Thursday, May 24, 2007

The poor get richer?

By Libby

The Wall Street Journal pulls a little sleight of hand with a Bush-kissing editorial today. Of course, a lowly, underpaid blogger like myself can't afford to subscribe so I only saw the preview, but the well-heeled Jon Chait read the whole thing and nails the fatal flaw in the Republican funded study. If you choose the right parameters, you can make even the most dismally failed economic policy look good.

Perhaps the study will convince the investor class that their exploitation of Bushenomics is something more noble than simple greed. Maybe the one percenters will even find it amusing that it was so easy to paint their shameless robbery of the economic security of the average American as such a rosy picture. But for the working class Jake, who can't afford health care and is struggling to make ends meet, Bushenomics is a bad joke and nobody is laughing.

Cooking the books won't make that any more palatable for them.

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9 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Good example of,"If the dog won't wag its tail, wag the dog."

10:21:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I just read Bruce Bartletts "imposter" which talks about the sleight of hand in bush's economic policies. It was very good.

at the same time, wall street journal is good on other things and I can't say there are any liberal economists who I read or would read. They have unrealistic and in some cases bordering on fascist views of goverment intervention in the markeplace. They must have been in a coma in the 70's

10:36:00 AM  
Blogger Libby Spencer said...

Rocky that's a phrase that fits just about every policy of this administration.

Lester, not all government intervention is fascist and I might point out that deregulation allowing the formation of corporate monopolies has merely created a totalitarian shadow government run by big business.

But I don't trust any economist's word anyway. They're all of the investor class. Not a one really understands the reality of the average working class Jake.

10:58:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

no, but some types of government regulation are fascists. Do we really need MORE collusion between big business and the government?

Yuo shuold check out "politically incorrect guide to capitalism" it is a really good book that challenged alot of my conceptions and I'm more or less an anrachist

3:47:00 PM  
Blogger Libby Spencer said...

That's the whole idea Lester. We need more oversight and less collusion to break down the corporatocracy.

6:02:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

oversight IS collusion

10:56:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarbanes-Oxley_Act


do you feel any safer? it's all in there. it passed 5 years ago. now we have more beaurocracy and peple finding new ways around these laws

11:03:00 AM  
Blogger Libby Spencer said...

Well Lester, if they're trying to get around the law, it's a clear sign it's needed. At least it provides some small deterrent to unethical practices and I might note big business would very much like to get rid of it altogether because it has succeeded in cramping their style a little.

Giving them carte blanche certainly doesn't do a thing. They won't police themselves.

3:17:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

totally diasgree. it sounds good in theory but what happens is we spend more of our tax money on the governmetn side and the companies spend more of THEIR money on lawyers and insurance and whatnot. it drives up prices, hursts small businesses, and more power goes to the politically connected.

4:22:00 PM  

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