Although I think Jimmy is a wonderful and moral man, my vote is for Ford. Besides having the absolutely best judgment in marrying and standing by Betty (my favorite 1st lady), he had the courage to take the bullet which killed his political career by pardoning Nixon. I so hated Nixon and really wanted him to writhe in hell but, in hindsight, the pardon was the right thing to do to allow the country to heal.
posted on December 2, 2009 10:25:50 PM new
I'm with you on Gerald Ford for the reasons you've given, Pixi. Jimmy Carter would be next.
My husband's conservative extended family in Pasadena, in the '70s, found just one thing to criticize Nixon for: "We thought he was a gentleman." Never mind his monkeying with the constitution and his nefarious dealings and lies--they objected ONLY to some of his language on those tapes!
_____________________
"Here in America we are descended in blood and in spirit from revolutionists and rebels - men and women who ***dared to dissent*** from accepted doctrine. As their heirs, ***may we never confuse honest dissent with disloyal subversion."*** --Eisenhower
posted on December 3, 2009 07:29:14 AM new
Nixon and Bebe Rebozo were good buddies. He lived on Key Biscayne, FL. Nixon and his family would visit there. We would go to the beach on the Key and see Pat Nixon and her daughters walking along the beach. The secret service were not far behind with their pants rolled up enjoying the beach and sparkling waters.
posted on December 3, 2009 11:26:56 AM new
No contest in this group.
Carter was virtually useless.
Ford offered stability and compromise: ie: the right guy at the right time.
Nixon stopped the global expansion of Soviet power and opened up China.
Reagan caused the collapse of the Soviet Union and the restoration of Eastern Europe.
Hard to say which of the 2 had the greatest impact on the world.
posted on December 3, 2009 09:21:45 PM new
Ah, yes. Every time I go to Walmart (once every 2 years, or so) I think of Nixon opening China. And every time I think of where did American manufacturing jobs go, I think of Nixon. The good the man did internationally was at the devastating costs of the damage he did internally. Could there have been a worse president?
posted on December 3, 2009 09:25:50 PM new
Talk about the the right place at the right time, the Soviet Union was ready to collapse with or without Reagan's help. Reagan would have been OK except for the havoc he created with the economy. His leniency with uncontrolled corporate greed required Bill Clinton to clean up after him.
[ edited by PIXIAMOM on Dec 3, 2009 09:31 PM ]
posted on December 4, 2009 10:23:16 AM new
Some of us should revisit economics 101 - a nation starts out selling bananas,then stich hankies and roll firecrackers,then learn to make shoes and radios,then TV sets and cars and PC,then airplanes and communication towers.
Europe and Britain have gone through that,then we did,it is called the industrial revolution,and now it is China and India 's turn.
How many bananas do you have to sell to buy a Boeing 787?
How many handkies do you have to stitch to afford a John Deere tractor?
Look around yourself,who is doing the low end jobs these days,who is mowning the lawn and who is painting your house and cleaning the oven and mopping the floor?
I may not be an economist but I have lived long enough and visited enough countries to make some good observation,so please allow me to start this great debate from an excerpt -
The Theory of Comparative Advantage - Overview
Historical Overview
The theory of comparative advantage is perhaps the most important concept in international trade theory. It is also one of the most commonly misunderstood principles. [Click Here for a new, brief description of CA] There is a popular story told amongst economists that once when an economics skeptic asked Paul Samuelson (a Nobel laureate in economics) to provide a meaningful and non-trivial result from the economics discipline, Samuelson quickly responded with, "comparative advantage."
The sources of the misunderstandings are easy to identify. First, the principle of comparative advantage is clearly counter-intuitive. Many results from the formal model are contrary to simple logic. Secondly, the theory is easy to confuse with another notion about advantageous trade, known in trade theory as the theory of absolute advantage. The logic behind absolute advantage is quite intuitive. This confusion between these two concepts leads many people to think that they understand comparative advantage when in fact, what they understand is absolute advantage. Finally, the theory of comparative advantage is all too often presented only in its mathematical form. Using numerical examples or diagrammatic representations are extremely useful in demonstrating the basic results and the deeper implications of the theory. However, it is also easy to see the results mathematically, without ever understanding the basic intuition of the theory.
The early logic that free trade could be advantageous for countries was based on the concept of absolute advantages in production. Adam Smith wrote in The Wealth of Nations,
"If a foreign country can supply us with a commodity cheaper than we ourselves can make it, better buy it of them with some part of the produce of our own industry, employed in a way in which we have some advantage. " (Book IV, Section ii, 12)
The idea here is simple and intuitive. If our country can produce some set of goods at lower cost than a foreign country, and if the foreign country can produce some other set of goods at a lower cost than we can produce them, then clearly it would be best for us to trade our relatively cheaper goods for their relatively cheaper goods. In this way both countries may gain from trade.
The original idea of comparative advantage dates to the early part of the 19th century. Although the model describing the theory is commonly referred to as the "Ricardian model", the original description of the idea can be found in an Essay on the External Corn Trade by Robert Torrens in 1815. David Ricardo formalized the idea using a compelling, yet simple, numerical example in his 1817 book titled, On the Principles of Political Economy and Taxation. The idea appeared again in James Mill's Elements of Political Economy in 1821. Finally, the concept became a key feature of international political economy upon the publication of Principles of Political Economy by John Stuart Mill in 1848.(1)
David Ricardo's Numerical Example
Because the idea of comparative advantage is not immediately intuitive, the best way of presenting it seems to be with an explicit numerical example as provided by David Ricardo. Indeed some variation of Ricardo's example lives on in most international trade textbooks today. (See page 40-5 in this text)
In his example Ricardo imagined two countries, England and Portugal, producing two goods, cloth and wine, using labor as the sole input in production. He assumed that the productivity of labor (i.e., the quantity of output produced per worker) varied between industries and across countries. However, instead of assuming, as Adam Smith did, that England is more productive in producing one good and Portugal is more productive in the other; Ricardo assumed that Portugal was more productive in both goods. Based on Smith's intuition, then, it would seem that trade could not be advantageous, at least for England.
However, Ricardo demonstrated numerically that if England specialized in producing one of the two goods, and if Portugal produced the other, then total world output of both goods could rise! If an appropriate terms of trade (i.e., amount of one good traded for another) were then chosen, both countries could end up with more of both goods after specialization and free trade then they each had before trade. This means that England may nevertheless benefit from free trade even though it is assumed to be technologically inferior to Portugal in the production of everything.
As it turned out, specialization in any good would not suffice to guarantee the improvement in world output. Only one of the goods would work. Ricardo showed that the specialization good in each country should be that good in which the country had a comparative advantage in production. To identify a country's comparative advantage good requires a comparison of production costs across countries. However, one does not compare the monetary costs of production or even the resource costs (labor needed per unit of output) of production. Instead one must compare the opportunity costs of producing goods across countries.
A country is said to have a comparative advantage in the production of a good (say cloth) if it can produce cloth at a lower opportunity cost than another country. The opportunity cost of cloth production is defined as the amount of wine that must be given up in order to produce one more unit of cloth. Thus England would have the comparative advantage in cloth production relative to Portugal if it must give up less wine to produce another unit of cloth than the amount of wine that Portugal would have to give up to produce another unit of cloth.
All in all, this condition is rather confusing. Suffice it to say, that it is quite possible, indeed likely, that although England may be less productive in producing both goods relative to Portugal, it will nonetheless have a comparative advantage in the production of one of the two goods. Indeed there is only one circumstance in which England would not have a comparative advantage in either good, and in this case Portugal also would not have a comparative advantage in either good. In other words, either each country has the comparative advantage in one of the two goods or neither country has a comparative advantage in anything.
Another way to define comparative advantage is by comparing productivities across industries and countries. Thus suppose, as before, that Portugal is more productive than England in the production of both cloth and wine. If Portugal is twice as productive in cloth production relative to England but three times as productive in wine, then Portugal's comparative advantage is in wine, the good in which its productivity advantage is greatest. Similarly, England's comparative advantage good is cloth, the good in which its productivity disadvantage is least. This implies that to benefit from specialization and free trade, Portugal should specialize and trade the good in which it is "most best" at producing, while England should specialize and trade the good in which it is "least worse" at producing.
Note that trade based on comparative advantage does not contradict Adam Smith's notion of advantageous trade based on absolute advantage. If as in Smith's example, England were more productive in cloth production and Portugal were more productive in wine, then we would say that England has an absolute advantage in cloth production while Portugal has an absolute advantage in wine. If we calculated comparative advantages, then England would also have the comparative advantage in cloth and Portugal would have the comparative advantage in wine. In this case, gains from trade could be realized if both countries specialized in their comparative, and absolute, advantage goods. Advantageous trade based on comparative advantage, then, covers a larger set of circumstances while still including the case of absolute advantage and hence is a more general theory.
The Ricardian Model - Assumptions and Results
The modern version of the Ricardian model and its results are typically presented by constructing and analyzing an economic model of an international economy. In its most simple form, the model assumes two countries producing two goods using labor as the only factor of production. Goods are assumed homogeneous (i.e., identical) across firms and countries. Labor is homogeneous within a country but heterogeneous (non-identical) across countries. Goods can be transported costlessly between countries. Labor can be reallocated costlessly between industries within a country but cannot move between countries. Labor is always fully employed. Production technology differences exist across industries and across countries and are reflected in labor productivity parameters. The labor and goods markets are assumed to be perfectly competitive in both countries. Firms are assumed to maximize profit while consumers (workers) are assumed to maximize utility. (See page 40-2 for a more complete description)
The primary issue in the analysis of this model is what happens when each country moves from autarky (no trade) to free trade with the other country - in other words, what are the effects of trade? The main things we care about are trade's effects on the prices of the goods in each country, the production levels of the goods, employment levels in each industry, the pattern of trade (who exports and who imports what), consumption levels in each country, wages and incomes, and the welfare effects both nationally and individually.
Using the model one can show that, in autarky, each country will produce some of each good. Because of the technology differences, relative prices of the two goods will differ between countries. The price of each country's comparative advantage good will be lower than the price of the same good in the other country. If one country has an absolute advantage in the production of both goods (as assumed by Ricardo) then real wages of workers (i.e., the purchasing power of wages) in that country will be higher in both industries compared to wages in the other country. In other words, workers in the technologically advanced country would enjoy a higher standard of living than in the technologically inferior country. The reason for this is that wages are based on productivity, thus in the country that is more productive, workers get higher wages.
The next step in the analysis is to assume that trade between countries is suddenly liberalized and made free. The initial differences in relative prices of the goods between countries in autarky will stimulate trade between the countries. Since the differences in prices arise directly out of differences in technology between countries, it is the differences in technology that cause trade in the model. Profit-seeking firms in each country's comparative advantage industry would recognize that the price of their good is higher in the other country. Since transportation costs are zero, more profit can be made through export than with sales domestically
*
There is no 'Global savings glut',only wild horses and loose bankers.
posted on December 4, 2009 10:34:52 AM new
Besides Math, Physics, and Chemistry, whack pack members are not too swift on economics either.
If you remember, last year I said my broker said "buy gold". Gold commodities were around $9 then. They're approaching $40 now and my broker says they will go much higher.
PS: If you have any variable rate loans, re-finance now to fixed. Interest rates will start to go CRAZY in a year.
As to Reagan's economic "mishandling":
You had sweeping economic reforms and deep across-the-board tax cuts, which gave people more of the money they earned AND AT THE SAME TIME created record revenue for the government.
Market deregulation, and sound monetary policies to contain inflation.
The largest peacetime economic boom in American history and nearly 35 million more jobs.
He proposed, and Congress passed, sharp cuts in marginal tax rates. The cuts increased incentives to work and stimulated growth.
The United States experienced two of the longest and strongest expansions in our history back to back.
This is nowhere near the impact Obama has had, just a different direction, LOL.
posted on December 4, 2009 12:24:19 PM new
which class of gold commodities is now at $40?
*
There is no 'Global savings glut',only wild horses and loose bankers.
posted on December 4, 2009 12:38:38 PM new
They just dropped because of the Dubai thing (the opposite of logic). Before that they were high 30's and will go much higher.
My broker is a friend of mine and 3 years ago took everything I had out of real estate, last year he moved most of the stuff I had in stocks. He says much worse times are coming and that there is not a SINGLE thing the gov says that is not a lie.
posted on December 4, 2009 09:32:58 PM new
I'm not talking about the industrialization of China, Hwahwa. I'm talking about the loss of American jobs - people making enough to earn a decent living to those abroad willing to work for 40 cents per hour. Edited to add: Hwahwa, if you are going to cut and paste, you really need to cite your sources.
[ edited by PIXIAMOM on Dec 4, 2009 10:18 PM ]
posted on December 4, 2009 09:38:56 PM new
Exactly what class of gold commodities are you referring to? I check out the price of gold and your post does not make sense.
posted on December 4, 2009 10:14:05 PM new
Reagan's "trickle-down economics" benefited the super-rich, a class which delusional folks, like squirrel, wish they were included in. Wake up, Squirrel! You aren't super-rich and you were screwed by Reaganomics.
[ edited by PIXIAMOM on Dec 4, 2009 10:14 PM ]
posted on December 6, 2009 09:07:15 PM new
Gold stocks, not bullion. What hwahwa was trying to explain to you is basically the 1st chapter of any economics textbook, usually labeled "the evolution of economies". As economies become larger people who make commodity items are simply priced out of the market. "Saving their jobs" is simply welfare which fails badly, like giving a kidney transplant to a patient terminally ill with cancer.
It will be quite some time before the avg citizen sees a match to the Reagan term.
You think Obama will get around to "organizing" some stuff before the next election??
