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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: American Spirit who wrote (532174)	1/29/2004 3:07:08 PM
From: Neocon	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769667

I am sorry, AS, but you do not know what you are talking about. It is amazing, since I have posted the real data to you before, that you remain so ignorant. If I have time, I will fill you in........

To: American Spirit who wrote (532174)	1/29/2004 3:15:14 PM
From: Neocon	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769667

The Reagan Expansion From 1982-89 the United States experienced the longest period of growth in peace-time history. During this time the GDP grew at an annual rate of 3.5% (4.3% for the expansion), a rate greater than in the decade before not equaled after until the Republicans took control of Congress in 1994. You can view a graph of the Reagan Record as well. Those looking for information to refute the myths about "bad checks" and "credit cards" fueling the expansion should visit the sections on debt and income and wealth. Also of interest will be the sections on the standard of living and incomes. The Cato Organization has done a nice summary of the Reagan Years which verifies much of what we say here on the Ronald Reagan Home Page. reagan.webteamone.com

To: American Spirit who wrote (532174)	1/29/2004 3:25:50 PM
From: Neocon	Respond to of 769667

Here is some data from a pro- Clinton site: zzpat.tripod.com It shows that average growth in GDP under Reagan, including the recession years, was 3.36%, while it was 3.74% under Clinton. Unemployment, including the recession, averaged 7.54% under Reagan, and 5.2% under Clinton. Poverty averaged 14.01% under Reagan, and 13,28% under Clinton. Debt as a percentage of GDP was 42.86% under Reagan, and 64.46% under Clinton.

To: American Spirit who wrote (532174)	1/29/2004 3:41:20 PM
From: Neocon	Respond to of 769667

Something on deinstitutionalization: Ideology, Not Science How have things gone so wrong? It is important to realize that the original underpinning for deinstitutionalization was ideology, not science. The idea had appeal across the political spectrum: Liberals found civil libertarian demands for mental patients' "freedom" persuasive, conservatives were happy to cut mental health budgets by shutting down state hospitals. When deinstitutionalization shifted into high gear In the early 1960s, only one study had been done on the effects of moving severely mentally ill individuals to community living. The 20 schizophrenics in that study, published in England in 1960, did relatively well when moved from a hospital to a supervised community facilities. Virtually every American advocate for deinstitutionalization in the 1960s and '70s cited this paper -- and did not mention that the 20 patients had been selected for the experiment because they were functioning at a high level and were able to work, unlike the vast majority of U.S. patients who would be sent packing. Advocates of deinstitutionalization based their argument mostly on such texts as Erving Goffman's "Asylums" (1961), which asserted that psychiatric patients' abnormal behavior was mostly a consequence not of mental illness but of hospitalization. Research in the past decade has proved this assumption false: Studies using such techniques as positron emission tomography scans have shown that schizophrenia and manic-depressive illness are physical disorders of the brain, just as Parkinson's disease and multiple sclerosis are. Patients with such illnesses need medications to control their symptoms, which usually get worse without treatment. Advocates assumed that mentally ill individuals would voluntarily seek psychiatric treatment if they needed it. As It turned out, about half of the patients discharged from psychiatric hospitals did not seek treatment once out of the hospital. Many of those who suffer from schizophrenia and manic-depressive disorder do not believe themselves to be ill. These untreated Individuals constitute most of the mentally ill population who are homeless or in jail, and who commit violent acts. States, meanwhile, shirked their responsibility, in part because the mentally Ill were newly eligible for a variety of federal programs. During the mass exodus of patients from psychiatric hospitals, nobody bothered to ask what was happening to them. Incredibly, despite the vast scale of deinstitutionalization, the federal and state governments never commissioned evaluations of this social experiment, which after all had been launched with virtually no empirical base. As late as 1981, when deinstitutionalization had been under way for over 15 years, an academic review of research on the subject found only five studies concerned with outcomes, three of which were methodologically flawed. psych-health.com

To: American Spirit who wrote (532174)	1/29/2004 3:48:49 PM
From: Neocon	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769667

Something on the Contras, from an encyclopedia: Mediation by other Central American governments under Costa Rican leadership led finally to the Sapoa ceasefire agreement of March 23, 1988, which with additional agreements (February, August 1989) provided for the Contras' disarmament and re-integration into Nicaraguan society and politics, and internationally-monitored elections which were subsequently won (February 25, 1990) by an anti-Sandinista centre-right coalition. en2.wikipedia.org [The Sandinistas were behaving like conventional Leninists up this point, and therefore it was an accomplishment get them to hold free elections.]

To: American Spirit who wrote (532174)	1/29/2004 3:56:21 PM
From: Neocon	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769667

* Number of Clinton cabinet members to come under criminal investigation: = 5 * Number of Reagan cabinet members to come under criminal investigation: = 4 groups.msn.com

To: American Spirit who wrote (532174)	1/29/2004 4:01:20 PM
From: Neocon	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 769667

On the S&L crisis: The original role of the S&Ls was to provide long-term fixed rate home mortgages in support of family home ownership. Federally insured deposits funded thrifts and since the interest rates they paid were lower than the interest income earned on mortgages, S&Ls thrived in this environment. In 1980, this environment was severely ruptured when Congress deregulated interest rates. Thrifts were caught with asset portfolios principally invested in long-term mortgages whose returns were less than the prevailing market interest rates on deposits. A large number of S&Ls were unable to manage such interest rate risk exposure. The regulator's solution to the interest rate "squeeze" was deregulation. Thrifts were given expanded investment authority in commercial lending and high-risk, high-yield assets such as junk bonds to bolster earnings. Within a few years, hosts of other speculative vehicles were added to the approved list. creditunions.com [Reagan took office in 1981.]