1980s+Economic+Culture

The economic culture of the 1980s in the United States turned very materialistic and to paraphrase the words of Gordon Gekko from the movie // Wall Street, // people began to view greed as good. The U.S. government took a hands off approach, but in the end the country suffered.

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=Reaganomics...voodoo economics =

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 The Reagan economic plan, known as Reaganomics and referred to as "voodoo economics" by his critics, was a sweeping and aggressive plan often compared to the New Deal because of its drastic nature. According to chairman of the Cato Institute and former member of President Reagan's Council of Economic Advisers from 1981 to 1985, William Niskanen (1988), stated that the policy objectives were: (1) reduce the growth of government spending, (2) reduce the marginal tax rates on income from both labor and capital, (3) reduce regulation, and (4) reduce inflation by controlling the growth of the money supply (para. 1).    =Deregulation...government getting out of the way =

 Deregulation was a primary agenda item under the Reagan administration. Public lands and water were opened for development, regulations under the EPA were minimized or eliminated in their entirety, civil rights violations were overlooked, and limits on auto emissions and safety were slackened all in the name of getting the government out of the way of the people (Brinkley, 2007, p. 897).

=Worth Noting From The 80s =
 * Gas was $1.19 per gallon in 1980 and by 1989 it decreased to $.97 per gallon.
 * U.S. and Canada sign a free trade agreement.
 * Solidarity movement in Poland signaled a move to a capitalist economy.
 * Donald Trump and Michael Millken were the "darlings" of the financial world.
 * Drought of 1988.

(The People History, 2009) (Wikipedia, n.d.)