It is a remarkable time. On Friday, the Washington Post ran a front-page story titled, "The End of American Capitalism?" Today, the banner headline is...
I'm getting pretty sick of all attempts to complexify this question, so I'll lay it out for you right here. Who's to blame for this incredible mess? It's really clear.
How to explain an administration that nationalizes the banking system even as it praises the free market? How to explain a financial system that turned debt into wealth, and wealth into debt? How is it that most people don't even know which country their house belongs to?
Not only are there no "free markets" on Wall Street--there never have been. There have only been institutions and markets receiving varying degrees of protection from the mass of American citizens.
We saw it when Reagan became president in the early '80s and a decade ago when the price of oil (in real dollars) hit an all-time low. Here we go, back to the past again. That's why it's ominous.
Even if the bail-out finally goes ahead, credit is drying up; unemployment is sure to swell, along with all the rage and resentment it brings. So why am I feeling -- tentatively, terribly -- optimistic?
You see, the silly prince's brain had quit working the same way that all people's brains quit working when they decide they've found One Truth that solves everything.
The House Republicans will be to blame for any calamities that may yet be in store for our economy. Their objection to the modified Paulson Plan was not ideological, it was political.
As we prepare to choose a new president, we should look closely at the candidates' approach to our constitutional culture. It will tell us much more than the issue papers and campaign promises that are mainstays of electoral strategies.
Congress and the current Administration have allowed the nation's finances to deteriorate to a dangerous level.
Obama has a chance to relieve us of the sheer, adulterated "free market" nonsense that has badly misgoverned this county.
While trickle-down economics theory can be used to mask a raw power grab, it is also a philosophy of moral superiority which many conservatives have come to truly believe.
More than Paulson, more than Bernanke, more than pretty much anyone in Washington I'd trust venture capitalist John Doerr to negotiate my stake in the bailout.
The free market is energetic, yes, and creative, yes, and innovative, yes, but stupid. It will gamble its way into bankruptcy, poison its children, destroy its environment -- you can't take the kid anywhere.
No one, not Bernanke, not Paulson, not anybody, knows if the bailout will work. It isn't that the details of the plan are wrong. It's that there are no details.
In the battle over the proper role of government, the high priests of the church of the Free Market -- including Bush, Paulson, and the Masters of Wall Street -- have suffered a monumental defeat. So why are we allowing them to dictate the terms of their surrender?
Over the course of this week, OffTheBus is running a primer on some of the most important foreign policy issues the next president will face. Today, the primer looks at where Obama and McCain stand on energy and environmental policy and the AIDS crisis.
The Interior Department's bungle-dee-botch is what government looks like when you make it "market-based," as Bush once put it. This kind of government answers not to the public but to the party with the most money.
Supply and demand is one factor in determining price, but another factor used to be called "competition." Again, I'm not an economist, but I'm pretty sure that was supposed to drive prices down.
