PRESIDENT OBAMA is far too absent of outrage over Wall Street's continued abuses. As a candidate, he railed against its "greed and irresponsibility.'' He had more to say in his first month in the White House, after finding out that Wall Street firms were still paying $18.4 billion in bonuses despite bringing America to its financial knees and dropping to their own knees for an unprecedented $700 billion taxpayer bailout.
Whenever I think of the
smiley-face icon, I think of Wal-Mart because of its once-ubiquitous ad
campaign. And when I think of Wal-Mart, I think of crappy wages and
insecure employees who probably live paycheck to paycheck. That
metaphor -- the happy face fronting a world of worry -- is the subject
of a new book, Bright-Sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking has Undermined America , by social commentator Barbara Ehrenreich.
The U.S. economy is has diverged: Wall Street is living high on the hog, while everyone else is struggling. The Dow Jones Industrial Average eclipsed 10,000 for the first time since last October this week, even as unemployment continues to spiral out of control. And while President Barack Obama has taken some very real steps to help ordinary people, his administration’s efforts to save Wall Street have far outstripped their support of workers.
Most of the economists and pundits who could not see an $8tn housing bubble are telling us that the
United States desperately needs the Chinese government to
keep buying its debt. This crew of failed analysts argues that without the support of the Chinese government, interest rates in the US will rise,
choking off the recovery.
The official photo gallery of Elinor Ostrom, joint winner of this
year's Nobel memorial prize in economics, says it all. In one picture,
she stands behind a lectern in a tie-dyed T-shirt, gesticulating wildly
with her right arm. In another, she squats for a portrait in
traditional Nepalese garb in an otherwise male group studying local
irrigation systems.
It is no coincidence the same
year that brought us the global financial crisis brought us the first
female winner in the prize's 41-year history. Economics is changing.
The credit crunch is getting worse on Main Street, despite a Wall
Street bailout now in the trillions of dollars. The Federal Reserve's charts
show that "base money" is rapidly expanding—meaning coins, paper money,
and commercial banks' reserves with the central bank.
It's
time to identify and evaluate the basic assumptions and strategy of
President Obama's recovery plan. Such an assessment suggests that if
present economic strategy continues, in the end the "new normal" will
be a chronically indebted low-wage American worker.
Let's look first at Obama's fundamental justification for bailing out
the financial elite rather than the working majority, and then at the
economic situation of the median worker, who will bear the burden of
the consequences of this policy.
The elites hate to acknowledge it, but when large numbers of ordinary people are moved to action, it changes the narrow political world where the elites call the shots. Inside accounts reveal the extent to which Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon's conduct of the Vietnam war was constrained by the huge anti-war movement. It was the civil rights movement, not compelling arguments, that convinced members of the US Congress to end legal racial discrimination.
In the next few weeks this country will make two decisions of great consequence: Will we send additional troops to Afghanistan? Will we reform our health care system?
It is both instructive and disheartening to see the different ways our policymakers approach these issues.
If you had to explain America’s economic success with one word, that word would be “education.” In the 19th century, America led the way in universal basic education. Then, as other nations followed suit, the “high school revolution” of the early 20th century took us to a whole new level. And in the years after World War II, America established a commanding position in higher education.
