Capitalist Fools by Joseph E. Stiglitz

[Javaman]

(A brilliant read)
http://www.vanityfair.com/magazine/2009/01/stiglitz200901?<br />printable=true¤tPage=all

Behind the debate over remaking U.S. financial policy will be a debate over who’s to blame. It’s crucial to get the history right, writes a Nobel-laureate economist, identifying five key mistakes—under Reagan, Clinton, and Bush II—and one national delusion.

There will come a moment when the most urgent threats posed by the credit crisis have eased and the larger task before us will be to chart a direction for the economic steps ahead. This will be a dangerous moment. Behind the debates over future policy is a debate over history—a debate over the causes of our current situation. The battle for the past will determine the battle for the present. So it’s crucial to get the history straight.

What were the critical decisions that led to the crisis? Mistakes were made at every fork in the road—we had what engineers call a “system failure,” when not a single decision but a cascade of decisions produce a tragic result. Let’s look at five key moments.

[Selatius]

1. How come he isn't on Obama's economic team???

[chimpymustgo]

2. Cause he's been calling Obama's economic team OUT on their bullshit. It's pretty clear in the

article.

The O-team is the same old deregulating supply-siders.

[Selatius]

3. Yeah, that's why I asked. His current team is crap. He will have to babysit them all day if...

he orders them to do things they find conflicts with their blind ideology.

[JDPriestly]

4. Because Obama's economic team is made up of capitalist fools

and I do not mean to say that all capitalists are fools, but those on Obama's team, or most of them anyway, are.

[chimpymustgo]

6. I just don't understand the choices. I can see why he might want some of them on the team. But ALL

of them? "he'll have to babysit them all day" is so true. Unless they've all seen they light and the error of their ways - and their "flawed economic philosophy."

-snip-

The truth is most of the individual mistakes boil down to just one: a belief that markets are self-adjusting and that the role of government should be minimal. Looking back at that belief during hearings this fall on Capitol Hill, Alan Greenspan said out loud, “I have found a flaw.” Congressman Henry Waxman pushed him, responding, “In other words, you found that your view of the world, your ideology, was not right; it was not working.” “Absolutely, precisely,” Greenspan said. The embrace by America—and much of the rest of the world—of this flawed economic philosophy made it inevitable that we would eventually arrive at the place we are today.

-snip-

[TacticalPeek]

5. Stiglitz is a obviously a whining, Nazi troll who wants Obama to fail.

Why is this defeatist crap even allowed to be posted here?

::sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm:

[femmedem]

7. One point he left out:

Why did American consumers borrow so much? Largely because their wages didn't keep up with inflation. Many people had to use their credit cards to pay medical bills, to take their kids to the dentist, or fix their cars so they could still get to work.

Something is wrong with the system when the gap between the lowest paid workers and the CEO's is so large.