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> I am curious as to what HN readers think is different about the two situations. As in, why can't it work in the USA? Unfortunately we are still stuck with th

> I am curious as to what HN readers think is different about the two situations. As in, why can't it work in the USA? Unfortunately we are still stuck with the legacy of Reaganism, which was essentially the undoing of the New Deal notion that the government could do good for the country and the average person.

gruez 5y ago
>which was essentially the undoing of the New Deal notion that the government could do good for the country and the average person. The new deal involved governments giving billions in grants to multibillion dollar multinationals?
- arrosenberg 5y ago
  The New Deal governments have a legacy of getting a ton of bang for it's buck - Rural Electrification, the Hoover Dam, the Interstate Highway System, and the Apollo program just to name a few. The entire point of Reaganism was to destroy that legacy by making government ineffective, wasteful, and disdainful of the very people it is meant to serve.
  - _delirium 5y ago
    One thing that's interesting about the New Deal era is that the federal government did a bunch of things directly, instead of trying to incentivize private companies to do things through fiscal policy. A very FDR take on the current issue might be to create a new Department of Semiconductor Fabrication and start building federally owned fabs. I assume Intel would not be as excited about that plan. (I also don't expect it to happen.)
    - Arrath 5y ago
      If it were to happen, hoo boy. Think the Intel ME is bad? Wait until the NSA has folks involved in the clean-sheet design and build out of chips.
  - AnthonyMouse 5y ago
    It was the other way around. During the time of the New Deal, the military industrial complex was yet to exist. There was no OSHA. They hired anybody off the street to build the Hoover Dam, a bunch of them died, but the dam got built. This was followed almost immediately by WWII, which was more of the same. But then all the people making a living from this didn't want the money train to stop when the war ended so they hired lobbyists and the military industrial complex was born. Which made government ineffective, wasteful, and disdainful of the very people it was meant to serve. Enter Reagan. To get back to the old thing you would have to first dissolve the military industrial complex. And then somehow prevent it from reforming. The government already spends a higher percentage of GDP than they did during the 1930s, and real GDP per capita is also significantly higher so this is more even in real dollars per capita than it was during the New Deal. The problem is that parasites are sucking it all out and it doesn't go where you want it to go because of the corruption.
    - N1H1L 5y ago
      Pretty wrong. Dupont was the military-industrial complex, way before New Deal. The military industrial complex is not some new thing. Alfred Nobel did not become rich selling candies to children.
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
    - shipman05 5y ago
      Are you arguing that Reagan reined in the military industrial complex? While you may be able to plausibly argue that he reduced government waste in some areas (emphasis on MAY), there is zero room for an argument that he somehow cut the fat on military spending. Under his administration, military spending (deficit spending, mind you, none of this was paid for) increased: "Reagan significantly increased public expenditures, primarily the Department of Defense, which rose (in constant 2000 dollars) from $267.1 billion in 1980 (4.9% of GDP and 22.7% of public expenditure) to $393.1 billion in 1988 (5.8% of GDP and 27.3% of public expenditure); most of those years military spending was about 6% of GDP, exceeding this number in 4 different years. All these numbers had not been seen since the end of U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War in 1973." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reaganomics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reaganomics

gruez 5y ago

>which was essentially the undoing of the New Deal notion that the government could do good for the country and the average person. The new deal involved governments giving billions in grants to multibillion dollar multinationals?

arrosenberg 5y ago
The New Deal governments have a legacy of getting a ton of bang for it's buck - Rural Electrification, the Hoover Dam, the Interstate Highway System, and the Apollo program just to name a few. The entire point of Reaganism was to destroy that legacy by making government ineffective, wasteful, and disdainful of the very people it is meant to serve.
- _delirium 5y ago
  One thing that's interesting about the New Deal era is that the federal government did a bunch of things directly, instead of trying to incentivize private companies to do things through fiscal policy. A very FDR take on the current issue might be to create a new Department of Semiconductor Fabrication and start building federally owned fabs. I assume Intel would not be as excited about that plan. (I also don't expect it to happen.)
  - Arrath 5y ago
    If it were to happen, hoo boy. Think the Intel ME is bad? Wait until the NSA has folks involved in the clean-sheet design and build out of chips.
- AnthonyMouse 5y ago
  It was the other way around. During the time of the New Deal, the military industrial complex was yet to exist. There was no OSHA. They hired anybody off the street to build the Hoover Dam, a bunch of them died, but the dam got built. This was followed almost immediately by WWII, which was more of the same. But then all the people making a living from this didn't want the money train to stop when the war ended so they hired lobbyists and the military industrial complex was born. Which made government ineffective, wasteful, and disdainful of the very people it was meant to serve. Enter Reagan. To get back to the old thing you would have to first dissolve the military industrial complex. And then somehow prevent it from reforming. The government already spends a higher percentage of GDP than they did during the 1930s, and real GDP per capita is also significantly higher so this is more even in real dollars per capita than it was during the New Deal. The problem is that parasites are sucking it all out and it doesn't go where you want it to go because of the corruption.
  - N1H1L 5y ago
    Pretty wrong. Dupont was the military-industrial complex, way before New Deal. The military industrial complex is not some new thing. Alfred Nobel did not become rich selling candies to children.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
  - shipman05 5y ago
    Are you arguing that Reagan reined in the military industrial complex? While you may be able to plausibly argue that he reduced government waste in some areas (emphasis on MAY), there is zero room for an argument that he somehow cut the fat on military spending. Under his administration, military spending (deficit spending, mind you, none of this was paid for) increased: "Reagan significantly increased public expenditures, primarily the Department of Defense, which rose (in constant 2000 dollars) from $267.1 billion in 1980 (4.9% of GDP and 22.7% of public expenditure) to $393.1 billion in 1988 (5.8% of GDP and 27.3% of public expenditure); most of those years military spending was about 6% of GDP, exceeding this number in 4 different years. All these numbers had not been seen since the end of U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War in 1973." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reaganomics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reaganomics