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Technology Stocks : Intel Corporation (INTC) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Scumbria who wrote (64713)	9/14/1998 3:16:00 PM
From: John	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 186894

Somewhat OT. The deficit did increase dramatically during the Reagan years. That was one of the costs of defeating communism. Our military had been gutted by the time that Reagan took office, and required substantial rebuilding which the Soviets couldn't match. Ultimately their system collapsed under the pressure, which is what Reagan planned all along. The "nuclear freezers" could never comprehend what he was doing; they committed the fallacy of thinking that the Soviet political and military leaders thought just like they did--that nuclear war was unwinnable. So if you only disarmed unilaterally, they would take it as a nice gesture and return the favor, which was nonsense. They simplistically (and ridiculously) thought he was trying to provoke a nuclear conflict. Others of us knew from the start what Reagan was doing, and we can be happy that his strategy prevailed. We are also fortunate that Bush went ahead with the Gulf War, despite almost all Democrats in Congress opposing it. I also seem to recall that the Democrats were in control of the House throughout Ronald Reagan's Presidency, and in control of the Senate except for a brief period. The Constitution provides that all spending bills must originate in the House, and they did, in the DEMOCRAT-controlled House. The real "problem" was that everyone got pretty much everything they wanted legislatively during the 1980s. Much of that spending is directly responsible for the "peace dividend" from which we are all (including INTC) now benefitting and from which we will continue to benefit, and the spread of democracy throughout the world. The Reagan tax reductions are also directly responsible for the economy we now enjoy, which expanded dramatically during the 1980s and has never looked back (except for the S&L crisis, which hurt Bush. One wonders how much more the economy would have grown had that 1993 tax increase not passed, how many more jobs and how much more wealth would have been created. As it turns out, we may not need the jobs right now, but that was pure luck. Instead we have budget surpluses; it is incumbent on us to use them wisely. Clinton is fortunate to have been in office during a time of prosperity that he has had little or nothing to do with. He did have the sense to keep Greenspan around and to appoint a good Treasury Secretary. As we know, though, Presidents get the credit and the blame for the economy, whether it's justified or not. Whether they should is another thing. Go INTC!