Reagan Celebration Hides Brutal History, page 1

Here is an interesting discussion on this premise:

There's a growing realization that the starting point for many of the catastrophes confronting the United States today can be traced to Reagan's presidency. -Robert Parry

The basic argument is that the Reagan presidency (or what I consider Bush I) was responsible for putting the U.S.A. back in the pockets of the military industrial complex after the debacle of Vietnam.

-The politicization of the CIA to ignore facts and concentrate on the talking points that supported the White House.
-The role of Cheney in taking power away from congress and eliminating regulatory agencies, and selling out Washington to private interest groups.
-The role of eliminating conscription as a way of making war an easier sell to the American people.

etc... as you can see, this is well worth the listen!

To be fair Lawrence Wilkerson sees the start of the security state from post WWII, and admits it only was accelerated under Reagan.

Finally, there is some very interesting discussion on the role of the CIA, of course with Iran/Contra, but also how it was a tool for U.S. corporate interests in South America, which most of us here on ATS are well aware.

Anyway, enjoy... and discuss.

Link to video... need help embedding... sorry!?!

the Billmeister

reply to post by Billmeister

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Here you go...

.

reply to post by Maxmars

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Thank you very much sir.

I'm still a newbie at all this fancy shmancy internet computer stuff... one day I'll figure it out!

reply to post by Billmeister

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Well what is brutal.
Continuing to have airlines pollute the air or let Tesla space ships rule the skies.
That fits right in to all the brutal Illuminati tails for protection of their domain.
There must be more other than what ever level Illuminati Reagan was on.
Reagan hosted GE theater while GE most likely still makes parts for the Tesla ships
according to research by Bill Lyne.
That does not make him a bad person or even part of the Illuminati but perhaps the roots
of being used for our suppressing.

reply to post by Billmeister

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Unfortunately, "the debacle of Vietnam" began with John F. Kennedy. When Reagan was elected, "Vietnam" was long gone.

If you want to ascribe the viciousness of the "military industrial complex," address it to the President to whom Eisenhower was addressing his warning. John Kennedy sold this country out.

Originally posted by jdub297
reply to post by Billmeister

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Unfortunately, "the debacle of Vietnam" began with John F. Kennedy. When Reagan was elected, "Vietnam" was long gone.

If you want to ascribe the viciousness of the "military industrial complex," address it to the President to whom Eisenhower was addressing his warning. John Kennedy sold this country out.

I, personally, am not ascribing anything, I thought that the discussion was very interesting and thought it was relevant and interesting for the members of ATS.

In the video, Lawrence Wilkerson goes back as far as WWII, where he argues that the so-called "military industrial complex" discovered its modus operandi. As long as the conflict was on foreign soil, they could make money destroying the infrastructure and even more by obliging the "enemy" to finance its reconstruction through U.S. companies.

Both he and Robert Parry seem to agree that Dick Cheney, first under Reagan, was the "mastermind" of de-regulation which paved the way for future environmental and financial debacles.

They are both adamant that this is not a partisan issue, and that the ball was set rolling by one administration but pushed along by every subsequent administration with equal fervor.

Thanks for the insightful addition, it forced me to go back and take a look at the history of the lead up to the Vietnam war.

the Billmeister

reply to post by Billmeister

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...Both he and Robert Parry seem to agree that Dick Cheney, first under Reagan, was the "mastermind" of de-regulation which paved the way for future environmental and financial debacles....

Here are the " financial debacles"

LEVERAGED BUYOUTS

DEFINITION:

Leveraged buyouts involve an investor, financial sponsors or private equity firms making large acquisitions without committing all the capital required for the acquisition. To do this, a financial sponsor will raise acquisition debt which is ultimately secured upon the acquisition target... en.wikipedia.org...

In other words the investor is placing a mortgage on property he does not OWN!!!

This is not moral or ethical and given what happened during the Great Depression, I would be very surprised if laws were not enacted to prevent it. SO - Where the heck was CONGRESS. Where the heck were the COURTS when this was going on??? If you want to do one single thing to help America get back on her feet, then Declare Leveraged Buyouts ILLEGAL. They are certainly immoral and very destructive to the country.


Reagan - facilitate Leveraged buyouts/Hostile takeovers

....Both economic and regulatory factors combined to spur the explosion in large takeovers and, in turn, large LBOs. The three regulatory factors were the Reagan administration's relatively laissez-faire policies on antitrust and securities laws, which allowed mergers the government would have challenged in earlier years; the 1982 Supreme Court decision striking down state antitakeover laws (which were resurrected with great effectiveness in the late eighties); and deregulation of many industries, which prompted restructurings and mergers. The main economic factor was the development of the original-issue high-yield debt instrument. The so-called "junk bond" innovation, pioneered by Michael Milken of Drexel Burnham, provided many hostile bidders and LBO firms with the enormous amounts of capital needed to finance multi-billion-dollar deals.... www.econlib.org...

If you want to know what the US government did about it...

...In January 1982, former US Secretary of the Treasury William Simon and a group of investors acquired Gibson Greetings, a producer of greeting cards, for $80 million, of which only $1 million was rumored to have been contributed by the investors. By mid-1983, just sixteen months after the original deal, Gibson completed a $290 million IPO and Simon made approximately $66 million. The success of the Gibson Greetings investment attracted the attention of the wider media to the nascent boom in leveraged buyouts.[10] Between 1979 and 1989, it was estimated that there were over 2,000 leveraged buyouts valued in excess of $250 billion... en.wikipedia.org...

The big question is WHO profited from "eating the seed corn"

Remember every single dollar the bankers loan out whether it is to the US Government, business, or home owner is created on the spot. In other words it is legalized COUNTERFEITING. The byproduct of all this money printing was the increase of the money supply from $60.5 billion in 1966 to $2016 billion in Dec 2010 AND it caused the minimum wage to rise from $1.00 to $7.25. (My Mom in the thirties was paid 25 cents an hour and that was considered a very generous wage for an office manager)

....These days, corporations seem to exist for the investment bankers.... In fact, investment banks are replacing the publicly held industrial corporations as the largest and most powerful economic institutions in America.... THERE ARE SIGNS THAT A VICIOUS spiral has begun, as each corporate player seeks to improve its standard of living at the expense of another's. Corporate raiders transfer to themselves, and other shareholders, part of the income of employees by forcing the latter to agree to lower wages. January 29, 1989 New York Times: LEVER AGED BUYOUTS: AMERICAN PAYS THE PRICE

...In the 1980s during the great takeover boom and hollowing out of the industrial heartland, many states adopted amendments to their corporate codes that codified directors' fiduciary duties, so-called "constituency statutes". In general, these provisions made it clear that a director need not "maximize shareholder value." Rather, in complying with their fiduciary obligations, directors may take all sorts of things into consideration - the impact of their decisions on various constituencies, including employees, the community, the environment, the color of the sky, whatever...

The 1980s LBO boom was a scourge for management. They used whatever tools at their disposal to prevent an acquisition... The Delaware courts stepped in... In short, the message from the courts was that boards did not have a free hand to put off all takeover attempts... [remember many firms are incorporated in delaware because of business friendly laws] lawprofessors.typepad.com...

Leveraged Buyouts are still going on

‘Whitewashed Windows and Vacant Stores’

As I drive around my town, I can’t get the lyrics or somber melody out of my head. It is like witnessing old friends drop dead one by one....

And, it isn’t just small enterprises. We lost a Circuit City, a Chevrolet dealership, tried-and-true franchises like Dairy Queen and Arby’s. Last week Sam’s Club announced it will close its local big box bulk store. Then came news that Wal-Mart, the parent company, intends to lay off 10,000 Sam’s Club Employees. Even the ubiquitous 99 cent stores have been cut in half....

So, the businesses that provided jobs are gone, the office and retail space sits vacant, likely in default. The windows get broken, the walls get tagged, the weeds grow, trash blows, and, with no one to stop it, nature begins the process of permanent destruction. The value of those businesses and real estate is now gone.

Once Wall Street realized that success can only be so profitable but failure has unlimited potential, the race was on to loan money and securitize the debt.

Just like sub-prime residential mortgages, commercial real estate financing and corporate raiding offer opportunities on many fronts. Private-equity groups bought up large retailers and buried them in debt. Leveraged buyouts, as their name implies, are exactly that, leveraged, in that most if not all of the purchase price is borrowed money. The buyer has little, if any, skin in the game.

You might be familiar with the mall-based, teen-focused, accessories chain, Claire’s Stores. It was taken over in 2007 by Apollo Management LP for $3.1 billion. At the time, the chain had over $245 million in cash on hand. Today, the cash is gone. Struggling under the weight of $2.3 billion in debt, sales continue to decline.

Underlying all of this are the same activities that led to losses in sub-prime residential equities. Money was looking for a home, and some investors saw that cash could be leveraged out of these enterprises by buying them with someone else’s money and looting the assets....

Originally posted by jdub297
reply to post by Billmeister

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Unfortunately, "the debacle of Vietnam" began with John F. Kennedy. When Reagan was elected, "Vietnam" was long gone.

If you want to ascribe the viciousness of the "military industrial complex," address it to the President to whom Eisenhower was addressing his warning. John Kennedy sold this country out.

At no point does the post linked to say in any way Reagan was responsible for Vietnam, merely picking up the pieces afterwards, he was however a longtime spokesman and face for the corporatocracy.

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