EPTUS Politics Mega-thread - Page 5190
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Now that we have a new thread, in order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a complete and thorough read before posting! NOTE: When providing a source, please provide a very brief summary on what it's about and what purpose it adds to the discussion. The supporting statement should clearly explain why the subject is relevant and needs to be discussed. Please follow this rule especially for tweets. Your supporting statement should always come BEFORE you provide the source. If you have any questions, comments, concern, or feedback regarding the USPMT, then please use this thread: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/website-feedback/510156-us-politics-thread | ||
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Gahlo
United States35157 Posts
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Yurie
11867 Posts
On August 31 2025 05:11 DarkPlasmaBall wrote: Why? Even if you could list a few things in the positive column, how on Earth could those outweigh the endless list of negatives? Even ranking him as average would be going against the consensus of scholar surveys, where historians and other experts consistently rank him as one of the worst presidents of all time: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_rankings_of_presidents_of_the_United_States I still think the rock theoretical is a good barometer for a political figure. Would putting a rock in their place make things better or worse? For Trump it would make it worse, since Trump is so incompetent he keeps dragging down most of his cronies that would make things worse. In isolation if people did not get elected/appointed with him a rock would be better. Since it would not do those appointments and leave whatever was there before. We are sadly past that stage though. | ||
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LightSpectra
United States1588 Posts
https://bsky.app/profile/libertyovergov.bsky.social/post/3lxilevmvb22a | ||
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Shinokuki
United States866 Posts
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Magic Powers
Austria4237 Posts
On August 31 2025 14:57 Shinokuki wrote: is that jimraynor guy seriously glazing reagan? The worst president to usher a new era of corporate greed and destruction of middle class? How are people still this dumb? How is he even ranking president trump as average? He never responds to people criticizing Reagan, and even though he should be well aware how divisive Reagan is among economists, he glazes him all the time without an explanation. I could understand (though not agree with) his point of view if he just openly stated why exactly he thinks rich people are special and should be a protected and privileged class. If he believes, for example, that literally anyone or everyone can become rich if so they choose, then he could simply say that. But he doesn't say that, or anything for that matter. So people are left to speculate why exactly he loves Reagan so much that he wants him to be revived and cloned like Dolly so he could lead every country in the world towards utopia. PS: not even GDP per capita made any special moves under Reagan. The general direction was the same before, during and after his presidency. And I dislike GDP per capita as a metric, but even that one doesn't support the idea that Reagan somehow accomplished anything at all. | ||
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RvB
Netherlands6225 Posts
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/A939RX0Q048SBEA | ||
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Magic Powers
Austria4237 Posts
On August 31 2025 17:16 RvB wrote: The general direction of real GDP did change though. If you look at the 8 year period before Reagan it's a significant difference. 1973 - 1981 had an average growth rate of 1.16%. 1981 - 1989 2.49%. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/A939RX0Q048SBEA Like I said, I don't think even view GDP per capita as a good metric. I think it's quite terrible because it says nothing about the wealth of each class, it only counts the total of all classes and divides it through all people. That's a pointless exercise. Income inequality got worse under Reagan, which is a metric that is extremely important. GDP metrics must be compared to that and taken only as contextual information. Since income inequality worsened, that means any observable positive changes to GDP per capita would have no overall positive impact on the population. But if you were to argue that GDP per capita is somehow a good metric, then that graph doesn't support it whatsoever. Especially in the long run it shows literally nothing, as it just continues in the same general direction. You can practically draw a straight line through this and explain everything with normal variance. But even in the short run it doesn't make any sense to argue that Reagan had a positive impact: these little bumps are normal occurrences, and you'll find many instances across the whole graph. Holes often come after an uptick and vica versa. It's regression to the mean (in both directions). Statistically speaking nothing was special about Reaganomics - other than the fact of course that wealth shifted to the top and created more inequality. | ||
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Acrofales
Spain18028 Posts
On August 31 2025 17:38 Magic Powers wrote: Like I said, I don't think even view GDP per capita as a good metric. I think it's quite terrible because it says nothing about the wealth of each class, it only counts the total of all classes and divides it through all people. That's a pointless exercise. Income inequality got worse under Reagan, which is a metric that is extremely important. GDP metrics must be compared to that and taken only as contextual information. Since income inequality worsened, that means any observable positive changes to GDP per capita would have no overall positive impact on the population. But if you were to argue that GDP per capita is somehow a good metric, then that graph doesn't support it whatsoever. Especially in the long run it shows literally nothing, as it just continues in the same general direction. You can practically draw a straight line through this and explain everything with normal variance. But even in the short run it doesn't make any sense to argue that Reagan had a positive impact: these little bumps are normal occurrences, and you'll find many instances across the whole graph. Holes often come after an uptick and vica versa. It's regression to the mean (in both directions). Statistically speaking nothing was special about Reaganomics - other than the fact of course that wealth shifted to the top and created more inequality. Oh, I wouldn't say completely insignificant. Here's a linear regression given two variables: months since start (scaled), and whether reagan was president or not. Turns out, Reagan had a not insignificant effect on GDP  ![[image loading]](https://i.ibb.co/JRQ9qyPr/reagan.png) Of course, what is a far greater predictor for GDP is the previous quarter's GDP. And in a regression with the martingale, the effect of Reagan does indeed completely disappear. ![[image loading]](https://i.ibb.co/CKW0M5QX/reagan2.png) Does this make you right? I don't know. I just felt like doing some really stupid statistics for your really stupid argument. | ||
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SC-Shield
Bulgaria828 Posts
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Magic Powers
Austria4237 Posts
On August 31 2025 21:10 SC-Shield wrote: I'm not sure how useful discussion this is considering Reagan left office 36 years ago. That's a long enough time for policy on economy to change multiple times. Maybe more relevant discussion is continuation of policies instead of pointing out one president. The thing is that JJR uses argumentation in favor of Reagan to justify his support for Trump. If Reagan was a bad president, then Trump is many times worse. But if Reagan was a good president, then that explains JJR's view that Trump is still an above average president - worse than Reagan but good enough. After all Trump serves the top 1%, and so did Reagan, but Reagan did it better, so Trump is not JJR's absolute favorite, and yet worth supporting. I find it important to understand the rationale because plenty of Trump supporters share JJR's views. They have a fascination with Republican leaders who weren't good at their job but just got lucky with their timing of assuming office. Correlation doesn't equal causation - but tell people that and they'll try to mock your argumentation, even though it's fundamental in understanding reality. | ||
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RvB
Netherlands6225 Posts
On August 31 2025 17:38 Magic Powers wrote: Like I said, I don't think even view GDP per capita as a good metric. I think it's quite terrible because it says nothing about the wealth of each class, it only counts the total of all classes and divides it through all people. That's a pointless exercise. Income inequality got worse under Reagan, which is a metric that is extremely important. GDP metrics must be compared to that and taken only as contextual information. Since income inequality worsened, that means any observable positive changes to GDP per capita would have no overall positive impact on the population. But if you were to argue that GDP per capita is somehow a good metric, then that graph doesn't support it whatsoever. Especially in the long run it shows literally nothing, as it just continues in the same general direction. You can practically draw a straight line through this and explain everything with normal variance. But even in the short run it doesn't make any sense to argue that Reagan had a positive impact: these little bumps are normal occurrences, and you'll find many instances across the whole graph. Holes often come after an uptick and vica versa. It's regression to the mean (in both directions). Statistically speaking nothing was special about Reaganomics - other than the fact of course that wealth shifted to the top and created more inequality. The short term normal occurances, as you call them, don't just happen though. There are fundamental reasons for recessions, their duration, and depth. The 1970's were an era of stagflation. The argument for Reagan is that he managed to solve the underlying issues that caused it(this is obviously debatable). The bolded is not the case. Income inequality is a relative measure. It's the same mistake Trump makes with trade. Economic growth is not a zero sum game. Everyone can be better off even if income inequality increases. E.g. if the real average hourly wage of the poorest 10% rises by 2% while it rises by 10% for the richest income inequality increases but everyone is better off. Your comment made me curious and that seems to have been the case. The real income of the poorest decile increased during his term (source). Still you're absolutely right that looking at gdp per capita in isolation does not tell us the whole story. It's a useful proxy and a good measure of total production in the economy but you need to take more measures into account like inflation, unemployment, etc. | ||
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