Wednesday, December 24, 2008

Dean Baker Saying It Clearly

Dean Baker on the surge in real wages last month, mainly due to the disappearance of roughly $14 trillion in "counterfeit" wealth from the economy, by means of the housing bubble burst and the stock market crash.

The money quote, "[W]hen the rich lose wealth it is a gain to everyone else. In short, they have our money."

Monday, December 15, 2008

Singlethink

David Sirota helps us remember our way--hopefully--back toward sanity.

In the slow-motion train wreck that became the current economic meltdown, our bipartisan political Establishment and the sycophantic punditburo have been wrong over and over and over again. They told us that eviscerating consumer protections would unleash the market's benevolent power and boost the economy. They told us that a trillion-dollar Wall Street bailout would solve a credit crisis. They told us that bailout would be subjected to intense oversight and scrutiny.

Wrong, wrong and wrong -- and when critics predicted just that, sneering commentators and congressional leaders berated us as know-nothing Luddites, conspiracy theorists, or both.

Saturday, December 13, 2008