“Folks, whether the American people believe what I just said or not may be the whole election,” former President Bill Clinton intoned at the Democratic National Convention this week. “I just want you to know that I believe it. With all my heart, I believe it.”
Don’t believe it.
Also not worth believing? Clinton’s television ad, for which, you can be sure, every word was chosen carefully, not just ad-libbed (as some of the gray-haired Lothario’s lines from the convention were said to be):
This election, to me, is about which candidate is more likely to return us to full employment. This is a clear choice. The Republican plan is to cut more taxes on upper-income people and go back to deregulation. That’s what got us in trouble in the first place.
President Obama has a plan to rebuild America from the ground-up — investing in innovation, education and job training. It only works if there is a strong middle class, That’s what happened when I was president. We need to keep going with his plan.
Very persuasive … until examined.
Is the current economic depression the result of tax cuts and deregulation? No.
The original implosion was in the mortgage bundle markets, and that was fed by Clintonian homeownership policy and the Federal Reserve’s cheap credit. Regulation had increased dramatically under Bush, and the only bit of deregulation worth talking about was the repeal of Glass-Steagall … which Clinton himself signed.
The idea that the prosperity of the Clinton years was caused by his “investment” and “education” and “job training” plans is a howler. Clinton’s era was blessed, instead, with
- a mostly stable Fed policy;
- Republican opposition in the House that forced him to make his most famous policy moves; and
- low gas prices.
This latter was the result of the two most astounding policy moves in the years prior to his administration:
- The Carter-Reagan deregulation of the oil industry; and
- George Herbert Walker Bush’s sending Saudi Arabia and Kuwait the bill for the Persian Gulf War.
Politics, we must remember, is often dominated by expert liars.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
10 replies on “Lies You Can Believe In”
On target, Paul, as usual, but you must add the replacement of Glass-Steagal by Gramm-Leach, a horrendous deregulation give-away to Wall Street banks, and a key contributor to the economic mess. Who signed that, anyway? Oh, Bill Clinton.
On another point- “investments in innovation” – an Obama apologist recently wrote a book, and the thesis was, for the (about) $900 billion “stimulus”- we got Obama was trying to Obama trying to remake the economy.
But, (although Obama and his apologists think so) he (Obama) is NOT SMARTER then a few hundred million people. One idea- Fred Smith had – a nationwide overnight delivery service for businesses. His professor at Yale (Business School-he was going for an advanced degree) said it would never work and failed him. mr Smith went on to start FED EX.
These – the academics-are Obama’s advisors, not people in business, or with a business background.
I do NOT own stock in Fed Ex
Thanks Paul Jacob. I enjoy the daily emails.
Thanks for your comments; they made my day.
BTW, another big thing Clinton had going for him, not of his own making, was a humungous Internet boom.
.… Politics, we must remember, is often dominated by expert liars .…
Can’t be talking about “Democratic” politics, Mr Jacob.
You included “often.”
Shabbat Shalom — שבת-שלום — B A
Jay doesn’t own FedEx stock but some other very smart folk apparently do. Off the top of my head I believe it floated at $400,000,000, then the highest-ever initial valuation.
To Brian Richard Allen,
A friend of mine met some people from Memphis, tenn. a few years ago. They ended up having dinenr and they told him that when Mr. Smith went back to Memphis, he met with some wealthy Memphis people; he told them his paln- they ( and some money that Mr Smith‑I think from a grandparent) was the original start up $$$. they told my firnd- best meeting they ever had.
Shabbat Shalom to you, and a Shana Tova ( in a week or so)
Here’s the rest of the FedEx story: Fred Smith first went to Little Rock, Arkansas, but he couldn’t get the airport to add to their runways to give him enough space. So, he went to Memphis. Now FedEx is Memphis’ largest employer.
Appears he needed airports and roads for his business. And I thought that he built it.
Greensboro just built a new runway for FedEx. Looks like he needed lots of government help.
He needed government help because governments tend to co-opt the airport biz. But they don’t everywhere. There have been and are private airports of major size. But there is the natural monopoly problem — some industries are natural targets for government. (Indeed, this is why ancient Asian tyrannies encouraged rice production over root vegetable production: they were easier to exploit, and from that exploitation “manage” the people.)