Ross Douthat and the cocoon
Robert Waldmann
Douthat is worried about the Republican information cocoon. He thinks that conservatives should not rely so much on Fox News and should be open to media which they consider unfriendly (such as his employer the New York Times). He argues that Republicans achieved more back before Fox
In the age Before Fox News, on the other hand (B.F.N., to historians), the American Right managed to lower taxes, slow government’s growth to a crawl , whip inflation, and deregulate important swathes of the American economy, among other Reagan-era accomplishments.
After the jump, I click Douthat’s link and consult an obscure source called the Wikipedia.
Douthat shows how people who live in cocoons make fools of themselves. First click *his* link. You will find that the graph does not show a slowdown in the growth of government spending under Reagan. I assumed that he had defined government as not including the military and so had a misleading graph which supported his claim, but, in fact, he just showed a graph which shows slow growth of spending after the end of the cold war and during the Clinton Presidency including the 6 years of Republican control of congress. I think he is counting the Reagan years as starting at the trough of the Volker recession and he definitely doesn’t count Bush Sr as a pre-Fox Republican. He’s really definitely measuring trough to peak and timing presidencies by looking at recessions. And this is the conservative warning about living in a cacoon.
Oddly, I mean to post about another gross historical error in that brief quotation. It is the claim that under Reagan “important swathes of the American economy” were deregulated. I don’t know what Douthat has in mind. I certainly don’t recall any such important deregulation under Reagan (well there was deregulation of S&Ls and you know how that turned out). I think he is thinking of Airline Deregulation Act of 1978. I’m sure that all Republicans agree that Reagan deregulated the airlines and that Carter didn’t deregulate anything, but they are wrong. Note there was an even huger Democratic majority in the Senate in 1978 than there is now. Or maybe it was the deregulation of interstate trucking via the motor carrier act of 1980 . Or maybe it was the phased deregulation of oil prices which began on April 5 1979 . Sure seems like the deregulating conservative hero Ronald Reagan had a Southern accent and grew peanuts.
But Reagan must have deregulated. Everyone knows Reagan deregulated. What exactly ? I have used “refuted by 5 minutes of googling” as my standard for rejection of reality for years now. This time, I stuck to Wikipedia. Recall this is from a post arguing that Republicans ought to be reality based.
I think he is thinking of James Watt, Anne Burfurd, PATCO, OSHA, etc.
Try Googling Reagan NLRB
He didn’t so much deregulate as eviserate existing regulatory agencies – really that has become a Republican administration hallmark.
The motivation for deregulating the airlines was largely due to high ticket fares. In the face of this the government deregulated the airlines to increase competition. It looks like Obama did not learn anything from this since in the face of rising healthcare costs he chose to increase regulation. Since most democrats can’t make this comparision I question the idea that they are not the ones in the information bubble.
“It looks like Obama did not learn anything from this since in the face of rising healthcare costs he chose to increase regulation.”
Health care costs and airline tickets are similar–how?
“Since most democrats can’t make this comparision I question the idea that they are not the ones in the information bubble.”
Heh.
Pot, kettle, black, etc.
Apparently someone upthread enjoyed the self-regulating magic market ride we’ve been on. For many of us, it’s not been so enjoyable.
Quite so. It’s too much bother to actually rewrite regulatory law in today’s GOP – they really don’t have the votes in congress anyway and never did.
Much cheaper and easier to just stuff the agency chairs with empty suits who refuse to execute the existing laws faithfully. And yes, anticipating the usual reply, the GOP administrations involved were heavily enabled by democratic legislators who rubber stamped the appointments. Nice oversight there guys!
*** The motivation for deregulating the airlines was largely due to high ticket fares. In the face of this the government deregulated the airlines to increase competition. It looks like Obama did not learn anything from this ***
Well, someone didn’t learn much. For a long time, it looked like airline deregulation (Carter) and Telcommunication deregulation (mostly the court ordered breakup of AT&T) were the poster children of deregulation whereas some other deregulatory attempts like power utilities were obvious fiascos (too few competitors in vertically integrated markets with high entry barriers apparently. Anyway, it worked badly).
From the perspective of many decades we can see that we have achieved somewhat cheaper airfares at the price of making airlines unreliable and unprofitable. And our unregulated telecommunications industry is lagging much of the world in deployment of broadband.
Time for you to do a little research on regulation I think. There may be a case for deregulation in some situations — especially those where industry has captured the regulation process. But as a panacea for economic problems, deregulation is pretty much a bust.
***I question the idea that they are not the ones in the information bubble.***
I think that you’ve pretty well established that you yourself are operating in an information bubble although not necessarily that of Fox News.
And apart from acknowledging cheaper tickets said competition has been good how? I notice it hasn’t been good for stockholders of airlines. Or their employees. Or their retirees.
I would go so far as to argue it may not have even turned out so good for passengers now that every part of the airline’s service has been peeled away into separate revenue streams. Once you add in the baggage and other fees are airline tickets still cheaper? Even when you consider the lousy often indifferent service and increasingly alarming gaps in maintenance and crew experience etc?
Y’all–Not that it matters, but the notion that Reagan was a great Union Buster is another example of his many mythical attributes. PATCO’s President made the gigantic mistake of admitting his people were taking part in a “sick out” or de facto strike. Whoops–strikes and other work actions are forbidden under Title V USC 71 ff. The penalty is removal–period, not a lot of leeway there.
But, you have to adhere to the removal procedures contained in MSPB regulations and Union Contracts in every case. Reagan’s big flashy move of firing all the ATC’s at once came to little. The FAA’s management didn’t really do a good job trying to fire the ATC’s. Some were immediately reinstated because they could prove they were absence on approved leave, workers’ comp, etc. Of those who appealed under various contract/MSPB/CREO provisions, the majority were reinstated with back pay. Others retired, resigned or abandoned their positions.
In any event, the great Union Buster didn’t bust much in the end. True, there were many court cases resulting from employee appeals. Eventually, various pro-Union members of the NLRB were replaced by conservative sucessors with predictable results. To this day, however, the MSPB’s arbitrators tend to look favorably on employee appeals and federal employee unions are very strong. Reagan’s administration had little long-term effect on LMR in the public sector. Private sector unions fared worse for very different reasons. But, it would be an exaggeration to attribute the decline of the Labor movement to Reagan alone. FYI. Nancy Ortiz
Granting that Douthat thinks with his voter-registration card, there may be a more fundamental problem at work here. He’s paid to write, so he does. If his ideas happen to be half-baked, well that didn’t stop Tom the Mustache or George Will point out that he’s trained in philosophy if he has to.
There was some deregulation, and there were some tax cuts, and there was some weakening of regulatory enforcement (See? government not doing its job!!!). Now, we are going the other way. Such is life under government. There was a guy named Reagan who must be praised whenever one of his shrines is in view, much as devout Catholics genuflect whenever in the presence of a cross. Those are the givens. Now, (thinks Douthat), what the @#% am I going to scribble today to fill space and get paid. Oh! I know. Blame today’s information culture on the Right for the fact that a low-tax, low-regulatory-enforcement government regime has only one way to go after a massive failure of that regime!
It fills space, and is no stupider than Tom Freidman on an average day.
VtCodger,
Time for you to do a little research on regulation I think.
I read a book sometime ago on regulation of the airline industry. A second one on the development of the Boeing 747 and also did some reasearch on trends in jet fuel consumption trend from the first Boeing 707 to the 777. I also remember flying in the late 1970s and enjoying the fact that the seat next to me was empty allowing for some extra leg room. I enjoyed the free space but the all free space was inefficiency. Recently I flew accross the country round trip for $221. You can do this if you can plan ahead.
There may be a case for deregulation in some situations —
This is true and is the driver behind the dismantling of many of the regulations that FDR set up in the 1930s. Airlines and interstate trucking are prime examples.
especially those where industry has captured the regulation process.
All industries capture their regulators except maybe the EPA.
Another point is that Jimmy Carter was the one that initiated putting a new geneation of short range nuclear missiles in Europe. But this happened after a review showed that his neglect in the first two years of his administration and the turmoil of the Nixon/Ford years had left our country in an exposed position. Reagon got the credit for this one too.
Anyway, I think you are missing the point of Robert’s column. He claims that conservative don’t know economic history and by extension implies that liberals do or at least know more of it. This assertion does not hold.
***I read a book sometime ago on regulation of the airline industry.***
We know quite a lot about pre-deregulation air travel including the extent of overpricing. The latter provided by PSA and America West who profitably flew unregulated flights between the major cities in California at about half the price of the regulated tariffs. We also know that some of the overpricing was because of politically mandated service to minor airports in the middle of nowhere. We also know that there were tariffed “excursion” fares and similar services that required advance bookings and a Saturday night stay, but were priced at about half the walk up to the counter and buy a ticket price.
The problem is that deregulation has created a flying environment that resembles an oriental bazaar. Every seat is sold at a different price. Preposterous additional fees are tacked onto basic fares. Out of curiousity, I checked to see what it might cost me to fly from Burlington, VT to Las Vegas on a low price airline for a few hours next Sunday then return — $1300 round trip — before the preposterous fees. And assuming that the connections at JFK where flights are frequently hours late holds. Later in the week, I might be able to do the trip for $550
Fortuitiously, we kept tight safety regulation. Otherwise, US air travel might be as hazardous as air travel in sub-Saharan Africa.
***Another point is that Jimmy Carter was the one that initiated putting a new generation of short range nuclear missiles in Europe. But this happened after a review showed that his neglect in the first two years of his administration and the turmoil of the Nixon/Ford years had left our country in an exposed position. Reagon got the credit for this one too. ***
One of Carter’s campaign promises was to expand military spending by 3% in real terms in each of his budgets. As far as I can determine, he kept that promise (remember that his budgets are 1978-1981 not 1976-1979). Blaming Carter for neglect of the military is a bum rap. He inherited an underfunded military from Nixon and Ford and went a long way toward fixing the situation. Reagan of course continued expansion at an even faster rate — until the fiscal conservatives (we had some then) got their back up and stopped the expansion in the middle of Reagan’s second term.
I vaguely recall that Carter cancelled a handful of projects with a long history of overruns and failure to deliver early in his first term. If that’s true, it’s likely that actual military expenditure might have dropped in Carter’s first year in office-1977. In point of fact military spending in the peacetime US military is back end loaded. Even if you set out to increase it rapidly, it takes months or years to write RFPs, evaluate proposals, award contracts, deal with protests about the awards, build prototypes, test, etc and finally get real money flowing.
***Anyway, I think you are missing the point of Robert’s column. He claims that conservative don’t know economic history and by extension implies that liberals do or at least know more of it. This assertion does not hold. ***
AFAICS, he’s dead right on the first part. Unlike the situation four decades ago If conservatives actually knew anything, they probably would not identify as “conservatives”. Maybe not so right on the second part, but if you read it as “those who are not conservatives” instead of “liberals” it’s probably more or less correct.
better analysis of the pearls of wisdom of one Msgr. Ross Xavier Pius Douthat, S.J., O.P., O.F.M., S.S.J.,
Th.D+, can be found here:
http://www.sadlyno.com/index.php?s=Douthat
One of Carter’s campaign promises was to expand military spending by 3% in real terms in each of his budgets. As far as I can determine, he kept that promise (remember that his budgets are 1978-1981 not 1976-1979). Blaming Carter for neglect of the military is a bum rap.
Carter turned from dove to hawk during his presidency. Here are a couple of passages that I got from Amazon.com.
When presidential candidate Jimmy Carter advocated defense budget cuts, he did so not only to save money but also with the hope of eventual nuclear abolition. Three years later, when President Carter announced his support of full-scale development of the MX missile and modernization of NATO s Long-Range Theater Nuclear Force, it marked a dramatic policy shift for his administration. Auten provides a historical analysis of defense policy transformation over the first three years of the Carter administration and a detailed examination of how Carter and his national security team addressed challenges posed by the expansion of Soviet military power.
Carter, who entered office at a time of transition, was determined to shift the direction of U.S. foreign policy in a way that would downplay conflict between the superpowers; to give more emphasis to North-South issues; and generally to make the world a better place by curbing repression, reducing arms sales, halting nuclear proliferation, ending political and military conflicts abroad, and strengthening the world economy. But, as crises developed abroad, the president gradually assumed a diplomatic stance similar to that of his predecessors, and ultimately his foreign policy boiled down to containing the Soviet threat.
So the book on Carter is that he came in weak and events and reality changed him.
By the way, I just knew this was Carter’s story without having to look it up. So again Robert is wrong on who the low information voters are.
It was airline tickets before deregulation and they are similar in that they were overpriced as is healthcare today. I think this was obvious to a reader.
David,
If the democrats don’t get a bump from attacking Goldman I wonder where they go from here? I think they made a mistake by attacking Goldman. The financial industry, especially the part occupied by Goldman Sachs, is one of the only set of institutions in society that take the notion of fiduciary responsibility seriously. The danger to the democrats is that this might come out in the hearings.
The question that may yet be examined in the hearings is: Fiduciary responsibility to whom? The story so far is a company that put its own interests ahead of its clients, many of which appear to have paid handsomely for the opportunity to be the victims of a fraud.
If your argument is that they honored their fiduciary responsibility to GS shareholders I guess we’ll have to wait and see if the emerging scandal brings down the company. I noticed many stories in the FT recently about foreign banks reexamining their existing business relationships with GS in light of the recent disclosures.
That there last paragraph? That’s you late-at-night bugbear nibbling on your toes. The point of Robert’s column is what is contained in Robert’s column. If you have a deep-seated understanding and fear that liberals tend to have a better grasp of facts than conservatives, I can understand why you would project that onto others. It does not, however, justify turning other peoples posts into strawmen.
Cardiff, if what you got out of Robert’s essay was an overt statement that some class of people is shorter of information than some other group, I’m afraid you, by yourself, constitute a low-information group. Douthat was the one asserting that conservatives have deprived themselves of information. Robert’s point was that Douthat had his story wrong. It is a misreading on your part to insist that Robert was the source of Douthat’s statements.
So keep going to those secondary sources, cause I don’t think you want to trust your own memory of things.
Those were the obvious comparisons–and obviously trivial. The alternatives to paying airfair include buses, cars, walking and not traveling. The alternatives to paying for health care are sickness, disability and death.
I think the stupidity of your comparison is obvious to a reader.
by Bruce
You must be joking. The trend since the late sixties is for management to abandon all fiduciary responsibilities to anyone except the higher level management that sets compensation. Stockholders have been transformed from actual stakeholders to a particular type of customer to be served just enough to keep them from selling, as long as the share price stays up who cares that money that would have been distributed as dividends is now retained for executive compensation.
Basically all of these ostensibly public corporations have transitioned into a business model based on partnership with management assuming the roles that full partners would have. But in so doing they have taken on all the advantages of partnership without the liabilities. In a classic partnership a wipeout of the firm is also a wipeout of the partners, in the pseudo-partnership of the modern public corporation a wipeout of the firm is just an opportunity to deploy that golden parachute. With the end result an embrace of risk that would shock the greediest of robber barons.
Goldman clearly knew that the end of the open financial buffet was near, they just hastened to fill their plates the last few times while the gorging was good.
by Bruce
I joined the Navy in 1977 and almost immediately saw a big boost in pay due to Carter’s recognition that Johnson and Nixon had starved the military for a decade, aided and abetted by the fact that they could simply rely on the draft, who needs market wages when you can just enslave Americans at will?
And most of the major weapons systems that sustain the Navy today were instituted by Carter and his predecessors: gas turbine frigates and destroyers, Los Angeles Class submarines, AEGIS anti-air defense (still the only practical anti-ballistic missile defense we have), all were put into place before Reagan got in office. All Reagan did was to step up production orders and keep ships that were scheduled for decommission to be kept in service no matter how broken down they were. My second ship was sent to the yards for an overhaul rather than to the scrapyards but despite all the money spent on it was still a piece of crap, we went to see with an unreliable propulsion system and a gun system that failed all its test, thank God we were not the point of the sphere if the Cold War had gone Hot (which it close to did a couple times under Reagan). Reagans vaunted 600 ship Navy was a farce in part, for every state of the art new destroyer you had horribly inefficient recomissioned battleships and 50’s era tin cans that had no business sailing. But made for nice headlines.
Cardiff advocating cuts in nuclear weapons is not the same as being weak on defense. Carter came into office determined to make the conventional Army and Navy effective in an all volunteer environment that made that very challenging. In particular his commttment to strengthening and modernizing the Navy never varied from beginning to end. I know, I saw it first hand as one of the first generation after the abolition of the draft. Anyone that thinks Carter, a career Naval Officer and one of that first generation of nuclear officers hand picked by Adm Rickover, was weak on military affairs is truly low information. Much of that was just Reagan-era spin. Which stuck in a way to be picked up by the uninformed.
My Site,
Cardiff advocating cuts in nuclear weapons is not the same as being weak on defense.
I provided quotes so what I said is the way history is treating president Carter. The quotes are from books and the books constitute information. So Robert is wrong on the information issue.
If you have information to the contrary that states the Carter came into office in 1977 as a hawk then provide it. However, I don’t think you can.
Kharris,
Robert is wrong and therefore you must be aslo. I know about deregulation under Carter as well as the defense build up. Robert assumed that I didn’t because of political preference.
There is a saying about making assumptions that seems to fit here since this one did not pan out for him.
“Conservative Big Media is many things, but bilingual isn’t really one them. And a less bilingual conservatism is a weaker conservatism, I suspect — no matter how high Fox News’ ratings go.”
His reference is “Bilingual” in the sense of knowing the language of your oppenants Political Ideology.
This is funny, because in reality, Fox News and Talk Radio have made Conservatives even more Bilingual than ever, which by admittance was one of the major advantages of ealier Conservatives, which probably explains why the Hatred, Venom and flat out lieing from the left and main strean media has increased so dramatically.
Joel,
You’re wrong on air travel. My alternative was not to walk or pay the regulated rate. Rather it was to deregulate the airlines and then pay in advance leading to a round trip from coast to cost of $221. Ok, throw in another $40 for baggage.
The answer to healthcare is to not regulate individuals to pay whatever the healthcare system is asking but rather to force them to all shop for themselves to find the best deals they can and be able to pocket the savings. Unfortunatly this never occured to our community organizer-in-chief.
Amateur Socialist,
Fiduciary responsibility to whom?
They have a fiduciaty duty to their Clinents that includes things like not front running transactions and disclosing conflicts of interest. The degree to which they need to hand hold clients is really based on the sophistication of the client.
I think the hearings are turning into a dud for those that wanted to demonize Goldman Sachs. The market is down over 200 points today and their stock is slightly up. Looks like a botched job by the senate democrats.
Yes. This Is Funny. By which I mean your comment. Is there some kind of sense-making apparatus it can be fed into?
AS,
What exactly doesn’t make sense to you?
Cardiff, you’re wrong on health care. The average American cannot shop for cancer chemotherapy. The average American can’t shop for a bypass operation.
If you are lying unconscious at the scene of an auto accident, how will you shop for savings on the ambulance? How will you decide which ER will deliver the best care at the lowest price? How will you shop for the best X-ray or MRI to determine which bones are broken?
Your comparison between airline deregulation and healthcare is absurd and risable. A middle school child could see through your obtuseness.
Joel,
Not to jump in the middle or anything, but I think what Cardiff was getting at, was that HealthCare could have been decreased over the years if Government Regulation (in general) would have been less intrusive to begin with.
There are many factors involved in the cost in which the government, government regulation, insurance, and legal system dictate what we actually pay, and I think Cardiff’s point was to say that it never had to be this way, and there are other types of solutions to costs.
Jimi,
The comparison Cardiff makes between airline deregulation and healthcare is silly. There is no way to put lipstick on this pig.
There are no doubt government regulations that impact healthcare costs. But there is no evidence that the astronomical rate of growth in healthcare costs is driven by government regulations. Simply intoning “government regulation” and making transparently specious analogies to airline deregulation is no substitute for evidence.
Joel:
You would be correct. It is not the baby boomers or the elderly. It is the cost of innovation as the #1 cause of rising healthcare costs.
In fact the exchanges will cause increased competition. Also a public option would have been increased competition. Note that Jimmy Carter is a Democrat. He deregulated the airline industry.
I think it is clear that deregulation has been very good for passengers. I barely remember the way things were before deregulation (I had flown maybe half a dozen times) but the price, including all of the extra fees, is tiny now compared to what it was. More importantly, airfares were deregulated in the USA earlier than in Europe. US fares with all the fixings were tiny compared to European fares. In fact you could go US to Europe and back for the price of an intra EC round trip (the EU was called the European community then).
Of course deregulation was bad for shareholders. Tough. It also was bad for workers. Competition is cruel. But people who work in other industries have to compete so why not airline workers ?
In fact the health care bill makes it easier to compare insurance plans increasing competition. Insurers compete now. The proposed deregulation was to allow insurers to choose which state regulations applied to them. The natural analogy (as argued by John McCain) was with banking deregulation. Unlike the pre-Reagan airline deregulation that is post Reagan (mostly signed into law by Carter) and oh my didn’t that work out well.
But my question was “What exactly was deregulated under Regan.” I haven’t noticed an answer yet in comments.
Cardiff I asserted that Ross Douthat doesn’t know about recent US history. I made no claims about people not named Ross Douthat.
What Bruce said (except I was never in the navy). Having battleships sail was crazy. They were irrelevant by then, and it costs a huge amount to build escorts for the battleships. This was policy designed for the headline number of ships at sea and not for actual ability to defeat potential adversaries.
I concede. George is right. Bruce is better.
it’s been good for business passengers who saved most of the money on cheaper airfares and can accept the common service disruptions (for awhile AA got knocked around a bit for using any possible excuse to cancel a money losing flight – invented equipment problems etc). But those cheap fares are mostly available to people who have access to hubs where competition still exists.
In my hometown of Wichita most airfares have doubled or more in the last 2-3 years as route consolidation and airline mergers have eliminated competition on all but a few routes. Fuel prices have remained stable as have labor costs. But I hadn’t heard that United decided to pay their retirees the $3B pension obligation a federal bankruptcy judge let them bail on a few years ago.
I guess it’s just tough for the taxpayers who have to add that obligation to the FPGC obligations. And the retirees who will probably be forced to retire at about .30 on the dollar for their earned contributions.
sorry mistyped PBGC above
Cardiff try to read the post more carefully. I didn’t say anything about anyone other than Ross Douthat. I certainly didn’t say anything about you, since I didn’t know you existed when I wrote the post.
Your recollection of the 70s is innaccurate. You are right that Carter came in relatively dovish and became much more hawkish, in particular when the USSR invaded Afghanistan. Note that in the foreign policy Presidential debate he attacked Ford claiming Ford was too soft on the Soviet Union and favored the (nonexistent) Sonnenfeldt doctrine which allegedly supported Soviet domination of Eastern Europe (this was a total lie). That was the debate in which Ford said that Poland was free. George Will said that this claim would and should cost Ford many votes (when was the other time Will called a debate for a Democrat ?). So Carter did not come into office a proclaimed dove. Quite the contrary.
You are right that like Reagan he claimed that he aimed for the elmination of nuclear weapons. However, his views on development and deployment of new nuclear missiles did not change noticibly during his time in office. He was never opposed to development of the Mx (which given the technology wasn’t something that could be started quickly). He never mentioned the possibility of not deploying it. Carter era plans called for many more than were eventually built under Reagan.
None of this was a result of his changing views of the Soviet threat (and note I agree that his views changed).
You are wrong about Carter and the Mx. The Mx was under development throughout.
The replacement of the Pershing I with the Pershing II was considered routine and the cruise missiles were proposed because Western European governments were complaining that the US was not doing enough to deal with the Soviet threat (they forgot whose idea it was when they became very unpopular in Europe).
So yes, Carter’s views changed and he became more hawkish. However, he attacked Ford as soft on the USSR during the campaign. He never ran nor governed as a dove. the current Carter approach is completely different from his approach as President (he’s a dove now). Nuclear weapon procurement was more or less on automatic pilot in the Ford Carter Reagan years except that Reagan slashed the Mx program.
OK back to the Mx
Importantly the aim of the Mx was to hide each one in many silos and shift them around (the shell game). The point was to make them invulernable if the USSR developed the ability to destroy the minutement. Reagan had 50 Mxs built and put in single silos. This served no conceivable purpose. I recall discussing the issue with a Reagan supporter during the 76 campaign. He confidently asserted that Reagan wouldn’t do such a stupid thing (it was Reagan’s policy proposal). Reagan did it and this guy ceased to be a Reagan supporter — he was a founding member of the Harvard neoconservative club, but he had little toleration for total idiocy.
I think that you will find that Reagan’s huge defense buildup had basically nothing to do with nuclear missiles. In general, it had nothing to do with actually winning potential wars (see battleships up thread).
All facts in this comment are from memory. Please feel free to check them.
Carter expanded and modernized the US nuclear arsenal. He advocated balanced reductions of nuclear weapons by the USA and USSR. Note he didn’t sign one nuclear arms control treaty with the USSR. Nixon, Ford, Reagan and Obama have signed such treaties. Carter didn’t. His policy was bargaining without making too many concessions. They were make no concessions. There were no agreements and the nuclear buildup continued during his Presidency.
Jimi. You should back up the assertion that people lie with examples. If you have any. Otherwise your comment is mere name calling.
Robert,
Thanks for the memorys. I did dynamic analysis of the transporter erector when subjected to a ground burst back in the day – late 60s’ early 70’s. I think I still have the paper, the unclassified part, in my files. More memories: Talk in the halls was that the MM3 could put a warhead down the silo, if we could locate it. Also that the MM silo could survive at the ground burst crator rim but the debris would prevent a launch. We were working on how to move the debris and open the silo. Another thing I had some tangental relation to was a project to harden the nose cone on the MM3 so it could be launched through the aerial debris of a nuke ground burst. Fun times for lab coat welfare.
How many times in this comments section is Cardiff going to be shown that he misread (or pretended to misread – ignorant can be indistinguishable from dishonest) before he gives up this fictitious assertion about the meaning of the original post?
Books and information are overlapping, but not identical sets. Unless by information, you mean “anything anybody cares to assert between covers”. There are plenty of books on astrology, witch hunting, picking up girls (OK, I’m just assuming the pick-up-girls books don’t contain information. I’m willing to be corrected on that point) which don’t contain the sort of “information” on which one would base claims about historical truth. Heck, I know of a book which shows that Republican administrations make truly terrible economic policy, slowing output, boosting deficits, widening income gaps and causing tooth decay. Wait…maybe books do contain information and only information.
Robert,
You called it “the Republican information cocoon” and not the “Ross Douthat information cocoon”. So you did paint with a broader brush. You are repeating the popular culture myth that republicans are less informed then democrats. It’s not just you that is making this claim, its a campaign, you see it many places and many forms.
Kharris,
There are plenty of books on astrology, witch hunting, picking up girls (OK, I’m just assuming the pick-up-girls books don’t contain information. I’m willing to be corrected on that point) which don’t contain the sort of “information” on which one would base claims about historical truth.
I agree that there are such books with questionable information. But I did not quote any of them. I quoted reputable books on political history. If you don’t think so then put the quote in google and see what shows up.
Carter demonized the Soviet Union. He said they were immoral for using prisoner slave labor in building their gas pipeline. He even pulled the US from the 1980 Olympics and cut off wheat sales. Needless to say, he got incredible flak for this. I remember some wheat farmers tied up Washington traffic with their tractors since he was cutting out an important market for wheat. (I think they made up for it when they helped plow out the city during one of its infrequent snow storms.) They probably drove home and voted for Reagan who babbled about the “evil empire” and probably did more to keep it a going concern than anyone since Stalin. If you actually waded through some of those Politburo speeches, all they had left were Reagan and the Great Patriotic War. It was sad. (You should have seen their sorry ass balance sheets. They were even sadder. As best I could tell, OPEC killed the USSR by bolloxing the imperial cross subsidy system they used to keep Eastern Europe operating.) You may have noticed that the SU collapsed shortly after Reagan left office.
Also, for the record, you could fly cross country for from $275 back under regulation, if you planned ahead. They had “apex” fares that were very good deals. Of course, you could have flown across country for $275 back in 1935, so that’s been a remarkablly stable price point. (I think the railroads charged about $275 back in the late 19th century for NY-SF.) Of course, $275 isn’t what it used to be.