Only nostalgia or still achievable?

Firstly read this interesting article:

http://news.yahoo.com/listened-eisenhower-110600933.html

and while accepting that it is potentially oversimplified, ask yourself what is wrong with the thinking.

Then look at the economic model practised during the Eisenhower years - growing prosperity across the board, low debt on the manageable credit principle (both in the private and public sphere).

It worked, it was successful, at that time at least. So ask yourself, could it work now?

Imagine a political party in the United States having the nerve to push that agenda - starting with the top tax rates. What would their chances be? Even given the message that it works. The chances are that they would face total wipeout!

The nonsensical 1980s model with all the problems that it generated remains far more popular. Ask yourself why some time!

Change countries. Apply the same thinking to the British Conservative Party in the 1950s. Replace Eisenhower with a combination of Churchill, Eden and MacMillan (particularly the latter). The same story -  growing prosperity across the board, low debt on the manageable credit principle (both in the private and public sphere)! And remember the famous MacMillan quote: "Indeed, let us be frank about it. Most of our people have never had it so good". And was he right? Of course he was! And could that have been said 30 or 65 years later? Of course not!

Compare the mass unemployment and record poverty levels of the Thatcher years.

Compare the high unemployment and stagnation and high poverty levels under Cameron (and if Blair and Brown can be held responsible for the current state of affairs, explain to me what they did which was vastly different from what Thatcher preached!).

Change countries again. Compare Merkel with Adenauer. Compare Germany now with the fast growing country of the boom years of the 1950s. Merkel is going to win the 2013 election clearly, even if her party will need to be in a coalition to rule. Is this really the inheritance, the legacy of Adenauer and Erhard?

With unemployment at its current level and the limited opportunities to change things?

It appears to work on the "well things can only get worse" principle. There are many good things to be said as to how things work here - health service, transportation, relatively low crime rates usw. And it remains the best place in the world to live, even in these times which are not so easy.

But if someone were to offer a repeat of the 1950s economy as an alternative? Complacency seems a poor alternative IMHO.

Reread the above piece again. Ask yourself if this is merely nostalgia, or was the model simply better and worth revisiting? Even given how technology has changed everything.

It remains a good question. It would be nice to have a chance to find out.

Postscript (December 31st, 2021). The link no longer exists, but I think that you can work out from the rest of this article what its contents were.