Food Stamp Millionaire

My bad... You got me on the years...

But the 80's was a disaster... Two major computer companies that were the best-of-the-best went belly-up. Stock went from $75/share to $16/share overnight, and hundreds of thousands of layoffs... Not once but twice...with two different companies. By 1989 the real-estate market had tanked, and fortunately for me I was a buyer with some money in my pocket, and I bought a house for about 33% of what it should have been worth. My good fortune...the sellers took a bath.

BearMtnHIB wrote: Question?
I don't know where you were - but you were in the wrong place.

Contrast that with the economy today- everyone I know is having some kind of hard times.

I see, so you base your entire outlook on whole eras of history based on how well YOU did at a certain time?

Why don't you go and look up the figures on layoffs in the 1980s for yourself? There was virtually no industry that didn't get hit with "downsizing". And no matter how you spin it, the deficit grew and so did the poverty rate.

There was plenty of feel good crap in the 1980s but it was mostly phony "morning in America" and coming out of the turmoil and economic problems of the 1970s almost anything would have seemed better. But it was not some Golden Age, not by a long shot.

Oh, and by the way, I was in Denver, if that's the "wrong" place. So I got the double enjoyment of having to pay a huge down payment and 15% interest on my first home in 1983 and then watch all my equity go up in smoke when the real estate market tanked here a couple years later. Yep, those were GREAT years, alright!

Reagan was an advocate of free markets and, upon taking office, believed that the American economy was hampered by excessive economic controls and misguided welfare programs enacted during the 1960s and 1970s. Taking office during a period of stagflation, Reagan said in his first inauguration speech, which he himself authored:[3]

“ In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem. ”

His first act as president was to issue an executive order ending certain price controls on domestic oil, which had contributed to the 1973 Oil Crisis and the 1979 Energy Crisis.[4][5] The price of fuel subsequently dropped, and the 1980s did not see the gasoline lines and fuel shortages that the 1970s had.[5]

Reagan focused his first months in office on two goals, tax cuts and military spending, which was viewed as a successful way to tackle issues and echoed by later presidential advisers.[6] Reagan's economic policies, similar to supply-side economics and dubbed "Reaganomics," achieved a 25% cut in the federal personal income tax, moderate deregulation and tax reform, which he believed would remove barriers to efficient economic activity. After a sharp recession, a long period of high economic growth without significant inflation ensued.

Military spending did go up under Reagan- and a VERY SMALL deficit with it- However, by todays standard- this spending would looke like a single drop in a 5 gallon bucket.

What did we buy with that deficit spending? The end of the cold war! Money well spent in my book.
Removing the threat of nuclear war and ending Russian Communism was worth every penny.

You liberals like to complain anout Reagan's spending- but you always fail to mention what was bought with the money. The total US debt in 1989 was 660 billion dollars- and that money ended the cold war!

LadyJazzer wrote: My bad... You got me on the years...

But the 80's was a disaster... Two major computer companies that were the best-of-the-best went belly-up. Stock went from $75/share to $16/share overnight, and hundreds of thousands of layoffs... Not once but twice...with two different companies. By 1989 the real-estate market had tanked, and fortunately for me I was a buyer with some money in my pocket, and I bought a house for about 33% of what it should have been worth. My good fortune...the sellers took a bath.

Which computer companies are you thinking of? Is Digital Equipment one of them? If so, seems to me they tanked because they didn't jump in soon enough (like IBM) into the microcomputer market and instead stuck with the way too expensive minicomputers. But that's just off the top of my head.

I can think of many others that went under then, but not huge companies (I'm sure I'm missing one). And it was a time when there were too many companies trying to take the microcomputer market, and it took time to sift the winners from the losers. I don't recall it being an economy issue.

I wouldn't call tripling the deficit a "small" amount. And I'm not buying the idea that he "bought" the end of the Soviet Union. Not the guy whose biggest military accomplishment was invading Grenada, an island no one ever heard of before.

The Societ Union fell because it over-extended itself militarily and ignored problems in the domestic economy until it was too late, not because of Ronnie Raygun. I'm guessing no one was more surprised than him and his band of Merry Men when it did fall. They were scared poopless of the Soviet Union right up until the moment it imploded, no matter how much revisionists would have you believe otherwise.

I also think it's interesting that most of you war hawks seem completely oblivious to the fact that the U.S. could very easily fall just as suddenly - and for similar reasons.

If you want to read how the cold war really ended- I looked up an article for you.

http://old.nationalreview.com/flashback/dsouza200406061619.asp

This way you don't need to go on with such a delusional view of reality!

Well there ya go.....and it's from the National Review.....we all know how unbiased they are

rofllol

BearMtnHIB wrote: If you want to read how the cold war really ended- I looked up an article for you.

http://old.nationalreview.com/flashback/dsouza200406061619.asp

This way you don't need to go on with such a delusional view of reality!

I'm sorry, but any system that is so vehemently rejected by its own citizens as Soviet-style communism was is coming down sooner or later. And I stand by my statement that no one was as susprised when it did as Ronald Reagan and his advisors. Most analysts today conclude that it would have fallen with or without him. It wasn't a matter of "tough diplomacy" as this article would have you believe, it was a matter of a system that had rotted from within and was breathing its last when Gorbachev came on the scene. Weak rhetoric or tough from the U.S., wouldn't have made any difference.

Here's some more info on the original post. The state of Michigan seems to be saying their hands are tied due to federal guidelines (and the $2 million winner is still a d**k)...

http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_localdtw/20110518/ts_yblog_localdtw/2m-michigan-lottery-winner-defends-use-of-food-stamps

A Michigan man who won $2 million in a state lottery game continues to collect food stamps 11 months after striking it rich.

And there's nothing the state can do about it, at least for now.

Leroy Fick, 59, of Auburn won $2 million in the state lottery TV show "Make Me Rich!" last June. But the state's Department of Human Services determined he was still eligible for food stamps, Fick's attorney, John Wilson of Midland, said Tuesday.

Eligibility for food stamps is based on gross income and follows federal guidelines; lottery winnings are considered liquid assets and don't count as income. As long as Fick's gross income stays below the eligibility requirement for food stamps, he can receive them, even if he has a million dollars in the bank.

Food stamps are paid for through tax dollars and are meant to help support low-income families.

"If you're going to try to make me feel bad, you're not going to do it," Fick told WNEM-TV in Saginaw on Monday.

Al Kimichik, director of the office of inspector general for DHS, said the department could not comment on individual cases but that it this week began the process of requesting a waiver from the federal government to close the lottery loophole. If it is granted, assets would be counted in determining food stamp eligibility.

Though the food stamp program is federal and states must follow U.S. guidelines, states sometimes request waivers of rules. Michigan was granted a waiver recently to stop college students from qualifying for food stamps.

Jones contacted DHS officials Monday about Fick's case, and was told the department's hands were tied by federal regulations.

"There is no liquid asset requirement for getting food stamps," Jones said. "The department is asking the federal government for an immediate change (in policy). They're hoping this case will help the federal government act."