Customer Reviews

Greed is Not Enough: Reaganomics

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This is an excellent book exposing the fraud that Reagan was. Reaganomics, or 'Trickle Down Economics' was even condemned by GHW Bush as complete folly and a joke. GHW Bush called Reagan's economic plan "VooDoo Economics". As soon as Reaganomics kicked in the economy sank and unemployment went up drastically. Right wing conservatives like to glorify Reagan saying he created xxx jobs in 8 years, but Reagan was so dishonest that he artificially raised employment rates by counting our military as part of the employed workforce. This is the first time the military was ever considered as part of the workforce. It is especially hilarious since Michael Steele said that no government job is considered work. By using our military as part of our workforce, Reagan artificially raised the employment figures. It was dishonest and a lie, but right wingers continue to use Reagan's lying numbers.

Right wingers worship Reagan saying he was the god of fiscal conservatism. But Reagan never once vetoed an appropriations bill. Reagan never once proposed a balanced budget. And while president Reagan increased our debt a staggering 400%. But no one should be surprised. When Reagan was governor he INCREASED the size of state government a whopping 15%. Reagan also INCREASED state spending a staggering 15%.

Reagan's legacy of deregulation led to the savings and loan scandals in the 1980s costing the American people between 700 billion and 1 trillion. Reagan's failed economic scams led to the deregulation of the banking, insurance and every other industry, all of which led to the collapse of our economy in the past two years. Because of deregulation 40 TRILLION dollars was lost in wealth. Right wing republicans like to talk about wealth creation and they say if businesses are allowed to do whatever they want they will always do what is best for our country. Of course, these right wingers are simpletons. No business will ever act in the best interests of any country. They will only do what they can to make as much money as they can, and to hell with America and Americans.

Reagan's legacy led to the loss of millions of people's retirements, the loss of millions of people's jobs, the loss of millions of people's health insurance, and the loss of millions of people's homes. Reagan worshippers are deluded simpletons who base their belief on racism, hatred, anger and fanaticism.

Right wing republicans glorify Reagan as a champion of defense. But Reagan was a master of Cut and Running. Reagan sent hundreds of our marines to Lebanon as a show of force, but told them they could not defend themselves. While sleeping a lone suicide truck bomber drove into a barracks and killed over two hundred marines and other servicemen and women. Two weeks later, Reagan cut and ran by pulling out all military personnel from Lebanon. Reagan virtually killed those brave soldiers himself by acting tough, but by not empowering them to even protect themselves in a hostile territory. One lone guard shack protected the barracks and yet right wing republicans say Reagan was strong on defense.

Reagan also made secret deals with terrorists by giving them arms to release hostages. Then he funneled money to central American countries to overthrow legal governments. Imagine if Bush made a deal with Osama Bin Laden. Oh wait, Reagan DID make a deal with Osama Bin Laden by giving him arms and money in the 1980s while Bin Laden was in Afghanistan. Reagan was also good buddies with Saddam Hussein and gave him arms and weapons, even though Reagan knew Saddam Hussein was slaughtering his own people with the weapons given to him by Ronald Reagan.

Right wing republicanism isn't a political movement. It is a disease of rampant and mutant extremism, far worse than Al Qaeda or the Taliban. Right wing radicals led by right wing radio liars and Fox News are fueling a generation of hatred, anger, racism and mutated violence. And these same people who think violence is the solution to every problem call themselves 'christians'. It would be laughable if it wasn't so sad. Right wingers live off of ignorance, illiteracy, gullibility and stupidity. Right wing radio only exists to feed these mutants the anger and hatred they lust for.

Read and discover why:
Ronald Reagan left us a national debt of about $3.5 trillion or $3,500 billion.
The national debt when Ronald Reagan took office was about $1 trillion. That included in it all the debt run up for the Revolutionary war, the Spanish-American war, the Civil war, World War I, World War II, the Korean war, the Vietnam war and all the Social wars of the 1930's and subsequent years. In other words it took the United States from 1776 until 1980 or more than 200 years to accumulate a national debt of $1 trillion.
It took Reaganomics only 8 years to increase the national debt from $1 trillion to about $3.5 trillion!
Given the spending habits established by the legacy of Ronald Reagan the national debt is now about $5.5 trillion!
The interest cost on the national debt now run about $250 million a year! When RR took office they were about $53 million a year.
What was the economic and financial legacy left by Ronald Reagan?
The economic and financial legacy left by Ronald Reagan is an enormous debt which weighs on us and our children and their children for generations to come.

This is not only a socialist piece of trash. It is poorly written. It is the same old misguided "profits are bad garbage." I bought it when it first came out in the early 1980's. It was one of the worst investments I ever made. Don't waste your money.

Written by a socialist with quasi-Marxist leanings, this early-1980's polemic attempted to trash the supply-side policies of the Reagan Revolution. This book was written right as the economy was about to produce millions of quality jobs, the Dow Jones Industrial average triple, interest rates get cut in half, inflation eviscerated, etc. Let's just say that Mr. Lekachman's timing wasn't exactly perfect. In fact, if he were a baseball owner instead of an economist, no doubt he would have owned the Boston RedSox and traded a "washed up" Babe Ruth to the New York Yankees.

This book has very little practical economic applications since it's mostly an hysterical shriek from someone who thinks that everything should conform to The New York Times editorial page. Why I purchased this book back then -- curiosity? humor? stupidity? -- I have no idea. But then again, I was buying Pac-Man and other game cartridges for my Atari 2600 at that time also.

I would say that this book is about as relevant and useful today as that Atari video game system is appealing to today's PC and Sony Playstation crowd.

i've never read this book before
but i wanted to point out that the first reviewer needs to refresh his history.
the U.S. debt when regan became president certainly CANNOT be traced back though the revolutionary war.
during WWII, the united states became, for the first time in it's history, a lender and not a debter country. this is because we needed to financially support the allied countries to defeat hitler, even though we never officially joined the war until after pearl harbour, which was much later.
therefore, any debt that accrued when regan came into office would have been debt that was accrued between the 1950's and the 1980's. granted, it took at least 30 yrs to accrue 1 trillion and regan tripled that amount in three years... but i wanted to clear up the historical discrepency.
i am in no way backing reagan, he was an advocate for the rich and the "american dream" at the expense of the working classes' lives.