Excellent post once again. Just a quick correction to my earlier post that someone PMed me. I called Joseph Kennedy the Senator, it should have been the Ambassador.
Sorry I rant here but I cant seem to get this as concise as I want to as tired as I am and tend to rant no matter how many times I type it.
You touched on another good point and that is consumer / voter sentiment. It is amazing that the mood of the population can affect the economy so much. When looking at past boom bust cycles, it isn't hard to see that much didn't change FA wise other than mood. Happy go lucky prompts spending thus up cycles and then the hangovers cause the crashes and returns to the norms. Over stretching credit spurs growth despite being bad for the debtor. History will likely show that the past 18 year boom was mainly a feel good phenomenon and the whole new economy theory and productivity increase was a sham but what is important is that it made many wealthy and did create some good things in technology.
As you pointed out the change in mood of the late 60s then the hangover of the Nixon resignation hurt things. Carter was a disaster with great intentions. Reagan returned pride to America and that mood swing probably did more than any of the economic policies he pushed as far as turning things around. Clinton talked a good talk and ignored the negative while pushing the positive. Of course what he called a good economy was a bubble but .... The tough call is how far do you let things get out of hand as a President. Take now for instance. After years of stretching truths about CPI and PPI info via hedonic adjustments, changing the ways that unemployment is counted etc., does one come clean all of a sudden and tell it like it is and risk a crash or try and delay things as long as possible and hope things turn around on their own? If GW had just repeated the mantra, would we be higher in the indexes now versus his making sure people knew we were in trouble before he took charge? Sometimes honesty isn't the best policy in other matters. I seriously doubt the average American wants to know the truth about what goes on in military ops, secret deal making, economic pushes and deals or would even understand why the things are done the way they are. Most of them work out for the best and avert bigger messes later if things hadn't been done that way but sometimes the quick fixes are ugly, morally wrong but give us more time to serve as the king. What would our clothing and electronics cost if Asians and Central Americans made the same wages that our over priced Union workers make? People scream about 10% increases in oil prices, what would they do about 50-100% hikes in clothing, toys, electronics, etc.?
What would the economy do if we couldn't always find a convenient "enemy" to justify spending billions on Defense contracts to keep the industries humming along when airline sales are down? We will always find an enemy and we will always NEED an enemy. How many break throughs in laser technology, telecom, the internet itself would have occurred if we didn't spend heavily for defense research and defense infrastructure? Would we have had GPS without the need to guide smart weapons? Many of the medical break throughs and discoveries like Cholesterol were discovered in MASH units during Korea. Transplantation techniques were learned from a smuggled out Japanese torture specialist doing horrible things to captives but we wanted his secrets so we put him up in San Fran. German scientists gave us rocket technology and refined our Jet engine research. Nothing is as Black and White as it seems. Even the Nazi machine itself as horrible as it was was decades ahead of the US in many things that we made fun of at the time then copied later. The US highway system, cheap cars like the Bug, and my favorite... we made propaganda films about how horrible Hitler was because he urged people to stop smoking claiming it was bad for their health and we said it showed how nuts he was. Of course it is a good thing we know otherwise about smoking now. -ggggg-
I agree that Presidents need some room to maneuver but I have heard differing views of the Cuban Missile crisis. One version was due to the serious nature of the crisis, the CIA locked Dr Feelgood out of the picture. He was giving JFK a cocktail of medications for his back problems, and other ailments and many of the drugs were opiate derivatives. JFK was basically suffering from withdrawal symptoms when he made his famous show down call to Kruschev that made Kruschev make his "that man is crazy" comment. Basically JFK was crazy and was willing to push the limits to end the matter quickly so he could get his fix. Who knows the real truth though. As long as there are Kennedys still alive, the truths will stay buried to preserve the legacy. Even after all the inquiries, does anyone really believe the magic bullet theory? -ggg-
All Presidents have their quirks and I don't think anyone but the Presidents themselves and those close to the office know what all is really involved in doing the job. Iran Contra, who cares. Deals like that are probably made every few months or at least years I would bet. We fly unmarked aircraft still in many areas of the world (nuff said on that subject.)
Do people think that everything just fell into place conveniently while George Bush Sr. was in office and that it was only coincidence that he was the ex head of the CIA? Come on, we don't think he called in a few favors owed from time to time? Nixon was a SOB but he used it to do a lot of good things and pushed his weight to bully some situations that could have gone the other way. Problem is he got cocky and stretched things too far for some wrong reasons and got caught. We were covertly helping our allies in WW II before we became involved directly and we wanted to get involved sooner but Roosevelt wasn't sure how to sell it to America since we were isolationist at the time. There is speculation he went out of his way to push Japan to the point of breaking and forcing their hand just so he would have an excuse to get directly involved. Covert ops have been in every administration and we have bullied countries for as long as we have been a military and economic power. It is good to be king until you aren't! -ggg-
Still I think when it comes to things like drug and alcohol use, having affairs etc, Presidents need to serve as role models and keep things as straight as possible but then have the freedom to party privately once in a while, do some covert ops for the good of the nation state but within confines. Balance of Power is great but when you need something done fast, there will never be a concensus so the President needs some maneuver room. A recent example is the B-1B drawdown controversy that affects me. Many GAO reports going back for a decade have said the B-1B is a waste of money and needs to be retired. The Air Force has said it doesn't have a mission for the B-1B and is willing to let it be retired. Still Rumsfeld does the right thing and gets slammed because the Senators from the affected states are going to lose face without their pet project bases and now it appears they will be successful in blocking the retirement. For politics sake, we are going to waste a few more billion each year flying an airplane no one wants or needs. Imagine if this was a crisis situation and had to put it up for a vote first so the house and Senate could attach rider bills and puta good slant ahead of an election. -ggg-
Good Luck,
Lee |
