What presidents have you changed your mind about the most?

[Beet]

Reagan

[Beet]

Reagan

It's funny that a lot of people who hated Reagan's policies at the time now effectively approve of them.

People who would have been apoplectic at his "tear down this wall" rhetoric in 1987 now say it was great.

That is proof of his success.

I was not alive in the 80's. Yes, Reagan's foreign policy was proven effective in coaxing Gorbachev towards his policy of self-destruction.

And his domestic policies helped the economy re-structure into what it is today, which seem to have led us to overcoming, at least to some extent, the social and economic problems of the 1975-95 era.

The verdict on the present-day economy's long term effects is still out, as what we have is a system based on heavy consumption, accumulating debt, and demanding work yet low job creation, a housing bubble which causes inflation to be understated, unrealsitically high p/e ratios, and inconsistent corporate profit growth. Furthermore, the median income of the bottom 90% of households has barely grown since 1970. Nor can it be said to be even mostly the work of one man, let alone a politician. However, Reagan would have endorsed the structural changes since the 70s. He certainly represented them, and they seem to have generated economic revival at least in the basic sense of GDP growth with controlled inflation and lower unemployment.

[Beet]

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I would not say the 90/10 division is extreme. From 1970-1999, the average income of the bottom 90% slipped in real terms between 1970 and 2000, according to statistics in David Cay Johnston's book:

http://www.perfectlylegalthebook.com/chart.htm

I don't deny he has an agenda, and I have my doubts because based purely on personal guestimation it seems that average Americans buy more things, own more and better cars and appliances, and live in bigger houses than they did in 1970. But even if close to true, this would represent a major, major policy failure.

Another important point is that estimates of median income stagnating from 2000-2003 by the Census might actually be overoptimistic, because since around 1997 housing prices have begun to dramatically differ from the generalized CPI for the first time since the 1970s, and this hasn't been taken into account in calculations of inflation. Traditionally, rent rates are supposed to represent the cost of shelter, but in recent years rents have not grown nearly as fast as property. In 2004, for example, inflation would be running at over twice the rate of the official rate if housing prices were factored in. If this is accepted, then median purchasing power has actually fallen since 2000, despite a larger headline GDP every year. What is important to most people of course is their own purchasing power. Increases in GDP don't matter if that money doesn't come back to the people.

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Well, housing prices have really been booming at a rate since 1998 that can't be explained solely by demographic factors, although those factors might have made it more easy for the boom to occur. For one, the workforce participation rate has been stagnant among women since 1995 and falling overall since 2000. Also, there is no theoretical reason that the increase that you talk about should by itself cause any increase in the cost of living relative to income. Perhaps increases in consumption would balance out the additional supply in the labor force, but I don't see why the cost of living should grow faster than income unless there was some other factor driving up consumption over production (which there is), except for families that are still on a single income.

In terms of the work culture, I think one of the biggest factors is just the way the labor market is, if you compare to Europe. It is much more competitive. For example, labor union membership as a percentage of the labor force peaked here around 1955, has fallen by 3/4 since, and is much lower than Europe. I really think you give too much credit to feminism and social issues in general. The core issues which affect social issues more than vice versa are economic issues. Feminism for example first came to the scene in the context of the 'New Left' ala SDS, the Port Huron Statement, the biracial civil rights coalition, falling apart. It took many activists previously dedicated to socialism to the detriment of the latter. By moving away from class politics towards gender/personal politics, and feminism even foreshadowed the return of conservative economics. It was a symptom of the weakness of the left that activists moved away from class politics; this same weakness which is responsible in great part for feminism is also connected to the rise of conservatism in the 1970s and 80s. In Marxism for example, women are theoretically supposed to be equal, but political energy in the USSR was never directed towards gender/personal politics. But even before the late 1960s, signs of a restoration of more market-based economics were present. Hence the movement was more of a symptom of its times, both in its liberal and conservative elements, than an originator of major trends external trends

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I can see how this works. Female labor participation has not entirely evened out though and shows no indication of doing so. Lower class women still participate at much greater rates than upper class women.

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I agree. What I worry about most is that if the data in the Johnston book are correct (despite, as you noted, a massive increase in labor force participation from 1970 to 2000) and median income continues to be sluggish as it is, we are not exactly succeeding as we should be in raising living standards. Further, there is really nowhere else to look to, because Europe and Japan have stumbled; hence the world depends on the U.S. model to succeed more than anything.

[Beet]

While Reagan conservatism had something going for it, which has led my view of him to tremendously improve, I completely despite Nixon conservatism.

I'm ambivalent about Nixon only because he usually subsumed his conservatism in the name of economic and political reality and did what it took to further U.S. international policy and his own domestic career. Generally I approve of most of the steps that he took in office policy-wise, but I'm disappointed that he opposed busing, that he took too long to withdraw from Vietnam while failing to provide that government with true stability, and that he vetoed the comprehensive child care act of 1971.

[Beet]

While Reagan conservatism had something going for it, which has led my view of him to tremendously improve, I completely despite Nixon conservatism.

I'm ambivalent about Nixon only because he usually subsumed his conservatism in the name of economic and political reality and did what it took to further U.S. international policy and his own domestic career. Generally I approve of most of the steps that he took in office policy-wise, but I'm disappointed that he opposed busing, that he took too long to withdraw from Vietnam while failing to provide that government with true stability, and that he vetoed the comprehensive child care act of 1971.

You agree with busing? Hilarious. You know that's a form of racism, to say the least.

I can't believe anybody with functioning brainwaves could still believe in busing.  Aside from the fact that it's blatantly unconstitutional, whatever the sainted courts may say, it failed miserably in its objectives, across all fronts.  Despite, or more likely in part because of, busing, there is a greater degree of black/white separation in education today than ever.  Busing destroyed every school system in which it was instituted, and resulted in the flight of middle class whites from urban areas.  A person who cares about helping blacks would oppose busing if he had a brain in his head, because busing has resulted in blacks being more isolated, and more bereft of good educational opportunities, than ever before.  Busing was one of those utopian ideas that didn't work because it didn't take human nature into account.

Actually, segregation declined from the mid-1960s to the mid-1980s, but increased since the 1980s. From 1955 to 1974, the Supreme Court gave federal district courts authority to oversee desegregation of schools. However, in the landmark 5-4 case Miliken v. Bradley, the Court majority, made up of four Nixon-nominated justices (Rehnquist, Burger, Blackmun, Powell) plus a regular concurrence by Potter Stewart, reversed itself and stripped courts of their authority to order desegregation across district lines. Hence from 1974 onwards, desegregation momentum was basically destroyed in the North. There was desegregation within cities but not between cities and suburbs, which in itself incentivized greater white flight to the suburbs. Hence the situation you have today, where the South is actually less segregated than the North. The Miliken decision primarily affected northern cities such as Detroit. Since 1991, with its momentum and thus effectiveness gone, the courts began to end busing. Clearly these post-Miliken policies have done nothing to help northern cities such as Detroit. Had Nixon appointed more liberal judges, we could have a very different situation today.

[Beet]

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The Supreme Court was simply recognizing reality, and to some extent wealth and power, when it effectively excluded suburbs in the north from busing in 1974.  Busing was a bad idea anywhere it was used, and the implications of spreading it forcibly to affluent suburban areas on a broad basis were too fearsome to really contemplate.  Suffice to say, many of the nation's most wealthy and powerful citizens lived in those suburban areas.  They would never have accepted forced busing, and it would have spawned a very ugly backlash, possibly a crisis for the courts.  The Supreme Court decision in the Miliken case was in some sense a recognition of the reality of the failure of busing, and in another sense an act of self-preservation, and recognition that the courts would be too far out on a limb if they ordered busing under the circumstances of that case.

Your entire argument is based on busing being impossible because of massive resistance, which is supposed to come from the social and economic problems of the cities. But there was also massive resistance, even more massive resistance than busing, to integration in the first place. Remember Little Rock 1957, all the murders and burnings through the '60s, etc. ? Wallace not only made it to the ticket but carried those states by big margins. The statewide school system was even shut down but an entire year in Arkansas while teaching was done through the television. Obviously there was a huge, bigger struggle in the South than was ever seen in Detroit or even Boston. Certainly it was a highly fearful issue where certain parents responded in a knee-jerk fashion to racial stereotypes. Yet because the government had the will to enforce integration in the South, it eventually succeeded, now works, and is no longer challenged.

Too bad a similiar thing didn't happen in the North, where it would have been easier. The problem was that by the time integration in the North became a serious issue, a mighty backlash was already developing against the civil rights movement. It would have taken less will to push through integration in the North than in the South. And that might have made a big difference in the cities.

One major reasons why some school districts are better than others in this country is that some districts are home to families of high SES, which influences many things, including the funding of the school district through property taxes. This divides up the education system into the equivalent of thousands of tiny principalities. With cross-district busing in the North, the vested interests of the wealthier school districts and the poorer school districts would have been combined, achieving political will to improving the poorer school districts in the country. With suburban families interested in urban revival and success, rather than fleeing from urban problems, political will to seriously tackle urban problems may have come much earlier and saved the cities, and our country, from much suffering. According to your hypothesis, people left the cities partially due to busing in the cities, but if this was a significant factor, you would have seen white families moving out of the deep south after integration there, which did not occur. In fact, population migration was determined primarily by economic factors; whites do not have a problem sending their children to racially diverse schools so long as the SES status and educational performance of the schools is good. By rejecting school integration in the North, the Milliken decision halted the process of higher SES suburban classes taking an interest in improving the educationary background of lower SES urban classes, whatever their race, hence contributing to the bifurcated society we have today.

Also note: I prefer a privatization of much of the school system to busing by far, but within the public system I prefer busing where necessary, and also based on SES distinction rather than race alone.