I’m not a fan of this ridiculous deficit obsession and wish Obama and the Democrats and even Republicans would rise to the historic occasion in front of them and pass meaningful demand-side legislation, but I can’t help but enjoy the game Obama is playing with the little mouse from Virginia:
Tag Archives: government
Stiglitz: “The belief in free and unfettered markets brought the world to the brink of ruin.”
Joesph Stiglitz says supply-side economics almost destroyed the world in 2008, and its back again to try to finish the job. Continue reading
What Makes Obama So Sure Independent Voters Want a Referee Daddy and Not a Roosevelt?
"Eat your peas."
Jackie Calmes in the New York Times today, in analysis pretending to be a news report, actually does seem to be telling a truth about what lies behind President Obama’s words at his press conference yesterday. I know Bob Somerby, one of my original Internet heroes, would be annoyed by any presumption to know what’s in the mind of a politician beyond what’s in his words, but I’ll explain what I mean after the quote after the jump. Continue reading
Republicans Are Not Free (Is the President?)
Lancet-fluke infected ant marches to the top of a grass blade where a sheep will ingest it. Much like House Republicans and the supply-side mind virus.
Let’s get down to brass tacks: Republicans are slaves to a fantasy ideology called supply-side. They are not free to consider any actions other than those that enrich the rich. The ostensible logic of this compulsion of theirs is that the wealthy alone are capable of distributing their own wealth, that they do this by investing in ventures that create jobs for the non-wealthy. But let’s be real: Republicans are not free to think beyond the first step: Enrich the rich. Any sector other than the rich doesn’t exist for Republicans. Enrich the rich.
In this, Republicans are exactly like the lancet-fluke infected ants Daniel Dennett likes to cite when discussing freedom and religion. Like these helplessly suicidal ants, Republicans are merely the vessel by which a very dangerous meme propagates itself. Until very recently it was not absolutely clear how dangerous this meme was, but the conditions for a perfect storm unleashing the danger have been brewing since the tandem events of the financial crisis of 2008 and the election of Barack Obama. Continue reading
Fodder for #DEMANDside Argument: 12 Graphs to Make the Blood Boil
From Mother Jones, a dozen bits of graphic evidence that supply-side economics is the wrong medicine for what ails the US economy, if shared prosperity is the health standard for national prosperity. Just one pair makes that point perfectly:
GROWTH IS BACK… …BUT JOBS AREN’T
Spread the word: #Demandside
Three articles in today’s New York Times have only reinforced my determination to get the word #Demandside into the national conversation. I have little faith in anything, let alone American politics or the national discourse, but I do have utter faith in the notion that if our political so-called leaders do not return to pre-Reagan-era demand-side economics, we can kiss the prospect for shared prosperity good-bye. Continue reading
“America is not a democracy. It’s a Republic.”
I saw a variation on this slogan at another WordPress blog last night, and this explanation of it:
Our Founding Fathers deemed this an important distinction to make and discussed the matter quite a bit. In the end, our Founding Fathers claimed that a democracy was both extreme and dangerous for a country as it would most assuredly result in the oppression of the minority by the majority. Take this one example from Founding Father, Elbridge Gerry: “The evils we experience flow from the excess of democracy.” And Thomas Jefferson said that democracy should never be practiced outside the limits of a town.
In a comment, I had to ask the author to connect with this hackneyed notion intellectually Continue reading
Tragic Farce 