It happens all the time in America—more than other places, I think. It has to do with the American’s poor knowledge of history and their obsession with the meaningless shit they call entertainment, instead of paying attention to the nation’s life and death issues.
For example, in the run-up to the last presidential election, there was a lot of talk about “Supply-Side Economics” (aka Trickle-Down Economics) by the Republican candidate, Mitt Romney, when he came under attack for being out of touch with the general population as a “One Percenter.” He said with Supply-Side economics, the One Percenters would be the ones to save America from it’s latest economic woes—through tax cuts to the rich and service cuts to the poor.
Supply-Side Economics is the “economic theory” that economic benefits provided to upper income level earners mainly through tax cuts will help society as a whole by stimulating the national economy. In theory the extra wealth accrued through tax cuts to the wealthy will be spent by them into the economy, providing wealth for lower income earners and creating jobs. This wealth will, in turn, be spent back into the economy when the money is invested into new business ventures and in this way paid out to employees, suppliers, and contractors creating national economic growth. Sounds good. It’s a very good con, because it’s failure to deliver economic growth and benefit all Americans isn’t revealed until it’s too late and the country is nearly broke.
The problem is that the wealthy don’t reinvest in America when the economy is flat. They take their money elsewhere, or simply use the money for personal gain, and the American taxpayer is left holding the bag for massive national debt in a country with less services than before due to spending deficits. In fact Supply-Side, or Trickle Down Economics is not a Theory at all. No economists consider this even a theory. Theory is what the con is called in order to give it legitimacy when being sold to the public. It is policy, and no more.
Unbeknownst to the ignorant electorate, this was first tried in the 1890’s. It had been promoted by the wealthy class (Morgan, Carnegie, Mellon, Rockefeller, Cooke, the Goulds, etc.,—all were vocal proponents) through the Republican Party in the United States under the name “Horse and Sparrow Theory,” as in, “If you feed the horse enough oats, some will pass through to the road for the sparrows.” In other words, horseshit. But this description only came after the economic Panic of 1896, for which “Horse and Sparrow” is considered partially responsible by economic historians.
In 1929, the stock market crashed and a world-wide depression ensued. Herbert Hoover, a Republican president elected only the year before, was pretty much left holding the bag. However, during the run-up to the presidential election of 1932, Hoover disinterred the old Horse and Sparrow Theory as a way for America to work it’s way back to economic health, but evidently it was too soon (Americans had better memories then), for the voter wanted food for the hungry not more horseshit, and they voted in the man who promised them a New Deal.
Supply-Side was most recently successfully championed by Republican President Ronald Reagan and trumpeted by his budget director, David Stockman, over 30 years before the 2008 election as a way to stimulate a flagging economy during what became on of the worst recessions since the Great Depression. But, once again unrecognized by the ignorant and unwashed, it was once again used as an excuse to cut government spending on schools, community medical support, public services such as highways and many other badly needed programs for which the one percent wealthiest people of the U.S. find little financial benefit in and therefore wish to dismantle. At that time is was known as Reaganomics and Laissez-faire Economics.
But the latest generation of voters had evidently never heard any of the terms used to describe the “theory” in the past and therefore were prime marks for the latest con. When came Romney in 2008 with the same old horseshit to a whole new generation, it was like he’s just invented the wheel. He was, after all, some kind of genius in the world of investing. But for other reasons entirely, Obama was elected president instead. Just dumb luck.
Other favorite disastrous repetitions of American history have to do with war. Here, I’ll let you figure this one out:
Vietnam War : Quagmire :: Afghan and Iraq War : ?
The answer is: Clusterfuck.
That one just blew my mind. I couldn’t believe the American people were stupid enough to get sucked into something so similarly unnecessary, so expensive, and so fucking soon after our last little Asian adventure at an average of $1Million/minute (1967 dollars!) for ten years. Incredible. They were sucked in by the same kinds of lies and temptations, the same outrageous expense in blood and money, and there is no reason to believe that we won’t pay the same long-term societal costs —because we still won’t take care of our veterans.
Yeah, @antimatter, history repeats itself, tragically and unnecessarily.
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