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TechnoratiThe Stimulus Trap
As soon as the Obama administration-in-waiting announced its stimulus plan — this was before Inauguration Day — some of us worried that the plan would prove inadequate. And we also worried that it might be hard, as a political matter, to come back for another round.
Unfortunately, those worries have proved justified. The bad employment report for June made it clear that the stimulus was, indeed, too small. But it also damaged the credibility of the administration’s economic stewardship. There’s now a real risk that President Obama will find himself caught in a political-economic trap.
I’ll talk about that trap, and how he can escape it, in a moment. First, however, let me step back and ask how concerned citizens should be reacting to the disappointing economic news. Should we be patient and give the Obama plan time to work? Should we call for bigger, bolder actions? Or should we declare the plan a failure and demand that the administration call the whole thing off?
Before you answer, consider what happens in normal times.
When there’s an ordinary, garden-variety recession, the job of fighting that recession is assigned to the Federal Reserve. The Fed responds by cutting interest rates in an incremental fashion. Reducing rates a bit at a time, it keeps cutting until the economy turns around. At times it pauses to assess the effects of its work; if the economy is still weak, the cutting resumes.
During the last recession, the Fed repeatedly cut rates as the slump deepened — 11 times over the course of 2001. Then, amid early signs of recovery, it paused, giving the rate cuts time to work. When it became clear that the economy still wasn’t growing fast enough to create jobs, more rate cuts followed.
Normally, then, we expect policy makers to respond to bad job numbers with a combination of patience and resolve. They should give existing policies time to work, but they should also consider making those policies stronger.
And that’s what the Obama administration should be doing right now with its fiscal stimulus. (It’s important to remember that the stimulus was necessary because the Fed, having cut rates all the way to zero, has run out of ammunition to fight this slump.) That is, policy makers should stay calm in the face of disappointing early results, recognizing that the plan will take time to deliver its full benefit. But they should also be prepared to add to the stimulus now that it’s clear that the first round wasn’t big enough.
Unfortunately, the politics of fiscal policy are very different from the politics of monetary policy. For the past 30 years, we’ve been told that government spending is bad, and conservative opposition to fiscal stimulus (which might make people think better of government) has been bitter and unrelenting even in the face of the worst slump since the Great Depression. Predictably, then, Republicans — and some Democrats — have treated any bad news as evidence of failure, rather than as a reason to make the policy stronger.
Hence the danger that the Obama administration will find itself caught in a political-economic trap, in which the very weakness of the economy undermines the administration’s ability to respond effectively.
As I said, I was afraid this would happen. But that’s water under the bridge. The question is what the president and his economic team should do now.
It’s perfectly O.K. for the administration to defend what it’s done so far. It’s fine to have Vice President Joseph Biden touring the country, highlighting the many good things the stimulus money is doing.
It’s also reasonable for administration economists to call for patience, and point out, correctly, that the stimulus was never expected to have its full impact this summer, or even this year.
But there’s a difference between defending what you’ve done so far and being defensive. It was disturbing when President Obama walked back Mr. Biden’s admission that the administration “misread” the economy, declaring that “there’s nothing we would have done differently.” There was a whiff of the Bush infallibility complex in that remark, a hint that the current administration might share some of its predecessor’s inability to admit mistakes. And that’s an attitude neither Mr. Obama nor the country can afford.
What Mr. Obama needs to do is level with the American people. He needs to admit that he may not have done enough on the first try. He needs to remind the country that he’s trying to steer the country through a severe economic storm, and that some course adjustments — including, quite possibly, another round of stimulus — may be necessary.
What he needs, in short, is to do for economic policy what he’s already done for race relations and foreign policy — talk to Americans like adults.
55 Comments so far
Show AllThere's a marvelous book by one G. Edward Griffin: "The Creature from Jekyll Island" which is somewhat heavy reading, but it gives the history of the Federal Reserve, which may seem irrelevant to the discussion going on here but having read it I have found it has given me an "outside the box" look at things and a better understanding of what the heck is going on: Obama/Krugman/Reich and all the rest of them are so off the mark its pathetic. Recommended reading for all Americans.
That's right - take something that doesn't work and do more of it.
Does something about economics as a discipline prohibit the examination of basic, relevant information?
So much of what Krugman says makes sense, but he and just about everyone else who can be called an economist ignores most factors. WHAT the money gets spent on determines what gets produced, and what gets produced in part determines whether people get what people need, and ultimately, nothing else about economy matters except as a cool game to study for those inclined.
So here we find yet another article that simply treats stimulus as a question of More versus Less. If the prior stimulus did not work, we need more. Well, probably so.
More what?
“Economics is extremely useful as a form of employment for economists.”
John Kenneth Galbraith
“Isn't it strange? The same people who laugh at gypsy fortune tellers take economists seriously.”
“When the IMF and the World Bank force a country to cut wages, lay off workers, produce for export instead of their own people, and sell off public property to cronies for less than its value, that's called "economic reform"
“Economics has never been a science - and it is even less now than a few years ago.”
Paul A. Samuelson
“Economics is a subject that does not greatly respect one's wishes”
Nikita Khrushchev
“We have always known that heedless self-interest was bad morals; we now know that it is bad economics.”
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Galbraith's views on economists are ironic considered he himself was an economist. Samuelson too; Samuelson even has an economic theory named after him.
"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's greatest civilizations has been about 200 years. These nations have progressed through this sequence: From bondage to spiritual faith; From spiritual faith to great courage; From courage to liberty; From liberty to abundance; From abundance to selfishness; From selfishness to apathy; From apathy to dependence; From dependence back into bondage." - Alexander Fraser Tytler
Sort of cool, but that's not what's happened. The voters have not voted for this, and they are not receiving the money.
They were promised great wealth for invading Iraq, but that's not what we got that's true.
They didn't elect Bush in 2000, didn't elect him in 2004, didn't vote to enter Iraq or Afghanistan, and did vote to leave - all despite massive propaganda telling them that all these things had something to do with their health and well-being.
They did vote a Dem majority in both houses of Congress in 2006, primarily to get out of Iraq, by all indications. They even voted Obama into office largely under the odd hallucination that he was in some sense an anti-war or semi-war candidate.
Granted, they should have read.
On top of that, they didn't get what they were told and still don't know the half of what they'll pay.
The outsourcing of our industrial base to China and other third world countries, has paid of for Bill and Hillary Clinton.
Bubba is pulling in millions of dollars from foreign countries and Hillary was on the board of directors of Walmart, an outfit that is peddling Chinese Junk.
When will the corporate Media tell us about the Clintons?
It was Clinton who co-operated with Sen Chris Dodd and giving
Dodd's partner a pardon where Dodd ended up with a house
in Ireland. It was Dodd and Phil Gramm who together with the
help of clinton destroyed the Glass Steagle act,that has
brought on the Banking failures. Why are these political racketeers getting away with these crimes?
It was in 1975 that congressman Wright Patman warned us that
the Banks were taking over congress, they laughed at him.
WE must break up the Corporate Media, so we can get the truth
of what is going on in this country.
Or do nothing...
Some of the posters here remind me of the cartoon of the shabbily dressed, long-haired older fellow carrying the sign: The End is Near. Things are not as bad as the Great Depression and they won't get that way unless the Republicans and a few Democrats manage to keep stimulus spending too low. We can fine tune our way out of disaster if we choose. Funny thing though, quite a few people would rather see a total collapse. Silver lining: it should make for more interesting TV.
We didn't get out of the Great Depression by borrowing money from China and pass that on to the kids!
Things are not as bad as the Great Depression not only because First World masses (still) live in different lifestyle dynamics but also because things haven’t reached bottom yet.
We want to believe in that elusive change, which, with the hopelessness of logic (which Krugman slyly abandons) , cannot sustain what we have become accustomed to. Something’s gotta give.
And for people, who have lost everything, the thought of a total collapse is not so objectionable. And that’s not funny.
"There was a whiff of the Bush infallibility complex...its predecessor’s inability to admit mistakes. And that’s an attitude neither Mr. Obama nor the country can afford....What Mr. Obama needs to do is level with the American people."
Ooh, there's that rapier moral analysis we adore you for, Mr. Krugman - discovering the 'deepest' problems of US politics in the personality flaws of Presidents; proposing to correct them with a good liberal finger wagging.
If only Obama could lie down on the couch and grasp that fatal "whiff" of Bush in his behavior, we'd be on the road to real recovery.
Sad laugh.
PK is an idiot. But probably a rich one...
You are right! He's definitely going into denial. Massive amounts of people are about to exhaust their unemployment benefits. And those people and their children won't even be counted as unemployed! So wall street will say, HEY LOOK, unemployment numbers are down. What total bullshit. There is only one source of capital this government should be trying to pry loose; the one in the top 1%s' hands. They need to donate property, cut rent costs, reduce medical costs, etc. They won't do it. Only government can do it and Krugman won't help. So the Great Aggression (my term for this super depression) continues. Many people will be hurt, businesses trashed and much infrastructure destroyed, all because of wall/war street elite greed. They think they are ready. They aren't. Right now I'm sure they (the elite) are double and triple checking the loyalty of the police and the military. And that is their achilles heel. The police and the military come almost exclusively from the lower and middle classes. It's going to get ugly for the elite as well as the rest of us.
Krugman's apologies are more qualified than Reich's. After all, he still works for the N.Y.Times so he can't be expected to face the facts as directly as Reich, who undoubtedly has tenure. Neither does he have a worthy project like Stiglitz ( counting the cost of the War) to fall back on so you can count on more baloney like this from Krugman for some time to come.
You are aware that Krugman has his Nobel Prize to fall back on, yes?
When the topic of the Nobel Prize arose during a conversation with French writer Louis-Ferdinand Destouches (Louis-Ferdinand Céline), he supposedly replied to his interlocutor: "Nobel Prize! Every vaseline-ass in Europe has one! Where's mine?"
· Yr Obd't Servant
Sure.
But, that prize has pretty much guaranteed that Krugman won't have a problem making a living. That was what I meant.
Sorry Paul, your nights at Club 21 will soon be over. Feed and groom your nag for that final run into the sunset.
Throw more money at the banks, yea that's the solution.
This was all planned and spoon fed to us.
I could make $5 an hour in 1974 working labor. You make less now considering the cost of things. ($8 $10 maybe $12)
From the 70s to now, wages froze and production GDP kept rising. We worked 2 or more jobs, mothers worked... etc. That kept the GDP up while wages froze.
To keep up we BORROWED and CONSUMED beyond our means so we could have all that fancy stuff, now produced by other countries!
That's what needs to be told to the public! That's the truth that will not be told. We do not need to be printing money to give to the banks so they can lend us more. They turn around and abbra-kadabra that into more paper with dead president's faces on it. They call it money and use it as money, but the rest of the world knows it's just paper of no value.
We need to throw all money in the toilet and assess what own and start from there. A new economy that takes into account the big asset! THE PLANET WE ARE ROBBING EVERYDAY! No more usury!!!
Yes, because Krugman is advocating throwing money at the banks.
Cicero: "Freedom is participation in power."
This is the weakest, lamest article on any subject I have ever read by Krugman. He sounds like he's talking to the Obama admin. as if they're a bunch of 3rd graders who just collectively stubbed their toes and he's their fairy god mother come to massage their calves and tell them it will all be OK if they go soak their wittle heads.
None of what PK said will create the 18 million jobs he said we needed last week.
Some public works programs will not do it - plus, these jobs are short-term and mostly for the skilled; Gen X and Next are not skilled in the trades.
Some 'green' jobs will not do it.
More 'stimulus' - forcing us, who have no money, to loan even more of our future tax-on-earnings to, basically, ourselves - will not, in any way, create jobs out of thin air.
Jobs - and, even more importantly, careers - are the only things that matter right now. 18 million. Where will they come from...
Mr. Krugman needs to read the article posted today by Mr. Reich. Mr. Reich is thinking outside of the box that poor Mr. Krugman is apparently stuck in.
12.8 trillion dollars as a gift to the ultra rich I would say he has done more than enough already.
The question is what the president and his economic team should do now.
The hopeless corruption and timidity of the Democratic party can lead to only one conclusion: they will do what the pirate$ tell them to do. And what the pirate$ tell them to do will be good only for the pirate$ while the rest of us can eat cake, or more presisely, Twinkies.
"What Mr. Obama needs to do is level with the American people. He needs to admit that he may not have done enough on the first try. He needs to remind the country that he’s trying to steer the country through a severe economic storm, and that some course adjustments — including, quite possibly, another round of stimulus — may be necessary."
I don't understand. Obama is following the same path Bush took and yet that counts as steering the country in the right direction ? Would Paul Krugman be saying this if Mccain were doing the same thing? Why do some people sugar coat some and whack others for doing the same thing? As a Democrat who got sapped out and voted for Nader after feeling disaffected from Obama shifting his positions to Republican version, I'm feeling even more disaffected by such partisan double standards. I cannot understand why Krugman is standing up for Obama even after the obvious. Because he's a Democrat ?
Bennett Miller
Shreveport, LA
Err, the Republicans pretty much are en masse are against ANY stimulus spending. Look at the recent votes on the stimulus spending.
It is ironic that some leftist posters here seem to agree with the right wing view that things should be allowed to crash and burn. Nevermind the poor that will be out of homes and jobs, and struggling to put food in the table.
"Obama is following the same path Bush took..." I thought we were talking about the stimulus. If so, Bush did not spend any stimulus money. The Republicans are dead set against stimulus spending (unless it's for the F-22 or similar). The economy is going nowhere without enough government stimulus spending. The government is giving money to banks basically for free to lend to business. Business isn't interested. Government stimulus spending must increase unless we want SERIOUS pain in the American economy. And smart spending is better than building bridges to nowhere. There are great changes afoot I hope, but the basics of economics have not changed overnight. Krugman is not the only voice to listen to, but he is the best.
Ok, but what about the recent war spending bill? And why are more tax cuts included in that stimulus bill. I still don't buy the arguments supporting government taking our tax dollars and giving them to the banks. I don't see much smart spending in this admin either.
Bennett Miller
Shreveport, LA
Sadly, we find ourselves in such a mess that even stupid stimulus spending is really not bad. On the other hand, smart stimulus spending is an incredibly good move. That will help us in the short run and in the long. It's actually a great opportunity to set up America to compete better in the future instead of a slow slide to second world status. If people don't have work, they don't pay taxes, or buy stuff.
Why do people keep talking like this? A regular recession is a normal part of the business cycle. Production gets ahead of demand, the economy slows down, inventory is reduced until there is demand again. That's not what's happening now. This is a depression. Its cause is the out-of-kilter economic restructuring that "Reaganomics" has achieved (w/help from the Dems like Clinton) over the last 30-odd years. Details aside, it has beggared the middle class (and SCREWED the poor), the very sectors that create demand. That's why "credit creation" is a joke and has failed. We don"t need credit, we need INCOME. It's how our economy works. "Cygnus" had it right. The problem (which is being illustrated in the farces now being played out in D.C.; health care reform and the climate bill) is the fatally corrupting influence of money, more accurately, the class of Anglo-American bankers and their corporate allies whose addiction to wealth qualifies as a mental illness. They can't stop. They can't see a big picture. As long as people vote the corporate party (Dem/Rep) nothing can change.
"Its cause is the out-of-kilter economic restructuring that "Reaganomics" has achieved
That's why "credit creation" is a joke and has failed. We don"t need credit, we need INCOME. "
Read the article again. Krugman is pretty much saying this.
RE: "As long as people vote the corporate party (Dem/Rep) nothing can change."
This pretty much answers any question relating to the massive problems we face.
RE: Paul Krugman
Since Krugman is a Liberal, his criticism will never be much more than tepid. Maybe, we should stop wasting our time paying attention to people like him.
Hear! Hear! Rat own!
"What Mr. Obama needs to do is level with the American people."
That's too funny!
I can hear Obama: Fellow Americans; I realize you are presently in debt up to your eyeballs. We can talk about how you got there but instead of looking at the past, let's look at our future - the one which will be led and implemented by the same group of monetary/financial gurus who got us into this mess in the first place. These are the people who understand that all Americans must continue to borrow and spend and fall deeper into debt so that the fiat dollar will survive and fiat governments can keep on spending beyond their means while our economically concerned CEO banksters lavish themselves with $$$millions in bonuses because they're doing such a great job to stabilize the economy and keep the stock markets from collapsing.
As my good friend Dick Durbin has said, "the banks run this country".....and he wasn't kidding! So, as a result of this reality, credit expansion for borrowing and spending is critical in order to maintain the illusion of wealth creation. However, as patriotic Americans, you must also realize that only a select few will continue to reap the real wealth while the rest of you remain in your subservient position to the few who have allowed you to become their debt-ridden slaves.
Don't you feel better and more optimistic now that I'm leveling with you?
Gail: You beat me to it. That sentence--"What Mr. Obama needs to do is level with the American people"--also caught my eye. And I had the same reaction as you--I laughed!
Gail, your truth is as laser-sharp as Paul Street in his fabulous new expose "Barack Obama and the Future of American Politics", but your humor is even sharper.
Yes, Obama is nothing but a more sophisticated and perfectly chosen shill for the ruling-elite 'corporate financial Empire' that controls our country from behind the facade of their two-party "Vichy" sham of democracy.
Although Obama exudes calm charm and the image of straight talking and "leveling with Americans" he (as Paul Street extensively documents) is exactly what he himself warned a Carolina black audience about during the campaign when Obama sub-consciously self-projected, "don't let them run the old 'okie doke' on you" ---- Obama could not have been more on target in exposing his own role in American politics of the 21st century.
Obama has become the 'oki doke' man of the 21st century in giving us the that old "okie doke" on foreign/war(s) policy, the same old "okie doke" on universal health care, that same old "okie doke" on economic looting and oppression of the banking industry that he continues to bail out with our common-wealth, and that same old "okie doke" with hundreds of other serious progressive concerns of the American people that his is ignoring with his supposed "leveling".
And even more dangerously, the Okie doke man is now running his (actually, the Empire's) 'Okie Doke' around the world on all the citizens of the world in s=doing the shilling of economic Empire that he was orginally and perfectly picked to run by the Empire that is nominally headquartered in the US -- but cares not a whit for the US people.
[Here's a CD post that I made on June 23rd in response to a Bob Herbert column, "Who Are We", which contains the link to Obama's initial Feb/March 08 campaign video of that old "okie doke" --- of which he is certainbly the new master!]
I just remembered that during his campaign (in Feb. 2008) Obama talked about "some people trying to pull the old Oki-doke on you" --- which I seem to remember Obama bringing up to the audience about Clinton trying to imply that he would be un-beatable as her VP.
Well, "Surprise, surprise, surprise", as Jim Nabors used to say.
Obama's warning about someone trying to "run the old Oki-doke on you" was prescient after all --- because that someone was him.
Here's a video of the O-man talking about the old 'Oki-doke' that he certainly was running on us. [His Oki-doke comment is about 1:30 into the video].
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gh69Zi2rV-U
What ironic foreshadowing!
Alan MacDonald
Sanford, Maine
There are so many holes springing leaks Mr. Krugman. They all must be plugged in order to save the ship.
Your refusal to acknowledge this, at this late hour Mr. Krugman, is becoming worrisome. Stimulus alone will solve little.
(1) Shred NAFTA, WTO
(2) Dissolve the Fed into the Treasury and restore the job of controlling money supply and credit to the people.
(3) Increase the minimum wage to at least $10/hr.
(4) Pass EFCA
(5) 90% Top Marginal Tax Rate on incomes over $3 million
(6) Close all corporate tax loopholes
(7) Put Glass Steagall back in place
(8) End trading in Credit Default Swaps, Eliminate all debts owed thru them
(9) Tax Hedge funds between 35-50%
(10) Cut Defense Budget 50% Immediately
(11) Audit the Pentagon (going back the past 20 yrs.)
(12) End all wars/occupations and close all military bases
(13) Pass single-payer healthcare
(14) Enact a Public-works program ($3 trillion) to build an entirely new energy infrastructure (solar, wind, thermal and the lines that'll carry the new electrons) putting millions to work.
(15) Force banks to properly state the actual debt on their balance sheets. End government subsidies. If they cannot survive let them fail or let the FDIC reorganize them.
(16) Return control of the airwaves to its rightful owners, the public, and use antitrust legislation to break up media megaliths. The people MUST KNOW WHAT'S GOING ON TO PREVENT RECURRENCE OF THE ABOVE.
That's an ambitious project you've got there. But you have to start somewhere and this is my Christmas wish list.
And (17).....investigate 9/11 and amend the history books.
Read: “Collateral Damage” by E. P Heidner, part I and II.
>>> www.scribd.com/people/documents/2169400-ep-heidner <<<
"The people MUST KNOW WHAT'S GOING ON TO PREVENT RECURRENCE OF THE ABOVE."
Cygnus ----- you have my vote.
I would add a tax on accumulated wealth over 100 million of 20% per year. Yes that is right after a few years no one would have more than about 100 million dollars. Yes they can leave the country. Also add ownership of all things in the US only by citizens.
Cygnus: I believe you are right. Krugman's suggestion that Obama needs to "level with us" and talk to us like adults (as he allegedly did in the case of race and foreign policy) is way off the mark, when simplistic solutions like "more stimulus" when a little isn't enough is being prescribed. Last night on ABC news I heard Warren Buffett express the same child-like analogy when he said that "not-enough" economic stimulus is like taking only a half a Viagra pill and expecting the drug's advertised effect. PK didn't say it in that salty a manner, but the over-simplicity is the same. In his insistence on the oh-so-different nature of good monetary and fiscal policy, he seems to advocate BIG doses of fiscal stimulus as compared with the incremental tinkering of monetary adjustments in interest rates. Even if he is right that a big enough dose of stimulus funding will do the trick, the analogy with Viagra use might be carried a step further. When a man takes Pfizer's miracle drug he doesn't expect to "recover" from EDS and there is no such thing as ever going off the drug if he wants to continue to enjoy its effects. Similarly, Robert Reich's article today makes the point that we will never "recover" from this recession, however big a bang of stimulus we give it, but a maintenance dose of same may be needed forever: UNLESS we move toward the "new economy" of empowered consumership that will be our only economic salvation. Your list, Cygnus, of things needing to be done in this direction of getting off our permanent addiction to stimulus "drugs" is indeed a good start in a real "levelling with the people" on what will be required to pull us from the economic doldrums.
"In his insistence on the oh-so-different nature of good monetary and fiscal policy, he seems to advocate BIG doses of fiscal stimulus as compared with the incremental tinkering of monetary adjustments in interest rates."
That is NOT what he is saying. Reread the article. Reread this, for example, from the article:
"Normally, then, we expect policy makers to respond to bad job numbers with a combination of patience and resolve. They should give existing policies time to work, but they should also consider making those policies stronger.
And that’s what the Obama administration should be doing right now with its fiscal stimulus. "
He is saying that the POLITICS of fiscal policy is very different from that of monetary policy. The POLITICS, NOT the ECONOMICS. He is saying that the ECONOMICS are similar. He is saying that policy makers should do with fiscal policy, what they normally do with monetary policy. Incremental doses, followed by stepping back to assess the effects. Then depending on the effects, either not doing anything, or, more incremental doses.
In the past 30 years, government spending has come to be regarded as Bad. Evil. Politics. Forget the right, read the comments here, and on other CD economics threads: when there is talk of more government fiscal stimulus, there is a knee jerk reaction against it.
Cygnus-X1-isaHole July 10th, 2009 10:02 am.PK is a professional Gatekeeper. His wallet/ego is an earmuff.
Yes, but why do you offer such a moderate agenda, Cygnus. It's time to think big.
I have much respect for Mr. Krugman. He seems like decent fellow.
However, he operates from the same faulty premise the not-so-decent economists do, which is:
How do we offer just enough to spark the economy without upsetting the status-quo...without angering the kings, queens and elite.
The answer is simple...it cannot be done...not this time. Not even close.
The kings, queens and elite are going to have to accept seismic, 180 degree change if we're to get back on a sustainable track that offers a livable future for all.
Newsflash...they're not going to.
Mr. Krugman either hasn't figured that out yet or he's afraid to take the difficult stance.
Stimulus, even the focused large stimulus Mr. Krugman calls for is a bandaid.
The patient, which is our economy, has multiple oozing bleeding infected lacerations.
All need to be cleansed, sewn-up and have dressing applied.
Cygnus, you could even more accurately say "our economy has a sucking chest wound" from the 40MM RPG or "financial WMD's" (as Warren Buffet calls derivatives and CDSs).
In fact, that "sucking chest wound" in our economy (and, more importantly in our indivisible political-economy has been caused by the ruling-elite's 'corporate financial Empire' scamming the economy for nearly a century with the same basic trick ---- making faux profits by dumping negative externality costs on US.
The current US economy of EMPIRE is nothing but a self-serving scheme in which faux profits are created by dumping negative externality costs on us, our society, our government, etc.
Greg, are you kidding? How big do we need to get? If the SOBs ever got past #1 I'd be celebrating. This is very good list but one item left out is declare lobbyists and acceptance of money from lobbyists to be illegal. Lets get over one hurdle at a time, but at least lets start.
Please feel free to add to my list.
I acknowledge it's incomplete.
He needs to focus more on substance than appearance. Unfortunately, his "charm" may have only resulted in his own self-deception. It is time to shelve Geithner and Summers, and start listening to the "real" economists who are far better qualified (and not so compromised) on how to get us back on track.