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From: simard@loral.UUCP (Ray Simard)
Newsgroups: net.flame
Subject: Re: economy
Message-ID: <539@loral.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 12-Oct-84 00:58:06 EDT
Article-I.D.: loral.539
Posted: Fri Oct 12 00:58:06 1984
Date-Received: Sat, 13-Oct-84 06:37:16 EDT
References: <855@ihuxe.UUCP> <>
Reply-To: simard@loral.UUCP (Ray Simard)
Organization: Loral Instrumentation, San Diego, CA
Lines: 75
Summary: 

In article <> rcd@opus.UUCP (Dick Dunn) writes:
>
>...unless you want to give Reagan credit for bringing
>the economy back to about where it was when he took office.  Also, you
>might factor the huge federal deficit into the figures--what would the
>economy look like if he hadn't been spending money left and right (as he
>accuses the Dems of doing) and artificially pumping up the economy by doing
>that?
>-- 
>Dick Dunn	{hao,ucbvax,allegra}!nbires!rcd		(303)444-5710 x3086
>   ...Cerebus for dictator!


     How can anyone say the economy is  where  it  was  when
Reagan  took  office?   I  refer  you to U.S. News and World
Report, Aug 27, p.68-69.

     According the the charts there, derived from data  from
the  Commerce  and  Labor  departments,  the Federal Reserve
Board, and Dow Jones, the three  most  fundamental  criteria
for  rating an economy, inflation, interest rates, and unem-
ployment, shape up like this:

Inflation       Down from  11.2%  to  4.3  percent,  a  very
                impressive 61.6% drop in the inflation rate.
                (I often wonder why  inflation  is  regarded
                with  such  relative  unconcern by liberals;
                its chief victims are the  elderly  poor  on
                fixed incomes).

Interest rates  Basic rates down from 20%  (they  peaked  at
                about 21% in J.C.'s administration), to 13%.
                REAL interest rates, the difference  between
                basic rates and inflation, using the figures
                I cite in the preceding  paragraph,  started
                at  (20-11.2)  = 8.8% and are now (13-4.3) =
                8.7%, essentially no change.

Unemployment    From 7.4% to 7.5%, also down in  the  noise.
                Trending downward.

     The facts that the value of your  savings  and  invest-
ments are  being  eroded much more slowly by inflation, that
your actual interest payments are also  dramatically  lower,
real  interest rates and unemployment are about as they were
when Reagan took office and improving, all are evidence of a
very effective and working program.

     As for the deficit, I am bothered by it as much as any-
one,  not  for  itself, but because it is caused by spending
levels that are still excessive.  Sorry,  but  I  don't  buy
this  convenient delusion that many anti-Reaganites proclaim
that he is deliberately keeping spending high  to  create  a
Keynsian  stimulus.  I cite (again) TEFRA, when he was prom-
ised spending reductions  in  return  for  approving  a  tax
increase,  the  reduction  to be three dollars for every one
dollar of new taxes. We got the tax increase;  the  Congress
has  not  only  ignored  its commitment to the corresponding
spending cuts, it has actually increased spending!   Without
a  line-item  veto, the president is heavily hampered in his
wish to eliminate excessive  spending,  since  promoters  of
spending  programs  are adept at grafting their pork barrels
onto worthwhile spending bills,  forcing  the  president  to
either  approve  their  excesses, or inflict injury on those
for  whom  the  more  appropriate  spending  components  are
intended.

     Four more years!
-- 
[     I am not a stranger, but a friend you haven't met yet     ]

Ray Simard
Loral Instrumentation, San Diego
{ucbvax, ittvax!dcdwest}!sdcsvax!sdcc6!loral!simard