bobbyw24
08-15-2010, 01:00 PM
I write about major problems: the collapsing US economy, wars based on lies and deception, the police state based on "the war on terror" and other fabrications such as those orchestrated by corrupt police and prosecutors, who boost their performance reports by convicting the innocent, and so on. America is a very distressing place. The fact that so many Americans are taken in by the lies told by "their" government makes America all the more depressing.
Often, however, it is small annoyances that waste Americans' time and drive up blood pressures. One of the worst things that ever happened to Americans was the breakup of the AT&T telephone monopoly. As Assistant Secretary of the US Treasury in 1981, if 150 percent of my time and energy had not been required to cure stagflation in the face of opposition from Wall Street and Fed Chairman Paul Volcker, I might have been able to prevent the destruction of the best communications service in the world, and one that was very inexpensive to
customers.
The assistant attorney general in charge of the "anti-trust case" against AT&T called me to ask if Treasury had an interest in how the case was resolved. I went to Treasury Secretary Don Regan and told him that although my conservative and libertarian friends thought that the breakup of AT&T was a great idea, their opinion was based entirely in ideology and that the practical effect would not be good for widows and orphans who had a blue chip stock to see them through life or for communications customers, as deregulated communications would give the multiple communications corporations different interests than those of the customers. Under the regulated regime, AT&T was allowed a reasonable rate of return on its investment and, to stay out of trouble with regulators, AT&T provided excellent and inexpensive service.
Secretary Regan reminded me of my memo to him detailing that Treasury was going to have a hard time getting President Reagan's economic program, directed at curing the stagflation that had wrecked President Carter's presidency, out of the Reagan administration. The budget director, David Stockman, and his chief economist, Larry Kudlow, had lined up against it, following the wishes of Wall Street, and the White House Chief of Staff James Baker and his deputy Richard Darman were representatives of VP George H.W. Bush and did not want substantial Reagan success that would again threaten the Republican Establishment's hold over the party. Baker and Darman wanted to be sure that George H. W. Bush and not Jack Kemp succeeded Ronald Reagan, and that required a muted Reagan success that they could claim as theirs for moderating an "extremist" program.
I told Secretary Regan that if I had another deputy assistant secretary, I could reach a reasonable conclusion whether the breakup of AT&T was sensible. He replied that he was sure that was the case, but that once I had three deputies the headlines in the Washington Post and New York Times, Business Week, Newsweek, and so on, would be: "Supply-sider builds empire at Treasury." He said it would sink me and that without me he could not get the President's economic program out of the President's administration. "Which do you want to do,"
he asked, "save AT&T or cure stagflation?"
Curing stagflation gave America 20 more years.
http://www.opednews.com/articles/The-Big-Things-That-Matter-by-paul-craig-roberts-100811-275.html
Often, however, it is small annoyances that waste Americans' time and drive up blood pressures. One of the worst things that ever happened to Americans was the breakup of the AT&T telephone monopoly. As Assistant Secretary of the US Treasury in 1981, if 150 percent of my time and energy had not been required to cure stagflation in the face of opposition from Wall Street and Fed Chairman Paul Volcker, I might have been able to prevent the destruction of the best communications service in the world, and one that was very inexpensive to
customers.
The assistant attorney general in charge of the "anti-trust case" against AT&T called me to ask if Treasury had an interest in how the case was resolved. I went to Treasury Secretary Don Regan and told him that although my conservative and libertarian friends thought that the breakup of AT&T was a great idea, their opinion was based entirely in ideology and that the practical effect would not be good for widows and orphans who had a blue chip stock to see them through life or for communications customers, as deregulated communications would give the multiple communications corporations different interests than those of the customers. Under the regulated regime, AT&T was allowed a reasonable rate of return on its investment and, to stay out of trouble with regulators, AT&T provided excellent and inexpensive service.
Secretary Regan reminded me of my memo to him detailing that Treasury was going to have a hard time getting President Reagan's economic program, directed at curing the stagflation that had wrecked President Carter's presidency, out of the Reagan administration. The budget director, David Stockman, and his chief economist, Larry Kudlow, had lined up against it, following the wishes of Wall Street, and the White House Chief of Staff James Baker and his deputy Richard Darman were representatives of VP George H.W. Bush and did not want substantial Reagan success that would again threaten the Republican Establishment's hold over the party. Baker and Darman wanted to be sure that George H. W. Bush and not Jack Kemp succeeded Ronald Reagan, and that required a muted Reagan success that they could claim as theirs for moderating an "extremist" program.
I told Secretary Regan that if I had another deputy assistant secretary, I could reach a reasonable conclusion whether the breakup of AT&T was sensible. He replied that he was sure that was the case, but that once I had three deputies the headlines in the Washington Post and New York Times, Business Week, Newsweek, and so on, would be: "Supply-sider builds empire at Treasury." He said it would sink me and that without me he could not get the President's economic program out of the President's administration. "Which do you want to do,"
he asked, "save AT&T or cure stagflation?"
Curing stagflation gave America 20 more years.
http://www.opednews.com/articles/The-Big-Things-That-Matter-by-paul-craig-roberts-100811-275.html