Record corporate profits

[Jay]

If Regan was on the Democratic ticket they would be signing his praises.

 

[Colpy]

right. and Reagan wasn't. curious, that.

No, I didn't say that.

I said Reagan did not make the mistake of handing a weakened bear a way out...........had he done so, the Wall would still be there.

 

[BitWhys]

I already said the Russians cut back on arms race spending anyways. Do you honestly think the Americans would have actually reduced their own military spending in light of detente instead of directing it somewhere else?

If you want to give anybody credit for forcing the Russians to overspend on the military you can start with the Taliban.

 

[Jay]

If you want to give anybody credit for forcing the Russians to overspend on the military you can start with the Taliban.

You can thank America for that one too.

 

[Colpy]

You can thank America for that one too.

Exactly.

How soon people forget the military-political situation at the time when they blame the USA for the Taliban, Saddam Hussein, etc.

And how quickly they forget the good results.......like the fall of the Wall.

 

[BitWhys]

You can thank America for that one too.

why? they were disquised as muhajadeen or something?

glorify the bankers and ignore the people. nice.

Excusing Reagan's fiscal irresponsibility on military spending when the truth of the matter is the main causes of the deficit at the time were Volker's interest rates and Reagan's tax cuts, and to think that military spending would have been reduced instead of accellerated, is disengenous at best.

Russia fell under its own weight. Funny that's only true to some people when they're trying to equate it with Socialism. THEN the story changes.

 

[Jay]

why? they were disquised as muhajadeen or something?

<H4 style="MARGIN: auto 0in">The CIA's anticommunist jihad

President Jimmy Carter immediately declared that the invasion jeopardized vital U.S. interests, because the Persian Gulf area was "now threatened by Soviet troops in Afghanistan. But the Carter administration's public outrage at Russian intervention in Afghanistan was doubly duplicitous. Not only was it used as an excuse for a program of increased military expenditure that had in fact already begun, but the U.S. had in fact been aiding the mujahideen for at least the previous six months, with precisely the hope of provoking a Soviet response. Former CIA director Robert Gates later admitted in his memoirs that aid to the rebels began in June 1979. In a candid 1998 interview, Zbigniew Brezinski, Carter's national security adviser, confirmed that U.S. aid to the rebels began before the invasion:

According to the official version of history, CIA aid to the mujahideen began during 1980, that is to say, after the Soviet army invaded Afghanistan [in] December 1979. But the reality, secretly guarded until now, is completely otherwise: indeed, it was July 3, 1979, that President Carter signed the first directive for secret aid to the opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul. And that very day, I wrote a note to the president in which I explained to him that in my opinion this aid was going to induce a Soviet military intervention.... We didn't push the Russians to intervene, but we knowingly increased the probability that they would....

That secret operation was an excellent idea. It had the effect of drawing the Russians into the Afghan trap.... The day that the Soviets officially crossed the border, I wrote to President Carter: We now have the opportunity of giving to the USSR its Vietnam War."

The Carter administration was well aware that in backing the mujahideen it was supporting forces with reactionary social goals, but this was outweighed by its own geopolitical interests. In August 1979, a classified State Department report bluntly asserted that "the United States' larger interest...would be served by the demise of the Taraki-Amin regime, despite whatever setbacks this might mean for future social and economic reforms in Afghanistan." That same month, in a stunning display of hypocrisy, State Department spokesperson Hodding Carter piously announced that the U.S. "expect the principle of nonintervention to be respected by all parties in the area, including the Soviet Union."

The Russian invasion in December was the signal for U.S. support to the Afghan rebels to increase dramatically.

Three weeks after Soviet tanks rolled into Kabul, Carter's secretary of defense, Harold Brown, was in Beijing arranging for a weapons transfer from the Chinese to the ClA-backed Afghani troops mustered in Pakistan. The Chinese, who were generously compensated for the deal, agreed and even consented to send military advisers. Brown worked out a similar arrangement with Egypt to buy $15 million worth of weapons. "The U.S. contacted me," [then-Egyptian president] Anwar Sadat recalled shortly before his assassination [in 1981]. "They told me, 'Please open your stores for us so that we can give the Afghans the armaments they need to fight.' And I gave them the armaments. The transport of arms to the Afghans started from Cairo on U.S. planes."

By February 1980, the Washington Post reported that the mujahideen was receiving arms coming from the U.S. government.

The objective of the intervention, as spelled out by Brezinski, was to trap the Soviets in a long and costly war designed to drain their resources, just as Vietnam had bled the United States. The high level of civilian casualties that this would certainly entail was considered but set aside. According to one senior official, "The question here was whether it was morally acceptable that, in order to keep the Soviets off balance, which was the reason for the operation, it was permissible to use other lives for our geopolitical interests." Carter's CIA director Stansfield Turner answered the question: "I decided I could live with that." According to Representative Charles Wilson, a Texas Democrat,

There were 58,000 dead in Vietnam and we owe the Russians one.... I have a slight obsession with it, because of Vietnam. I thought the Soviets ought to get a dose of it.... I've been of the opinion that this money was better spent to hurt our adversaries than other money in the Defense Department budget.

The mujahideen consisted of at least seven factions, who often fought amongst themselves in their battle for territory and control of the opium trade. To hurt the Russians, the U.S. deliberately chose to give the most support to the most extreme groups. A disproportionate share of U.S. arms went to Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, "a particularly fanatical fundamentalist and woman-hater."' According to journalist Tim Weiner, " [Hekmatyar's] followers first gained attention by throwing acid in the faces of women who refused to wear the veil. CIA and State Department officials I have spoken with call him 'scary,' 'vicious,' 'a fascist,' 'definite dictatorship material."

There was, though, a kind of method in the madness: Brezinski hoped not just to drive the Russians out of Afghanistan, but to ferment unrest within the Soviet Union itself. His plan, says author Dilip Hiro, was "to export a composite ideology of nationalism and Islam to the Muslim-majority Central Asian states and Soviet Republics with a view to destroying the Soviet order." Looking back in 1998, Brezinski had no regrets. "What was more important in the world view of history?... A few stirred-up Muslims or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the Cold War>"

</H4>....

 

[BitWhys]

duh

I'll take that as a "no"

 

[Toro]

Reagan's role in the collapse of the Soviet Union was just a bit overrated:

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion...0,7754315.story?coll=la-news-comment-opinions



Gorbachev had a lot more to do with that decline as Soviet communism was an ideology which was totally devoid of logic, common sense, and pragmatism. Note that Reagan did nothing to stop communism in China. It took years before economic reform took place there without Reagan having any role in it which shows that reform comes from within, not from without.

Regan's role in the collapse of the USSR is over-rated by the Right. But its under-rated by the Left.

The collapse of the USSR was due to a confluence of events. But one of those events was Reagan's arms build-up. In Gorbachev's biography, he said that the USSR could not match Reagan's military build-up, and opted to reform the economy and engage the West.

The Soviet Union probably would have collapsed sooner in OPEC hadn't jacked up the price of oil 1000%. A command economy that puts price limits on goods is bound to collapse eventually.

 

[Toro]

Actually, we in the States had a record surplus under Clinton.

Very true. Clinton was a better steward of the nation's finances than the Reagan or Bush Jr. However, Clinton also benefitted from the enormous stock bubble late in the decade. If you look at tax receipts Mr. IRS man, you'll see capital gains taxes explode at that time. Other taxes were rising, but not enough to cover outlays.

Today, the defecit is roughly 2% of GDP, lower than France, Germany and Italy. Total debt is 65% of the economy. It was over 100% after WWII. Canada's was 100% in 1995.

But I think this is what Karlin was refering to

And if you look at the data going back to the beginning of the century, the proportion of debt was rising in those years.

 

[BitWhys]

... A command economy that puts price limits on goods is bound to collapse eventually.

bingo. between that and the fact that eventually tyrannies fall, it was only a matter of time. sure the States had a role, but it (especially not alone) certainly didn't justify racking up the debt.

interesting point about the oil.

btw, you ever read The New Industrial State?

 

[BitWhys]

...Today, the defecit is roughly 2% of GDP...

um...

isn't that more like 5?

GDP 12 trillion
deficit on track for over 600 billion?

 

[Toro]

btw, you ever read The New Industrial State?

Yeah, I have. I even remember buying. But it was more than 15 years ago, and I got rid of the book when I parred down.

 

[Toro]

um...

isn't that more like 5?

GDP 12 trillion
deficit on track for over 600 billion?

GDP $13.3 trillion, Q3/06

http://www.bea.gov/bea/newsrel/gdpnewsrelease.htm

Deficit, fiscal year end 2006 (September) $248 billion.

http://www.fms.treas.gov/mts/mts1006.pdf

0.248 / 13.3 = 1.86%.

Now, we'll see what the outlays for Iraq are when the Dems take control. But it won't be 5% of GDP.

 

[BitWhys]

:glasses1:

 

[BitWhys]

:glasses1:but what's with the debt?

$8,506,973,899,215.23 9/29/2006
$7,932,709,661,723.50 9/30/2005
=$574,264,237,491.73

and

$8,584,329M Oct 31, 2006
$8,170,414M Dec 31, 2006

puts them on pace to hit $500B again. that's 3.7%

 

[BitWhys]

Just thought I'd mention that with the economy reportedly doing so well and the Unemployment Rate obviously approaching the NAIRU anyways this would probably be a good time to go ahead and hike the minimum wage to something closer to the LICO for full-time work.

 

[Toro]

NAIRU is, like, so 1970s

 

[BitWhys]

maybe

but it gets the point across

the wage/price spiral archaic or something?