bobace

The Pursuit of Wealth and Its Consequences

Each Epoch of economic fall-out raises similar responses that support history repeating itself. If we could stand outside the frying pan and survey economic thought over the past 200 (or so) years we will find those that had considered ethical issues. American political economist and sociologist Thorstein Veblen's The Theory of the Leisure Class (1899) was an early critic of “conspicuous consumption” and waste in the "gilded age".

Tim Duy's comments beg the question: when are we going to learn that leaving economic controls in the hands of few rich and powerful only leads to wealthier and more powerful rich and powerful?

Great American Yankee Doodle Dandy families and their Cannon Fodder conscript children are immersed in the jingoism and rhetoric of the 4th of July while the captains and generals of US enterprise steal, defraud and walk-away from accountability on a super-nova scale.

If Obama focuses on that "commey" technique of economic planning and eschews the noise on the center-right the world may have a chance to rebuild a sustainable economy based on green technologies, better roads, bridges, civic infrastructure and jobs for those less inclined to be hired as brokers, traders and professors with black-box trading techniques for the next LTCM.