5/19    http://bp3.blogger.com/_8m7jYiLM_DI/RknOjt4yLuI/AAAAAAAAAFs/P7wSDXcmge0/s1600-h/personal-savings-rate.png
        Personal savings rate plummeted after 1983. What happened?
        I thourght Ronald Reagan preached conservatism. He's a conservative
        afterall, no?
        \_ Reaganomics = spend to increase the cash flow, to kick start
           economy. Behind the nice looks and strong voice is a man whos
           principles are not based on economic, historical, scientific,
           or even academic studies, but basically-- faith. For all of these
           reasons many academics today refer to Reaganomics as Voodoonomics.
           \_ No.  The term voodoo was applied at the time by other politicians
              for political reasons.  Go ahead and look at what actually
              happened in the real economy and compare to 4 years earlier.
              Reaganomics was infinitely better than double digit inflation
              and Malaise Speeches.
        \_ Conservative != preaching personal financial conservatism. Reagan
           economics was based on perception economics: if everyone claps
           their hands and puts a buck in the pot, the market will grow.
           It's not entirely wrong, but it's shaky and hard to maintain.
           Cf. economic bubbles.
        \_ Maybe the fact that during the Reagan administration, unions were
           busted and the average income for the wage earner dropped?
           \_ Typical liberal reasoning. Fact: The Unions were busted long
              before Reagan came along. Fact: The dollar grew stronger
              during the Reagan administration and corporate profits
              soared like never before. Fact: Liberals rarely look at
              the good sides.
              \_ Hrm.. I wonder which affects personal savings more...
                 Higher corporate profits?  Higher wages?  I just don't
                 know.
                 See.. As those good sides are "good" only for a small
                 portion of people, their goodness isn't all that great.
                 \_ You're right.  It is much better for employee income if
                    corporations are having a hard time economically.
                    \_ Typical right-wing wacko reasoning: ignore the
                       possibility that two things can be true, i.e., corp.
                       earnings were up, but avg. income still dropped.
        \_ If you look carefully, the big drop happened from 92 to 2000.
           It was Clinton's example of moral degeneracy that caused the drop.
           \_ Wait, you're blaming a drop in the personal savings rate on
              people paying for blowjobs?
              \_ I don't think Monica got paid.  She closed her eyes and
                 thought of the United States of America.
                 \- she didnt think of the USA. you should watch the
                    Barbara Wawa interview with her ... "so then you went to
                    washtington. were you interested in politics?" "no".
                    \_ Hey, don't bash Barb!  Everyone loves her hard hitting
                       interviews.
        \_ the plummet doesn't look like it occurs until 1987 to me.