GBI called it fuzzy math, but David Stockman, one of the architects of Reaganomics, has gotten himself in a hairy mess living by his own economic principles. According to the Independent, he finds himself facing fraud charges over the demise of Collins and Aikman, a car component company.
The schadenfreude factor would be hilarious if it were not for the fact that Stockman's trickle down economics, eventually discounted by the Reagan Administration, had been reintroduced by the evil minions of the current Asshat In Chief.
The alleged offences relate to the management of Collins & Aikman, which was acquired in 2001 by Heartland Industrial Partners, a private equity firm founded by Mr Stockman. Four years later, Collins & Aikman went bankrupt, brought down, as Mr Stockman claims, by the larger crisis engulfing the Detroit car-makers that were its prime clients.
Mr Stockman and his co-defendants are accused of duping potential lenders into committing funds into a failing Collins & Aikman by cooking its books to make it look much sounder than it was.
This sounds like a typical example of corporate malfeasance, but the ironic goodness of it being pinned to Reagan's Director of Management and Budget is tasty:
In that post, he masterminded the Reagan economic strategy which was based on tax cuts and high government spending, particularly on defence.
Dismissing the short-term growth in deficits, Mr Stockman argued in public that the stimulus would boost economic output, generating greater prosperity for everyone, as well as extra tax revenue to balance the budget.
The article says that the current administration seems to be recovering from its overwhelming deficits, but then goes on to say:
Critics are now asking the inevitable question: did Mr Stockman use the same techniques in business that some say he once employed at the White House?
"They resorted to lies, tricks and fraud," Michael Garcia, a federal prosecutor, said, adding that "in the end, Stockman and his co-conspirators were unable to hide the truth" at Collins & Aikman.
Which is more or less what Democrats and fiscal conservatives used to say about President Reagan and the Stockman-led economic policies of a generation ago.
Which is the $64 dollar question: just how honest are the current OMB figures. ?