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Dec 16, 2003 One of my current guilty pleasures is “I Love The 80’s,” VH-1’s wildly entertaining series that devotes each hour show to the fashion, music, events, and pop culture from one year of the “decade of greed.” To add to the sheer nostalgic value, various talking heads provide humorous commentary throughout the sharply edited snippets. It’s great stuff and has even spawned a follow-up (“I Love the 80’s, Strikes Back.”). Anyway, as I was watching it recently (and trying to recall if I had ever owned acid-washed jeans) I asked myself just how the 80’s got stuck as being the “decade of greed.” That’s an unflattering label. And is it fair? After all, the 90’s – the Bill Clinton years, that is – have been coined in the mass media as a time of “economic boom” that glows with “prosperity.” Ronald Reagan’s “Greed” vs. Bill Clinton’s “Prosperity.” Why the difference? Let’s go to the numbers: in many ways, the economic performance of the 80’s was similar to that of the 90’s. Gross domestic product, the total value of goods and services produced, increased 28.5% under Reagan’s watch (’81-’89), while Clinton presided over a 32% jump (’93- ’01). Similarly, the Dow Jones Industrial Average, a traditional, if narrow, measure for the health of the stock market, moved up 148% under Reagan and 187% under Clinton. Unemployment? That dropped 28% under Reagan and 40% under Clinton. Finally, the Reagan/Bush (the elder) years saw the addition of 18.5 million jobs, while the Clinton can boast of adding 20.8 million. This is, granted, a limited analysis. But the point is that two similar economic records - with a slight advantage to the Clinton era - are treated very differently by the mass media. The 80’s, we are led to believe, was all about Gordon Gecko-types wallpapering their condos on Central Park West with $100 bills while the huddled masses shivered outside in old refrigerator boxes. In the 90’s, though, it was like a youth soccer game: everybody played and everybody won! I hate to rain on the parade, folks, but the “prosperity” of the 90’s wasn’t so innocent. Most of the budget surplus in Clinton’s final years was the result of an unprecedented windfall in capital gains taxes (taxes paid on any profits from the sale of securities). In short, the booming stock market brought in more money than Washington could spend (shocking, I know). And while Democrats of today are wont to chastise George W Bush for “squandering” the surplus, they conveniently ignore what helped bring it about: Greed. That’s right – greed. After all, wasn’t it greed that caused investors from Main Street to Wall Street to abandon the golden rule of diversification and place all their chips on the high-flyers like Enron? Did anyone care that most of the dot-com companies with skyrocketing stock prices had never made a dime, and probably were not going to for some time? Nah. Who needs a proven horse like General Motors in the stable when you can buy Peapod.com? And what was it that caused stock analysts to over-hype these same companies, knowing that the investment banking arms of their firms could not pull in any more IPO business – the cash cow of the Internet boom - if the ratings were anything less than a “Bet-The Life-of-Your-First-Born Buy?” Greed? Yep - sounds about right. It’s rather disingenuous for Democrats to take credit for the “boom” of the 90’s and then sweep some of the dirty little secrets that helped fuel that boom back under the GOP’s rug. Nobody complained when Enron, as crooked as it was, was part of a 401(k) returning 20%. However, when the truth came out, it was suddenly the Republicans’ fault for not keeping their corporate cronies in check. (So typical of them!) Mind you, I’m not defending deceptive, thieving executives. The point is that their ill-gotten gains were no less ill-gotten before the misdeeds came to light. Despite the common characterization of the decades in question, greed is a not an emotion exclusive to CEO’s, Oliver Stone creations, and Republican presidents. It is a human one. If the 80’s were a decade of greed, let’s be fair and call the 90’s for what they were. ”The Decade of Greed, Strikes Back?” Yeah, that has a nice ring to it. ------------ About Matthew Bastian: Recovering socialst, part-time drummer, long-suffering Brewers fan, and all-around beach hound, Mr. Bastian lives in central New Jersey. Email Matthew Bastian: mbastian19@hotmail.com Comment on this column in the forum. ------------ |
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