I've delayed in responding in part because I've been busy, but also in part
because I think all sight has been lost of whatever it was we have been
disagreeing about. I'll include a few line-by-line responses below....
At 12:19 AM 9/27/2004 -0500 Dan Minette wrote:
>> At 04:35 PM 9/26/2004 -0500 Dan Minette wrote:
>> >For all of this priming of the pump, employment is still lower than it
>was
>> >when Bush took office. You can use any pejorative terms you want for
>the
>> >improvement in the ecconomy under Clinton. But, it was real and it was
>not
>> >accompanied by inflation or pump priming.
>>
>> I don't know that the term "unsustainable" is pejorative. Indeed, I
>doubt
>> that you can find very many respected economists who would describe the
>US
>> economy at the end of the century as anything other than unsustainable.
>> Just because similar unemployment rates were achieved in the 1960's
>doesn't
>> mean that it wasn't unsustainable at both times.
>>
>> Indeed, I think you have to ask yourself why it is that your economic
>> analysis keeps leading you to the conclusion that the 1960's were a
>golden
>> era for the US economy - a time in which almost anything was perfect;
>while
>> at the same time the standard economic reading of the 1960's is that
>> overspending on guns *and* butter set the stage for the US economic
>misery
>> of the 1970's.
>
>But, in terms of job creation, the '70s averaged much better than now. The
>overspending of the '60s was a small fraction of the present overspending.
>We had a trade surplus in the '60s, instead of the deficit of 5% of GDP
>that we have now. At no time during the '70s (even by cherry picking the
>worst consecutive years, can you find a job decrease over three years, like
>we saw during the first 3 years of Bush. At no time during the '70s can you
>find a job decrease in 3.5 consecutive years.
Again, the job creation environment was quite different back then due to
labor force expansion.
Secondly, the overall job losses under Bush are overall quite mild compared
to previous recessions - especially previous recession resulting from the
bursting of an asset bubble.
The overall employment rate has remained a very high level.... in fact,
today's employment rate is comparable to the level in 1996 - when by all
accounts, we had a very, very, good economic situation.
We also suffered far less of the usual pain associated with recessions this
time around, again despite the bursting of an asset bubble. Just compare
the relative economic pain of the previous two recessions to this one.
>>Even if I overstate the existing consensus on that point
>> among professional economists (and so far as I know, I am not), I've
>never
>> seen anyone argue that the 1960's were a golden age for the US economy in
>> the way you do. Why is that? Have you perceived something that the
>rest
>> of the world's economists have not?
>
>No, its just that you appear to me have a way of interpreting what other
>ecconomists say in a manner that differs from what they think they say.
>I've seen my arguements written in a number of different forums, by
>professional ecconomists. Are you arguing that no one has written on the
>lack of income growth for the middle class?
Don't be ludicrous. There have been volumes written on the growth in
income inequality since 1978. I just don't find much written about the
1960's golden age that you seem to be fascinated with. I also see very
few economists who are as rabidly partisan as you are. I mean, when it
comes to economics, you are a lot like Dr. Brin - everything good in life
comes from Democrats, and Republicans are evil, craven, cynical creatures
who have never accomplished a single good thing.
> No one has commented on the
>poor getting poorer under Reagan and Bush? Have you read Brad DeLong's
>stuff? How in the world could you say you and he agree,
This is completely disingenuous. If I understand your reference
correctly, you are referring to an earlier discussion, in which a single
quote was posted from Brad DeLong, and I stated that I agree with it. Of
course I do not agree with Brad DeLong on everything.
>As far as I can see, you support the President's attempts to accelerate
>this process.
Yeah, that's the President's goal. And mine. Uh huh. Accelerate
pre-tax income inequality through adjustments in the tax rate. That
makes a lot of sense.
And I suppose that that's why the President lowered the bottom tax bracked
from 15% to 10%, and took millions of poor families off the tax roles?
is that why Citizen's for Tax Justice - not exactly a conservative group -
concluded that Bush's first tax cut gave benefits to workers in essentially
the same proportion to which they pay taxes?
>Its not that there were no structural problems in the late '90s. Its that
>there were problems at other times too, but we somehow managed to grow.
>The US faced real foreign competation for the first time in the '70s. When
>I was a kid and in high school, "made in Japan" meant cheap junk. The rise
>in oil prices had a much bigger hit on the ecconomy at that time, becasue
>oil was a much greater part of the GDP.
>
>Again lets look at the numbers: job growth by decade: 1-40 to 1-50, 1-50
>to 1-60,
>
>40s 38%
>50s 25%
>60s 31%
>70s 28%
>80s 20%
>90s 20%
Is there a reason you keep ignoring labor force expansion? I feel like I
am talking to a wall here. If the US created a similar number of jobs
during the 1990's as in the 1960's, when the unemployment rate was
approaching 4%, and when the employment rate was at an all-time high, where
do you think that the workers to fill these jobs would have come from????
Were we going to have even vastly more immigration during the 1990's than
we did????
JDG
_______________________________________________________
John D. Giorgis - [EMAIL PROTECTED]
"The liberty we prize is not America's gift to the world,
it is God's gift to humanity." - George W. Bush 1/29/03
_______________________________________________
http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
