Must-Read: Barry Ritholtz: Tax Reform Is Dead

Must-Read: The misperceptions of the Overclass are on display here in the very sharp Barry Ritholtz’s offhand observation that “Ronald Reagan… oversaw a… ‘once in a generation’ economic boost that resonated for the next 30 years…”

There was no such thing as far as economic growth was concerned: what Reagan presided over was the recovery to normal levels of activity from the 1979-1982 Volcker Deflation. The growth of the economy’s productive potential he presided over was the same then-thought sub-par rate of growth as Carter. It was Clinton who presided over what looked to be a speed-up—hopes for which, have, alas!, been catastrophically dashed under his now-three successors.

But Reagan did not just preside over but initiated the enormous upward shift in the distribution of wealth that has so benefitted people like Barry Ritholtz, and me. But it was not an economic boost for the country—just one for people like him and me, purchased with what has been the worst more-than-a-generation in terms of economic growth that America’s middle and working classes have ever experienced:

Barry Ritholtz: Tax Reform Is Dead: “The long-awaited ‘pivot towards being presidential’ hasn’t arrived, and by all indications never will… http://ritholtz.com/2017/06/tax-reform-dead/

…Those of us who harbored hopes for a comprehensive corporate tax reform, for repatriation of trillions of overseas dollars, for an infrastructure plan, and perhaps even for a lowered personal income tax rate, are coming to recognize the folly of our wishful thinking. That window of opportunity now looks like casements in South Florida during hurricane season…. %he self-inflicted wounds of the most undisciplined presidency in history are increasingly likely to blow its chances of passing any of the aforementioned economic stimulus measures. The trifecta of tax reform, repatriation and infrastructure investment could put the U.S. on very strong footing for the next several decades. Such was the legacy of Ronald Reagan, who oversaw a similar “once in a generation” economic boost that resonated for the next 30 years. Trump is no Reagan…