What did Regan do right to make the value of the dollar

[dretceterini]

double or more than it is worth now against most foreign currencies?

Thoughts please...

[Xipe Totec]

1. Die? n/t

[Justitia]

2. Not a damn thing. It was Clinton paying off the deficit/ creating surplus

Where did you get the idea Regan's "voodoo / trickledown" economics gave us a robust dollar????

[trotsky]

3. Exactly.

Reagan did benefit from inheriting Carter's Fed Chief, Paul Volcker, who is largely responsible for ending the stagflation of the 70s. He knew it would take a dose of bad-tasting medicine, sending the country into an intentional recession. It ended up being one of the factors that led to Carter's defeat, but Carter and Volcker both knew it was for the good of the country, and so they (unlike our current "leaders") put the country's interests ahead of their own.

[Name removed]

10. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Joe for Clark]

4. Because,

He caluclated, correctly, GDP would move faster.

He had a 50-50 chance, I guess. And he guessed correctly.

Bush did not - guess what happens now???

Joe

[elehhhhna]

5. That's like askng what Reagan did right to make the internet popular.

A: NOTHING

[Name removed]

6. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Zenlitened]

17. "Reagan was one of the best speakers I have ever heard ."

Are you kidding me? Reagan was one of the great RECITERS, perhaps. But the guy couldn't put a complete senetence together without a script. I was a journalist during the reagan years, and I well remember what a challenge it was to pull a coherent sound bite from any of his unscripted moments.

[devilgrrl]

20. I thought the internet was around as early as 1982.

[nomatrix]

7. The only thing that stands out to me during the Reagan

years is 15 3/4% interest on our mortgage. You could deduct more though. Home inprovement, etc. Then they changed the tax laws.

[Name removed]

8. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Jacobin]

14. You really really need to stop repeating that canard

CD rates got as high as 22 percent is not accurate.

[LincolnMcGrath]

18. Once again; Inflation peaked under Reagan

[NewJeffCT]

22. High interest rates started under Nixon

Yes, they got worse under Carter, but he was trying to rectify all the crap Nixon pulled on the economy to try & win in 1972.

[Joe for Clark]

9. There is one other thing,

No one died as a result. A lot of people have and may die now as a result of this administration.

Frankly, I do remember those "duck and cover drills". And I think my mortgage was 16 and 1/4 start.

No, Reagan was not in the same "league" as this SOB. He could have been - but he wasn't. I DO give him credit for that.

Joe

[Darranar]

11. El Salvador. Guatemala. Nicaragua. Honduras. Lebanon. Iraq. n/t

[LincolnMcGrath]

16. Ding Ding Ding

[Walt Starr]

12. Not a fucking thing. He was an evil human being.n/t

[msongs]

13. where is your proof this is a true statement? nt

[UTUSN]

15. One Facet of Success In Policy Does Not a Great President Make

And as the Shrubbites now say, the president is not responsible for much of anything---unless it's something CLENIS can handle.

As for the poster who says RAYGUN was "a great speaker"-----uh, he was a professionally TRAINED reader of lines written for him. He was the product of the Hollywood training machine, and only got to a secondary tier in that world. His Hollywood crew was also great at staging backdrops of hundreds of American flags and D-Day commemorations.

He was a tool and a fool.

[Redstone]

19. So what, specifically is your obsessive posting about Reagan and

the exchange rate REALLY about?

Redstone

[Lex]

21. Link for your assertion?

[Bouncy Ball]

23. I'm going to try to say this without being too explicit.

But um, get a room, ya know? Do you have a color printer? Maybe you could google "Reagan" (you don't spell it correctly, btw) and print off a nice color glossy pic of him and check into a Motel 8 or something.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph...

[karlrschneider]

26. Or go in the bathroom & lock the door...

[karlrschneider]

24. There is something vaguely Freudian about your inability (or refusal) to

spell his name correctly...I'm trying to decide which.

[knitter4democracy]

29. That's been bothering me too.

Wasn't Regan his chief of staff or something like that?

[Egalitariat]

33. Donald Regan was Sec of Treasury from 81-85

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Regan

[helderheid]

25. who's regan?

[Bouncy Ball]

27. Shhhh!

Dude seems to think Don Regan was president in the 80s!

[MelissaB]

28. Oops

I just checked his/her profile and got this:



I guess I'll never know how long dretceterini had posted here.

[karlrschneider]

30. Yikes...well he/she had 300+ posts, I do recall that

[Walt Starr]

31. Before the tombstone, since September 24, 2005 n/t

[Walt Starr]

32. Before the tombstone, since September 24, 2005 n/t

[Kingofalldems]

35. Good grief, 300 posts in a month and outs his/her self with

a couple lame posts about Reagan--and can't even spell the name.

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

37. "The flame that burns half as long, burns twice as brightly"

[muriel_volestrangler]

34. For anyone interested, the dollar devalued during Reagan's second term

So, what he did to decrease the value of the dollar by 50% was agree the Plaza Accord with Japan, Germany, France and the UK.

The Plaza Accord was an agreement signed on September 22, 1985 by the then G-5 nations (France, West Germany, Japan, the United States and the United Kingdom). The G-5 agreed to devalue the US dollar in relation to the Japanese yen and German Deutsche Mark by intervening in currency markets.

The exchange rate value of the dollar declined 51% over the two years after this agreement took place. Most of this devaluation was due to the $10 billion spent by the participating central banks. Currency speculation caused the dollar to continue its fall after the end of coordinated interventions. Unlike some similar financial crises of the 1990s (such as the Mexican and the Argentinian financial crises of 1994 and 2001 respectively), this devaluation was planned, done in an orderly manner with pre-announcement, and did not lead to financial panic in the world markets.

The reason for the dollar's devaluation was two-fold: to reduce the US current account deficit, which had reached 3.5% of the GDP, and to help the US economy to emerge from a serious recession that began in the early 1980s. Paul Volcker's Fed had overvalued the dollar enough to make industry in the US (particularly the automobile industry) less competitive in the global market. Devaluing the dollar made US exports cheaper for its trading partners, which in turn meant that other countries bought more American-made goods and services. The Plaza Accord was successful in reducing the US trade deficit with Western European nations but largely failed to fulfill its primary objective of alleviating the trade deficit with Japan due to the fact that this deficit was due to structural rather than monetary conditions. US manufactured goods became more competitive in the exports market but were still largely unable to succeed in the Japanese domestic market due to Japan's structural restrictions on imports. The recessionary effects of the accord in Japan's export-dependant economy created an incentive for the creation of the Japanese asset price bubble of the late 1980s. The Louvre Accord was signed in 1987 to halt the continued decline of the US Dollar.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plaza_Accord

Was it 'right' to agree with other countries? Well, it's quite nice to think there was a time when a Republican could reach an agreement with other countries. Whether it was the best thing possible for the economy, I can't say.

[mmonk]

36. Nothing really

The high interest rates to fight the inflation brought about a recession and the rates came down. Once inflation was under control, the dollar had more purchasing power. It's the way the federal reserve has handled matters for quite awhile now.

[ncrainbowgrrl]

38. Locking.

this thread has definitely come to a logical conclusion. Also, the responses posted in this thread have refuted the original poster's assertions.