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Two deranged lawyers talking about our deranged obsessions.
Raven Sinner (00:01)
Thanks for watching!
Pisha (00:26)
Hello and welcome back to Deranged De Jure, the podcast bringing you to deranged lawyers discussing their deranged obsessions. I am one of those deranged lawyers. My name is Pisha. I'm here with my co -host.
Raven (00:42)
Haven.
Pisha (00:43)
And we're here to talk today about the six degrees of Ronald Reagan. You've heard of the six degrees of Kevin Bacon, which basically is a theory that claims you can link any actor to Kevin Bacon in like six movies. So just kind of a fun play off that is, you know, how Ronald Reagan policies fucked us up today.
Raven (00:53)
Heheheheh
WAH!
Mm -hmm.
Pisha (01:10)
And so today we are focusing on Reaganomics. We'll get more into that, but I just want to go on record that my menti B is officially over. As you can tell, I look close to normal. I look passable for normal. Yeah, it was great. It was a fun time. I'm super glad it's out of the way. So, so my menti B is over.
Raven (01:24)
You look great.
Well, and your wedding was awesome. So there you go. Yeah. Yeah. Great. And mine started. As you might have told, you might be able to tell if you are watching this on Spotify, I cut my bangs because this stopped me from doing worse things. So here we are.
Pisha (01:37)
Yay!
I actually, you know, we've discussed this. I think this is the best time to get haircuts is during mental health crises. Because if that's really the smallest change that it'll take to make life feel back on track, go for it. As we've discussed, hair is generally temporary for most people. So you can grow it back out, whatever, go for it. Plus you look so rockin' in those bangs. Don't even, yeah, don't even.
Raven (01:57)
Agreed.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Thanks. Thanks. Yeah. Well, I had them professionally done at least. Like at least I didn't do it myself. That would have been... Have been down that road before for sure. It is not great. That was, that was, Brittany in my 2007 was almost exactly the same. She shaved her head. I cut bangs. Yeah. So, and, and other treacherous things.
Pisha (02:21)
Right, that would have been a different type of disaster.
It's been a
wow. Wow. I didn't have my last bang cutting moment since like, I don't know, I'm gonna say like 93, 94. You know, I was a babe and my mom learned at a young age that you shouldn't keep sharp things around me.
Raven (02:49)
Yeah.
okay.
Yeah, I cut a lot of trolls hair.
Pisha (02:59)
wait, that made me sound murderous. I - I - Because I cut my hair and stuff. my god. Ugh.
Raven (03:05)
And Barbie's hairs and Troll's hairs and all the hairs. Yeah, I did the same thing. And my own hair. Yep. Also that. I just never learned.
Pisha (03:11)
Yeah, yeah. I mean, there were a couple Barbies that lost their heads, but that was a different plot line. So, so we have traded places on the menti B schedule and which actually works out great being friends because it means that I can be here for you now. Yeah. Yeah. And so we've got some exciting stuff coming up that hopefully will help you, you know,
Raven (03:18)
Yeah, yeah, same.
Yeah.
well thank you.
Yeah.
Pisha (03:41)
you know, through this menti bee. Get through it, you know. Gotta, yep. Gotta survive. Yeah.
Raven (03:42)
Go through it. Yeah, it's one of those things. You just gotta go through it. Been through it before. It's, you know, just like, yep, that's it. Yeah, but I mean, but the, you know, we've got a lot of cool things coming up, which I'm super, I'm excited about the six degrees of, what did you call him again? Oapsite like lost the name of him. Ronnie Rake, sorry. Yeah, that guy.
Pisha (04:01)
Ronnie Reg. I called it Ronnie Reg. The six degrees of Ronnie Reg.
Raven (04:08)
Yeah, that's the name of our PowerPoint. So I loved it. Yeah. And so actually, like we switched roles with the Minty Bees and with taking over the podcast leads. So this is all you, Pisha. And I think you did a fantastic job. We're going to get into that. And then later in the month, what's going on?
Pisha (04:26)
Well, I mean, we got all kinds of stuff later in the month. We're, I mean, honestly, we got to talk about why we're talking about Ronald Reagan. Let's just start there. It's because he died today. Yay. I don't know how many years ago. Not long enough. Yeah. It would have been, yeah, he still finds a way to like, you know, the cold dead hand and just ruin our lives. Yeah.
Raven (04:35)
-hmm.
Several. No. He's still...
ruin everybody's lives.
Pisha (04:52)
So he died today, June 5th, the day we are recording this, and he was not super kind to the LGBTQ community, and it's also Pride Month. So we felt like this was a great time to honor his death by talking about how he fucked us up so badly. And thanks. And so we're starting.
Raven (05:10)
Yes.
Yeah, thanks, FaZe, by the way.
Pisha (05:20)
Today with Reaganomics, it's going to be all focused on the economics stuff. I want to point out that it's probably the best oxymoron ever. And it's going to cover taxation and funding and basically just the overall attack on the middle class by Ronald Reagan
economic policies. So following that, we're going to talk about his foreign policy and how he's really screwed us up today.
and how things like the Iran Contra, what was it, a debacle? Was it a controversy? What do they call it?
Raven (05:54)
Yeah, I'd call it a debacle. Definitely controversial, but I, yeah, I mean, I think either one of those is...
Pisha (05:59)
Was it a crisis? Because it was a Cuban missile crisis. Was it?
Raven (06:04)
Yeah, I mean it was a crisis... No, I don't know if I'd call it a crisis. I think I'd call it like a subversive action that came out to the public that should not have. Something like that. Well, thank you. Yeah.
Pisha (06:15)
shit. That was well said. Okay, we're gonna just leave it with that. And we'll also cover not only the Iran Contra, but the funding of Islamic terrorists in the Middle East. And so we'll round it all up with an examination of Reagan's domestic policy. This will cover things like the quote unquote, war on drugs and crime. Yeah, I know, it's really dumb.
Raven (06:40)
My favorite.
Pisha (06:43)
Also, we're going to talk a lot about deregulation and how deregulation and overall policy of deregulation across many industries has led to a huge crisis.
Raven (06:44)
Yes.
Pisha (06:56)
we are going to spend probably the last part of the month, though.
getting ready for the 2024 True Crime and Paranormal Podcast Convention in Denver. We are going to it. We have a booth. We're excited.
Raven (07:10)
Heeee
We're a show, we're professional, we're doing things. Yes.
Pisha (07:18)
We have merch. Yeah, we're very excited about it. And so while we're there, we're planning on doing some really awesome networking, learning some things that we can apply to our investigation of Eric Brazil's disappearance. And, you know, what we can do moving forward, not only with the Swept Under series focusing on Eric's disappearance,
but also what we can do with deranged de jure going forward and possible spinoffs in the future. We want to grow. We want to get out there and make a name for ourselves and we can't do it just sitting in our house. So podcast convention, here we come. Yeah. Well, yeah.
Raven (07:55)
Yeah.
Here we come. We do try, we do try as we sit here right now in our house. Fair enough.
Pisha (08:09)
I mean, there's only so much you can do. I mean, like really, there's only so much. And so it's gonna be a really cool opportunity. We're also gonna be able to record an episode there. So stay tuned for that everybody. We think we have a pretty awesome idea for what that'll be. So more on that later. But that's what we got for the rest of the month. I think three weeks of Ronald Reagan is enough. We've suffered.
Raven (08:22)
Maybe.
Yeah.
Yeah. He doesn't deserve a whole month.
Pisha (08:37)
Yeah, I was like, we just we don't need to draw this out any longer. We get it. He fucked us up pretty bad. So so, you know, with that, should we just get on to it? Like, should we start with Reaganomics? What the hell is that shit? All right, well, here's here's what that shit is. Reaganomics is a term coined by Paul Harvey. He was like an ABC broadcaster, I think.
Raven (08:44)
Yeah.
Let's do it.
Yes, let's start there.
Pisha (09:05)
And it refers to the neoliberal economic policies of Ronald Reagan, the 40th president of the United States. He served from 1981 to 1989. For those who weren't there for it, I was there for a few years and I was luckily not very conscious for it. So, anyways, right? So Reaganomics is not a real word. Like I said, it's like a term that was coined by this guy.
Raven (09:25)
Neither was I.
Pisha (09:33)
But basically it's really heavy on supply side economics. It focuses on the suppliers, not on the demand and creation of demand with the purchasers. So it also focuses on trickle down theory. We'll talk about that a little bit more later. It's been called voodoo economics by opponents.
Probably because they're like, how do you expect that shit to work? It's very counterintuitive. Yeah, it's like, okay, that's not how that works. You're gonna have to use some voodoo to make that work, but okay. Yeah, yeah, he actually did. So it wasn't just... It wasn't just...
Raven (10:01)
Right, it's voodoo, yeah.
Yeah, didn't HW also call it voodoo economics? Okay.
Pisha (10:19)
you know, the liberals who were against this idea. There were a group of conservatives as well who thought it was kind of voodoo. And well, and I think he brought it up when he was running against him. So he may not actually think that he just was campaigning against him on those grounds. And so, as you know, he lost the election to him and then became his vice president. So, right? Or was he the FBI director?
Raven (10:36)
No.
Yeah, yeah, you know what? I forgot. He played a role in The Mess We're In, yeah.
Pisha (10:49)
Whatever he sucks to for different reasons. Yeah, we'll talk about that later. yeah. So anyways, Reagan's economic policies called for widespread tax cuts, decreased social spending, increased military spending and the deregulation of domestic markets pretty much across the board. It did not matter what industry he wanted to deregulate it pretty much. And.
These policies were introduced in response to a prolonged period of economic stagflation that began under President Gerald Ford in 1976. Stagflation is this really interesting phenomenon where there's both high unemployment and high inflation at the same time. So prior to the Reagan administration, the United States economy had been experiencing almost a decade.
of high unemployment and persistently high inflation, which is called stagflation. So, a tax then kind of turned to the Keynesian economic orthodoxy. Okay, disclaimer, everyone. I think I took two.
college level economics courses, and it was probably the most boring thing to ever happen to me in my entire life. So I'm going to do the best job of explaining these incredibly complex theories. But basically, Keynesian economics is this idea that the government can stimulate demand by taxing and spending, putting money into social programs that help
Raven (12:09)
You
Pisha (12:30)
purchasing power of the masses. So that's Keynesian economics. They were blaming it for the stagflation, but I wouldn't argue that that's it. I think there was a recession that naturally took place after several wars. And so it's just whatever. You can argue it both ways, but I would tend to believe it has to do more with the wars. So...
Raven (12:53)
BWAH!
Pisha (12:56)
There were attacks on the Keynesian economic orthodoxy at this time, and also the empirical economic models such as the Phillips curve. So the Phillips curve is basically, I think it's been discredited since, but it's the theory that unemployment and inflation are directly correlated with each other.
And that doesn't seem to be true as proven by the stagflation. You had really high
unemployment, but you were still seeing really high inflation. There was, it just, it wasn't, it wasn't in line with the theory. So that's kind of been disproven. And so there was a lot of political pressure at this time to do a stimulus.
Raven (13:34)
No. Sorry.
Pisha (13:43)
and kind of give money back to the people, give them more credit and spending power, but this would require a huge expansion of the money supply. So it could create more inflation, right? Like it may ease inflation temporarily, but then it'll create more inflation overall. So Reagan was like, no, I don't want to do a stimulus instead.
I want to do all these other things. And so you tell me a little bit about these four pillars of Reaganomics because really there was just four main components of Reagan Reaganomics.
Raven (14:24)
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So the as you kind of mentioned every single one of them already, but the four pillars would be like tax cuts. So so his whole idea of Reaganomics really comes down to basically, you know, as you said, like trickle down. So that means, you know, cutting taxes specifically for the suppliers, right? Because this is a supply side.
So that would be the wealthiest people in America. So as an example, I think he cut taxes for the wealthy, sorry, for corporations. I think it was at 70%. He cut it down to 28%. Yeah, we'll get in there. Okay.
Pisha (15:04)
Yeah, yeah. And we'll talk about that more because I think I have some of the tax revenue stuff, but it's just, you're right, because these policies benefited not just the businesses, but the business owners, the shareholders. These policies weren't benefiting these lower employees, like you were saying, but the idea was that because the tax cuts for the corporations and for the property owners and the production means owners,
Raven (15:11)
Yeah.
Mm -hmm.
Pisha (15:33)
They could then give their money away to the less fortunate people because that makes sense.
Raven (15:42)
It makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. Like, you know, the whole idea with trickle - trickle down is just like, how? Like, what exactly is the mechanism that's going to make it so that, you know, the top spenders are going to be, you know, trickling down their, you know, raining down their powers from God or whatever, or Reagan. It makes no sense. Anyway.
Pisha (15:49)
Yeah.
Right? Right?
Raven (16:08)
So that's the first pillar. The second pillar is the whole cutting of spending, which has been a long Republican, I guess, policy. So the idea is you spend less on certain things because we're not talking about all things. We're talking about specifically social programs like welfare.
That's been like the hottest topic for them forever, which makes no sense because we spend almost nothing on welfare compared to what we spend on defense because there's been no talk whatsoever about ever decreasing our spending in defense. So that would be unpatriotic somehow, but somehow it's patriotic to take people's livelihoods away from them and ability to live day to day. So...
What do I know? Anyway, no, not at all. I also, I think I only took like two economic classes as well,
Pisha (17:00)
We're not a - we don't know anything.
Raven (17:09)
I'm not one to speak. I know that when I was learning about Keynesian theories, like I really liked that idea. Yeah.
Pisha (17:15)
I love Keynesian policies and it makes a lot of sense if you're, well, whatever, we're not going to go down that rabbit hole, but everyone do your own research into Keynesian economics because it's kind of, it's a good way of stimulating the economy, the government stimulating the economy, but also preventing the government from becoming corrupt in its regulation, if that makes sense. So, so it's, it's really interesting.
Raven (17:21)
We won't, but it -
Yeah, totally. And a lot of European countries have some level of Keynesianism to them, I think. So anyway, yeah. So that's the second pillar is cutting government spending for certain things that they don't like. And then the third one is widespread deregulation. And this is the whole idea of like...
Pisha (17:47)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Raven (18:06)
smaller government. And really, again, I mean, this is just like an oligarchical way of the wealthier people being able to do whatever the fuck they want, running on these kind of more,
Populist. Yeah, I'm talking about like the populist theory that like,
that smaller government is better for the people. Like that's the whole idea. That's the way you're Donald Trump. Yeah.
Pisha (18:30)
Right, and better for business or better for the market. Like, it's just better all around and I'm just not sure about that.
Raven (18:37)
Right, well I mean and I think like if we looked back at history like it was just repeating itself because I mean with Trump and like the it's just the same exact talking points as came from Reagan who had a vested interest was like someone who was a spokesperson for General Motors, right? Was that the one that he was or General Electric? No, it was General Electric. I'm sorry. That's the one. One of those generals.
Pisha (18:48)
Exactly.
Yeah, I think it was. General Electric. Yeah, whatever. It was General. It was it was not the General Insurance Company. I know that.
Raven (19:04)
Yeah, I don't think they were around yet, maybe not, but maybe. I have no idea. Anyway. So, but I mean, but he was already a spokesman, meaning he's talking to, you know, poorer people to try and get them on board with these policies that General Electric had. So that was his whole background. And that's why they, that's why the Republican Party chose Ronald Reagan. I'm sorry, I'm getting way off topic, but that's...
Pisha (19:06)
I don't know.
No, that's okay. I like it. No, it's good insight.
Raven (19:32)
tying it back together is like the idea that deregulation is somehow beneficial for the little man, which or woman and or them, whatever. But the little person, yes. But it's really not. It's it really benefits. And it was intended in a, you know, I don't mean to sound conspiratorial about this, but it was very much designed like this whole.
Pisha (19:43)
A little person.
absolutely.
Raven (19:57)
Reaganomics is absolutely designed. They did the same thing, obviously, with Margaret Thatcher and Great Britain around the same time. So anyway, the fourth pillar, getting back on track. My brain does work. So the fourth one is to reduce inflation through borrowing, through borrowing money domestically and abroad. So yeah, and I think,
Pisha (20:06)
Hahaha!
Raven (20:18)
there's a little less focus on that. But I mean, we'll get into like the national debt and where that came from and why Reagan is directly responsible for the state that the national debt is in today. So the crisis. And so the pros of these four pillars of Reaganomics is that the inflation level decreases just temporarily. It's like a...
quick fix, right? If you think about it, that's just kind of a bandaid, putting a bandaid on something. But over time, it does not. And then the other pro is that taxes are reduced, mostly for the wealthy. Yeah. Yeah.
Pisha (21:01)
It depends. Yeah, I was gonna say it depends who you ask that, like, because I think the research will show that during that time, taxes did decrease for wealthy individuals, corporates and investment taxes, but not necessarily so for, like payroll taxes and income taxes. So yeah, it's again, who you ask like, I, when I put this part in the slide, it's like pros, it's like,
Raven (21:19)
Right.
Pisha (21:28)
according to some and then like cons according to most. So I mean, everyone keep that in mind as Raven's going through this. Yeah.
Raven (21:30)
Right.
Right, exactly. As we talk about it, yes. Yeah, and then the other pro is that deregulation allegedly encourages a more open and free market. So...
Pisha (21:44)
Ha ha ha!
It's more free, but also more corrupt. It - You know, that's the trade -off.
Raven (21:52)
Yeah, exactly, exactly. Like I think that's exactly right. So yeah, and as far as the cons go, I mean, I think we're talking about scales. The cons are up here, the pros are down here, but the public and social programming were cut significantly in all regards. And we'll get into a lot of that'll probably, I mean, I think that goes into a lot of this and also domestic policy. But anyway,
the national deficit and the national debt increased exponentially by some of the highest percentage points out of the presidents up until Reagan and then afterwards as well. Looking at the presidents between...
Carter and Trump.
Pisha (22:34)
But the point is between Carter and Trump, you're saying what now?
Raven (22:34)
yeah, please. Yeah. that he increased the debt by the most percentage points in his presidency. So, yeah. Mm -hmm. Yeah, exactly. And then also it created a divide. And I mean, we're feeling that, especially today, between the wealthy and the middle slash lower classes. So.
Pisha (22:46)
out of all the presidents during that period of time.
Raven (23:01)
Yeah, so it's pretty awful.
so Pisha, do you want to tell us about the objectives of Ray Reaganomics What was it intended to do?
Pisha (23:09)
Yeah, so we're going to take those four pillars you talked about and break them down one by one. So objective number one or pillar number one was to cut taxes, reduce corporate and individual taxes for some. And so the focus was on supply side, as we've mentioned, and also this trickle down theory that if we benefit the wealthiest group,
then their generosity will be bestowed upon the rest of us. And I'm sorry, as someone who was a bartender in my previous life and my salary was 100 % dependent on the goodwill of others, fuck that. Like, fuck that. These weren't even rich people. I was at a goddamn chain restaurant that shall remain nameless for I don't know what reasons, mostly my embarrassment, but.
Raven (23:54)
Yeah. Yeah!
Pisha (24:06)
But we'll just say I was at a chain that didn't attract like the wealthiest crowd. And of course you don't expect to be tipped much by the poorer group, sure. But I was in a really wealthy neighborhood and like seriously, the wealthiest part of the city. And these are people who are doctors, lawyers in this area. And I can tell you that.
Raven (24:06)
haha
Mm -hmm.
Pisha (24:32)
They do not have more generosity than the poor people do. Just because they have more money does not mean they have more generosity. They don't.
Raven (24:37)
They have less. Like, completely, like, my... Yeah. No. Yeah, I mean, my experience was when I was waiting tables and when I was a bartender as well was like, I did not want to be serving the people who looked like they were, you know, coming out of, like, Academy. Yeah. So, yeah.
Pisha (24:55)
business meeting. Yeah, yeah, no, I always and of course, it was it's not always true, because I did get paid very, very well, very generously by many people. So I don't want to diminish that at all. But, but to say that I was in a wealthy neighborhood where I should be able to survive pretty well on the trickle down theory.
Raven (25:08)
That's good.
Yeah.
Pisha (25:23)
and I was barely affording an apartment. I couldn't pay for my school loan, like school, couldn't pay for any of that stuff. And so, yeah, just the idea that because people are wealthier, they're gonna be more generous and therefore they're gonna give more, it doesn't make sense to me. I don't think that they will ever want to stop earning more.
Raven (25:24)
Mm -hmm.
Mm -hmm.
Pisha (25:47)
Like even, you know what I mean? Like even if we put restrictions on earning, that's not gonna make them go, well, I don't wanna earn anymore. But by forcing them to redistribute their wealth, it's just, I don't know, it's whatever. That was my rant on trickle down theory. I personally don't think it works, but that - Yeah.
Raven (25:47)
Yeah. No, of course not.
Right.
No, I totally agree. I would like, I would make one caveat, which is wealthy men, sleazy wealthy men, did tend to, dip higher. So, but for, for ulterior motives, yeah, like this is not like, because they're charitable. They're not like, look at me. I'm a wealthy man. Let me just give money to this young college girl. Right? No, not at all.
Pisha (26:19)
Okay. For different reasons. For different reasons. Right.
Right, because I want to get into heaven. Yeah, no, that's not how it works. But so the idea though, wasn't just that the wealth would trickle down. It was also that it would stimulate investment, innovation and wealth generation. Again, only amongst the people with capital, because some of it was taxes on estates.
Who is paying estate taxes under poverty level? You know what I mean? So, exactly, it's definitely helping a certain group of people invest and innovate and generate wealth, but not all groups. So, in the first year of his presidency, Reagan lowered taxes significantly. Income taxes on the top marginal tax bracket dropped from 70 % to 50 % in 1982.
Raven (27:01)
buddy.
Pisha (27:25)
Pretty big jump. And then in a long, okay, so there was at the same time, there was a huge cut in corporate and estate taxes, like I was saying. So federal income tax rates were lowered significantly with the signing of the Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981, which lowered the top marginal tax bracket from 70 to 50 % and the lowest bracket from
Raven (27:26)
Yeah.
Pisha (27:54)
14 to 11 percent this act also Slashed estate taxes and trim taxes paid by business corporations by 150 billion dollars over a five -year period see like see what I said by like Generation and investment. Well, who's more able to invest? Well those people not not me. I Yeah, so in 1986 the GDP stood at three point
Raven (28:16)
D
Pisha (28:23)
5%, but the unemployment rate was at a high of 6 .6%. Reagan cut the tax rate to 38 .5%. In 1987, an unemployment fell to 5 .7%. There's so many things going on in that sentence. I think a real economist would tell you that there's so many other factors and variables that could have contributed to the fall of that unemployment, but it's just, you know, taking note.
Raven (28:47)
Mm -hmm.
Pisha (28:51)
with the tax reform act of 1986, Reagan and Congress sought to simplify the tax system by eliminating many deductions, reducing many deductions. This means, charity. So remember the trickle down idea like, yeah, they'll give more, but also simultaneously we are going to cut their incentives for.
giving charity. Yeah, it's really it's so it doesn't make sense and very convoluted.
Raven (29:18)
To give? Yeah.
Yeah.
Pisha (29:23)
In addition
the act sought to reduce the highest marginal tax rates and reduce the number of tax brackets, creating more of like a flat tax system that the conservatives love to talk about.
Raven (29:35)
Mm -hmm. yeah.
Pisha (29:37)
Reagan's 1981 cut in the top regular tax rate on unearned income reduced the maximum capital gains rate to only 20%. And so capital gains, again, the only people paying capital gains are the wealthiest Americans. So these tax cuts are helping the wealthiest Americans. But,
being cut to only 20 % was the lowest level since the Hoover administration in 1929 to 1933. So the 1986 act set tax rates on capital gains at the same level as the rates on ordinary income, like salaries and wages with both topping out at
Raven (30:08)
Whoa.
Pisha (30:27)
28%, which is what you were saying earlier. So as you all can see, we are somehow not generating any tax revenue at this point. But the goal of these reforms were to not only reduce tax burdens, but to simplify the tax code. So that's how they were justifying it. And I guess it sounds good. Yeah. Yeah.
Raven (30:30)
Yes.
In theory, it sounds good. Yeah, but the problem is that, you know, who's going to benefit from it, right? Like, who's actually going to have like, you know, a tax person or a tax lawyer come and look at their taxes, people who actually have the money to do that. So.
Pisha (30:56)
Exactly.
Exactly. So in practice, this is how that objective has kind of turned out. The rich got richer and life did not improve for the majority of Americans. In fact, it kind of got worse for a lot. We saw a destruction of the middle class and a rising level of Americans living under poverty rate. So let's start with.
quote from Paul Krugman who is a Nobel Peace Prize winner in economics. He said, yes, there was a boom in the mid 1980s as the economy recovered from a severe recession. But while the rich got much richer, there was little sustained economic improvement for most Americans. By the late 1980s,
middle class incomes were barely higher than they had been a decade before and the poverty rate had risen. I'd also like to point out during this time, the Reagan administration was the only presidential administration to not raise the federal minimum wage. So they were doing a lot of things to attack our most vulnerable, poorest Americans. And, and I mean, ultimately,
economists remain divided
as to various elements of Reaganomics. The suggestion that wealth would trickle down, though, has so far remained unrealized. To the contrary, economic studies have found that tax cuts such as those enacted by Reagan and then later by Trump, there were some very similar tax cuts made by Trump. They actually tend to increase.
economic inequality rather than reduce it. So that's like what inflation really is, right? Like it's an overall measure of economic equality within a society. So I may be completely misstating that, but that's how I kind of think of it. Yeah. So, yeah. And then,
Raven (33:10)
I don't think so. No, I think it makes sense.
Pisha (33:15)
Additionally, income growth slowed for the middle and lower class from 2 .4 % to only 1 .8 % and instead rose for the upper class. So that rose from 2 .2 % to 4 .83%. So their income growth just rose exponentially. We know that the CEOs these days are making a thousand percent more than their lowest paid employee.
But in, yeah, but in 1989, the richest 5 % of families had 114 times as much wealth as families in the second quintile, one tier above the lowest. At the median, 2 .3 million compared with 20 ,300. It's such a huge disparity. And then by 2016,
Raven (33:44)
crazy.
Insane.
Pisha (34:12)
The top 5 % held 248 times as much wealth as the median. The median wealth of the poorest 20 % is either zero or negative in most years we examined. Like what? Like zero or negative? So.
Raven (34:28)
Yeah.
Pisha (34:31)
From 1970 to 2018, the median middle class income increased from $58 ,100 to $86 ,600. That sounds great, right? Until you look at corporate profits and the amount earned by the upper 5 % of families. It was a gain of 49%. By comparison, the median income for upper tier households grew 64 % over that time.
Raven (34:45)
Mm -hmm.
Pisha (35:00)
from 126 ,000 to over 207 ,000. So we're just talking about rich getting richer, the gaps getting wider. And for those who are wondering why is that a problem, it leads to social unrest. It leads to revolution. It leads to bad things. Yeah.
Raven (35:11)
Mm -hmm.
Yeah, as we're seeing now, I mean, I think we're getting pretty close.
Pisha (35:27)
I don't know what to say. When the poor get so poor and the rich get so rich
that the poor don't want to be exploited and will do literally anything, including give up their lives to fight the system that exploits them. It's just a matter of time before there's some sort of revolution, some sort of unrest. So,
So that's what the problem is with wealth inequality. And we saw a huge growth during this time as a result of the first pillar of Reaganomics, which was the tax cuts. So Raven, why don't you tell us about the objectives of the second pillar?
Raven (35:53)
Mm -hmm.
Yeah.
Yeah, of course. So in order to curtail government intervention, Reagan either cut or reduced the funding to a bunch of domestic welfare programs, including, I mean, the big one was Social Security, Medicaid, food stamps, education, job training, pretty much everything. Like nothing, no stone was left unturned when it came to social programs that Reagan just gutted.
And, you know, he, I mean, that's what he ran on. I mean, he did exactly what he said he was going to do. He even said that, you know, he was going to get the Department of Education. All of it was like, you know, if you look back, it sounds exactly like, you know, the debates and all the things we heard from Donald Trump. So it's not as if this like is all new from like Donald Trump's playbook. Anyway, so he did, he,
ordered Social Security to tighten their enforcement on disabled recipients. So they ended benefits for more than a million disability recipients during his administration. So...
Pisha (37:19)
And for those who want to say that he's like pro -patriot, pro -military, pro -veteran, who are the largest group of disability recipients? Veterans. Yeah. So it's really who you ask who it's harming. And so they would argue that that's not who they're intending to harm, but they are intending to harm someone.
Raven (37:27)
Mm -hmm.
Yeah, that would be veterans. Yep.
Right.
Right. Right. Disabled people. Like, regardless of how you received a disability. A lot of people on disability... Well...
Pisha (37:49)
Right!
Yeah, because you're such a drain on us. Ugh. I just hate. I hate having to work so hard as an American for all these people who are in wheelchairs. yeah. I. Ugh. Gross. Ew. Obviously. OK, if you guys couldn't tell, I was being extremely facetious, but that's like literally what some people advocate for is like, like.
Raven (38:02)
hands. Yeah. How, yeah, how dare we? Yeah, they
That's crazy.
Pisha (38:17)
These people should our burden on us and our society and we shouldn't have to take care of them. It's wild. Yeah, just let them die is their policy, I guess.
Raven (38:22)
And basically they just die. Like, I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. Let the charities do the work and then let's not give any money to charities. Just, yeah, whatever. Anyway. Yeah. And then Reagan also ordered government spending cuts to domestic programs. But he also increased defense spending by 35%, which is what we were talking about before.
Pisha (38:33)
Right.
Raven (38:48)
in order to achieve peace through strength. So, I mean, there's a lot of these like little mottos that he came up with that are just, you know, basic talking points that they're buzzwords. They, yeah, exactly. Yeah, peace through strength is like meaning like colonialism. It's like...
Pisha (39:01)
They're buzzwords. They're dog whistles.
Right. It means like, you know, just hoard a bunch of ammunition and stockpile some weapons and no one can take you down. It'll create peace by having all these guns is basically it.
Raven (39:16)
Mm -hmm.
Yeah, yeah, I mean this is
Somehow, it's exactly the same way of saying, like, teachers having guns in schools is gonna reduce mass killings in schools,
Pisha (39:33)
I don't know.
Raven (39:34)
no, it's never been the case that more guns equals more peace. That's not true. Anyway, yeah. I mean, looking at this in context, going back to Reagan, this is during the Cold War. There's this huge opposition to communism at the time and the Soviet Union. And
he's using that as a way of saying, well, we still need to increase spending on the military by 35 % while simultaneously gutting every other social program that we have. Which, I mean, if you look at the pie graph of what we spend our money on, I think we talked about this, but...
The welfare programs and the domestic infrastructure programs are at a much lower percentage. I don't have the numbers in front of me right now. And then you have the third rail, you have military spending, which is the highest amount that we're spending money on. So.
Pisha (40:33)
Well, and we'll probably talk about it more during foreign policy, exactly how much Reagan's policy about spending on military, increasing spending for the military, but decreasing on social programs created the military industrial complex that we're dealing with today, where we have created a profiteering of a war machine.
Raven (40:37)
Mm -hmm.
Right.
Pisha (40:59)
And so, we'll talk about that more in foreign policy, but for sure, there was a... Well, and it just made no sense. If your policy was to cut government spending, then cut government spending. Don't increase the shit out of it in one area and then cut it in all the other areas. Because I think when you look at the...
Raven (41:00)
now.
Mm -hmm. There's a drive to increased spending.
Mm -hmm.
Mm -hmm.
Pisha (41:25)
I think you're going to get into this later about the national debt and the national deficit, but just like there's no return on the payments towards the military in the same way there is in the social programs. And so, yeah, it's just really frustrating. Sorry, that was my rant. Yeah, yeah, I just, I guess I needed to let it out.
Raven (41:48)
Yeah, I mean, you're not wrong. So, you know, let it out here. There's no better place. So, yeah. So moving on a little bit, just to get us back on track. So how is it, Pisha, that Reagan was able to sell this to a populace that had an education?
Pisha (41:57)
That's right.
Raven (42:14)
Well, the solution to that is very simple. You've got education. So,
Pisha (42:19)
I was gonna say, you don't sell it to them at all, you make them cease to exist. Yeah.
Raven (42:22)
Well, there's that too, which is exactly what he did. So Reagan has always been against education in general, which is insane to me. But, you know, but it's the same again, you see the same thing. There's like very strong anti academics and anti science happening in government today through very high up.
you know, levels of government. And so this started for Reagan when he was a governor of California. He shut down the 28 Cal State universities amidst the Vietnam War protests. After Kent State, he shut them down for four days. So. Yeah, because they were a bunch of commies is basically what's going on.
Pisha (43:07)
Yeah, makes sense. Yeah.
Yeah, because the military shot all those unarmed students at Kent State. I could see why you would want to avoid the military shooting all the students at the Cal sc - what? That's not even the thinking though, it makes no sense, but yeah.
Raven (43:22)
Yeah.
Yeah.
And before any of you, and I mean, I know I've said this before, accuse either of us of being partisan, the same exact things are happening today. Because Biden's doing the same thing with the student protests for, yeah, for a Palestine, right, exactly. So it's not a left or right issue. And we can get into the politics of that. But I think it is important for us to look at what's been done in the past and what
Pisha (43:39)
Yeah.
The Gaza protests. Yeah.
Raven (43:59)
how that's playing out today. So the same things have happened before in the past. Kent State happened and then now you're looking at the student protests over a genocide. So in any case,
Roger Freeman said during a press conference, like he didn't like mince words here. He said, we are in danger of producing an educated proletariat.
which is like, yeah, but.
Pisha (44:25)
heaven forbid. You can't control the masses if they won't let you because they're too smart.
Raven (44:32)
Exactly, exactly. And so, and that's, that was the whole goal. Like you don't want your working class. It's, it's right there in that, you know, sentence. Like you don't want your working class to have no. Yeah, exactly.
Pisha (44:43)
Right, you don't want them thinking. You don't want them thinking, you want them working. You want them getting calluses so you can exploit their labor and quote unquote trickle down that wealth or dragon hoard it like a dragon in its cave with its pile of gold underneath. They're hoarders of wealth anyways. Sorry, I had to let that out too.
Raven (44:58)
Mm -hmm.
Absolutely. Well, I think it's very telling that they also use like communist slash Marxist terminology while also being, you know, anti -communist. So anyway, in 1970, so like adjusting for inflation, because I think like I don't actually know what this amount would have been back then. But public institutions, so public colleges.
Pisha (45:14)
Right?
Raven (45:30)
were about $8 ,400 a year in total costs. And then in 2020 to 2021, the average cost for a public institution is $26 ,000. So the four -year colleges saw tuition hike with tuition ballooning at about 260%.
between 1970 and 2020. So anybody who's struggling with student debt, you can thank Ronald fucking Reagan. So there is that.
Pisha (46:01)
Well, and it was because they were trying to balance all the cuts in funding, right? Like they had to charge the students extra tuition because they weren't getting the federal funding anymore.
Raven (46:09)
Hmm.
Right. Right, exactly.
Pisha (46:15)
And so the costs get passed on to the students and that's what's happening today. Like that's why we have this student debt crisis today because the cost got passed on to us.
Raven (46:20)
Right. Exactly.
Yeah, that's the entire goal that Ronald Reagan was saying. He did not believe that the public should be paying for higher education. And that's the whole reason that he completely gutted it. So when he was elected, the total, and this goes back to it, we had a Department of Education, which he said he wanted to gut when he was running for president, I think I mentioned that before. So total education spending was at 12 % when he started.
And when he left office, it was at 6%.
and I mean, like this is all undoing a lot of like LBJ, like who to me is kind of an understated president. I've always liked LBJ. He created the Higher Education Act in 1965, which created the Pell Grants. So these grants were given to students based on their income and dramatically. So this is not...
coincidental. Like I'm saying this because I think it's important. LBJ was very much trying to produce like opportunities for people who didn't have them, namely people of color and people who had lower incomes. And so this is all happening during the civil rights movement, right? So when Reagan came in, you know, there's a whole lot of backlash to the civil rights movement and a lot of the dog whistles that you're hearing come from that.
Pisha (47:42)
Welfare Queen? Yeah, the Welfare Queen, anyone? Yeah.
Raven (47:43)
Reagan was a racist. Just going to say it. Yeah. Yeah. So during the Reagan era and during the tax revolt of the 1980s, states would pass like tax and expenditure limitations, which restricted the amount that state governments
So Reagan cut.
higher education funding and student aid So college costs would boomed as a result of that.
So that's what happened with the brain drain. So the idea is that we're trying to make the populace dumber, right? So in certain states, there's like less public education, less like higher education. And so you see that the level of education in those states, which only makes sense, is much lower.
than in states where public education is funded more properly. So.
Pisha (48:35)
Well, and I mean, like you said, this is not an accident. People who receive higher education degrees tend to be more liberal and progressive voters. And you use the term the great brain drain. And what it refers to is this idea of human capital flight. So the best doctors, the smartest
Raven (48:39)
No.
Pisha (49:01)
people, the best lawyers in Alabama are going to school in New York because the education is better. And then they're voting and staying in New York, which is more liberal. And so it's creating a concentration of liberal voters in urban areas, A, I think, and then B, it's
creating liberal free states by chasing all of the intellectuals out of the states. And like I said, if they can't seek a competitive education in their own state, they will go elsewhere to get it.
Raven (49:31)
What?
Right, makes sense.
Pisha (49:45)
So that's, I mean, how he contributed to this brain drain where you're seeing all of these great doctors coming out of the East Coast, you know, these higher, wealthier, places, and you're not seeing as much intellectual development in the poor communities and places where they can't escape the brain drain. You know what I mean? They don't have the resources.
Raven (49:56)
is moving.
Hmm.
Pisha (50:14)
get their education elsewhere. So they're stuck with the shitty education in their state. So that's the great brain drain. I had never heard of that before, that phrase, until we were looking into this.
Raven (50:26)
Yeah, I mean it makes a lot of sense.
Pisha (50:28)
It totally does. And I can see how cutting government spending and funding on programs like education is going to cause problems. It's going to cause other problems. And let's now move to the third pillar. That one is the deregulation, generally speaking, across the market. So the objective is to reduce the burden of regulation on corporations. The theory is...
that less regulations on businesses means less costs and higher profits. For who is my caveat? Because as we'll see, the profits are not being shared equally amongst the employees of these businesses. It goes on that more costs means the business is less able to pay employees. So that's how they try to justify it. They try to say, hey, if we can cut business costs,
Raven (51:04)
Mm -hmm.
Right.
Pisha (51:23)
then the business is better able to pay their employees. However, we've seen that that's not true. They will not raise their lowest employees' income rates. It's just they'll try to make a profit for their CEOs and for their shareholders in whatever way possible. So we'll talk more about in practice whether it worked, but the objective was that less costs on businesses meant more.
wealth to share amongst the employees. So Reagan removed price controls on oil and gas. He reduced restrictions on the financial services industry and relaxed the enforcement of the Clean Air Act. And the Department of the Interior also opened large areas of public land for oil drilling. So there's this generation of profit from public lands. In 1982, Congress passed
the Garn -St. Germain Depository Institutions Act. That's a fun one to say. And this was for savings and loan banks to deal with rising inflation and interest rates by further deregulating deposit rates. Like, I mean, it just, it ultimately, it gutted the regulations on the savings and loans industry. And so,
Raven (52:24)
Hmm.
Pisha (52:45)
The objective was, hey, they can battle inflation. They can keep costs down and generate more profits that they can then spread around. In practice, though,
Reagan totally created the savings and loan crisis and also the situation with the rising healthcare costs that we're dealing with today. So in 1982, like I said, President Reagan...
signed the Garn St. Germain Depository Institutions Act, ushering in a new for saving and loans companies by eliminating loan -to -value ratios and interest rate caps. This deregulation opened the door for savings and loan companies,
Raven (53:18)
Hey, what up? Hey, what up?
Pisha (53:36)
to take on riskier investments, setting the stage for a catastrophic bubble. The savings and loan crisis was very slow moving financial disaster. The crisis came to a head and resulted in the failure of nearly a third of the 3 ,234 savings and loans associations in the United States between 1986 and 1995.
It culminated in the collapse of hundreds of these institutions and the insolvency of the Federal Savings and Loans Insurance Corporation, which cost taxpayers many billions of dollars and contributed to the recession of 1990 and 1991. So the savings and loan crisis was a buildup.
Raven (54:05)
Dang.
Pisha (54:30)
and an extended deflation of a real estate lending bubble in the United States, like I said, from the mid 80s to the early 90s. And the roots of the crisis lay in the excessive lending, speculation and risk taken, driven by the moral hazard created by deregulation and taxpayer bailout guarantees. It's just, it was greed.
creates profit was the theory. And so by removing all of these barriers, they could make the investments they knew would fail and they wouldn't be punished for it in the same way. So that's how it created this huge crisis where there was this huge bubble. It was really bad. It cost billions of dollars. But
Raven (55:13)
Mm.
Pisha (55:23)
As far as the rising healthcare costs go, the exponential growth of those are also due to deregulation. So it started with a law that began affecting most hospitals in 1983, changing how Medicare paid hospitals to a fixed price and per visit, regardless of the actual cost of the visits. So this
Raven (55:26)
Thank you!
Mm -hmm.
Pisha (55:50)
creates a problem, right? The approach later spread to other Medicare services and other payers, including private insurance companies. So there's more risk on these insurance companies now. And in order to lessen the risk, the hospitals sought revenue at every avenue. Like they would try to get profit at every turn.
Raven (56:01)
you
Pisha (56:16)
starting new programs and offering new services such as providing new outpatient services that previously required longer hospital visits, stays. So instead they're taking patients that usually required several days in the hospital and being like, here's an outpatient treatment, bye. And as a result, they could charge as much as they wanted to for these programs, these outpatient services. And health,
Raven (56:45)
Mmm.
Pisha (56:45)
healthcare organizations became more concerned with growing in scale to absorb the higher level of risk and helped them to push healthcare spending even higher. So there's no, the point is here, there's no cost control
the healthcare can just rise without any sort of government price control. It can rise exponentially forever.
And so insurance rates will also rise as a result. And so that's why we see healthcare costs at what they are at today. So yeah, thanks, Reagan. Yeah, deregulation super worked.
Raven (57:18)
Thanks, Reagan.
especially with like something that people need and have no choice in, you know, whether or not they receive healthcare. So.
Pisha (57:32)
Right.
you get into the objectives of the fourth and final pillar of Reaganomics.
Raven (57:40)
Yeah, yeah, of course. So the last one is to support a slower...
money growth in the economy. So, exactly, right? Yeah.
Pisha (57:50)
So basically control inflation.
Raven (57:55)
So Reagan encouraged the Federal Reserve to tighten the money supply as Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker has steadily raised the federal funds rate to 20 % by 1980. And these high interest rates helped end double digit inflation. So there's a lot of manipulation going on there. So the monetary policy of Reaganomics,
was developed in order to complement the Federal Reserve's policy of raising interest rates to reduce borrowing and spending. So, you know, and that's something that every president does, like that's something that the Federal Reserve, you know, kind of has a tight, you know, hand on is when to increase or decrease the interest rates, as we all know. So, so, yeah.
That was the fourth one. But the problem with that is that in doing so, we incurred an incredible amount of national debt. As I mentioned before, the national debt tripled from one to three trillion dollars during the Reagan years. The president and other Congress conservatives asked for a balanced budget amendment, but
then lacked the discipline to either propose or enact a balanced budget. So the growth that the 1980s enjoyed as a result of incurring that debt fell heavily on us. Yay. Yeah. Woohoo. Yeah. So, yeah, I mean, and the graph, I think that I'm trying to remember where I got this graph. I think it's from...
Pisha (59:27)
Yay! Thanks, Boomers!
Raven (59:39)
the federal government. So yeah, exactly.
Pisha (59:40)
We trust everything they say. Well, and I just, I want to point out that when you were saying earlier that the Federal Reserve's goal to limit borrowing was they wanted to limit the borrowing of consumers, of us, average Americans. However, that meant that the government, the federal government had to compensate and
Raven (59:55)
Mm -hmm.
Mm -hmm.
Pisha (1:00:07)
That's how the national debt just tripled. And so it meant, yeah, the average American was being discouraged from borrowing and getting in trouble, but it was no stopping the federal government from borrowing during this time. And they borrowed so heavily that it not only affected our national debt, but our national deficit. And for those who don't know the difference between those two.
Raven (1:00:25)
Yeah.
Right.
Pisha (1:00:32)
One of those is how much we owe ourselves or our people. And the other is how much we owe other countries. So they all became crippling and out of control during this time because of Reagan. So yay.
Raven (1:00:37)
Yeah, there you go.
Yeah. Yeah. Yay, Reagan. Okay. Well, I think that covers it. I think we did a fairly good job. Maybe we'll get to 69 minutes again. It's been a running theme for us. We are children. So... Good. That's it. That's it. Yeah.
Pisha (1:00:47)
Yay!
I'm going to have to go.
I know we try so hard like I'm sitting here going, I could talk for like eight more hours about Reaganomics, but no, we got to get the 109. Yeah, yeah. Well, I'm sure with all the edits, we'll be able to do it, but you're right. I think we pretty much covered it. Reaganomics is those four pillars and they have heavily fucked us and our lives today. We're dealing with just high costs of living and it's all thanks to Reagan. So,
Raven (1:01:16)
Yeah.
Yeah, you know.
Pisha (1:01:30)
So that wraps us up for this week, yeah.
Raven (1:01:31)
Yeah, thanks a lot. Awesome, cool. Yeah, well, great. Well, thank you everyone for listening. You know, I want to just spend a couple seconds sending out gratitude to all of our listeners. I know we have a couple new ones. So thank you. Thank you for tuning in. We really appreciate it. And, you know, we would love to have your feedback anywhere, everywhere, except if you're what's that guy's name? The 7145.
Pisha (1:01:56)
yeah. it wasn't me, sir. 45. Yeah. Fuck you. Don't listen anymore. You can, yeah, you could just fuck right off like Putin
Raven (1:02:01)
Yeah, you can shut the fuck up. Yeah.
Pisha (1:02:07)
bot
doesn't matter. Those people don't listen to us.
Raven (1:02:11)
Yeah, but everyone else, thank you. Please remember to follow, subscribe, rate, review. Anything that you can do really helps us out and we would really appreciate it if you could hit the subscribe button on whatever platform that you're using. Give us a little rate, give us a little review if you have the time and want to. So thank you again and...
Until next time, stay out of law school and the infirmaries.
Raven Deranger (1:02:46)
Remember to like and subscribe to Deranged DeJure on your favorite podcast platform and follow at deranged.dejure on all the major social media. Contact us by email at deranged.dejure at gmail.com. This has been a Raven Kink production.