American Politics

[PVMonger]

It's equally valid to compare USA to Aus, as it is to compare it to ay other country. As long as one understands the playing fiield.

In 2019 Aus had 8.7 million international tourists. In 2018 NYC alone had 13.8 million international visitors. Domestic tourism accounts for 73% of total tourism revenues in Aus. It is clear that Aus is a far, far more isolated and remote destination. At 3.000 USA deaths per million (likely underreported by 25%) compared to 300 in Aus, clearly there is a major difference. Healthcare system and state of public health in general will have an effect, as would government policy. Aus imposed extremely authoritarian controls on personal freedoms, USA did not. In fact, people from the USA were just about the only regular international travellers over the past 2 years.

As much as we do not like to accept it, we all face the question. How much death are we prepared to accept in our way of life? There are countles things we could do if we changed how we all lived to reduce death, but we don't do them because we have come to accept that those deaths are tolerable. So how much is tolerable from a new disease like COVID?.

You said "It's equally valid to compare USA to Aus, as it is to compare it to ay other country. " Wrong, wrong wrong!

The article (which you obviously did not read) compared the US to Australia because Australia has about the same population demographic and because Australia is a "rich" country. You can blather on and on about all sorts of things yet the big determining factor was that Australians believed that their government was trying to do the right thing whereas 30+% of the US thought (and still think) that the whole thing was a big hoax or nothing more than the flu or any one of a hundred other stupid ideas. Australians, as a people, were willing to do the right thing for their fellow citizens. 30+% of Americans were not.

Sure, health care plays a part. But overrun hospitals are overrun hospitals, no matter how you slice it and no matter whether or not the country offered "single payer" healthcare.

The simple facts are that the US government "screwed the pooch" when it came to COVID response and the governmental leadership was so lacking that a million people died. "Failure of capitalism"? Hogwash.

[DramaFree11]

It's equally valid to compare USA to Aus, as it is to compare it to ay other country. As long as one understands the playing fiield.

In 2019 Aus had 8.7 million international tourists. In 2018 NYC alone had 13.8 million international visitors. Domestic tourism accounts for 73% of total tourism revenues in Aus. It is clear that Aus is a far, far more isolated and remote destination. At 3.000 USA deaths per million (likely underreported by 25%) compared to 300 in Aus, clearly there is a major difference. Healthcare system and state of public health in general will have an effect, as would government policy. Aus imposed extremely authoritarian controls on personal freedoms, USA did not. In fact, people from the USA were just about the only regular international travellers over the past 2 years.

As much as we do not like to accept it, we all face the question. How much death are we prepared to accept in our way of life? There are countles things we could do if we changed how we all lived to reduce death, but we don't do them because we have come to accept that those deaths are tolerable. So how much is tolerable from a new disease like COVID?.

You guys are just crazy, I think you want Covid to drag on forever, just like most liberal's. This needs to end and we need to move forward. This is the main difference between Rep. And Dem. I think you guys really do not want Covid to end. You can argue who was write or wrong, the bottom line is everyone did there best, nobody tried to kill people, Covid was terrible for everyone.

Now we are dealing with the ramifications from the crazy ass lockdowns, and it is not good. Now we have Shortages and major supply chain issues. Many of shortages are being ignored by the media and the government.

Either way this is not good and we need solutions quickly before this spins out of control. You guys may get your wish and nobody will have jobs and will be living off the government.

[JustTK]

Australia's location in the distant Pacific is often cited as the cause for its relative COVID success. That, however, does not fully explain the difference in outcomes between the two countries, since Australia has long been, like the United States, highly connected to the world through trade, tourism and immigration. In 2019,9. 5 million international tourists came to Australia.

It's equally valid to compare USA to Aus, as it is to compare it to ay other country. As long as one understands the playing fiield.

In 2019 Aus had 8.7 million international tourists. In 2018 NYC alone had 13.8 million international visitors. Domestic tourism accounts for 73% of total tourism revenues in Aus. It is clear that Aus is a far, far more isolated and remote destination. At 3.000 USA deaths per million (likely underreported by 25%) compared to 300 in Aus, clearly there is a major difference. Healthcare system and state of public health in general will have an effect, as would government policy. Aus imposed extremely authoritarian controls on personal freedoms, USA did not. In fact, people from the USA were just about the only regular international travellers over the past 2 years.

As much as we do not like to accept it, we all face the question. How much death are we prepared to accept in our way of life? There are countles things we could do if we changed how we all lived to reduce death, but we don't do them because we have come to accept that those deaths are tolerable. So how much is tolerable from a new disease like COVID?

Some countres that imposed very strict measures were complete failures, others that were more open did well. Government policy didn't have a clear impact across the world. I would suggest that countries could do far more by examining their public healthcare systems, and the general state of health of the population. It is clear that healthy people are far less likely to die, and even more so if they can get affordable care should they become seriously ill. To me this looks like a glaring failiure of reliance on capitalism.

[EihTooms]

What follows is an interesting article detailing Australia's response to COVID vs the US response to COVID. Both are "rich" countries with similar population demographics. Australia's "COVID deaths per capita" are 1/10th the US death rate. Therefore, what a country does and how it's citizens view citizenship matters. The article points out how the responses differed in both countries.

The funny thing is, I know exactly how the wingnuts will respond and it will be like the idiots they are.

"How Australia Saved Thousands of Lives While COVID Killed 1 Million Americans"

If the United States had the same COVID death rate as Australia, about 900,000 lives would have been saved.

For many Americans, imagining what might have been will be painful. But especially now, at the milestone of 1 million deaths in the United States, the nations that did a better job of keeping people alive show what Americans could have done differently and what might still need to change...

Bottom line was Trump "led" like a typical USA Republican, rejecting and denying science and instead making self-serving economic, national security and political decisions like defunding and dismantling the proven Pandemic Prevention and Response teams, removing all of them from those Chinese labs in 2018 against all expert warnings not to do something so stupid and dangerous and spending nearly the entire first critical year of 2020 lying about the viral spread he laid the foundation for emerging, mocking the known effective mitigation efforts, insisting no one need bother inventing a vaccine for it nor taking one, etc etc.

He thereby not only worked harder than any other world leader, really more than any one person on the planet, to produce the Trump's Pandemic it became around the world in the first place but also more responsibly than anyone for at least 90% of the 1 million (and counting) American deaths from it so far as well as most of the subsequent global economic and Supply-Chain collapse and hyper-inflation.

It really is impossible for anyone who knows the facts to come to any other logical conclusion.

[Paulie97]

Not so small. LE Pen got over 40%. Quite troubling for an EU country actually.

The appeal of fascism is stronger than ever, IMHO. Neither Trump's disastrous rule nor Putin's war have made a dent in their collective psyche.

That 40% is schewed as LE Pen only got 23% in the first round with another far right candidate picking up 7.47 to 32% of Republicans (depending on how the polling questions are worded) believe the 2020 election was legit. Thus once down to a two way not all who voted for Trump is a MAGA fanatic or could be called a Fascist. The same can surely be said of those who voted for LE Pen in the final round.

[Gino02]

Coming to this thread after awhile, and what I see? There are still some "experts" here trying to defend Buyden collapse! Wow! Even the Democratic Party machinery moved on from this administration's failure LOL.

[PVMonger]

What follows is an interesting article detailing Australia's response to COVID vs the US response to COVID. Both are "rich" countries with similar population demographics. Australia's "COVID deaths per capita" are 1/10th the US death rate. Therefore, what a country does and how it's citizens view citizenship matters. The article points out how the responses differed in both countries.

The funny thing is, I know exactly how the wingnuts will respond and it will be like the idiots they are.

"How Australia Saved Thousands of Lives While COVID Killed 1 Million Americans"

If the United States had the same COVID death rate as Australia, about 900,000 lives would have been saved.

For many Americans, imagining what might have been will be painful. But especially now, at the milestone of 1 million deaths in the United States, the nations that did a better job of keeping people alive show what Americans could have done differently and what might still need to change.

Australia offers perhaps the sharpest comparisons with the American experience. Both countries are English-speaking democracies with similar demographic profiles. In Australia and in the United States, the median age is 38. Roughly 86% of Australians live in urban areas, compared with 83% of Americans.

Yet Australia's COVID death rate sits at one-tenth of America's, putting the nation of 25 million people (with around 7,500 deaths) near the top of global rankings in the protection of life.

Australia's location in the distant Pacific is often cited as the cause for its relative COVID success. That, however, does not fully explain the difference in outcomes between the two countries, since Australia has long been, like the United States, highly connected to the world through trade, tourism and immigration. In 2019,9. 5 million international tourists came to Australia.

So what went right in Australia and wrong in the United States?

It looks obvious: Australia restricted travel and personal interaction until vaccinations were widely available, then maximized vaccine uptake, prioritizing people who were most vulnerable before gradually opening up the country again.

From one outbreak to another, there were also some mistakes. And with omicron and eased restrictions, deaths have increased.

But Australia's COVID playbook produced results because of something more easily felt than analyzed at a news conference. Dozens of interviews, along with survey data and scientific studies from around the world, point to a lifesaving trait that Australians displayed from the top of government to the hospital floor and that Americans have shown they lack: trust, in science and institutions, but especially in one another.

When the pandemic began, 76% of Australians said they trusted the health care system (compared with around 34% of Americans), and 93% of Australians reported being able to get support in times of crisis from people living outside their household.

In global surveys, Australians were more likely than Americans to agree that "most people can be trusted" — a major factor, researchers found, in getting people to change their behavior for the common good to combat COVID.

But of greater import, interpersonal trust — a belief that others would do what was right not just for the individual but for the community — saved lives. Trust mattered more than smoking prevalence, health spending or form of government, a study of 177 countries in The Lancet recently found.

Government: Moving Quickly Behind the Scenes.

Greg Hunt had been Australia's health minister for a couple of years when his phone buzzed Jan. 20,2020. It was Dr. Brendan Murphy, Australia's chief medical officer, and he wanted to talk about a new coronavirus in China.

Murphy said there were worrisome signs of human-to-human transmission.

"I think this has the potential to go beyond anything we've seen in our lifetime," Murphy said. "We need to act fast. ".

The next day, Australia added the coronavirus, as a threat with "pandemic potential," to its biosecurity list, officially setting in motion the country's emergency response. Hunt briefed Prime Minister Scott Morrison, visited the country's stockpile of personal protective equipment and began calling independent experts for guidance.

The first positive case appeared in Australia on Jan. 25. Five days later, when the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed the first human transmission of the virus in the United States, President Donald Trump downplayed the risk.

The same day, Hunt struck a more practical tone. "Border, isolation, surveillance and case-tracing mechanisms are already in place in Australia," he said.

Less than 24 hours later, on Feb. 1, Australia closed its border with China, its largest trading partner. On Feb. 3, 241 Australians were evacuated from China and placed in government quarantine for 14 days.

A full border closure followed. Hotels were contracted to quarantine the trickle of international arrivals allowed in. Systems for free testing and contact tracing were rolled out, along with a federal program that paid COVID-affected employees so they would stay home.

Health Care: Sharing the Burden.

The outbreak that many Australians see as their country's greatest COVID test began in late June 2020, with a breakdown in Melbourne's hotel quarantine system. The virus spread into the city and its suburbs from guards interacting with travelers, a government inquiry later found, and within a few weeks, daily case numbers climbed into the hundreds.

At Royal Melbourne, a public hospital built to serve the poor, clusters of infection emerged among vulnerable patients and workers.

"We recognized right away that this was a disaster we'd never planned for, in that it was a marathon, not a sprint," said Chris Macisaac, Royal Melbourne's director of intensive care.

In mid-July, dozens of patients with COVID were transferred from nursing homes to Royal Park, a satellite facility for geriatric care and rehabilitation. Soon, more than 40% of the cases among workers were connected to that small campus.

Kirsty Buising, an infectious disease consultant at the hospital, began to suspect — before scientists could prove it — that the coronavirus was airborne. In mid-July, on her suggestion, Royal Melbourne started giving N95 masks to workers exposed to COVID patients.

In the United States, hospital executives were lining up third-party PPE vendors for clandestine meetings in parking lots. Royal Melbourne's supplies came from federal and state stockpiles, with guidelines for how distribution should be prioritized.

In New York, a city of 8 million people packed closely together, more than 300 health care workers died from COVID by the end of September, with huge disparities in outcomes for patients and workers from one hospital to another.

In Melbourne, a city of 5 million with a dense inner core surrounded by suburbs, the masks, a greater separation of patients and an intense 111-day lockdown that reduced demand on hospital services brought the virus to heel. At Royal Melbourne, not a single worker died during Australia's worst institutional cluster to date.

Society: Complying and Caring.

When Australians are asked why they accepted the country's many lockdowns, its once-closed international and state borders, its quarantine rules and then its vaccine mandates for certain professions or restaurants and large events, they tend to voice a version of the same response: It's not just about me.

The idea that one's actions affect others is not unique to Australia, and at times, the rules on COVID stirred up outrage.

"It was a somewhat authoritarian approach," said Dr. Greg Dore, an infectious diseases expert at the University of New South Wales in Sydney. "There were lots of mandates, lots of fines for breaching restrictions, pretty heavy-handed controlling, including measures that were pretty useless, like the policing of outdoor masking."

But, he added, the package was effective because the vast majority of Australians stuck with it anyway.

"The community coming on board and remaining on board through the tough periods of 2020 and even into 2021 was really, really important," Dore said.

Now, more than 95% of Australian adults are fully vaccinated — with 85% of the total population having received two doses. In the United States, that figure is only 66%.

The arrival of the omicron variant, which is more transmissible, has sent Australia's case numbers soaring, but with most of the population inoculated, deaths are ticking up more slowly.

"We learned that we can come together very quickly," said Denise Heinjus, Royal Melbourne's executive director for nursing, whose title in 2020 was COVID commander. "There's a high level of trust among our people."

The source of the article is the NYT which will cause the wingnut crown to lose what little minds they have. https://news.yahoo.com/australia-sav...120039853.html.

[JustTK]

Regardless what the actual number of deaths were that could be attributed directly to the disease of Covid due to the coronavirus infection, the fact that hospitals were swamped, beds were filled, rooms were not available and medical staff and equipment to treat those requiring hospitalization were stretched beyond their ability to save hundreds of thousands of lives did actually happen, it wasn't "fake news." As if there were only a few fat, old Americans with pre-existing conditions likely to need much attention for this historic event so what was all the fuss about.
... in a "for profit" healthcare treatment country like the USA where Capitalism required there not be one extra bed, hospital room, doctor or nurse expense paid until people were dying in the streets for lack of them...
The upshot being when a lean, otherwise healthy 28 year old motorcycle or car accident victim needed immediate care or he'd die, he just might not have gotten it and died. The deadly and life-altering ripple effects of hospitals and medical staff being swamped due to just the fat, old Americans with or without pre-existing conditions showing up with Trump's Pandemic virus disease were enormous and real.

I agree w all of this, apart from Blaming Chump for it. Look, I am not one to defend a person like Chump, but I imagine the outcome would not have been any better whoever had been in power. The real issue is that the USA has only private heallthcare, and both political have had many opportunities to change that and yet did nothing. So they are equally as culpable. In fact, since the Dems got to power, they didn't even "force the vote", so clearly they intend to do nothing to ensure this is never repeated again. I suggest that any person that is happy with private healthcare, that votes for a person / politcian that does not advocate for public health, must answer the big question. Are you happy with the consequences of your choices?

[EihTooms]

The overall problem is that there is not any kind of "worldwide standard" when it comes to reporting deaths. The secondary problem is that poorer countries have a hard time reporting deaths at all.

In my opinion, the best way to determine how the US performed is to compare per capita US COVID deaths to per capita COVID deaths in other wealthy nations with similar age profiles because we know that COVID hits the elderly the hardest.

And what to we see when we do that? The US leads the pack. Take a look at the last graph in the attached article. https://www.bbc.com/news/61333847 The wingnuts, though, will say this is "fake news" because of the source, even though the data comes from Johns Hopkins University. That's because Tucker "Even my lawyer admitted that nobody in their right mind should believe anything I say" Carlson hasn't said a word about it.

Regardless what the actual number of deaths were that could be attributed directly to the disease of Covid due to the coronavirus infection, the fact that hospitals were swamped, beds were filled, rooms were not available and medical staff and equipment to treat those requiring hospitalization were stretched beyond their ability to save hundreds of thousands of lives did actually happen, it wasn't "fake news."

Armchair 20-20 hindsight revisionist historians like Bill Maher can scoff at the measures taken and sound exactly like Trump at the beginning of his nearly year long lying jag during critical year 2020, deriding the known mitigation measures like masks, social distancing and, yes, even closures, on the premise that, "Well, it turns out Covid only killed mostly fat, old people or those with serious pre-existing conditions."

As if there were only a few fat, old Americans with pre-existing conditions likely to need much attention for this historic event so what was all the fuss about.

What idiots like Maher never factor in is how the idea was to lover the inevitable potential Mount Everest curve of swamped hospitals and facilities as soon as humanly possible, particularly in a "for profit" healthcare treatment country like the USA where Capitalism required there not be one extra bed, hospital room, doctor or nurse expense paid until people were dying in the streets for lack of them. And then order and roll them out slowly, if at all.

Just one detail about this blows the idiocy of a Bill Maher out of the water; when ten fat, old Americans with or without pre-existing conditions were wheelbarrowed into a hospital unable to breath without a ventilator and for which the hospital had no choice but to treat, each and every one to them had to have their own room and personalized equipment in that room. See, you can't throw rabidly infectious Covid suffers into a dorm room to wheeze and cough on even one other patient. For months, even with the curve somewhat flattened by annoying mitigation promoters accomplishing at least some of that mission, that reality stretched the capabilities of practically every major hospital in every major city in America.

The upshot being when a lean, otherwise healthy 28 year old motorcycle or car accident victim needed immediate care or he'd die, he just might not have gotten it and died. Same with a 45 year old former college basketball star who suffered a heart attack during those times. The deadly and life-altering ripple effects of hospitals and medical staff being swamped due to just the fat, old Americans with or without pre-existing conditions showing up with Trump's Pandemic virus disease were enormous and real.

[MarquisdeSade1]

Who blamed Reagan for the higher inflation under him than under Biden? I sure didn't. Regarding the higher inflation under Reagan I merely point out the irrefutable historic fact that he deserves zero credit for reversing the upward trend of inflation and establishing a month over month reduction of it. All of the heavy lifting and political risk-taking to accomplish that was done by Carter and his Fed Chairman appointee Paul Volcker and it began almost a year before Reagan took office.

The courageous political risk-taking in late 1979 and early 1980 was about Volcker doing what Carter appointed him to do; raise Fed Funds / interest rates in order to cool down an overheated economy that was producing many more jobs than there were applicants to take them, triggering a mild, brief, mini controlled recession during an important election year.

Sound familiar? Yep, that is what Fed Chairman Powell is doing under Biden right now and for the same "good economic problem to have" reason Volcker did.

The big difference this time is Powell was not originally appointed by a smart, patriotic Dem as Volcker was. He was originally appointed by a numbskull, America-hating Repub. Biden had to re-appoint Powell in order to avoid greater uncertainty re a new Fed Chairman in the midst of the usual economic chaos Repubs produce and hand over to incoming Dems to fix..

https://www.newsmax.com/politics/bid...15/id/1069972/

https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/ka...15/id/1069983/

Which is why we will work together and continue to work together to address these issues, to tackle these challenges, and to work together as we continue to work.

Another special Ed Barry Hussein with a teleprompter jajajajaaaaa.

Some might dare call this her having diarrhea of the mouth.

[PVMonger]

Thats def more like it. I found a very useful resource online which shows excess deaths for nearly all countries worldwide. Excess deaths is a stat that doesn't lie. At least, not in 99% of countries. Let me know if you want the link.

You can see some countries criminally underreported deaths, e. G. Egypt. It brings usa more in to line w the averages. And makes comparisons fairer.

Then you can ask why country X performed worse than country why, but it is very difficult to determine the exact cause bco sthere are so many competing factors & age and health being 2 critical ones.

Sure, send me the link.

But that's one reason not to use averages, especially of the averages include everybody (which most do). If one excludes "criminally under-reporting" countries (or, rather, just the 20 wealthiest countries), you are comparing "apples-to-apples".

And I think that when you compare "apples-to-apples" (and I haven't), you will find that the US fared worse than many of those 'rich countries with a similar age profile' to whom they are being compared. But that is a belief, not a fact.

[JustTK]

The overall problem is that there is not any kind of "worldwide standard" when it comes to reporting.
And what to we see when we do that? The US leads the pack. Thttps://www.bbc.com/news/61333847it.

Thats def more like it. I found a very useful resource online which shows excess deaths for nearly all countries worldwide. Excess deaths is a stat that doesn't lie. At least, not in 99% of countries. Let me know if you want the link.

You can see some countries criminally underreported deaths, e. G. Egypt. It brings usa more in to line w the averages. And makes comparisons fairer.

Then you can ask why country X performed worse than country why, but it is very difficult to determine the exact cause bco sthere are so many competing factors & age and health being 2 critical ones.

[PVMonger]

Although no doubt Chump govt responses did play a part, that was not the largest reason why USA has such a dispropeortionately high death rate compared to the resto of the world. The biggest reason is the manner in which USA counts deaths as COVID deaths compared to many countries, and also the underreporting of deaths associated with COVID in other countries. Both through lack of analysis and deliberate underreporting.

The overall problem is that there is not any kind of "worldwide standard" when it comes to reporting deaths. The secondary problem is that poorer countries have a hard time reporting deaths at all.

In my opinion, the best way to determine how the US performed is to compare per capita US COVID deaths to per capita COVID deaths in other wealthy nations with similar age profiles because we know that COVID hits the elderly the hardest.

And what to we see when we do that? The US leads the pack. Take a look at the last graph in the attached article. https://www.bbc.com/news/61333847 The wingnuts, though, will say this is "fake news" because of the source, even though the data comes from Johns Hopkins University. That's because Tucker "Even my lawyer admitted that nobody in their right mind should believe anything I say" Carlson hasn't said a word about it.

[JustTK]

COVID is an American problem in that the USA has about 4% of the world's population and 16% of the world's COVID deaths. That is due, primarily, to the Orange Buffoon's constant lies about COVID, suggestions that people take unproven medications like ivermectin, pushing people to inject disinfectant and shove lightbulbs up their butts. It also hasn't helped that moronic conservatives refuse to get vaccinated..

Although no doubt Chump govt responses did play a part, that was not the largest reason why USA has such a dispropeortionately high death rate compared to the resto of the world. The biggest reason is the manner in which USA counts deaths as COVID deaths compared to many countries, and also the underreporting of deaths associated with COVID in other countries. Both through lack of analysis and deliberate underreporting.

[EihTooms]

And here we go again. Covid is not a worldwide problem but an American one. One thing I can always count on you dumb Dems for is being hypocrites. You say inflation was never higher than under Reagan in his first year in office but he gets the blame for it but Biden gets a pass. Yeah, that makes sense...

Who blamed Reagan for the higher inflation under him than under Biden? I sure didn't. Regarding the higher inflation under Reagan I merely point out the irrefutable historic fact that he deserves zero credit for reversing the upward trend of inflation and establishing a month over month reduction of it. All of the heavy lifting and political risk-taking to accomplish that was done by Carter and his Fed Chairman appointee Paul Volcker and it began almost a year before Reagan took office.

The courageous political risk-taking in late 1979 and early 1980 was about Volcker doing what Carter appointed him to do; raise Fed Funds / interest rates in order to cool down an overheated economy that was producing many more jobs than there were applicants to take them, triggering a mild, brief, mini controlled recession during an important election year.

Sound familiar? Yep, that is what Fed Chairman Powell is doing under Biden right now and for the same "good economic problem to have" reason Volcker did.

The big difference this time is Powell was not originally appointed by a smart, patriotic Dem as Volcker was. He was originally appointed by a numbskull, America-hating Repub. Biden had to re-appoint Powell in order to avoid greater uncertainty re a new Fed Chairman in the midst of the usual economic chaos Repubs produce and hand over to incoming Dems to fix.

Therefore, it is much more likely that Powell has already and will continue to do way too little or way too much too late or too soon and fuck it up either by accident or intention while such a risk is impossible with a Fed Chairman originally appointed by a Dem.

No, Reagan was not responsible for that inflation. LOL. How can Repubs whose repeated idiotic economic policies produce Great Repub Recessions that skyrocket unemployment rates or wipe out millions upon millions of jobs cause prices to rise during those times? See "Donald J. Trump" for reference. The resultant inflation from those Great Repub Recessions and massive job losses happen, unavoidably, when the incoming Dem does what is then necessary to recover us from it.

Neither gas prices, housing values, wages, or job opportunities etc are likely to "go up" during those typical Repub policy results. Look for that to happen only under Great Dem Economic Recovery and Expansion policy results like the one we've had under Biden.

However, the higher and skyrocketing unemployment rate that accompanied those higher but declining (thanks to Carter) inflation rates under Reagan was all about Reagan and his Repub policies.