The current crisis didn’t surprise me. As far back as 1995, economists started seeing indicators paralleling those that led to the Great Depression. The blame for this crisis doesn’t lie with George W. Bush or Bill Clinton, but with Ronald Reagan, and what George H. W. Bush described in the 1980 presidential campaign as “Voodoo Economics.”
The bailout plan totally discredits the premise of Voodoo Economics. Apparently, the economy doesn’t “trickle down” from the wealthy to the rest of us, as Reagan asserted, but trickles up from the rest of us to the top.
I’m taking a meteorology class right now. In the environment, water does trickle up. Evaporation off the ocean is a factor in producing hurricanes.
A better analogy is a house, with wealthy Americans the roof and working Americans the foundation. The central premise of Voodoo Economics is that the roof holds up the house. If you levitate a strong roof, the walls will rise up to meet it. This is voodoo.
I don’t deny the roof is important. The walls wouldn’t afford much protection from the elements without it. But without the firm foundation, you have what President Bush recently described as a “house of cards.”
The bailout plan totally discredits the premise of Voodoo Economics. Apparently, the economy doesn’t “trickle down” from the wealthy to the rest of us, as Reagan asserted, but trickles up from the rest of us to the top.
I’m taking a meteorology class right now. In the environment, water does trickle up. Evaporation off the ocean is a factor in producing hurricanes.
A better analogy is a house, with wealthy Americans the roof and working Americans the foundation. The central premise of Voodoo Economics is that the roof holds up the house. If you levitate a strong roof, the walls will rise up to meet it. This is voodoo.
I don’t deny the roof is important. The walls wouldn’t afford much protection from the elements without it. But without the firm foundation, you have what President Bush recently described as a “house of cards.”
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