Maybe a harbinger of things to come, but this October 19th in 1987 was dubbed Black Monday as Wall Street and most Stock exchanges throughout the world suddenly found themselves not worth nearly as much as they were 24 hours earlier. Losing 22% of its value in one day in the U.S., it was considered the biggest single decline since the Great Crash of 1929.

Did it serve as a warning sign? Um . . .no. President Reagan expressed bafflement, saying all indications were the economy was sound. Didn't John McCain say almost the exact same thing in 2008 when our current disaster got started?

I guess hindsight is perceived as a gift - you can either accept it and learn from it, or say no and expect a different result next time.

And you wonder why there are tents and demonstrations in Zuccotti Park and Times Square and everywhere else in the country and around the world?

Also on this day, if anyone cared to notice, was news of U.S. Navy Jets bombing Iranian Oil facilities in retaliation for Iranian gunboats attacks on U.S. ships.

Here are hourly news reports, starting with the 1:00 pm (PDT) CBS Radio Network news and continuing until 5:00 pm (PDT).

The political terrain on Capitol Hill in 1981 was indeed rocky. With the Senate under Republican control and the House under Democratic (sort of) control, the attempt was made to put together a budget which bore some semblance of bi-partisanship (that word again). The problem was, the budget Reagan had submitted was rejected by conservatives as having too large a deficit and rejected by liberals as having its priorities askew.

So it was up to Congress to come up with a series of compromise budgets in the hopes of getting some sort of consensus and a budget passed. As a member of the House Ways and Means Committee and Chairman of the House Budget Committee, Rep. James Jones (D-Oklahoma) drafted a bill that came to be known as The Jones Budget. As a former member of the Johnson administration, it was hard to justify all the cuts and slashing that would take place for many of the programs enacted by The Great Society, which Jones had been part of. In an interview done of Face The Nation on April 12, 1981, he was asked just that question.

Bruce Morton (CBS News): “You were an aid in the Johnson White House during the Great Society when a lot of these social programs that are now either shrinking or disappearing came in, I wonder if . .was that a mistake then or have the times simply changed, how do you feel as you see some of these go down in flames now.”

Rep. James Jones: “Well let me make a couple of observations; first of all, I think the goals that were behind those programs were very laudable. To try to make all parts of this country participants in the economic wealth of this country. And I think as a result of that, you found our middle class has actually improved considerably over the past fifteen years, More people into the middle income areas. There is more personal wealth than there has been . .than there was before that. I think the main problem we had in those days was that we . . .there were so many ideas being put on the law books so rapidly, and that the administrative apparatus could never catch up with it. And then in the decade of the 1970’s, it became just a self-perpetuating sort of program and a lot of people lost sight of the fact of what they were there for. They were there to try to help people instead of trying to build bureaucracy or build bigger government. And so I think it’s time now to take a look at it, to look at those programs that should be continued or retained in some fashion and I think that’s all proper, and I applaud the Administration for taking a hard look at it.”

In the end, the Jones Budget was defeated 253-171 and the budget battle continued for several more weeks. The result was one of the biggest tax hikes in history.

But that's all politics, smoke and mirrors.

(Ernest Lefever - Reagan was baffled he wasn't greeted with open arms)

Just another June day during the Reagan Years. This particular June 2nd, as outlined in this broadcast of The World Tonight, brought up news of Conservative Democrats meeting with Reagan for 90 minutes over a proposed Tax Cut measure. The uphill fight Reagan was having getting his friend and neo-con Ernest Lefever an appointment to the Human Rights Commission of the State Department. Small wonder since his clearly extreme views on the difference between Authoritarian and Totalitarian regimes raised more than a few eyebrows. He would eventually not be confirmed and it would be a source of bafflement for the President. Israelis were going after Palestinians (again) and the Prime Interest rate was hovering around 20%.

All in all a rather uneventful day . . at the time.

(Union Busting in History - At least today they wear nice suits)

When the famous Patco strike unfolded and President Reagan promptly fired the strikers and crippled the union, it signaled open season on Unions and the beginning of busting, deregulation and a general dismantling of our labor laws and the subsequent fallout that's been reverberating all over our society ever since.

In 1983 we were in the midst of strikes at Continental Airlines and Greyhound Bus. Those strikes made it clear just how damaged our labor laws had become and how the face of Union Busting had changed.

On December 4, 1983 Face The Nation ran a panel that consisted of William Wimpersinger of the International Association of Machinists, Frank Navjot of Greyhound, Studs Terkel, John Nesbitt and Stephen Cabot discussing the state of labor in the midst of Reagan.

Leslie Stahl: “Do you think there is a national management conspiracy to bust or break the unions?”

Studs Terkel: “There doesn’t have to be a conspiracy, I wish it were as simple as that. No, the climate is set and the climate of course is set by the most outrageous anti-labor administration within memory. So we have not, Apple Blossom Time but certainly Union Busting Time”.

Stahl: “Yeah but the public seems to be behind . . .not just the administration . . . .

Terkel: “That’s precisely the point. I think there’s been a lobotomy performed down through the years as Unions and labor are concerned. Ever since World War 2 . .and it’s changed. Big business has become more sophisticated in the person of Mister Cabot say, in contrast to a guy Henry Ford hired in the 30s to fight UAW, Harry Bennett, who would hire thugs and ex-cons with baseball bats to bust the heads of picketers. Today you have smiling three-piece suit guys doing the same job. So much more sophisticated and the result the young members of the workforce have no idea how the minimum wage came to be. They think it came as an apple from the hand of Eve in the garden of Eden. It was bloodied heads that did it, and guys were blacklisted and so minimum wage came to be – that’s under attack today. There’s definitely a union busting climate, no doubt in my mind."

Considering it's 26 years later - the situation hasn't changed. It has only gotten worse, thanks to the Bush Administration. The systematic dismantling of those laws which protected workers from unfair and unethical practices have only become more prevalent with time - and the affects of greed and contempt have only become more entrenched.

It's not going to go away overnight - remember that.

(Note: The broadcast begins with breaking news of U.S. raids on Syrian positions in Lebanon and then goes to the original program)