Economics

Senator Cruz tried to spin his loss in the Shutdown Showdown by saying that he had succeeded in bringing the issue of Obamacare to everyone’s attention.

Let’s discount the fact that more people like Obamacare now than they did before Cruz started his tilting at the windmill, and let’s look at what he really gained: Money. Lots of it.

Yep. Good old Cruz and his right-wing buddies raised a ton of campaign cash thanks to the Shutdown. They used it to send out all sorts of fundraising letters and their campaign coffers are now overflowing.

So who cares if the country is now further in debt because of this? The Republican party is now richer, and isn’t that more important?

Years ago we were told that trickle down economics will help us all. Hey, it’s only been twenty years or so, you have to give these things time.

The fact of course is that it does no such thing. All economists who aren’t in the pockets of the super rich will tell you that. The US economy always does better when everyone shares in the wealth, because when people have money they spend it, which increases demand and builds growth. I mean, duh.

Of course, none of that has happened since the days of Reaganomics.

You see, back before the Stock Market Crash of 1929, there were practically no controls on the economy. The US averaged a crisis every seventeen years — For example, there was the Panic of 1819, the 1837 Crisis, the Panic of 1873, the Panic of 1893, the 1907 Banker’s Panic, and so on up to the Great Depression. Then Franklin Roosevelt put in controls and restrictions on Wall Street and banking and lo and behold, no depressions and no recessions for fifty years. Reagan comes in and removes those and bang! The S&L crisis, the 2001 recession, the 2007 Mortgage crisis, and the 2008 Bush collapse.

Capitalism works, but it only works with controls.

Here’s a series of charts showing how the economy has fared in the past twenty years or so. Note how no matter what happens, the income of the top 1% goes up. They always do well while the rest of us suffer.

So when someone tells you that restrictions on businesses are bad for the economy, just laugh at them, because clearly they have been brainwashed.