Let's have that political discussion.

[Mereni]

Speaking of gardens, I read a study not very long ago showing that a family of 4 can supply nearly all the vegetables they need for a year on a single acre of land. I had seen a gentleman from south-central LA that had started "urban gardening" by growing various vegetables in the right-of-ways between the sidewalk and street (it was a video interview on Carson Daily, and the guy being interviewed spoke of his TED talk, which led me to further information on it all). You know, this would resolve a lot of health issues in and of itself by just making sure that we eat better every day!

Did the TED talk or the interview say anything about roadway toxins? Drippings of gas, oil, other vehicle fluids, and combustion products tend to accumulate within the few yards around any road. There are also dissolved tars leaching out of paved roads and into surrounding soils all the time. Why do you think they go from tar black to gravel grey/red in a matter of a few months? If you live in northern areas, it's even worse. Road salt applied in winter contaminates the soil with more than just chloride. Road salt isn't nearly as pure as the stuff on the table and contains small amounts of cyanide, arsenic, and other things you don't want to eat.

[Claeyt]

Missed the mark again, Claeyt. The first link discusses median wages vs. mean wages over a period of time which does not intersect, at all, with Reagan's presidency.

The second link discusses income disparity, which has already been shown to be a faulty metric for the health of an economy: http://forum.salemthegame.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=7651&start=120#p98718

Income is absolutely a metric on the health of the economy. As I stated before, it's used as an indicator for the GDP, The Consumer Price Index and other economic measurements. We're not talking about income inequality we're talking about the suppression of middle class income through the anti-progressive tax policies of taxing the rich less, which was first used under Reaganomics and continued under Bush with his further tax cuts for the richest Americans.

No, he knows exactly what this debate is about. He was trying to illustrate to you why you're making a fool of yourself by confusing metrics, misrepresenting data, and failing to address the topic at hand. However, your poor reading comprehension has thwarted his efforts.

The argument Paul and I were having was that Reaganomics had a negative affect on the middle class. You've proven my point for me.

No, the argument we are having is that Reaganomics had a positive effect on the United States economy. Searching this thread for my posts containing the phrase "middle class" will confirm this.

He's confused in that the argument isn't about median versus averarge wages, Real median versus Real average wages, or adjusted income charts.

The argument is about how Real Middle Tax Percentile Income (Middle Class) and Real Lower Tax Percentile Income (Working Poor) has massively shrunk since the 70's both as a share of Total American Wealth and also in their totality. The cause has been the tax policy aspect of Reaganomics that included greatly lowering the taxes on the richest members of society. This policy is most shown in the '1986 Tax Adjustments' and the 'Bush Tax Cuts'. The CBO study's conclusion was that these tax breaks for the rich and the 'Trickle Down' policy were responsible for the 1/3 decline in the middle class, huge growth in the national debt since 1979 and that it was harmful to the U.S. economy.

My point has been made earlier in the thread without a proper counter-argument from you. I will repeat it here. During the Reagan years:
-The economy grew an average of 3.2% annually, higher than the years both before and after Reagan's presidency. By the end of Reagan's second term, the U.S. economy had increased by approximately 33%

-The unemployment rate fell from 7.6% to 5.5%


-Inflation and interest rates plummeted. Inflation dropped from 13.5% to 4.1%, while the prime interest rate dropped from 21% to 10%


-Real median family income rose from $37,868 in 1981 to $42,049 in 1989


-For the poorest quintile, real family income increased 6%, while before and after Reagan's presidency it decreased


-Real per-capita income increased by 18% from 1982 to 1989

-The stock market tripled in value from 1980 to 1990

I'll take these one by one.

-The Economy didn't grow faster than in the 90's after the Clinton tax changes which increased top bracket taxes significantly

-The average unemployment numbers were lower in both the 70's and in the 90's as shown here. They decreased significantly after the Clinton tax rates were in place.

unemployment.png (14.38 KiB) Viewed 5704 times

-The Reaganomics wiki page which has been posted several times here says that Inflation and Interests rates falling during the 80's was mostly due to the Fed's policy but that Reagan's tax policy did help. 'Trickle Down Economics' promoted massive Bond purchases by the newly un-taxed rich which lowered interest rates but did little for the middle class.

-The fastest growth in Real median household income was in the 90's after the early nineties Bush Recession. Real median household income (Both Middle Percentiles and Lower Percentiles) as a share of overall wealth fell over the last 35 years due to the tax policy of lowering taxes on the rich. The Bush Tax Cuts decimated their share and total numbers even further.

-The stock market tripled due to massive flush of money from the un-taxed rich and let's not forget the junk bond binge of the 80's either. The '89 stock crash was one of the worst ever. This of course was before 401k's mostly so the middle class saw none of this.

As for median and average wages, none of those graphs are adjusted for the growth in payroll taxes or other income taxes. Some of them aren't even adjusted for inflation. If we're not even going to use Real Wages then what's the point.

First, the source link for that graph on the wikipedia page you linked is broken.

Second, your graph fails to account for increased employment during Reagan's presidency (20 million jobs added), and the increase in hours worked on average, per person. Taking this into account leads to a growth in real median family income, as shown above.

Third, your graph fails to account for non-wage compensation. Total compensation during Reagan's presidency increased by 7.22%

Fourth, and finally... even if you were to ignore the two previous points, your chart damns your claims rather than supporting it. Reagan came into office and ended a freefall of the real average hourly earnings, as you can see by looking at the slope of the graph you linked. As I mentioned above, the sourcing for the graph you linked resulted in a 404 when one tried to get at the actual data, but I was able to turn it up here, on page 374: http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/ERP-2012/pdf/ERP-2012.pdf.

I'll begin by recreating the graph you linked, to show we're using essentially the same dataset:


Next, we'll plot instead the change in real wages, beginning with the four years before Reagan's presidency, and continuing throughout his two terms:

As everyone except you can clearly see from this chart, Reagan's policies reversed an accelerating trend of sharp drops in real wages.

Your graph doesn't show a reversal of the fall in Real Wages under Reagan only a slowing of the decline after the massive decline during the Late 70's Recession caused by the 'Oil Crisis'. Your graph still shows a slow decline in Real Wage Income under Reagan. As for the re-plotted graph; thank you for clearly showing the massive growth in Real Wage Income right after the Clinton tax overhaul and IRS tax bracket re-adjustment.

The rise in Real Compensation was greatest after the Clinton tax readjustment back towards a more progressive tax system and not under Reagan. Even your adjusted graph still shows Real Compensation down overall in the last 40 years.

[MagicManICT]

@Merini: You'll have to do your own digging on that. I know some plants won't absorb some toxins while others will. I don't know how much of those sealants end up in the soils over how much time, but anything that runs off and could adversely affect plants growing there will end up in the water supply and adversely affect any flora and fauna downstream, so a lot of the toxic sealants have been banned for use in the US. There's also levels of "safe consumption" on many toxins before they'll harm an average, healthy person. After all, the USDA (or is it FDA?) has acceptable levels of bug parts in food because you can't keep all bugs out of a food processing facility.

[Claeyt]

@Merini: You'll have to do your own digging on that. I know some plants won't absorb some toxins while others will. I don't know how much of those sealants end up in the soils over how much time, but anything that runs off and could adversely affect plants growing there will end up in the water supply and adversely affect any flora and fauna downstream, so a lot of the toxic sealants have been banned for use in the US. There's also levels of "safe consumption" on many toxins before they'll harm an average, healthy person. After all, the USDA (or is it FDA?) has acceptable levels of bug parts in food because you can't keep all bugs out of a food processing facility.

Tomatoes are really bad for sucking up toxins. We recently put in landscaping when we re-paved our lot and we looked at putting in vegetable gardens. After looking at studies we found that to be pretty impractical for 'In-ground' planting. We went with a plan with non-edible plants only and then about 200 wooden 40 gallon planters with tomato plants and veggies as curb guards. You really, really need to wash the veggies tho if they're around exhaust or other air pollutants, but they won't have the toxins inside of them.

My brother works for a environmental assessment and research company and they do natural soil reclamation projects also. If you want to reclaim the soil from an old industrial site or lot after you've torn up any rock then think 5-10 years of letting a forest of conifers grow. I think blue spruce and white cedar were what he says cleaned the soil best. You'll need to replace the immediate top soil down a foot or two for really bad hardened sites but the trees will get the rest. Then 5 years out you chop them down and rip out their roots and level with top soil and natural fertilizer and you're mostly toxin free supposedly.

[Ikpeip]

Income is absolutely a metric on the health of the economy. As I stated before, it's used as an indicator for the GDP, The Consumer Price Index and other economic measurements. We're not talking about income inequality we're talking about...

You're still confusing income and income equality. Your previous posts where you bring up income disparity to try to prove unrelated points are a matter of public record - they're in this very thread.

He's confused in that the argument isn't about median versus averarge wages, Real median versus Real average wages, or adjusted income charts.

He wasn't trying to continue the argument on the economy, he was explaining to you how you were misrepresenting data and confusing your metrics.

The CBO study's conclusion was that these tax breaks for the rich and the 'Trickle Down' policy were responsible for the 1/3 decline in the middle class, huge growth in the national debt since 1979 and that it was harmful to the U.S. economy.

Source needed.

-The Economy didn't grow faster than in the 90's after the Clinton tax changes which increased top bracket taxes significantly

-The average unemployment numbers were lower in both the 70's and in the 90's as shown here. They decreased significantly after the Clinton tax rates were in place.

-The Reaganomics wiki page which has been posted several times here says that Inflation and Interests rates falling during the 80's was mostly due to the Fed's policy but that Reagan's tax policy did help. 'Trickle Down Economics' promoted massive Bond purchases by the newly un-taxed rich which lowered interest rates but did little for the middle class.

-The fastest growth in Real median household income was in the 90's after the early nineties Bush Recession. Real median household income (Both Middle Percentiles and Lower Percentiles) as a share of overall wealth fell over the last 35 years due to the tax policy of lowering taxes on the rich.

-The stock market tripled due to massive flush of money from the un-taxed rich and let's not forget the junk bond binge of the 80's either. The '89 stock crash was one of the worst ever. This of course was before 401k's mostly so the middle class saw none of this.

You're trying to compare apples to oranges. The periods preceding and following Reagan's presidency provide the comparison points for whether or not his policies were effective. Because the data is so damning, you're trying to shift to other timeframes where variables have changed. That leaves only your claims regarding the the wikipedia page's statement on the Fed Policy being responsible for the inflation drop, and the claim that the stock market tripled due to a massive flush of money from the un-taxed rich.

The wikipedia page does not state what you claim it does, which is why you couldn't quote it. Your interpretation is taking undue liberties. That being said, I'll still address it. The Fed's policies did impact the inflation rates, but only after implementing Reagan's desired monetary policy. Volcker was the head of the Federal Reserve under Carter in 1979, and was unable to make any headway on inflation - in fact, inflation rose even more dramatically from 1979-1981. It was not until the marginal tax cuts came into effect and the Fed's policy shifted to Reagan's tight monetary control that the inflation began to subside. Reagan opted to reappoint Volcker in 1983, before replacing him with Alan Greenspan in 1987 (which was, even you must admit, a brilliant move).

As to your claim that Reagan's policies resulted in an un-taxed rich at the expense of the poor, you're once again out of step with reality. By the end of Reagan's term, the bottom 50% were paying less in taxes, while the top 5% were paying substantially more:

Here's some additional reading you won't pay any attention to: http://www.firstthings.com/article/2007/10/006-the-rich-the-poor-and-reaganomics-40

Slightly off-topic, you're also confusing the effects of the Clinton tax hike with the effects of the Clinton tax cuts:

-http://www.forbes.com/sites/charleskadlec/2012/07/16/the-dangerous-myth-about-the-bill-%20clinton-tax-increase/
-http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2008/03/tax-cuts-not-the-clinton-tax-hike-produced-%20the-1990s-boom
-http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Columns/2012/12/05/Clintons-Spending-Cuts-Not-His-Tax-Hikes-%20Worked
-http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/09/the_successful_clinton_economy.html
-http://cfif.org/v/index.php/commentary/43-taxes-and-economy/1568-correcting-the-clinton-%20record-tax-cuts-spending-restraint-moderation
-http://www.unitedliberty.org/articles/11138-tax-cuts-are-responsible-for-clinton-era-economic-%20boom

The rise in Real Compensation was greatest after the Clinton tax readjustment back towards a more progressive tax system and not under Reagan. Even your adjusted graph still shows Real Compensation down over the last 40 years.

There are three things wrong with this bit, but since you keep trying to shift the conversation away from your failures as a distraction, I'll only address the most obvious. My graph is not adjusted to show real compensation. Read better.

Finally, we close with another failure in your reading comprehension. Your response:

Your graph shows no such thing as a reversal of the fall in real wages under Reagan only a slowing of the decline after the massive decline during the Late 70's Recession caused by the Oil Crisis.

Compared to what I said:

As everyone except you can clearly see from this chart, Reagan's policies reversed an accelerating trend of sharp drops in real wages.

You just don't have the capability to grasp these concepts.I said Reagan's policies reversed the accelerating trend of sharp drops in real wages, which the chart clearly shows. I did not say the graph showed a reversal in the fall of real wages. The point is that Reagan's policies drastically improved the situation. Imagine if ten cars were stolen from a parking structure every month for several years, and then after the owners installed surveillance cameras, only one car was stolen every month. It would be ridiculous to make the claim that the surveillance cameras are detrimental and causing a car to be stolen every month. This is, however, effectively the claim you're trying to make.

Your sauce is weak, Claeyt. You have serious issues interpreting data and understanding basic mathematical/economic terms. You're not representing your ideology well here, and need to find someone to help you.

Faithfully,

-Paul the Paymaster

[wormcsa]

No, he knows exactly what this debate is about. He was trying to illustrate to you why you're making a fool of yourself by confusing metrics, misrepresenting data, and failing to address the topic at hand. However, your poor reading comprehension has thwarted his efforts

He wasn't trying to continue the argument on the economy, he was explaining to you how you were misrepresenting data and confusing your metrics.

I'm glad a normal person understands me. I assure you Claeyt, I am not the one confused here. Just because facts and accuracy matter to me, and they clearly don't to you, does not mean that I disagree with every single premise in your argument. Your inability to read a simple graph, continual use of "facts" that can be falsified in two google clicks, apparent lack of comprehension of the terms "mean" and "median," and your logical non sequiturs make you look asinine.

[Claeyt]

You're still confusing income and income equality. Your previous posts where you bring up income disparity to try to prove unrelated points are a matter of public record - they're in this very thread.

I'm not confusing them at all. You're the one acting like income inequality isn't a symptom of the decline of middle class income and their share of wealth in America. The tax burden has been shifted from the rich to the middle class over the last 20 years and it's direct result has partly been the massive debt we've accumulated and the economic strains on the middle class. Reaganomics and the 'Trickle Down' has failed to maintain what we had and led us to this place of oligarchy and overseas accounts. You can't separate Income and income disparity from the problems with the economy.

He wasn't trying to continue the argument on the economy, he was explaining to you how you were misrepresenting data and confusing your metrics.

He's trying to turn this argument away from the problems Reaganomics and Libertarian tax philosphy have created in this country.

The CBO study's conclusion was that these tax breaks for the rich and the 'Trickle Down' policy were responsible for the 1/3 decline in the middle class, huge growth in the national debt since 1979 and that it was harmful to the U.S. economy.

Source needed.

Well I gave you the CBO report on Reaganomics and it's trickle down tax philosophy but here's some more about it:

"A 2012 study by the Tax Justice Network indicates that wealth of the super-rich does not trickle down to improve the economy, but tends to be amassed and sheltered in tax havens with a negative effect on the tax bases of the home economy."
http://www.theguardian.com/business/2012/jul/21/offshore-wealth-global-economy-tax-havens
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/12/business/12scene.html
http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/05/21/the-bush-tax-cut-failure/
http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Columns/2010/09/17/Bush-Tax-Cuts-No-Economic-Help
http://news.firedoglake.com/2012/11/08/cbo-joins-crs-in-finding-almost-no-economic-impact-from-letting-high-end-bush-era-tax-rates-expire/

The wikipedia page does not state what you claim it does, which is why you couldn't quote it. Your interpretation is taking undue liberties. That being said, I'll still address it. The Fed's policies did impact the inflation rates, but only after implementing Reagan's desired monetary policy. Volcker was the head of the Federal Reserve under Carter in 1979, and was unable to make any headway on inflation - in fact, inflation rose even more dramatically from 1979-1981. It was not until the marginal tax cuts came into effect and the Fed's policy shifted to Reagan's tight monetary control that the inflation began to subside. Reagan opted to reappoint Volcker in 1983, before replacing him with Alan Greenspan in 1987 (which was, even you must admit, a brilliant move).

Volcker began his attack on the inflation rates in 1979 before Reagan came into office. In fact his actions probably cost Carter the Election. As for Greenspan:

"Greenspan's theories on the benefits of derivatives, on the self-healing power of markets and the benign consequences of deregulation are now, as we all know (and as Greenspan himself, in Congressional testimony, has more or less admitted), largely discredited."

As to your claim that Reagan's policies resulted in an un-taxed rich at the expense of the poor, you're once again out of step with reality. By the end of Reagan's term, the bottom 50% were paying less in taxes, while the top 5% were paying substantially more:

All this shows is percentage of taxes not the lowering of the tax rates for the rich or percent of Real Income. Nice Try.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Effective_tax_rates,_US_high-income.png

Here's some additional reading you won't pay any attention to: http://www.firstthings.com/article/2007/10/006-the-rich-the-poor-and-reaganomics-40

I read the article and the idea that Reagan was a friend to the poor is laughable.

http://www.nhi.org/online/issues/135/reagan.html

Slightly off-topic, you're also confusing the effects of the Clinton tax hike with the effects of the Clinton tax cuts:

-http://www.forbes.com/sites/charleskadlec/2012/07/16/the-dangerous-myth-about-the-bill-%20clinton-tax-increase/
-http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2008/03/tax-cuts-not-the-clinton-tax-hike-produced-%20the-1990s-boom
-http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Columns/2012/12/05/Clintons-Spending-Cuts-Not-His-Tax-Hikes-%20Worked
-http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/09/the_successful_clinton_economy.html
-http://cfif.org/v/index.php/commentary/43-taxes-and-economy/1568-correcting-the-clinton-%20record-tax-cuts-spending-restraint-moderation
-http://www.unitedliberty.org/articles/11138-tax-cuts-are-responsible-for-clinton-era-economic-%20boom

When are you going to stop quoting Koch Brother funded articles from places like Jim Demint's 'Heritage Foundation'? Let's take a pledge now. I promise to never quote sources from the Huffington Post and you never quote anything funded by the Koch Brothers.

http://politicalcorrection.org/blog/201112190010
http://www.mediaite.com/online/good-riddance-senator-jim-demint-you-represented-whats-wrong-with-the-gop/
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/08/30/100830fa_fact_mayer

Finally, we close with another failure in your reading comprehension. Your response:

Your graph shows no such thing as a reversal of the fall in real wages under Reagan only a slowing of the decline after the massive decline during the Late 70's Recession caused by the Oil Crisis.

Compared to what I said:

As everyone except you can clearly see from this chart, Reagan's policies reversed an accelerating trend of sharp drops in real wages.

You just don't have the capability to grasp these concepts. I said Reagan's policies reversed the accelerating trend of sharp drops in real wages, which the chart clearly shows. I did not say the graph showed a reversal in the fall of real wages. The point is that Reagan's policies drastically improved the situation. Imagine if ten cars were stolen from a parking structure every month for several years, and then after the owners installed surveillance cameras, only one car was stolen every month. It would be ridiculous to make the claim that the surveillance cameras are detrimental and causing a car to be stolen every month. This is, however, effectively the claim you're trying to make.

You really need to work on your English Paul.

Reversed doesn't mean what you think it means Paul. Here let me simplify and correct your sentence for you. "Reagan's policies reversed the trend of drops in wages". Reversed would mean that the trend headed in a different direction; meaning upwards. You meant to write "Reagan's policies reversed the acceleration of the sharp drops in real wages." or "Reagan's policies reversed the acceleration of the trend of sharply dropping real wages. This would mean that the acceleration slowed or came to a stop. Even then it's cumbersome. If you wanted to use the word 'Trend' then you should have written: "decreased an accelerating trend of sharp drops in real wages" or "slowed an accelerating trend of sharp drops in real wages" or "blunted an accelerating trend of sharp drops in real wages".

Reagan's policies didn't reverse an accelerating trend of sharp drops in real wages, that would mean that the real wages stopped going down and started going up. Instead they continued to go down but at a slower rate.

What you should have written is: "Reagan's policies reversed the acceleration of sharply dropping real wages."

You should really let someone else take over for you if you're not up to the task of writing your own posts. You're starting to look ridiculous.

Your sauce is weak, Claeyt. You have serious issues interpreting data and understanding basic mathematical/economic terms. You're not representing your ideology well here, and need to find someone to help you.

I have no problem interpreting real data in economic terms. I do have a problem interpreting your manipulated Heritage Foundation, Koch funded fictional data that you swallow hook line and sinker.

...and as for my sauce. It seems to me like I got some in your hair this week. Why don't you go wash it out in the sink.

[wormcsa]

Dallane says it best, nothing else to add really-

This graph says nothing, stop posting graphs that don't deliver information please.

The graphs he keeps posting are from here:
http://www.webatrocity.com/salem/poptrack.php
I have no idea why he keeps posting partial graphs.

because he is a ***** retard as seen in this graph.

[Ikpeip]

You're still confusing income and income equality. Your previous posts where you bring up income disparity to try to prove unrelated points are a matter of public record - they're in this very thread.

I'm not confusing them at all. You're the one acting like income inequality isn't a symptom of the decline of middle class income and their share of wealth in America. The tax burden has been shifted from the rich to the middle class over the last 20 years and it's direct result has partly been the massive debt we've accumulated and the economic strains on the middle class. Reaganomics and the 'Trickle Down' has failed to maintain what we had and led us to this place of oligarchy and overseas accounts. You can't separate Income and income disparity from the problems with the economy.

You just confused them again. I've already shown you graphs displaying that while income disparity increased, it was not due to a decline in middle class income. Real income for the middle class rose during the Reagan years. I've also shown you the data that the portion of taxes paid by the rich increased during the Reagan years. The reason you're making these claims without any supporting data, is because it doesn't exist.

He wasn't trying to continue the argument on the economy, he was explaining to you how you were misrepresenting data and confusing your metrics.

He's trying to turn this argument away from the problems Reaganomics and Libertarian tax philosphy have created in this country.

No, he wasn't. He was explaining to you how you had your metrics confused.

The CBO study's conclusion was that these tax breaks for the rich and the 'Trickle Down' policy were responsible for the 1/3 decline in the middle class, huge growth in the national debt since 1979 and that it was harmful to the U.S. economy.

Source needed.

Well I gave you the CBO report on Reaganomics and it's trickle down tax philosophy but here's some more about it:

Why can't you show where the CBO report came to that conclusion?

The CBO report did not conclude what you said it concluded. It presented data, which other organizations and individuals tried to interpret to support a certain opinion. If you want to argue over their interpretations of the data, and if they are using the data appropriately, I will. But that's not the claim you made. You claimed the CBO report made a conclusion it did not. Which is why when I asked you to point out where it did, you could not. I don't think you're lying, here - I do think you're in over your head and unable to comprehend these concepts.

Let's take a pledge now. I promise to never quote sources from the Huffington Post and you never quote anything funded by the Koch Brothers.

You can quote whatever source you want. If it doesn't back up its claims with data, I will call you on it, as I have been. If it has data but is misinterpreting it or misrepresenting it, I will rebut it and provide sources to disprove it.

All of those links you're freaking out about have data backing up their claims from non-partisan organizations. You're able to check the data yourself.

Freaking out and screaming about bogey-men underscores that you're unable to address their points. You're attacking the source because you can't refute the data.

Reagan's policies didn't reverse an accelerating trend of sharp drops in real wages, that would mean that the real wages stopped going down and started going up. Instead they continued to go down but at a slower rate.

No... just... no. Reversing an accelerating trend of sharp drops in real wages does not mean real wages stopped going down and started going up. That would be "reversing sharp drops in real wages." The key word here is "accelerating." Reversing an accelerating trend means that the drop in wages from month to month is no longer accelerating (that's the part of this graph where the line stops going down and starts going up, Claeyt).

I have no problem interpreting real data in economic terms.

Your failures to interpret data, charts, and graphs in this thread (and elsewhere in these forums) shows otherwise.

...and as for my sauce. It seems to me like I got some in your hair this week. Why don't you go wash it out in the sink.

Desperation - and more damning to your cause than the oversized text and emoticon spam.

Faithfully,

-Paul the Paymaster

[Claeyt]

You just confused them again. I've already shown you graphs displaying that while income disparity increased, it was not due to a decline in middle class income. Real income for the middle class rose during the Reagan years. I've also shown you the data that the portion of taxes paid by the rich increased during the Reagan years. The reason you're making these claims without any supporting data, is because it doesn't exist.

I've shown plenty of supporting data while I've had to look at your graphs and data from the Heritage Foundation, FreedomWorks, and other Koch Brother funded studys that are simply manipulated lies.

Why can't you show where the CBO report came to that conclusion? The CBO report did not conclude what you said it concluded. It presented data, which other organizations and individuals tried to interpret to support a certain opinion. If you want to argue over their interpretations of the data, and if they are using the data appropriately, I will. But that's not the claim you made. You claimed the CBO report made a conclusion it did not. Which is why when I asked you to point out where it did, you could not. I don't think you're lying, here - I do think you're in over your head and unable to comprehend these concepts.

The CBO conclusion was right there. I don't know why you couldn't find it.

http://www.cbo.gov/publication/42729

The study went to 2007 and clearly showed a drop in the shares of overall income for every tax percentile but the richest one. After 2007 Real Wages and Real Income dropped like a rock down to Reagan levels for the lowest percentiles. The entire reason for the study was to show the effects of Reaganomics.

All of those links you're freaking out about have data backing up their claims from non-partisan organizations. You're able to check the data yourself.

The Hyper partisan right-wing sites you're posting are in most cases providing their own data from studies they've paid for themselves. If they do use outside data they have a stated partisan goal to manipulate that data to their conservative beliefs.

No... just... no. Reversing an accelerating trend of sharp drops in real wages does not mean real wages stopped going down and started going up. That would be "reversing sharp drops in real wages." The key word here is "accelerating." Reversing an accelerating trend means that the drop in wages from month to month is no longer accelerating (that's the part of this graph where the line stops going down and starts going up, Claeyt).

Just....stop....stop trying to defend your mistake here. In your sentence 'accelerating' is an adjective describing the noun 'trend' which is being acted up by the verb 'reversing'. You are wrong. Normally I could give a **** about grammar on the internet, but you're sentence is making it sound like Reagan reversed the drop in wages when really the drop simply slowed.

The graph shows that Real Wages decreased at a lesser amount. It does not show that they started to go up.

Desperation - and more damning to your cause than the oversized text and emoticon spam.

I got 2 PM's from certain unnamed jackasses showing money shots to the hair from this post. Kinda sick but somebody out there laughed.