mediapro

How We Will Know When Economic Recovery Begins

Huzzah!

And for the few who missed the details of bad economic policy, let's retrace a bit of the recent thirty year flirt with Friedmanomics:

Flash back to the neo-con's answer to 1970's stagflation and Milton Friedman's Shock Economics Theory he plied so well in South America for right wing fascists.

Roll tape a bit forward to the Gipper. Cut taxes, spend on defense out the wazoo, run record deficits, de-regulate markets and watch Uncle Milties' magic work.

While every right wing neo-con tape loop is buzzing with out-of-control GSEs, we all seem to conveniently ignore how all of this silly and frightening theoretical economic approach played out around the world through the likes of the IMF, World Bank, Halliburton, and their ilk.

Look at any country where this supply-side, trickle down, deregulated gambit has played and look at how eeiry is the similarity between those countries and this one:

1. The top 1% control 40% of all financial wealth in the U.S. The top 20% another 52%, leaving the rest of us (80%) America's financial wealth at a whopping 8%.

2. In terms of inherited wealth only 1.6% inherit more than $100,000. 91.9% receive nothing. Yet the "death tax" was/is the highest priority on the ultra-conservative agenda.

Now for some sobering reminders:

Under Clinton we enjoyed a $287 Billion SURPLUS that's now an ever-growing DEFICIT that at last peek was nearing $1.4 Trillion and national debt that has grown from $5.7 Trillion to $10.2 Trillion in just seven years.

It wasn't because Clinton was an economic genious. He simply returned out-of-control revenue reduction (tax cuts) back to the Reagan rates and chose folks who shared his philosophy of government and its role. I'll put my money in the hands of the guys that believe that it's the government's job to invest in the 80% of us that need practical ways to grow our own wealth (smart energy policy, infrastructure development, education).


On Feb 05 03:14 AM constructe wrote:

> I think the market will recover when 1) the SEC does its job and
> susses out the muck, 2)when the market goes down when the government
> tries to dump more money into the system through bailouts or stimulus
> 3) When we close some of these bad banks and rid ourselves of the
> two terrible siblings of Uncle Sam (Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac) 4)
> When heads start rolling from bad companies and crooked behavior
> on wall Street 5) When we either re-enstate Glass Stegal, regulate
> derivatives especially ones betting on US $ defaults and CDS and
> CDOs, or get rid of allowing banks to hide losses off balance sheet
> (maybe doing all at once is too hard for the market to bear).
>
> The market downturn is a intrinsic effect of poor regulation, corruption,
> bad economic policy, intrinsic deficit spending, and shoddy accounting.
> It is not just a issue of a housing bubble. That was just the last
> straw that broke the camel's back.