The Atlantic Monthly published an article with the above title by Derek Thompson on 2010-07-26.
He gave some explanations that I was only vaguely aware of. One of course was high executive salaries, fewer employees, more money for the honchos. Thompson added that the pay in stock options increases the executive incentive to keep the price of the stock high, the less money going out to employees the happier stock traders will be (my spin about stock traders).
Quite a discussion follows.
One point was that "Reaganomics fostered the entrepreneurial activity that made the technology revolutions of the PC, cell phone, and internet happen." Let's see, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak established Apple Computer on 1976-04-01 before Jimmy Carter was even elected. A whole bunch of other computer manufacturers sprung up about the same time. The IBM PC was introduced on 1981-08-12, about seven months after Ronald Reagan was inaugurated. That probably means that the plan to create and sell the IBM PC was well underway before Reagan was elected. Maybe we should credit Jimmy Carter with the IBM PC:)
What people who credit a president with the success or lack of success of the economy fail to recognize is that many creative people are going to go ahead with their ideas regardless of who is president and what the "economy" is like. Look at the success of the iPad and iPhone in this "slow economy".
