The Big Lie is purported to be a propaganda technique developed by Adolf Hitler back in the day. In his autobiography “Mein Kampf” Hitler tenders the theory that for this to work the lie need to be so “colossal” that no one would believe that someone “could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously”.
Actory and comedian Richard Belzer defines “The Big Lie” in his book “UFOs, JFK, and Elvis: Conspiracies You Don’t Have To Be Crazy To Believe” as “If you tell a lie that’s big enough, and you tell it often enough, people will believe you are telling the truth, even when what you are saying is total crap.”
The big lie works, and if you find yourself wondering how we got where we are as a nation, you can take it as a settled fact that the big lie definately has something to do with it. Let’s look at one or two popular pieces of fiction that are for the most part accepted as fact by the general public today
Myth: Carter ruined the economy; Reagan saved it
Your basic supply-side interpretation of 1976-1988 history goes something like this: “Carter’s tax-and-spend policies ruined the economy, and sent America into the worst recession since World War II. Reagan inherited many of those economic problems, but once he cut taxes, America’s entrepreneurial spirit was unshackled. We experienced the greatest peacetime expansion in postwar history. One of the strongest criticisms of Carter is based on the high rate of inflation that he was the cause of during his administration. But, wait just one moment before we go on. Who was president before Carter, and what was the inflation like then?
Ford Declares Inflation “public enemy number one” Before Congress
On October 8, 1974, in a speech entitled “Whip Inflation Now”, President Gerald R. Ford announced a series of proposals for public and private steps intended to directly affect supply and demand, in order to bring inflation under control. “WIN” pins immediately became objects of ridicule; skeptics wore the buttons upside down, explaining that “NIM” stood for “No Immediate Miracles,” or “Nonstop Inflation Merry-go-round,” or “Need Immediate Money.”
Here is a photo of Ford wearing the WIN button:
Whip Inflation Now (WIN) was an attempt to spur a grassroots movement to combat inflation, by encouraging personal savings and disciplined spending habits in combination with public measures. People who supported the mandatory and voluntary measures were encouraged to wear “WIN” pins (Whip Inflation Now), perhaps in hope of evoking in peacetime the kind of solidarity and voluntarism symbolized by the V-campaign during World War II.
What makes this bit of arcane history important is that President Gerald Ford served BEFORE President Jimmy Carter, and as “everybody” knows, President Jamers Earl Carter was one of the “worst presidents” we ever had, and it is he who is to blame for all of this nations economic woes including the many years of punishing inflation and stagnation that the country went through from the mid seventies to 1980 when Ronald Reagan took office and “saved” the nation. The period between 1973 and 1980 can be regarded as a singular one because it was characterized by both high inflation and economic stagnation at the same time. Economists will instruct us that you commony have one or the other but not both. For some reason we want to attribute the damaging effects of that long period of inflation to Jimmy Carter and not to anyone esle. Why?
It is common to associate the origins of the Great Stagflation of the 1970s with the two major oil price increases of 1973-74 and 1979-80. The reality is that monetary expansions and contractions occuring as early as the Johnson and Nixon administrations before the fact. The failure of this nation to find a way to pay for the Vietnam war was the likey true cause. The oil supply shock viewpoint also fails to explain the dramatic surge in the price of other industrial commodities (such as wheat) that preceded the 1973-74 oil price increases and the fact that increases in industrial commodity prices led oil price increases during the OPEC embargo period.
Mythology As The Foundation Of Principles
In 1980, the “misery index” — the unemployment plus inflation — peaked at 20 percent for the first time since World War II. Ronald Reagan blamed this on Jimmy Carter, and went on to win the White House. Reagan then caught the business cycle on an upswing, for what conservatives call “the Seven Fat Years” or “the longest economic expansion in peacetime history.”
Furthermore, Reagan systematically slashed and burned government regulations, but individual worker productivity grew no faster in the 80s than it had during the late 70s (about 1 percent for both periods).
As for the claim that Reagan’s 1981 tax cuts were responsible for “the greatest peacetime expansion in U.S. history,” a few grains of salt are in order here. The timeline better fits the liberal explanation than the conservative one. Paul Volcker expanded the money supply in late 1982, and a few months later the economy took off. However, Reagan’s tax cuts were passed in 1981, and were already in effect by 1982 — but, as we have seen, 1982 was the year of a truly horrific recession that persisted until OPEC had a falling out and oil prices fell sharply.
Tax cuts were supposed to have spurred economic recovery by liberating the tax dollars of entrepreneurs and allowing them to invest them in greater productivity and jobs. However, such greater investment never occurred. It appears that the rich simply pocketed the savings, because investment fell during the 80s as did interest rates, and that ushered in a new wave of speculation in all manner of things such as gold, stocks, real estate, and the ever-popular junk bonds.
Obama Is A Communist
President Obama is “considering” a radical agenda to nationalize the U.S. financial system, the auto makers, banks, the Federal Reserve and private industries such as energy and other sectors whose future is “problematic”. So say his detractors. What would they think if Obama were to issue a Presidential order declaring that we was freezing all prices and wages? Nothing could be more communistic, and surely, the Glenn Becks of the world would want his hide. There would be loud calls for his impeacment with in hours.
Obama is not currently considering any wage price freezes that we know of, but what if a Republican president wanted to do such a think? Of course, that would be preposterous and unthinkable, but if fact, believe it or not, it did indeed happen.
1971 – President Nixon Imposes Wage and Price Controls
On August 15, 1971, Republican president Richard M. Nixon announced dramatic changes in economic policy. For starters he imposed a wage-price freeze.
In a move widely applauded by the public and a fair number of (but by no means all) economists, President Nixon imposed actual wage and price controls. That means that as a private business you were not allowed to raise your prices or increase the wages you paid your staffers.
The 90 day freeze was unprecedented in peacetime, but such drastic measures were thought necessary. Inflation had been raging, exceeding 6% briefly in 1970 and persisting above 4% in 1971. By the prevailing historical standards, such inflation rates were thought to be completely intolerable.
The 90 day freeze turned into nearly 1,000 days of measures known as Phases One, Two, Three, and Four. The initial attempt to dampen inflation by calming inflationary expectations was a monumental failure.
The wage and price controls were mostly dismantled by April, 1974. By that time, the U.S. inflation rate had reached double digits.
While there were skeptics in August, 1971, there were a great many who thought “temporary” wage and price controls could cure inflation. By 1974, this notion was thoroughly discredited, and attention gradually turned toward a monetary approach to inflation. In a complete reversal, the policy to curb inflation is what now is thought to be an increase in interest rates rather than an attempt to hold them down. Back then there were no calls for the head of Richard Nixon to roll because of his Marxist Communist leanings, and there was nobody to run him out of office for this (Watergate took care of that) even though he boasted about opening up relations with Red China!
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