Reagan and Fbook

An interesting book called Confessions of an Economic Hit Man suggests that several of things in your article were set in motion long before Reagan's presidency.

Glassjaw wrote: Shub wrote: An interesting book called Confessions of an Economic Hit Man suggests that several of things in your article were set in motion long before Reagan's presidency. To be truthful I'm not that well versed in the topics discussed in my article, but I am aware of them.  I'll check your book out though.

It's an entertaining read.

Awfully kind of you whale, but I can't see anything. 

I always considered Reagan an overrated President and Nixon an underrated president.

Ill have to re-read the paper I wrote on how Reagan was one of the top presidents. Quite a few people in the class did Reagan.

tallen702 wrote: Star Wars was the shizzle. It essentially kept the Soviets coming back to the conference table time after time because the mere concept of us having something that threw the MAD concept out of whack like orbital interception did simply scared the living jebus out of them. While it never made it to fruition, it not only kept Gorby from pulling a Kruschev and walking away from talks, it helped bankrupt the USSR in their attempts to come up with a counter.

Reagan had his positives, but they were usually the policies of his predecessors as well or they contradicted the traditional conservative values (especially his supposed hardline anti-communist stance) that he campaigned on.

I liked his actual foreign policies, but he shouldn't be considered the beacon of conservatism that he is.

SSOK wrote: I always considered Reagan an overrated President and Nixon an underrated president.

I can get behind this. Nixon and Kissenger were definitely worth having, and I would argue that they started the end of the Cold War while making it acceptable to "lose" (quotations because Vietnam was lost as soon as China went nuclear and, to a significant extent, the US chose to support Diem in the south) Vietnam.

MeanMan wrote: Quite a few people in the class did Reagan.

Between his domestic policies, outspoken hard-line conservatism paired with his unwillingness to actually follow through with the policies that followed from his positions, and his (ridiculously effective) public relations campaign that essentially started the anti-intellectualism movement, I feel like he was easily one of the worst presidents of the 20th century. Like I said, he had his ups, but calling him one of our best presidents would require a bunch of intellectual leaps that I don't think can be justified.

And I wish that site would actually hotlink to the full-size graphs. It sucks not being able to see the fine print on some of them.

tallen702 wrote: So, for those who think Nixon was a paragon of excellence, I pose this question. If he hadn't opened trade relations in the manner that he did, do you think we'd be facing the horrible trade deficit we do right now?

I think everybody on this thread has established some good points on Reagan's positive and negative attributes.  As history lays its eyes on every President its hard to argue that he had some major impacts on foreign and domestic policy that lead to the fall of the Soviet Empire and the largest economic boom in our country's history as well as put us back in the driver's seat as the lone world super power.  Now I am sure people will say that is starting to wither.....but whose fault is that now.  I am sure if he could come back from the grave and help us, he would.  But our country is in our hands now.  Lets return to the basics of self reliance, good ctitzenship,take responsibility and do the right thing for us and our neighbors.  God Bless America!!

Mitpeel wrote: God Bless America and screw everyone else!!

FTFY.