Pres. Clinton more successful on middle-class economics his first 100 days?

Deleted member 1487

Yeah, no. That's not how inflation works. It's caused when the supply of goods does not keep up with the supply of money. The substantive increase in investment spending greatly expanded production capacity and reduced pricing power, limiting inflation - the aggregate supply of goods increased more rapidly than the supply of money.
Did you not read the quote, it says that right there and the oil shock caused the price for goods to rapidly rise because throughout the supply chain fuel cost more to move everything around. So the price for goods became prohibitive as a result and gridlocked the economy. There was no expanded productive capacity due to tax cuts, energy prices just fell when the 2nd oil shock ended. All tax cuts would have done in the continuation of oil price hikes is result in more money chasing that same restricted supply of goods. Increased production does nothing about fuel costs to get raw materials to factories and products to market.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1979_energy_crisis#United_States
The Jimmy Carter administration began a phased deregulation of oil prices on April 5, 1979, when the average price of crude oil was US$15.85 per barrel (42 US gallons (160 L)). Starting with the Iranian revolution, the price of crude oil rose to $39.50 per barrel over the next 12 months (its all-time highest real price until March 3, 2008.)[8] Deregulating domestic oil price controls allowed U.S. oil output to rise sharply from the large Prudhoe Bay fields, while oil imports fell sharply.

In the 1970s, had there not been rampant increased in money supply, there would have been no inflation - just a really bad recession - when people spend more on gas they spend less on clothes rather than spending on both. And to your point about oil, it went from $10/barrel in 1999 to $150 in 2008 during a period when the rate of inflation steadily declined. Sorry, your oil shock thesis is just wrong. It contributed a lot but to say its nothing more is just wrong.
There was no Stagflation until the 1979 oil shock drove energy prices through the roof and people panicked again expecting a repeat of 1973. The price of oil in 2008 was a temporary spike caused by market manipulation, supply was never restricted, and if you'll remember we had a massive recession in 2008 which prevented inflation, because the economy was massively contracting. Within less than 5 months it had gone from $147 to $30.

ERISA. In early 1970s they changed the rules and nature of legal liability as it related to investment managers. It opened up a whole range of investment opportunities for investment managers that included activist strategies and high yield bonds that gave investors the means to reform badly managed companies.
Source proving that assertion?

By analogy, imagine a guy that weighs 400 pounds and goes on a diet. He later develops an eating disorder and dies of it, weighing 90lbs at his death. This issue isnt that he went on a diet when he was 400lbs. Same idea here.
Not really at all. We didn't go on a diet, we have an oil shock, inflation wrecked the economy, but tappered off as the shock ended, but all the problems of deregulation caused a temporary spike followed by the 1987 market crash; then the economy limped along into the early 1990s when further deregulation and the internet hitting caused the Dot Com bubble to inflate and we rode that into 2000 when Bush inherited a recession; he then inflated a real estate bubble partially via cutting taxes again and deregulating that market and not having the SEC keep up with new speculations on Wall Street which resulted in the 2007-09 recession. That was masking the increasing problems with the economy and how the middle class was getting hollowed out by automation, out sourcing, computing, etc.
 
Source proving that assertion?

Prudent man rule was changed to prudent investor rule. Prior to the change, if a pension manager bought a high yield bond and it defaulted, he could be held liable for failing to use proper discretion. After the change, the standard was to view it in the context of an overall portfolio. So, pension managers could suddenly invest in a wide range of investments that, individually, were perhaps too risky but in the context of a whole investment portfolio were not. The change occurred in 1973 or 1974 IIRC. You can research the rest if like.

As to the rest, you clearly are dug in on your views such that its beyond my time or interest to engage further.
 

Deleted member 1487

Prudent man rule was changed to prudent investor rule. Prior to the change, if a pension manager bought a high yield bond and it defaulted, he could be held liable for failing to use proper discretion. After the change, the standard was to view it in the context of an overall portfolio. So, pension managers could suddenly invest in a wide range of investments that, individually, were perhaps too risky but in the context of a whole investment portfolio were not. The change occurred in 1973 or 1974 IIRC. You can research the rest if like.

As to the rest, you clearly are dug in on your views such that its beyond my time or interest to engage further.
You explaining a rules change is not a source. And it doesn't prove what I was asking, how the rules change resulted in better corporate management and the rescue of Ameican corporations. It just allowed for different investing strategies and helped get investment managers more commission. Saying that I have to research your asserations on my own is not proving your point and only indicating that you can't be bothered to back up your points.
 
You explaining a rules change is not a source. And it doesn't prove what I was asking, how the rules change resulted in better corporate management and the rescue of Ameican corporations. It just allowed for different investing strategies and helped get investment managers more commission. Saying that I have to research your asserations on my own is not proving your point and only indicating that you can't be bothered to back up your points.

Because now corporate pensions and related entities could invest in activist investor strategies, and related strategies that were effective pressuring management to reform inefficient corporate structures or replacing inefficient managements with more effective ones. There is a tremendous amount of literature on the topic and as I said, you can read further if interested. Or not. Sorry, I am just not interested in arguing the topic or spending a nice Sunday digging up old sources in an attempt to persuade you.
 
Clinton left a considerable fiscal surplus.

I imagine that if he had been more fiscally irresponsible (infraestructure projects, more university scholarships, tax grants for families with children, and so on) he could have gotten Gore elected.

He certainly could afford it (and leave the unpopular clean up to his succesor.)

I don't know why you would want a POD in which the US is more fiscally irresponsible and its leadership more populist however.
I think you could figure out other ways to get Gore elected without ruining one of the strong points of the Clinton Presidency - His fiscal surplus.

Though in hindsight Bush would squander that surplus anyway...
 
The public doesn't buy and has never bought the parties schemes to tinker with Health Care or Social Security or any of the major entitlement programs has anything to do with them being out of work.

They didn't in 1993, 2005 or 2009.

Even if you believe it completely for the average voter it's the parties telling them to go piss off with their personal worries.
I agree that even the smartest, most streamlined healthcare reform will primarily bring long-term improvements in growth, jobs, distribution, new business startups, etc. (and everyone please remember, 80% of new businesses fail with a couple of years)

When there's a serious economic downturn, the better leader will have a real conversation over what we can do in the short-term and medium-term.
 
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Deleted member 1487

Clinton left a considerable fiscal surplus.

I imagine that if he had been more fiscally irresponsible (infraestructure projects, more university scholarships, tax grants for families with children, and so on) he could have gotten Gore elected.

He certainly could afford it (and leave the unpopular clean up to his succesor.)

I don't know why you would want a POD in which the US is more fiscally irresponsible and its leadership more populist however.
I think you could figure out other ways to get Gore elected without ruining one of the strong points of the Clinton Presidency - His fiscal surplus.

Though in hindsight Bush would squander that surplus anyway...
Only problem is the GOP House forced him into budget hawking like it or not.
 
I think Clinton was fairly successful at helping the middle class. I know what the data says about the increasing disparity of wealth in the 1990s. But I am not convinced that it was truly an issue then as it is now. . .
I've recall reading that during the Clinton years of mid to late '90s that either the erosion of middle-class jobs paused but did not correct and/or increasing income disparity paused but did not correct. In either case, we missed an opportunity to rebuild.

And I don't want it to be all doom and gloom. For example, I think job numbers for January 2017 in the U.S. shows that we created net jobs compared to Jan. a year ago, but because more people entered or re-entered the job market, unemployment actually went up a little. Alright, well, we just need to keep creating jobs. And economic growth for the third quarter 2016 was about 2.6%, which is just about right, neither too much, nor too little. I'd like to pull numbers for the fourth quarter (which I think as standard we compare to the 4th quarter a year ago).
 
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I've recall reading that during the Clinton years of mid to late '90s that either the erosion of middle-class jobs paused but did not correct and/or increasing income disparity paused but did not correct. In either case, we missed an opportunity to rebuild.

And I don't want it to be all doom and gloom. For example, I think job numbers for January 2017 in the U.S. shows that we created net jobs compared to Jan. a year ago, but because more people entered or re-entered the job market, unemployment actually went up a little. Alright, well, we just need to keep creating jobs. And economic growth for the third quarter 2016 was about 2.6%, which is just about right, neither too much, nor too little. I'd like to pull numbers for the fourth quarter (which I think as standard we compare to the 4th quarter a year ago).

There's a difference between income inequality rising because all boats are rising but some more than others and some boats are rising but a lot are sinking. I think the 90s were the former while the last 15 years have been the latter. Both instances, if taken to extreme, are a negative. But given where we were starting from, I am dont necessarily believe the rising disparity in the 90s was bad and certainly not as bad as now.

Consider another perspective, as of 1990, there was a widespread perception that American business was getting crushed by the Japanese and we were well on our way to relative economic subservience. By 2000, that was no longer the case at all. Part of this was due to Japanese economic ineptitude but a lot of it was also due to the rebound in the US economy. Granted, perception is not reality but policy makers were operating under that perception and acted accordingly. When you are concerned about basic competitiveness and economic sustainability, it can be argued that boosting the economy as we did in the 90s, even with the rising inequality, is far better than the alternative.
 
. . . When you are concerned about basic competitiveness and economic sustainability, it can be argued that boosting the economy as we did in the 90s, even with the rising inequality, is far better than the alternative.
I tend to believe GDP is the single most important economic number. And maybe the single most important concept is "don't eat your seed corn," meaning that taking care of the environment has to be part of the equation.

I think the median wage (half above, half below) has been stagnant since '73. Will look for a graph and a source.
 
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US_real_median_household_income_1967_-_2014.PNG


a link on this wikipedia page:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media..._real_median_household_income_1967_-_2014.PNG

page 5 (page 13 in PDF)

And yes, the data is messy.
 

Not exactly a friendly view on Reaganomics! :p This is on the theme that although many people may have liked Reagan personally, a lot of them were not real crazy about his policies.

Please see "Real Median Earnings of Full Time Male Workers" about 1:30 into video, which have been stagnant since 1973.

And this can play out in different ways. Some guys may view it, hey, just all part of the texture of life. Whereas for other guys, it may lead to anger and being against the whole stinkin' lousy system ("which certainly ain't working for guys like me!"). And for some guys, and in our culture more commonly for white guys, this may play out in Tea Party politics and other right-wing political movements.

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I actually don't like the part about 2:00 into it in which "low-income" is defined as people who are double the poverty line and below. This seems tricky, even though it might kind of be true.
 
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