DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Everything Else... Rand Paul Risks Telling the Truth About Ronald Reagan

And worth every penny!

Thankee! Just like your gardener!

Sounds like you all sucked at business. Also $25 in 1994 is about $40 today, so he wasn't too far off.

I know, it's stupid to think that during the Reagan era there was 10% unemployment across the United States. Except there was. In fact, the only time since 1948 that unemployment topped 10% (with the exception of October, 2009) was during the Reagan era (September, 1982 to June, 1983). I guess we can't blame Carter for that because that would be like blaming Bush for the loss of jobs that occurred during the beginning of the Obama presidency, right? Of course, the high unemployment occurred directly in the middle of the Reagan administration as opposed to the beginning of the Obama administration, but that's another debate entirely. Regardless, I'm sure that everyone and everything in the US was fantastic during the mid-80's because MrTed and Lorain were doing fine.

Maybe things were great for you in Lorain. I would if that truly is the case, then you were very lucky, which I'm sure was great for you and your family. Where I'm from in Southeastern Ohio and everywhere else in the country, we weren't so lucky. Even though I'm from a blue collar area, my parents were frequently out of work due to layoffs during the Reagan era. Like I said previously, the world doesn't revolve around you and your bubble.

You can follow the link below and find out for yourself or you can continue to dispute it, but the fact of the matter is that there were millions of people out of work and unemployed during the Reagan era.

Bureau of Labor Statistics Link

Do you want to know what's really stupid? Refusing to change your opinion when confronted with overwhelming evidence to the contrary. The reason we have and use numbers like this is to put information into context as opposed to using anecdotal evidence from what someone random person on an anonymous message board remembers from 30 years ago. Maybe things were great for you and Lorain, but the reality of things throughout the rest of the country aren't at all what you remember them to be. The data that I have provided confirms it.

Your link says "data not available"

However, you are aware that the unemployment figures have changed, right? I mean, the way unemployment is determined has changed.

[quote]Regardless, I'm sure that everyone and everything in the US was fantastic during the mid-80's because MrTed and Lorain were doing fine. /quote]
[quote]Like I said previously, the world doesn't revolve around you and your bubble. /quote]

Smug comments like this from people like you are why I'm hardly posting here anymore. All I did was make a comment and you start in with the insults.
Are you saying that your 'bubble' is the one that the entire country should be measured by now?

No it hasn't. It's always been measured the same ways. Nothing has changed.

Well ... that's true, and false. (like many things on this earth) The changes in technology and public sentiment as far as giving out personal information over the phone .... and the massive switch from landlines to cell phones have changed how data is able to be collected. In this regard, there is not a whole lot the government can do, but the data is far less reliable than in the past. (from the NY Tomes, hardly a bastion of conservative bias)

A New Reason to Question the Official Unemployment Rate - The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/26/upshot...;abg=0&_r=0

The Labor Department’s monthly jobs report has been the subject of some wacky conspiracy theories. None was wackier than the suggestion from Jack Welch, the former General Electric chief executive, that government statisticians were exaggerating job growth during President Obama’s 2012 re-election campaign. Both Republican and Democratic economists dismissed those charges as silly.

But to call the people who compile the jobs report honest, nonpartisan civil servants is not to say that the jobs report is perfect. The report tries to estimate employment in a big country – and to do so quickly, to give policy makers, business executives and everyone else a sense of how the economy is performing. It’s a tough task.

And it has become tougher, because Americans are less willing to respond to surveys than they used to be.

Continue reading the main story
RELATED COVERAGE

How Not to Be Misled by the Jobs Report

A new academic paper suggests that the unemployment rate appears to have become less accurate over the last two decades, in part because of this rise in nonresponse. In particular, there seems to have been an increase in the number of people who once would have qualified as officially unemployed and today are considered out of the labor force, neither working nor looking for work.

The trend obviously matters for its own sake: It suggests that the official unemployment rate – 6.2 percent in July – understates the extent of economic pain in the country today. That makes intuitive sense. Wage growth is weak, and Americans are pretty dissatisfied with the economy, according to other surveys. The new paper is a reminder that the unemployment rate deserves less attention than it often receives.

Yet the research also relates to a larger phenomenon. The declining response rate to surveys of almost all kinds is among the biggest problems in the social sciences. It’s complicating our ability to understand how people live and what they believe. “It’s a huge issue,” says Alan Krueger, a Princeton economist and one of the new paper’s three authors. (Mr. Krueger, who recently spent two years as the chairman of President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers, founded the Princeton University Survey Research Center in the 1990s.)

Why are people less willing to respond? The rise of caller ID and the decline of landlines play a role. But they’re not the only reasons. Americans’ trust in institutions – including government, the media, churches, banks, labor unions and schools – has fallen in recent decades. People seem more dubious of a survey’s purpose and more worried about intrusions into their privacy than in the past.

“People are skeptical – Is this a real survey? What they are asking me?” Francis Horvath, of the Labor Department, says.

In 1997, the response rate to a typical telephone poll was a healthy 36 percent, according to Pew. By 2012, it had fallen to 9 percent. Fortunately, many surveys appear to be doing a good job of weighting the answers of people who do respond, to make up for those who don’t. Still, the long-term reasons for concern are clear: People who are more likely to avoid polls, such as anyone born after, say, 1980, are different from those who answer them.

The response rate of the Labor Department’s monthly jobs survey is far higher (about 89 percent) than that of a political poll, but it has also fallen (from 96 percent in the 1980s). Not surprisingly, the people who do not respond have different experiences in the job market than those who do.

The trouble with the unemployment rate revolves around a technical concept known as “rotation-group bias,” explain the paper’s three authors, Mr. Krueger, Alexandre Mas and Xiaotong Niu. The government surveys people for four consecutive months, gives them eight months off and then surveys them for four more months. This pattern allows the Labor Department to track people’s experiences for more than a year in a way that is less burdensome than 16 months of monthly surveys would be.

Over time, the kinds of answers that people give — or the kinds of people who respond — change. In later months as part of the survey panel, people who aren’t working are less likely to report being available to work and having looked for a job in the previous four weeks, which is the definition for unemployment. The differences are big, too.

The unemployment rate in the first half of 2014 among people in the first month of being interviewed was 7.5 percent. Among people in the final month of being interviewed, it was only 6.1 percent. Because the Labor Department weights later panelists – for whom there is historical data – more heavily, the official unemployment rate during this period was 6.5 percent.

That number seems too low. The authors note that the higher jobless rate among early-month panelists correlates more strongly with some other economic indicators than the rate among later-month panelists.

If you’re tempted to blame President Obama for this situation, Jack Welch-style, you should dig into the data. The problem has existed, and been growing, for decades. A redesign of the survey in 1994, to move it from paper-based to computer-based, seems to be one cause. The full reasons aren’t clear, but something about the redesign seems to have changed the way people answer questions. The gap in jobless rates between early and later panelists starting spiking in 1994 and is now about twice as large as it was then.

Of course, survey response rates have also been dropping over that same period. And there may indeed be an Obama effect here. The response rate to the unemployment survey fell noticeably in 2009, shortly after Mr. Obama took office, when the Tea Party was forming. Since then, it has continued falling more steeply than pre-2009. In the Obama era, some Americans simply trust the government less.

Tea Party aside, the main factor is technology. It’s a major cause of today’s response-rate problems – but it’s also the solution.

For decades, survey research has revolved around the telephone, and it’s worked very well. But Americans’ relationship with their phones has radically changed. It’s no surprise that survey research will have to as well.

Maybe people in coming years will answer questions about their employment status (and political views) by text message on their iPhones – or through Google glasses. Or maybe they’ll do so on their televisions, when they once would have been watching commercials.

In the future, we are unlikely to live in a country in which information is scant. We are certain to live in one in which information is collected in different ways. The transition is under way, and the federal government is among those institutions that will need to adapt.

Apologies on the link. Hopefully this one works better. You have to input the range of years that you want the graph to show.

BLS Link

If that doesn't work, it's easy enough to google. Even if the way that the unemployment rate is calculated, I think we would both agree that both parties manipulate numbers to make it seem like less people are unemployed as opposed to more, correct?



Because your previous comment wasn't smug or insulting as well, right? I became "smug" when you became condescending and dismissive, even though data paints a pretty clear picture of how things were in the 80's during the Reagan administration. Unfortunately for a lot of Americans, they didn't have the same experiences as you. This was your comment:



I'm not the one that indicated that everything was great in the 80's under Reagan. That was you, remember? In fact, I used anecdotal evidence of my own experiences in my bubble (just like you) as well as provided context and data backing up my claims regarding the number of people out of work across the country (unlike you). The percentage of people out of work topped 10% during the Reagan administration for nearly an entire year (10 straight months from September 1982 to June, 1983). The only other time since 1948 that that occurred was October, 2009.

Here's the link that didn't work before from the BLS. It should work now - BLS Link

You'll have to input the range of years you want to examine, otherwise the link does not work.

You can think or feel however you want and you can post or not, I don't really care. I'm here confronting you with the facts. It's up to you to decide whether or not you want to look at them and understand why Rand Paul and millions of others discredit the Reagan administration and laugh at those that venerate him.

Reagan took office in January of 1981 and was faced with the leftover policies of Jimmy Carter which caused your example. He worked and overcame those poor economic policies of the past and turned things around for America. All while ending the "Great National Malaise" as Carter called it and returning pride and patriotism to these United States.

wait wait wait, you've been on record denying that very statement to us when we brought up the same situation with Obama and Bush, and you said "no excuses, Bush isn't in office anymore"

that's exactly what you said before, but now reagan gets the benefit of the doubt?

So, it's Bush's fault that we had high unemployment at the beginning of the Obama administration, correct?

According to obama and his Libthingy minions, everything is Bush's fault. Just the other day obama was blaming Bush for
something, almost 7 years into obama's term!
You can continue to play the Lib game of rewriting History but guys like Ted and I were there to see it and we know the truth. Reagan was one of the best things to happen to this Nation in a very long time! Carter is now the second worst President we ever had since obama knocked him out of that box.

Like Mr. Reagan, I suspect history is going to look upon Mr. Obama favorably, whether he deserves it or not. Remember, the same folks who call Obama "socialist" or "Marxist" or "the worst president ever" said the same things about President Clinton, sentiments that today are forgotten or laughed off.

I'm just using the same logic that you are using. Not surprisingly, you didn't answer the question but instead you responded with the standard "Rabble rabble rabble, Reagan, America, Carter, boo, I know the truth" nonsense. Regardless, there are literally millions of people that are the same age as you and Ted and they would would disagree with your opinion. Just because you and Ted lived it doesn't mean that millions of others weren't impacted negatively or have a negative viewpoint of the Reagan administration.

Apologies on the link. Hopefully this one works better. You have to input the range of years that you want the graph to show.

BLS Link

If that doesn't work, it's easy enough to google. Even if the way that the unemployment rate is calculated, I think we would both agree that both parties manipulate numbers to make it seem like less people are unemployed as opposed to more, correct?



Actually no, you started it. I made one post, you said I was in 'my little bubble' and the next poster said I was being myopic.

I'm not going to try to train you on your people skills, but that's what set me off.

Only if you and Max write that History.

You're not really surprised are you? LOL

As usual, you have zero comprehension of what you read.

We have learned from the Libthingys to blame the next 20 years on the obama administration as the Republicans consolidate Power in the next election in the House, Senate and Presidency.

Okay, so what should I be charging now using the percentages that the OP is throwing around?

I'm not a big fan of Mr. Obama myself. I was just pointing out that the odds are very good that history will look favorably on him. If one could take a time machine ten or twenty years into the future, I imagine Carter and Bush will dominate any discussion of "worst" president.

You take your little time machine ride into the future but take a gun cuz you will probably find an ISIS flag flying over the White House.

Why do you possess so much irrational fear?

You think there are good odds that a small jihadist network will overthrow the United States within the next two decades? If that's the case, why are you sitting around on a message board? You're the fastest gun in the West, help us out here.

Yea, just a year or two ago obama assured us they are nothing more than the JV team. There's another obama call for the History books!

Nothing is irrational when you have a Libthingy for a leader.
(I use the term "leader" lightly).

You need to get out more, 40. Take a long trip and experience many different cultures.

I live in a Mixed area of millions of people and experience every culture, every day of my life! The food here is great too because of it!

Libthingys need to unlearn the propaganda they were taught in school and start thinking for themselves.

What taught you about libthingys? I'm unfamiliar with this term. Can you educate me on where this term comes from, and who is the ultimate source on such knowledge?

I think resorting to labeling and name calling tells you pretty much all you need to know about the source. The term juvenile comes to mind right away.

Straight from the talk radio circuit.

Nah.. Maybe in South Carolina. Their into to that sort of thing there.

The term comes from an old man who has watched the moral decline of the America he loves. He has watched the Liberal agenda of "Rights" trumping "Right" for many years. When they told the old guy that 50 million of his fellow Americans never got a chance to experience the American Dream because the Liberals and the Supreme Court said that a woman who shares her body with another person can decide on a whim to kill that other person, because "Rights" trump "Right", he yelled Libthingys!

Now once again, he watches as what his God said was an abomination, and as the Supreme Court once again usurps the States and Democracy itself, to make it the law of the land and "Rights" once again trump "Right".

Opinion does not equate fact.

Actually, this was your first reply on this topic:



It was followed by my reply to your post which indicated why you were wrong, i.e., just because you had a good experience during the Reagan administration, doesn't mean that there weren't millions of people that had the complete opposite experience. The word for the viewpoint that you asserted is "myopic" which can be defined as indicating your original post lacked perspective on the matter. Sure, everything for you was great, but for others, not so much. We can call that narrowmindedness, shortsighted, etc. It is not an insult on you, but rather the fallacy and inherent bias that you presented.



You then followed it up with more anecdotal evidence and the word "stupid" to describe my post:



I then provided evidence as to why millions of people were struggling and out of work within the US to back up my claims while you said that you were insulted because I said you lived in a bubble? You have provided no evidence to the contrary outside of you own personal experiences. You took anecdotal evidence from your life and tried to apply to the nation as a whole and you did it in your original post. That is the very definition of living in a bubble! It's not an insult to you personally, it's a description of your viewpoint. After all, you're the one that asked for intellectual honesty in your original post. If you aren't considering viewpoints outside of you own experiences, particulalrly when they are backed up with pretty substantial evidence that contradicts your own anecdotal evidence, how are you being intellectually honest?

The bottom line is, no one "started" anything and no one insulted you personally. We called you on your terrible viewpoint. If you can't see the difference, I now understand the real reason that you never/rarely post anymore. Also, if you can't take someone ripping apart the entire basis of your argument, then maybe you need to get a better argument.

Forget it Ted. Just remember the words many of us live by...

“It isn't so much that liberals are ignorant. It's just that they know so many things that aren't so.”

-Ronald Reagan

Do you pray to this ever night, 40? You should get Carl to tidy it up.

His picture hangs on our kitchen wall, right next to the Blonde haired, blue eyed, lily white Jesus.

Ahh, yes, the moral decay of society bit. People using arguments like yours said the same thing about how slavery, women voting, and civil rights for African-Americans will lead to the destruction of America and its society. Now we hear the same bit about gay marriage. Interestingly, they almost always seemed to use religion in order to justify their beliefs to discriminate against others. Turns out, the boogeyman doesn't live behind every corner or under every bed. The United States is a nation of laws, not one of religion and society continues to progress forward while people like you keep finding yourself on the wrong side of history despite inane/asinine ramblings of moral and societal decay. Just like it has been for centuries before, society will continue to progress while we drag you along kicking and screaming like a petulant child the entire way.

Ah, the vicious rantings of a man who just won a fight to make it legal and a "RIGHT" for one man to climb on another man's behind and marry him.

Love beats Hate!

I'm OK with it because I'm not obsessed with dictating what two consenting adults do behind closed doors nor with whom one should love or marry. Love is love and love triumphs hate, indeed!