramble a bit.

I worked as a software engineer servicing the military industrial complex.  I know about government procurement, documentation and procedural requirements.  At one point there were two projects being worked in my building.  One Navy project developed under full military standards kept eighty engineers busy for five years.  Another project for an intelligence agency who was more interested in getting the work done than paperwork kept five of us busy for three years.  The two projects produced roughly the same number of lines of code.

So I know all about excessive bureaucracy and paperwork.  I was very pleased to be one of the five rather than one of the eighty.  

The favorite project of my career was one so late in starting that we invoked the phrase 'rapid prototyping' and threw all paperwork to the wind.  There was one programmer...  me.  No requirements document.  All I had was a set of operator interface screen images.  I had to deduce what the new hardware was supposed to do from what the operator could tell it to do.  No need to document interfaces so the other programmers could make their stuff coexist.  I just commented the code heavily.  I didn't write a single test plan, but that doesn't mean every routine wasn't thoroughly tested.  No hardware interface documents, not until the last minute.  I made up dummy subroutine calls that I hoped would tell the hardware what it needed to be told.  I couldn't write out said routines for real until all the rest of the code was written as the hardware people hadn't designed the target machine yet.

Perhaps the highlight of my career was loading it all into the real hardware for the first time after eight months of coding and watching it come up and run the first time out.

I've only read about the F 35 fiasco, but I can pretty much understand how it happened.

A few times a year I chat with my financial advisor, an employee of a 'too big to fail' Wall Street firm.  Her opinion of Obama's recent regulations echo my opinions of the Pentagon's approach.

But I couldn't begin to judge what is necessary and what is not necessary in a profession other than my own.  As one who has been on the receiving end of government bureaucratic (expletive deleted), I have a lot of sympathy with the desire to get rid of it.

Still, I think Bush 43 cut the banking and Wall Street regulations too much, resulting in the 2008 economic collapse.  Cut the bureaucracy, yes.  Definitely.  A lot.  Still, I'd balance the careful with the meat axe.

Quote:The fourth aspect of this comprehensive economic program is a monetary policy to provide the financial environment consistent with a steady return to sustained growth and price stability. During the first week of this Administration its commitment to the historic independence of the Federal Reserve System was underscored. It is clear, of course, that monetary and fiscal policy are closely interrelated. Success in one area can be made more difficult—or can be reinforced—by the other. Thus, a predictable and steady growth in the money supply at more modest levels than often experienced in the past will be a vital contribution to the achievement of the economic goals described in this Report. The planned reduction and subsequent elimination of Federal deficit financing will help the Federal Reserve System perform its important role in achieving economic growth and stability.

As we know, the "planned reduction and subsequent elimination of the Federal deficit" didn't happen.  There is no mention of the Laffer Curve in the above document.  It obviously didn't work as hoped for.  Is anyone promoting use of the Laffer Curve anymore?  Is there anyone out there who remembers that elimination of the deficit is part of Reaganomics?

Anyway, thats my idea of what Reaganomics was originally.  I can admire a lot of the intent.  It obviously didn't work as intended.  There is much need for back to the drawing board.