AHC: Elected in 1976, Reagan effectively leads taking on oil companies during '79 energy crisis.

Oh, please there is not going to be a reintroduction of slavery.
Not on a large scale, and certainly not slavery by name.

But . . .

We have had mass incarceration, set in motion by Nixon, but also given a boost by Clinton. And we’re only now beginning to question it, haven’t really reversed it.

And from the early ‘70s to today, the American middle class has declined from 61% of the population to right at 50%. No, not catastrophic, but enough to give us all the political turmoil of the last ten years or so. And even though the most optimistic analysis I find shows 7 percentage points moving from middle to upper, and only 4 points moving from middle to lower, no, it’s a splitting of society, I don’t consider it a success. It’s moving in the direction of the Brazil model (bad old days!)
 
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I dunno about this. Reagan was a former new deal guy. But primarily, when he got to the Presidency, he was an Employee of moneyed interests. Going up against oil companies would conflict with everything he stood for.
 
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https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.ax...der-5fd30b0b-7152-45ca-8205-0b469f2bce95.html

And without the decline of the American middle class, this would have been ASB, and would have been rightly criticized as crummy alternate history.
 
. . But primarily, when he got to the Presidency, he was an Employee of moneyed interests. . .
Yes, through a particular GE executive who acted as his mentor and through his father-in-law Loyal Davis, Ronald Reagan seemed to see the world through (?) the eyes of an honorable business executive trying to build a company and create jobs. Something like this.

But all the same, presidents often play against type.

Bill Clinton signed mandatory minimums and increased mass incarceration, in fact, he advocated in favor of these. And he advocated for and signed legislation limiting a major type of welfare to I think two years, which is maybe workable during good economic times. But if a person’s time is running out as the economy slides toward recession, it can be a pretty bad situation.

So, with the oil companies back in ‘79, if there’s public outcry and pressure, if Congress puts together a straightforward package, I think Reagan will sign it.
 
Yes, through a particular GE executive who acted as his mentor and through his father-in-law Loyal Davis, Ronald Reagan seemed to see the world through (?) the eyes of an honorable business executive trying to build a company and create jobs. Something like this.

But all the same, presidents often play against type.

Bill Clinton signed mandatory minimums and increased mass incarceration, in fact, he advocated in favor of these. And he advocated for and signed legislation limiting a major type of welfare to I think two years, which is maybe workable during good economic times. But if a person’s time is running out as the economy slides toward recession, it can be a pretty bad situation.

So, with the oil companies back in ‘79, if there’s public outcry and pressure, if Congress puts together a straightforward package, I think Reagan will sign it.

Busting up Ma Bell was also playing against type, but the Gipper did it in OTL.
 
this kill reagan and setback free market republicans by decades..i would take it.
I don’t want to ‘kill’ Reagan in any fashion. I’m kind of fond of the guy. I was 18 when he took office in 1981 and 26 when he left office in ‘89. It was my political coming of age.

Just maybe . . . labor unions lead the way.

They become more like European labor parties with a strong educational component. With a stagnating economy, even as early as ‘71, they realize they’re going to get in there and play ball. The fairness doctrine says they need to give both sides, but heck, they want to do that anyway, to tell the whole messy story. So, the labor unions compete with preachers on AM radio, and beat the right-wingers by a country mile!
 
I don’t want to ‘kill’ Reagan in any fashion. I’m kind of fond of the guy. I was 18 when he took office in 1981 and 26 when he left office in ‘89. It was my political coming of age.
I'm not,his politics did setback my countries economy per years when his apprentice try to introduced it.

So, the labor unions compete with preachers on AM radio, and beat the right-wingers by a country mile!
That could work, still depends what come next...i've very little faith, you're too optimist at times
 
Busting up Ma Bell was also playing against type, but the Gipper did it in OTL.
And the actual breakup of AT&T happened sometime around (?) 1983. So, early in Reagan's presidency and set in motion well before. All the same, I think the Reagan admin.'s attorney general could have probably stopped it, and gets credit for not stopping it and letting it go forward.

As I understanding the norms of my own country, a president can direct the Secretary of Treasury or the Secretary of State with pretty specific instructions, but it's considered unseemly to do this with the attorney general. We probably need an inside-outside distinction, meaning if the president is instructing the attorney general how hard and heavy (how many resources to deploy) to go after the 'Church' of Scientology, for example, that's right and proper, but if it's an investigation into the administration's own conduct, then it's hands off.
 
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I'm not,his politics did setback my countries economy per years when his apprentice try to introduced it. . .
If you're talking about George W. Bush, he's an adult, I think we're got to blame him. And our fellow citizens, and I'm really sorry, but they have some glaring holes in their knowledge,

and/or their patience, or lack thereof,

And that's what might really hurt people as far as effective, practical, applicable intelligence. It's like a frustrated football fan yelling, "You've got to establish the run!!" When actually that went away with Bill Walsh and the West Coast Offense, and before him with Don Coryell.

With the 2008 financial institution near-meltdown, there was this big beefy guy who bellowed at a state legislative committee, "Quit spending!!" and then he kind of settled down and made his points. And even though it was called a "debt crisis," it was about repackaged subprimed mortgages, especially the repackaging and reselling part, and not about government spending (but that's the conservative playbook and that's what the big beefy fellow went with)

Keynesian economics is the big one the public misses,

It's not just deficit spending during downturns, although that's an important part. During overheated economies, it's also about higher taxes and/or less spending to cool off the overheated economy. In a word, Keynesian economics are "counter-cyclical" (okay, kind of two words!)

Going to pull a quote from economist Alan Blinder that during the recovery from the 2008 & 2009 recession, Republican House Speaker John Boehner got away with repeatedly using the phrase "job killing government spending," which by a mainstream economic viewpoint, is just crazy

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PS and fully plead guilty to being optimistic! :cool:
 
Going to pull a quote from economist Alan Blinder that during the recovery from the 2008 & 2009 recession, Republican House Speaker John Boehner got away with repeatedly using the phrase "job killing government spending," which by a mainstream economic viewpoint, is just crazy
And an economist that Boehner was an idiot, Bush Jr Slashed all the taxed and besided military reduced a lot of public spending, the crisis was a private one and Wall Street should have pay for it

It's not just deficit spending during downturns, although that's an important part. During overheated economies, it's also about higher taxes and/or less spending to cool off the overheated economy. In a word, Keynesian economics are "counter-cyclical" (okay, kind of two words!)
That is the thing, americans only played the half of keynesian cycles but forgot to apply it during crisis and set them off during boom times(even keynes was a free market champion). Here i see the same time bomb exploding to reagan and losing in 1980...and nothing of value was loss, even the watergate pro market democrats are an improvement to reagan
 
What Did We Learn from the Financial Crisis, the Great Recession [2008 & 2009], and the Pathetic Recovery?
Alan Blinder, Princeton University, 2014

https://www.princeton.edu/ceps/workingpapers/243blinder.pdf

page 15:


Lesson # 1: We need to teach basic Keynesian economics better.

While there are certainly exceptions, I think it is fair to say that most teachers of macro principles teach their students the basics of Keynesian economics. We’ve been doing that since Samuelson’s first edition (1948), a time span that now covers two to three generations. Yet the message clearly has not gotten through to the public. How else can you explain House Speaker John Boehner getting away with repeatedly referring to "job-killing government spending," which became a kind of mantra for him in the years 2009-2011 (if not still)?

I am not talking about subtleties here. It’s not important that the public understand the intellectual debates that figure prominently in advanced macro classes—not to mention the arcania that fill graduate curricula. I mean very basic notions such as that the government spending multiplier is positive, at least when there is high unemployment. If mass public opinion understood at least that, Mr. Boehner could not have gotten away with claiming that more government spending somehow "kills jobs." (How is that supposed to happen?)
I also quoted Alan Blinder toward the top of page 2.

And even though Blinder's an older fellow with presumably some street cred and some supporters, good for him for calling out John Boehner!
 
13thA did not eliminate Slavery as punishment

There is no way slavery is going to be reintroduced, as punishment or anything else. Any idiot running for office calling for that is lucky if he doesn't get death threats and wouldn't get elected dog catcher.
 

CalBear

Moderator
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Perhaps he could propose alternative economic policies to cushion the energy collapse. Perhaps a restoration of slavery as a means to help cushion the impact of economic decline, with it being obvious* who'd get the unwanted "job" as one option to be considered.

* 90% of them don't vote GOP, so no reason for Mr. Republican Reagan to care about that.
You are burning though chances here like a firestorm.

In fact I'd day you are almost out of fuel.

Kicked for a week.
 
13thA did not eliminate Slavery as punishment
There is no way slavery is going to be reintroduced, as punishment or anything else. Any idiot running for office calling for that is lucky if he doesn't get death threats and wouldn't get elected dog catcher.
There's the 2008 book and 2012 PBS documentary:



https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2319745.Slavery_by_Another_Name

" . . . tens of thousands of African Americans were arbitrarily arrested, hit with outrageous fines, and charged for the costs of their own arrests. With no means to pay these ostensible “debts,” prisoners were sold as forced laborers to coal mines, lumber camps, brickyards, railroads, quarries, and farm plantations. Thousands of other African Americans were simply seized by southern landowners and compelled into years of involuntary servitude. Government officials leased falsely imprisoned blacks to small-town entrepreneurs, provincial farmers, and dozens of corporations—including U.S. Steel—looking for cheap and abundant labor. . . "
Yes, after we ended Reconstruction, we in the rest of the United States majorly bailed on former slaves, or I should say, persons newly freed from slavery. No question about it.

We let people down, we should have done better.
 
This thread has seriously derailed.

No one want to focus on how Reagan would have reacted differently (and he would have involving Iran, working with Congress, encouraging America rather than blaming America for it's malaise)? Would there have been a push for more drilling, deregulation to encourage growth, investment in alternative energy (nuclear, solar, etc.)?

Iran is problematic as the US is not far removed from Vietnam so the military is not up to the task of any sort of invasion, especially in the Soviet Union's neighborhood, though I could see Reagan giving a great deal of support for the Shah including some shady actions to keep him propped up.

Would he have attacked the oil companies? I don't think so. Very likely he examines alternatives. Price fixing and punishing Big Oil are not happening.

I can imagine the bartering that would have transpired between Reagan and Congress, but at least there would have been a dialogue rather than a nigh four year standoff. Hell, there may have been the demand by the Dems for major investment in alternative energy with a drive for energy independence in exchange for Reagan's requests.

The problem with Carter was the man was a serious neophyte in foreign policy, was incapable of consensus, and simply was the wrong man at the wrong time. 76-79 was a bad time, no doubt, but Carter bungled a great deal of what was put in front of him. Sometimes you simply need to inspire. Carter was not that guy.
 
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. . . That is the thing, americans only played the half of keynesian cycles but forgot to apply it during crisis and set them off during boom times(even keynes was a free market champion). . .
The thing that surprised me during the 2008 & 2009 Great Recession (and it really was!) was the Europe went pretty far in the direction of austerity.
 
The thing that surprised me during the 2008 & 2009 Great Recession (and it really was!) was the Europe went pretty far in the direction of austerity.
Everyone was flaggerbasted(i started my studies in economics the same time) but that showed the real structural issues the eurozone did have, specially in the fiscal policies of their statutary members.
 
This thread has seriously derailed. . .
You see derailment, I see us really talking. :)

Because we didn't start improving the economy in 1979, we ended up in 2018 separating immigrant children from their parents and basically placing the children in jail. We scapegoated illegal immigrants even though not that many facts had changed on the ground pertaining to immigration, but facts sure changed pertaining to a chunk of middle-wage jobs lost in the Great Recession, either not coming back or only coming back as low-wage.

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And when we talk about slavery and "contract labor" in the South through the 1940s and maybe later, well, it can remind us how bad things can slide. I'm also going to count this as relevant in the bigger picture.
 
Everyone was flaggerbasted(i started my studies in economics the same time) but that showed the real structural issues the eurozone did have, specially in the fiscal policies of their statutary members.
I think some of it was a paper by Reinhart and Rogoff in which they made a case that if government debt goes higher than 90% of GDP, it slows future growth. It was exactly the kind of middle-brow number that politicians can latch onto, especially if it gels with their already existing beliefs. The fact that these longterm numbers were talking about normal times, not crisis, and the fact that real questions were later raised about how firm these conclusions were, seemed not to matter a wit.
https://www.newyorker.com/news/john-cassidy/the-reinhart-and-rogoff-controversy-a-summing-up

Plus, citizens kick at immigration.

This is the case in Denmark and other northern European countries we think of as liberal. This was the case in 1971 when, instead of taking in refugees from the Bengali famine, India fought a war in favor of Bangladeshi independence and against Pakistani. Anti-immigrant is a common human failing, one might almost say a unifying human trait, but experienced politicians might be able to find third paths, better alternatives, etc.
 
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