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One could argue he set the stage for the 1980s economic boom by making short term sacrifices that cost him re-election. It was his administration that did marke

• seanmcdirmid 2y ago
  I’m really worried that we just elected a president who clearly fixates on short term gains rather than long term planning. Biden did not mess that up, even if he is a one term president like Carter. It is nice to have adults in control, even if that is increasingly politically untenable.
  • xrd 2y ago
    You said it better than I would have. Biden put a lot of smart people around him, and together they made many long term investments in states that overwhelmingly voted for Trump. He will be remembered differently than he is now.
    • distortionfield 2y ago
      The CHIPS act is going to be his legacy. That and the infra bill, I think. That bill is responsible for several bridges in my area getting much needed attention from what I understand.
    • benatkin 2y ago
      It’s too bad Pete Buttigieg took the risk of unreservedly supporting Kamala and lost some credibility. I guess he didn’t think that urging people to pick her as the lesser of two evils would work, but she lost anyway, and now the Democratic Party is in an awkward place.
  • Salgat 2y ago
    What's frustrating is that a few years ago a recession was predicted, and we avoided that. But no one seems to have even mentioned it during the election. Am I just misremembering this? At least in the tech sector, lots of layoffs seemed to be attributed to the coming downturn.
    • hylaride 2y ago
      Also, the US is pretty much the only developed country growing at any meaningful rate (though deficit spending is probably a large cause of that and is arguably not sustainable at the current rate). Biden was past his prime and it showed during the campaign, though.
    • wumeow 2y ago
      > But no one seems to have even mentioned it during the election That’s because most Americans believe we were in a recession. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/may/22/poll-economy-recession-biden https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/may/22/poll...
      • llamaimperative 2y ago
        Even here on HN, the vibecession was in full tilt.
    • seanmcdirmid 2y ago
      A lot of tech layoffs can be attributed to overhiring during the pandemic, the need to rebalance to more AI investments, and the end of low interest rates that encourage growth rather than efficiency.
    • distortionfield 2y ago
      Right? Biden actually pulled off a soft landing and got inflation under control. Just couldn’t land that messaging by the time it mattered.
      • bdangubic 2y ago
  • rayiner 2y ago
    Restricting immigration is a long term investment in America’s future. The golden age Americans remember from the mid 20th century is partly the result of the 1924 immigration act, which cut the foreign born population from almost 15% to under 5% by the 1960s. As relevant here Carter proposed to make it unlawful to hire illegal immigrants and to impose penalties on companies that did so: https://library.cqpress.com/cqalmanac/document.php?id=cqal77-863-26256-1200549 https://library.cqpress.com/cqalmanac/document.php?id=cqal77...
    • akaru 2y ago
      Something tells me you can’t believe this nonsense you’re spewing. You’re attributing the greatest economic boom the world has ever seen, not to being the sole winner and survivor of WWII, but because the borders were tightened. You must be a troll.
      • olddustytrail 2y ago
        He's not joking. He's an immigrant himself. There is often the "pulling up the ladder" attitude from the ones who think they "deserved" their entry.
        • rayiner 2y ago
          Not at all! I think it’s worse for the country to import foreign elites, like my family, than low skill workers. Foreign elites are the people most responsible for the dysfunction in their home countries.
          • olddustytrail 2y ago
            Fair enough, I stand corrected! You think it was a mistake to allow you in and are a net negative to your country?
            • rayiner 2y ago
              I think if the people of Virginia were voting in 1989 whether to allow in me and 500,000 people like me, those people would not be better off as a result of choosing immigration. - We have made their schools and jobs more competitive. We don’t have the taboo on open competition like British Americans, and don’t have the same idea of raising “well rounded” kids. My dad grew up in a village where 20% of kids died before age 5. He got out because he is a grinder. My parents socialized me to work 16 hours a day, discouraged dating, or having any hobbies that you couldn’t put on a resume, etc. I went to a STEM magnet school that went from 20-25% asian when I was there to 70% asian at the peak, and we completely changed the culture. - We have facilitated societal changes, because we don’t value individual liberty as highly but place more value on social order. We don’t value common wisdom the way British Americans do, but place more value on formal education and credentials. - We have reduced social cohesion. My family feels no personal solidarity with poor Americans. My family is economically liberal in a generic sense, but only insofar as they don’t personally have to pay more taxes.
  • zxcvbnm69 2y ago
    [dead]
  • UncleOxidant 2y ago
    When you compare Carter with the guy who's going to take office next month it shows how far we've fallen as a country. The previous era was already passing since about 2016, but with the death of Carter it seems like that era has died with him and it just feels very depressing.
    • silisili 2y ago
      While I agree with the general sentiment, I think the same could have been said regardless of which candidate won. It feels like the left moved left, the right moved right, and instead of catering to moderates, threatening them to pick a side. Said another way, I think a young Jimmy Carter type candidate would have wiped the floor with either side this election.
      • UncleOxidant 2y ago
        > I think the same could have been said regardless of which candidate won. I don't disagree. It's a matter of degrees, though. The post-WWII era was always going to go away when everyone who remembered WWII (or were children of those who fought it) passed away. That's kind of where we are now.
      • davidw 2y ago
        "Both sides" doesn't really correspond with reality though. She made a concentrated effort to reach out to people on both sides, including the Cheneys, of all people.
        • ngcazz 2y ago
          Both sides of the right wing, the only wing.
        • potato3732842 2y ago
          Associating with Republican party establishment types like the Cheneys is a giant middle finger to far more people than it isn't.
  • xyst 2y ago
    > short term gains For who exactly? The $1.5T tax cut (deficit spend) for billionaires was advertised as a “bill for the middle class” [1] under the assumption of idiotic “trickle down economics. Trump administration at the time even promised a “$4,000 raise” to the middle class. [2] In reality, in the short term, billionaires able to afford another stupid yacht or pad some offshore accounts. Corporations buying back their stock. In the long term, deficit spending, increasing national debt, jobs lost, cuts of public programs, and further decimation of middle class. [1] https://www.npr.org/2017/12/20/572157392/gop-poised-for-tax-victory-after-a-brief-delay https://www.npr.org/2017/12/20/572157392/gop-poised-for-tax-... [2] https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2018/04/10/donald-trump-gop-tax-cuts-wont-deliver-big-raise-column/471188002/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2018/04/10/donald-tru...
• deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
• linguae 2y ago
  For these reasons, Jimmy Carter is my third-favorite president of the 20th century, behind my favorite, Calvin Coolidge, and my second-favorite, Dwight Eisenhower. I am a very big fan of Paul Volcker and I’m glad Jimmy Carter nominated him as chair of the Fed. I wish Reagan kept Volcker as chair during Reagan’s second term.
  • justin66 2y ago
    Or nominated anyone other than Greenspan.
  • bdndndndbve 2y ago
    FDR doesn't make the cut?
    • WalterBright 2y ago
      FDR stripped 110,000 Americans of their property and herded them into concentration camps.
      • emchammer 2y ago
        One of these persons came to speak to my class when I was in elementary school. She was an elderly woman by then. She told us about her daily life in one of these concentration camps. I don't remember much. She definitely told us about the wooden buildings, and only being allowed to bring in what possessions they could carry in a suitcase. I think she also said that they recited the Pledge of Allegiance.
        • lelandfe 2y ago
          My parents took my siblings and I as children to Manzanar, which has been kept close to its original state. The brutality sits with me. Swarms of mosquitos bit at our family, clouds of dust made it hard to keep eyes open. It was blazing hot, over 100º, so the dust hurt. Rows of squat, decrepit hovels stretched out across the desolate sand towards the mountains. You could see the desert through floors. Barbed wire fences, mounted guns on guard towers. 10,000 American citizens imprisoned in conditions worse than a zoo.
• bb88 2y ago
  And Reagan also had the Iran Contra controversy which was selling arms to Iran to fund the Contras in Nicaragua. When asked in a deposition about what he knew, Reagan famously said, "I don't remember". It may have been a legal tactic to avoid culpability, but it could also have been real and highlighted the man's cognitive decline. Or worse, his advisors knew about the cognitive decline, kept information from him, and then ran their own foreign policy in the basement of the pentagon.
  • briandear 2y ago
    [flagged]
    • messe 2y ago
      Why is that relevant in this context?
      • griomnib 2y ago
        I think it’s very relevant as we have yet another old man in mental decline taking over, we should be talking a lot more about the real risks the gerontocracy poses.
        • PostOnce 2y ago
          Gerontocracy will remain even if age makes you unelectable, i.e. no one elected Murdoch. Wealth and power are both subject to a sort of reverse entropy, they tend to concentrate, and that means the older someone is the more they are likely to have. A 30 year old's rolodex will not be as impressive as a 70 year olds.
    • bb88 2y ago
      Terrible. He should have resigned, but was too proud to. But also, you know, this isn't a left/right issue. It's mostly one of power. There's a republican member of congress right now that's in a retirement home and hasn't been in congress since July. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/23/us/politics/kay-granger-congress-age.html https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/23/us/politics/kay-granger-c...
• ls612 2y ago
  Reagan’s first 2 and a half years also were setting the stage for the growth of the 80s and 90s by taming inflation with very high interest rates and a painful recession. Reagan would have lost by a lot if his gamble hadn’t paid off but instead by 1984 strong growth had begun and he won in a landslide.
  • oh_my_goodness 2y ago
    Carter appointee Paul Volcker controlled interest rates at the Federal Reserve from 1979 until 1987. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Volcker https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Volcker
    • ls612 2y ago
      Rates peaked in 1982.
      • oh_my_goodness 2y ago
        https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/interest-rate https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/interest-rate
      • hylaride 2y ago
        Reagan and Volcker clashed (at least somewhat publicly). Not long after Reagan came to power, he pushed a massive tax cut that swelled the deficit. Volcker publicly complained that they were too early and were hindering his anti-inflationary work and then proceeded to significantly raise interest rates and only cut them in 1982 after taxes were raised (to lower than they were before the previous cut, but a significant raise nonetheless). I’m not saying Reagan was right or wrong, but one could argue that he made the fight against inflation (and the early 1980s recession) worse than it would have been had he taken a more measured approach.
        • ls612 2y ago
          The Reagan tax cuts were too big but they got increased substantially during his term after that to be a lot more right sized. He recognized the error and adjusted.
• WalterBright 2y ago
  As Reagan's first Executive Order, he repealed all oil and gas allocation and price controls. The chronic gas lines disappeared literally overnight, and never came back. I remember that day well.
  • metabagel 2y ago
    He also campaigned on states rights to win over southern whites racists, and he ignored the AIDS epidemic, because his supporters thought it was God’s punishment for homosexuals.
    • deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
  • wistlo 2y ago
    Funny thing, I didn't any trouble finding gasoline on January 19, 1981.
    • WalterBright 2y ago
      There were gas allocations at the time, too. Those allocations resulted in a patchwork of gluts and shortages across the country.
• TheOtherHobbes 2y ago
  Inflation was very obviously caused by oil price shocks. The price of oil tripled, which was an unmitigated disaster for the West's petro-economy. It's an exotic reinvention of history to suggest putting up interest rates did anything to fix that. We had the same excuse rolled out in the UK, and legend still has it that rising wages "cause inflation" while resource price shocks, asset price inflation, and corporate profiteering magically don't. As for Carter - an unusually decent and thoughtful man who genuinely spent his life trying to do the right thing. But perhaps a little out of his depth with the cutthroat psychopathy of geopolitics.