Posted on 01/09/2007 8:27:45 AM PST by jmc813
Nonsense! I disagree with Medved on immigration and related issues, but to anyone who has read any of his books (particularly Hollywood vs. America), there is no doubting Medved's bonafides.
Lol. Yeah, there's a real test. The very fact that you offer it up as an economics test is evidence of what little you know of economics. The Laffer Curve is something bandied about by those who get their economic education from political magazines.
It's actually known as an elasticity curve in economics, and in the case of Laffer's Curve there is no way to assign shape or valuation to it. Moreover if you arbitrarily give it a shape, say a regular elipse, there is no way to know where you are on the curve. It's simply an intuitive device for debating political policy and has no analytical usefulness.
http://www.gmu.edu/jbc/fest/files/Monissen.htm
Art Laffer didn't work as a Reagan economist as I recall, and the Reagan economists weren't relying on his 'Curve' for their program. Reagan's tax cuts were designed to promote economic growth, not to increase tax receipts. The goal of the program was to break out of the stagnation that had plagued the '70s, and which had proved impervious to Keynesian demand stimulus.
The Reagan economists didn't believe that lowering marginal rates would result in an increased yield to the Treasury. What they did predict was that economic growth would recoup a good portion of each tax dollar lost due to the cuts- dynamic effects- which is what happened. About 2/3 of each dollar cut was recouped through growth, in line with their predictions. The other third was to be addressed through spending cuts, which Tip O'Neill reneged upon. This idea that tax cuts pay for themselves is something you will find refuted by Reagan's own economists.
Yes, you tried to do just that, I remember. And now you are stalking me, from thread to thread, as the notion strikes you, dragging an old lie about, spamming it to thread after thread, which is against FR's posting rules.
What is your source for this?
These 25 "Disinformation Rules" are all over the Internet, and they are not usually attributed to Medved. One attribution I found is this:
Posted to newsgroups alt.conspiracy.new-world-order and alt.illuminati on April 28, 1998 by wildfire@ionet.netWritten by an anonymous poster to conspiracy newsgroups. That sounds more likely.
Yes there is. First you don't understand the pivotal role of his intellectual foundations...which are definitely Hard core Left. Secondly you fail to recognize or admit his in-the-tank celebrations of Goldman-Sachs control of White House economic thinking...conflating their self-interest into assertions of "national interest." And third, he is definitely suspect even where you assert his "strength" in media...i.e., his approvals of less-than-safe Hollywood material, such as the Harry Potter series. And he could have been a hell of a lot more harsh about Brokeback Mountain. He's a moral wuss, afraid of the PC Police.
Conclusion (at least with respect to those two issues): Two thumbs down, for Michael Medved....
From Doctor Laffer's bio:
Laffer was a member of President Reagan's Economic Policy Advisory Board for both of his two terms (1981-1989). He was a member of the Executive Committee of the Reagan/Bush Finance Committee in 1984 and was a founding member of the Reagan Executive Advisory Committee for the presidential race of 1980. Dr. Laffer has been a professor at Pepperdine University, University of Southern California and University of Chicago. While he was a professor at USC, Dr. Laffer held the status as the Charles B. Thornton Professor of Business Economics from 1976-1984. During the years 1972 to 1977, Dr. Laffer was a consultant to Secretary of the Treasury William Simon, Secretary of Defense Don Rumsfeld, and Secretary of the Treasury George Shultz. He was the first to hold the title of Chief Economist at the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) under Mr. Shultz from October 1970 to July 1972.Dr. Laffer received a BA in economics from Yale University in 1963. He received an MBA and a PhD in economics from Stanford University in 1965 and 1971 respectively."
And in response to the rest of your unwarranted and rather defensive apologia (I don't think there need be any...the only issue was that the rest of the team, particularly Stockman didn't "get it"). As for Ronald Reagan public self-identification, note how he enthusiastically referred to the Laffer curve in his Flynt, Michigan speech.
...as I recall, and the Reagan economists weren't relying on his 'Curve' for their program. Reagan's tax cuts were designed to promote economic growth, not to increase tax receipts. The goal of the program was to break out of the stagnation that had plagued the '70s, and which had proved impervious to Keynesian demand stimulus.
You make my case. Some clearly weren't on board. Stockman, as head of the OMB clearly wasn't. What a drip.
The Reagan economists didn't believe that lowering marginal rates would result in an increased yield to the Treasury.
Actually, I think Paul Craig Roberts did, among a number of others. But he left after only two years as well. A lot of the team was unhappy at the "deal" made with Tip O'Neill.
I just wanted to make sure that the man had a minimal knowledge of economic theory. I'm curious that you ran across this thread and didn't (a) address the absurd notion that the EU was constructed and conceived in secret and (b) answer the question I posed in post #152.
Medved is a "soft Conservative", like ben Stein has become.
OK, stop right there. I know where you're coming from. Never miiiiind...
Nutburger with cheese and onions...
...on a sesame bun...
Apparently it's okay for you to accuse others of having an indifference to the facts:
But there are some here, to whom facts just don't matter at all.
but then you run crying for help when you get reminded of your own posting history.
Sure you did.
The economists who worked for President Reagan were members of the Council of Economic Advisers, part of the Executive branch. Martin Feldstein, Martin Anderson, William Niskanen were among them. Laffer ran a private consulting firm during the Reagan years. His work at OMB, which you highlighted, occurred during Nixon.
Paul Craig Roberts doesn't support the idea that reducing rates increases the yield to the Treasury. I asked him this very question myself, and he wrote a piece clarifying his position. It was posted online, and you can find it here:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/roberts/roberts52.html
The greatest myth of all about Reaganomics is that the administration made a "Laffer-curve" forecast that the tax rate reductions would pay for themselves. Reagan’s budget deficits are regarded as proof that supply-side economics failed.
Martin Anderson as well devotes considerable time to debunking the claim that Laffer-curve forecasts were ever considered by the Reagan economic team, of which he was a senior member. He derides it as "the myth of the supply-siders". You can find the relevant passage in his book Revolution.
Anderson, Roberts, et al would certainly have revised their opinion of the Laffer Curve predicting an increased yield to the Treasury if the increased yield had happened. It didn't, except in the limited case of capitals gains rate reductions. Once stimulus effects of deficit spending, the business cycle, and other such factors are accounted for we find that each dollar of cuts regained 60 some cents through growth. An impressive feat compared to the predictions of static analysis, but hardly the "cuts pay for themselves" claim. A breakdown of the effect of the Reagan tax program was published by Lawrence Lindsey, The Growth Experiment.
I don't know that the plan for the EU was secret. But it may not have been widely discussed outside of mostly commercial circles, at least at first. One of the European Union's main architects was French bureaucrat Jean Monnet. He and his associates were proposing an EU before its first iteration as the European Coal and Steel Community of 1952. It's of interest that Britain declined to join the ECSC on the grounds of national sovereignty.
The ECSC evolved into the European Economic Community, the EEC or Common Market, in 1958. The European Community in 1967. The European Monetary System and European Parlaiment in 1979. The EU in 1992. It developed over time, but the seeds were planted by Monnet and his contemporaries when they first began with economic integration. Here's a pertinent Monnet quote long preceding even the ECSC:
In 1943, Monnet became a member of the National Liberation Committee, the French government in exile in Algiers. During a meeting on 5 August 1943, Monnet declared to the Committee: "There will be no peace in Europe, if the states are reconstituted on the basis of national sovereignty... The countries of Europe are too small to guarantee their peoples the necessary prosperity and social development. The European states must constitute themselves into a federation..."
There have been any number of articles on regional trade blocs centered around common currencies. Kenichi Ohmae was arguing that nation states are irrelevant in Borderless World back around 1990. That someone would propose a North American Union is hardly new. Is it being done? It's certainly open for discussion. It's a policy desired by people who see it as producing economic advantage to the Americas. It's hardly the tinfoil idea Medved characterizes it to be.
That someone would propose a North American Union is hardly new.
Anyone can propose anything about anything. That doesn't mean it's happening.
I'm sorry, I just can't prove there aren't pixies in the garden.
And it was you, who keep attempting to twist Kindleberger's words, to suit your position. But then, that's just how you are. Pity that.......
I didn't say he was working for the Administration. A lot of times the Advisers are more important to policy than the "working" economists. His bio pretty clearly indicates his influential role.
The reason I highlighted the Nixon-era role he had as CEA Chief Economist was that he worked for George Schultz, a behind-the-scenes guy who Reagan ultimately named as Secretary of State to replace Haig. The connection indicates influence that is pivotal.
As to Paul Craig Roberts, on Revenue Growth models, I believe you are right, that he has taken the agnostic postion on revenues, indeed note especially here My Time With Supply Side Economics:
President Reagan’s economic program was contained in a document called A Program for Economic Recovery, published on February 18, 1981. Contrary to many uninformed academic economists’ assertions, the administration did not base its program on a “Laffer curve” forecast that the tax cut would pay for itself. The administration decided not to fight the battle for a dynamic revenue forecast and used the standard static revenue forecasting still in use today. Tables in the document show that the administration assumed that every dollar of tax cut would result in a dollar of lost revenue.
Taking the dollar for dollar approach, and treating the steep inflation declines as lost revenue are a bit on the Keynsian side. And empirically, the Revenues did grow in a stellar way, despite these cautious assumptions. I think I got the contrary notion aboujt Roberts' view from one of his articles for the Wall Street Journal and National Review, "Reagan Changed the World".
Once stimulus effects of deficit spending, the business cycle, and other such factors are accounted for we find that each dollar of cuts regained 60 some cents through growth. An impressive feat compared to the predictions of static analysis, but hardly the "cuts pay for themselves" claim.
I am not sure that it was claimed that the effects had to be a complete restoration. As you clearly admit, a 60% recovery is a lot better than the administration's own politically cautious assumption that the cuts were a complete dollar-for-dollar loss.
The net growth history of the experiment (and it was an experiment then) with Reagonmics as it came to be called is encouraging. The term of course was intended to be disparagement, but as it proceeded to succeed....it was raised high as a banner amongst us conservatives. Some pertinent program history was well described in Wikipedia's rendition, which might help the youngsters on this thread. This history helps clarify a mixed and complicated policy:
Part of what Reagan implemented was in fact not supply side economics, but rather his own version of Keynesianism. Reagan advocated initiating deep tax cuts and simultaneous increases in military spending, while at the same time claiming that the Federal deficit would be erased. Critics argued that while Keynesian economics promoted the idea of consumers (including the poorest) creating jobs by increasing the demand for goods and services, Reaganomics relied on giving more money to producers by giving tax cuts especially to the wealthiest citizens, who would then create jobs that would somehow find a demand. This type of economic theory has also been referred to derisively as "trickle-down economics."The belief of Reaganomics that the tax cuts would more than pay for themselves was influenced by the Laffer curve, a theoretical taxation model that was particularly in vogue among some American conservatives during the 1970s. Arthur Laffer's model predicts that excessive tax rates actually reduce potential tax revenues, by lowering the incentive to produce. The rise, rather than fall, in government deficits during the Reagan era caused many to question the validity of the Laffer curve. In addition, although the Laffer curve was used to justify tax cuts, its main emphasis was on showing how to maximize government revenues through fiscal policy; because this conflicted with the aim of conservatives to reduce spending as well as revenues, the Laffer curve has more recently been deemphasized by conservatives in recent years. Nonetheless, Federal Government tax revenues did increase significantly following the tax cuts of the Reagan years; it was the dramatic increase in spending that produced the budget deficits of that era.
Before Reagan's election, Reaganomics was considered extreme by the liberal wing of the Republican Party. While running against Reagan for the Presidential nomination in 1980. George H. W. Bush had derided Reaganomics as "voodoo economics", a term that held currency long after the recession ended. Similarly, in 1976, Gerald Ford had severely criticized Reagan's proposal to turn back a large part of the Federal budget to the states. After the Reagan election, however, most Republicans endorsed Reaganomics, including Bush, who became Reagan's Vice President.
Support for Reaganomics A study from the Cato Institute, which supports many of the premises that lie behind Reaganomics) said:
* Real economic growth averaged 3.2 percent during the Reagan years versus 2.8 percent during the Ford-Carter years and 2.1 percent during the Bush-Clinton years.
* Real median family income grew by $4,000 during the Reagan period after experiencing no growth in the pre-Reagan years; it experienced a loss of almost $1,500 in the post-Reagan years. ([http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-261.html source])
Laffer and Reagan were vindicated by the results of the Reagan tax cuts. Real per capita GDP increased at an annual rate of 2.6% from 1981 to 1989, after languishing at a 1.6% rate during the Carter years of 1977 - 1981. Citation: Louis Johnston and Samuel H. Williamson, "The Annual Real and Nominal GDP for the United States, 1789 - Present." Economic History Services, March 2004, URL : http://www.eh.net/hmit/gdp/
Reagan's supply-side model changed the paradigm of government involvement in the economy. Keynesian economists were at a loss to explain why the aggregate demand increases of the 1970's did not result in improved national economic performance. Likewise, they could not explain how to reverse the shift in the Phillips curve. The Reagan-Laffer-Volcker-Milton Friedman model of improving economic performance by reducing government involvement in the economy has since gained wide currency. President Clinton ran as a "New Democrat": fiscally conservative and trade-friendly. Likewise, national governments worldwide are implementing low-rate flat tax revenue structures, with impressive results.
Indeed, many are.
Wish we were.
Apparently you did not read the Vatican's critical evaluation of the series, and perhaps you should be more aware.
As Michael O'Brien observed when researching the debate:
It is interesting to note that the truly reasonable arguments are all on the side of caution regarding the Potter series. . By contrast, the pro-Harry articles lack any serious reflection on the issues involved. Their opinions can generally be boiled down to this: "Now, now, let's not get paranoid here. Isn't it wonderful to see kids enthusiastic about reading?" That is no argument at all, because there are a great many things to be cautious about in our present secular culture (calm vigilance is not necessarily paranoia), and children are frequently enthusiastic about unhealthy interests.
Of course, we know which side Medved comes down on. He indeed does one of his typical rants to quash concern as paranoic.
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