From: mascdb@gdr.bath.ac.uk (C D Burdorf)
Newsgroups: alt.california
Subject: Re: relocation
Date: 19 Nov 92 11:53:07 GMT
Organization: School of Mathematics, University of Bath, UK

In the referenced article, steiny@steiny.com (Don Steiny) writes:
>mascdb@gdr.bath.ac.uk (C D Burdorf) writes:
>
>>The high interest rates that Reagen imposed did a lot of damage to our
>>industrial base.  
>
>	Reagan did not impose the high interest rates.   The Federal Reserve
>bank decides on interest rates.   It is an independent part of the government.
>They successfully controlled double digit inflation.    
>

He had a chance to get rid of Paul Volker, but he reappointed him.
It was a rubber stamp approval of high interest rates.  It may have
reduced inflation, but it also put a lot of people out of
work and threw the economy into recession.  "Voodoo" economics
claimed that it would spur growth and increased revenues would
pay off the deficit.  It didn't work.  Deficits are huge,
unemployment is high, and growth is not happening.  When you're out
of work or have to take a low-paying service job instead of a well-paying
manufacturing or professional job, it doesn't matter that inflation is low.

>
>	That is a pretty strange thing to say.    Historically open trade
>has been beneficial.    They way I see it is that US policies allowed me
>to buy a decent car from people who were capible of making a decent car.

Well, that decent car  that you bought was the result of a system
where the government supports industry as oppossed to one where
the government has its "hands off."

>Are you suggesting that it would be better to subsidize incompitence 
>by increasing tarrifs on foreign goods?

Why do you have such a low opinion of American products?

>During the Reagan years the
>government did interceed because of dumping of RAM.    They imposed a tarrif
>on DRAMS.   Because of the tarrif Japanese companies could get DRAMS cheaper
>than US companies and thus could not compete in consumer electronics.   We
>shot ourselves in the foot big time.   

Yeah right, Reagen cocked up.  They let the Japanese dump DRAMS on the
market and drive US competitors out of business (by the way the Japanese
DRAM makers were heavily subsidized), and then when they should have been
helping out US companies, they made a lame attempt at protectionism.
Let's face it the Reagen government was very against government 
involvement in business and the Japanese exploited  it.

>it.  But as I have said in every article, the issues are far more complex 
>than you make them out to be.  
>

Well, if they are so complex, explain how?  I'm not going to take your
word for it.  Saying it's too complex is just a copout.


>	So what?   Ross Perot applealed to people's racism too, he is anti-free
>trade (Mexicans), he wanted to turn the war-on-drugs into a military 
>occupation (use the military to fight the war . . .)   


I never said I agreed with Ross Perot on everything.  I was just pointing
out that I'm not nearly as slanted as you try and make me out to be.


>foreigners.   It is wild that you would rant and rave about how liberal
>you are and then buy into isolationism.
>

I don't consider myself a liberal and have never said so.  I consider
liberals to be well-meaning, but too wimpy to solve things.


>	
>	They are also great consumers.

Well, I was just in Germany in March, and I didn't see many American
cars.

>
>	Economists do disagree with each other.   I know that you mostly read 
>socialists in the Nation and so on, but many capitalist economists who write in 
>the Wall Street Journal and the Economist feel that this recession is no
>big deal.  

I don't consider the Nation to be socialist.  I see it as a magazine
that has a strong skeptical eye on government and business.  I can't
remember the Nation ever calling for the nationalization of industry.

> There was a small drop in GDP in 1991 and it has been going
>up ever since.   The opinions I have seen (and of course, economics is
>just opinions) say that there has not been a huge boom because there was
>not a huge bust, and that part of the woe people are feeling is due to
>disinflation and the structural changes investing based on low and zero
>inflation.     Believe it or not, the Wall Street Journal had and article
>the other day  that said for the last three quarters the relative percentage
>of the wealth owned by the richest portion of the country had started to
>decline.   This is because the very rich make their money off of interest.
>A decline in interest rates (which can only happen if inflation is low) 
>would benefit the middle class and the poor a great deal.   Note that
>I am talking about longsterm rates.  Part of interest in long term loans
>is to offset inflation.

It doesn't help you if your one of the thousands of people that are
now out of work.  When I was in LA 3 years ago, unemployment was
1% now its 10%.  I don't care what the economists say.  That is
economic hard times.


>several authors have said that was the case.   For reasons besides the
>economic pressure.   Besides, the same Scientific Americian that has
>the graphs about education also has a graph of defense spending as a 
>percentage of GDP, and though it increased some, it was no where close 
>to what it was at the end of the Vietnam War.

Yeah well the Vietnam war was a big envolvement.  It was an unecesarry
involvement.  The deficts were never paid off by Nixon, so they just
built.  Carter had slow growth of the deficit and then with Reagen and
Bush it went through the roof.  The supposedly Reagen econmic recovery
was false in that it was just paid for through increased defense
spending.

>
>>From my perspective there are fascist elements in the Reagen and Bush
>>camp and that people like you aren't willing to see it, because you
>>get seduced into accepting it.
>
>	To say that there are "fascist elements in the Reagen [sic] and Bush
>camp" is a far cry from saying that Reagan and Bush are fascists.   I don't know
>everyone in their camp as you apparently do, so how could I know?    But if
>even if it is true, so what?   I imagine that somewhere in Clintons group
>there are unsavory characters.   Besides, right wing != fascist, to
>most people.   I know you choose the Humpty Dumpty approach to language
>(words mean whatever I choose them to mean).  It is not too easy to 
>devine what you could mean by using words in this way.
>

That's debatable.  Here in the UK the conservative government is
considered right wing, but their support for the social welfare
state is stronger than the Democratic party in the US.  What does
that make the Republicans then?

>
>	I do not believe you.  Please tell me where I can find one so I
>can see a political spectrum. 
>

Take an introduction to political science class.

>> I believe that right-wing views are dangerous and destructive, so I choose 
>>to make a statement as such.  Why do you have a problem with this?
>
>	Boy, "views" seem to be pretty dangerous creatures to you.  I cannot 
>imagine why a "view" would be dangerous to anyone unless it lead to some action
>by someone that held it.    It would be pretty tough to demonstrate a chain
>of causation from a "view" to an "act." 

Well nazism started with "views" that ended up in acts.  The same holds
for communism.

>objects that exist in the world you share with other people.   One person 
>that would probably disagree with you is Karl Marx, whose "materialist
>dialectic" theorized that views were caused by material events, not the other
>way around.  
>

Yeah well Marx has pretty much been proven to be out of touch
with reality these days what with the east-bloc in a gross economic
state as a result of pursuing marxism.


>>Am I not allowed to express my views?
>	
>	Perhaps you are new to USENET.   What happens is that you post
>your article and it goes to lots of machines.   People on those machines
>have software that allows them to respond to your posting.   If you post
>things on USENET, you should not be surprised if you get a response.
>

I'm not new to it, and I encourage responses.  I just think that
you are being very patronizing and elitist by claiming that my
polictical views are basically wrong.  I have a right to express
my views 

>	If you write articles that are pissed-off and factually inconsistant
>they it is even more likely that you will get responses.   

All you have done is nitpick at my argument.  You haven't shown any
strong evidence that I am factually incorrect.  In fact, I have
been able to counter every one of your claims.  You seem to think
that just because you read mainstream articles that you've got
it all figured out.  Well, you don't. There's lots of information
that doesn't make it into the mainstream, and just because 
a view doesn't match the tone or style of the mainstream doesn't
mean its wrong.  I take a much more critcal eye to what I read.
There's BS in the US media  and just because the Wall Street Journal
says something doesn't mean its right.