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Jimmy Carter has died

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Re: Jimmy Carter has died

#291
post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Carter appointee Paul Volcker controlled interest rates at the Federal Reserve from 1979 until 1987. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Volcker

Rates peaked in 1982.

Reagan and Volcker clashed (at least somewhat publicly). Not long after Reagan came to power, he pushed a massive tax cut that swelled the deficit. Volcker publicly complained that they were too early and were hindering his anti-inflationary work and then proceeded to significantly raise interest rates and only cut them in 1982 after taxes were raised (to lower than they were before the previous cut, but a significant raise nonetheless).

I’m not saying Reagan was right or wrong, but one could argue that he made the fight against inflation (and the early 1980s recession) worse than it would have been had he taken a more measured approach.

Re: Jimmy Carter has died

#292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right? Biden actually pulled off a soft landing and got inflation under control. Just couldn’t land that messaging by the time it mattered.

messaging is hard when prices never went down… you can’t send economist/finacial times article explaining what biden was able to pull of (albeit the raising deficit) to a farmer in oklahoma who is paying 80% more for his groceries…

The prices definitely did go down, just not to same levels as before. But I agree Biden failed to hit on that messaging though, and Kamala made the same mistake.

Re: Jimmy Carter has died

#293
post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>it could be argued real work on Climate Change would have begun in 1981 as opposed to where we are now That's a common myth. 70s energy policy was a result of the oil crisis, not environment concerns. Sometimes the result was conductive to the environment (e.g. efficiency increases), sometimes it was less so (various US gov research into more polluting alternatives like synthetic oil or shale oil), and sometimes it…

"70s energy policy was a result of the oil crisis, not environment concerns." Quite - the environment was not much of a concern. Bear in mind that lead in petrol was your anti-knock agent and the catalytic convertor didn't exist. I remember really yellow coloured, sickly verges alongside roads and strawberry sellers in laybyes on the A303 ...

In the 1970s, the feared effect was global cooling.

I doubt that Carter could have intervened in any case.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_cooling

Re: Jimmy Carter has died

#294

Didn't do everything right as president, but a good man who mostly tried to do the right thing for Americans. Particularly exemplary since leaving the presidency. The average U.S. person would be much better off today if he had won in 1980 instead of it being the beginning of deregulation and Reaganomics.

More deregulation passed under Carter than Reagan.

Carter’s deregulation was more market-oriented, though. Most of it (especially trucking and airlines) are still in place. Reagan’s were more “business-friendly” and resulted in various problems, especially in banking. The savings and loan crisis happened under his watch and we’re still dealing with a lot of the imbalances of financial deregulation.

Re: Jimmy Carter has died

#295
post #20

Looking back, to me he was a much better president then people believed in the 80s. I believe if he got re-elected in 1980, the US would be in a much better place. One thing, it could be argued real work on Climate Change would have begun in 1981 as opposed to where we are now, which is just watching the average probably blowing past 3C in around 70 years from now. For his loss in 1980, I still blame Kennedy. RIP, he…

Blaming Kennedy is a take I hadn't heard before. I always gave the folks behind Reagan a lot of credit, as it is a historical fact that they conspired with a foreign power to hold the American hostages until after the election. > A Four-Decade Secret: One Man’s Story of Sabotaging Carter’s Re-election > A prominent Texas politician said he unwittingly took part in a 1980 tour of the Middle East with a clandestine age…

Reagan's entire administration was swamped in corruption and scandals. People really don't remember just how many investigations, charges, and convictions there were. People only remember Iran-Contra and the hostage crisis; it was so much worse. Reagan even cheated in a televised debate; someone stole Carter's notes and gave them to Reagan.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scandals_of_the_Ronald_Reagan_...

Ronald "Small Government" Reagan ballooned the national debt by 160-180%, depending on who's counting. That's higher than any other president by a massive amount: https://www.data-z.org/library/imglib/National-debt-growth-b...

Then there was his disassembling the national mental healthcare system with no substitute, causing a national crisis - and in a real case of irony - getting shot by a mentally ill person who should have been committed.

Then there was him ignoring the AIDS epidemic because it only seemed to affect gay people.

Then there was him coming down with Alzheimer's with symptoms cropping up during his first term, according to his own son and video from his debate against Mondale. At some point the country was effectively being run by Nancy Reagan and her astrologist. Hell, there's hot mic footage of her telling him word for word what to say to the press...

Re: Jimmy Carter has died

#296
post #20

Looking back, to me he was a much better president then people believed in the 80s. I believe if he got re-elected in 1980, the US would be in a much better place. One thing, it could be argued real work on Climate Change would have begun in 1981 as opposed to where we are now, which is just watching the average probably blowing past 3C in around 70 years from now. For his loss in 1980, I still blame Kennedy. RIP, he…

The term ‘climate change’ didn’t exist 45 years ago (except perhaps in a few technical circles). You’re using current knowledge/terminology/perspective to comment on things that were not in the mindset of the general populace or politicians at the time. I know this as I was there.

Re: Jimmy Carter has died

#297
post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I lived in the Knoxville/Oak Ridge TN area at the time Hey, so did I! ORHS class of '82. Maybe we met back in the day?

My dad worked for TVA (in Knoxville) on their nuclear plants. I got a tour of Oak Ridge including a test reactor where you could look into a reactor core … through about 20 feet of flowing water, an early unforgettable blue.

I am assuming the blue glow was due to Cherenkov radiation.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherenkov_radiation

Re: Jimmy Carter has died

#298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's not joking. He's an immigrant himself. There is often the "pulling up the ladder" attitude from the ones who think they "deserved" their entry.

Not at all! I think it’s worse for the country to import foreign elites, like my family, than low skill workers. Foreign elites are the people most responsible for the dysfunction in their home countries.

Fair enough, I stand corrected!

You think it was a mistake to allow you in and are a net negative to your country?

Re: Jimmy Carter has died

#299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right? Biden actually pulled off a soft landing and got inflation under control. Just couldn’t land that messaging by the time it mattered.

messaging is hard when prices never went down… you can’t send economist/finacial times article explaining what biden was able to pull of (albeit the raising deficit) to a farmer in oklahoma who is paying 80% more for his groceries…

It's not that hard to explain that prices stopped rising, which is what it means to kill inflation. Even Trump explained that point pretty clearly. After the election.

Re: Jimmy Carter has died

#300
post #20

Looking back, to me he was a much better president then people believed in the 80s. I believe if he got re-elected in 1980, the US would be in a much better place. One thing, it could be argued real work on Climate Change would have begun in 1981 as opposed to where we are now, which is just watching the average probably blowing past 3C in around 70 years from now. For his loss in 1980, I still blame Kennedy. RIP, he…

Blaming Kennedy is a take I hadn't heard before. I always gave the folks behind Reagan a lot of credit, as it is a historical fact that they conspired with a foreign power to hold the American hostages until after the election. > A Four-Decade Secret: One Man’s Story of Sabotaging Carter’s Re-election > A prominent Texas politician said he unwittingly took part in a 1980 tour of the Middle East with a clandestine age…

> Confirming Mr. Barnes’s account is problematic after so much time. Mr. Connally, Mr. Casey and other central figures have long since died and Mr. Barnes has no diaries or memos to corroborate his account. But he has no obvious reason to make up the story and indeed expressed trepidation at going public because of the reaction of fellow Democrats ...

> None of that establishes whether Mr. Reagan knew about the trip, nor could Mr. Barnes say that Mr. Casey directed Mr. Connally to take the journey. Likewise, he does not know if the message transmitted to multiple Middle Eastern leaders got to the Iranians, much less whether it influenced their decision making.

"Historical fact" is a very strong way to say "one man's story recounted 40 years later and backed by modest circumstantial evidence", and even to the extent the story is true as told in that article, Reagan's backers didn't "conspire" with anyone—as recounted, they never spoke with the Iranians, they told other Arab leaders to let the Iranians know.

If true, this is still worth recounting, but you're not helping anything by overstating the degree to which we know this to be fact nor by overstating the crime.

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