Our Ms. Brooks: Welcome To The Third World
The latest column from Rosa Brooks (published in the Los Angeles Times) is a remarkable bit of analysis with snarkitude. Composed as a letter to the US from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, it quite accurately describes our current economic situation and details just how it is that what was once the super-engine of the world is now spiralling downward.
We thus want to acknowledge the progress you have made in your evolution from economic superpower to economic basket case. Normally, such a process might take 100 years or more. With your oscillation between free-market extremism and nationalization of private companies, however, you have successfully achieved, in a few short years, many of the key hallmarks of Third World economies.
Your policies of irresponsible government deregulation in critical sectors allowed you to rapidly develop an energy crisis, a housing crisis, a credit crisis and a financial market crisis, all at once, and accompanied (and partly caused) by impressive levels of corruption and speculation. Meanwhile, those of your political leaders charged with oversight were either napping or in bed with corporate lobbyists.
Take John McCain, your Republican presidential nominee, whose senior staff includes half a dozen prominent former lobbyists. As he recently put it, "I was chairman of the [Senate] Commerce Committee that oversights every part of the economy." No question about it: Your leaders' failure to notice the damage done by irresponsible deregulation was indeed an oversight of epic proportions. [Emphasis added]
Sen. McCain tried to cover his unbelievable statement in the midst of this carnage that "the fundamentals are sound" by proclaiming that what he really meant was that the American worker was the fundamental he was referring to, and he believes that the American worker would lead us out of the morass. Well, that would be true, but only if the American worker had a job with decent pay and benefits and a home to which he or she could return at the end of the work day. Sadly, that is just not the case, thanks to the efforts of the greed class, freed from any regulation.
And we should have seen it coming, although many of us did. The signals were all there, right out in the open. The greed class was that arrogant.
... Income inequality has increased, as the rich have gotten windfalls while the middle class has seen incomes stagnate. Fewer and fewer of your citizens have access to affordable housing, healthcare or security in retirement. Even life expectancy has dropped. And when your economic woes went from chronic to acute, you responded -- like so many Third World states have -- with an extensive program of nationalizing private companies and assets. Your mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are now state owned and controlled, and this week your reinsurance giant AIG was effectively nationalized, with the Federal Reserve Board seizing an 80% equity stake in the flailing company.
So, this is what the unrestrained free market finally leads to: a Third World Country.
Heckuva job, GOP.
We thus want to acknowledge the progress you have made in your evolution from economic superpower to economic basket case. Normally, such a process might take 100 years or more. With your oscillation between free-market extremism and nationalization of private companies, however, you have successfully achieved, in a few short years, many of the key hallmarks of Third World economies.
Your policies of irresponsible government deregulation in critical sectors allowed you to rapidly develop an energy crisis, a housing crisis, a credit crisis and a financial market crisis, all at once, and accompanied (and partly caused) by impressive levels of corruption and speculation. Meanwhile, those of your political leaders charged with oversight were either napping or in bed with corporate lobbyists.
Take John McCain, your Republican presidential nominee, whose senior staff includes half a dozen prominent former lobbyists. As he recently put it, "I was chairman of the [Senate] Commerce Committee that oversights every part of the economy." No question about it: Your leaders' failure to notice the damage done by irresponsible deregulation was indeed an oversight of epic proportions. [Emphasis added]
Sen. McCain tried to cover his unbelievable statement in the midst of this carnage that "the fundamentals are sound" by proclaiming that what he really meant was that the American worker was the fundamental he was referring to, and he believes that the American worker would lead us out of the morass. Well, that would be true, but only if the American worker had a job with decent pay and benefits and a home to which he or she could return at the end of the work day. Sadly, that is just not the case, thanks to the efforts of the greed class, freed from any regulation.
And we should have seen it coming, although many of us did. The signals were all there, right out in the open. The greed class was that arrogant.
... Income inequality has increased, as the rich have gotten windfalls while the middle class has seen incomes stagnate. Fewer and fewer of your citizens have access to affordable housing, healthcare or security in retirement. Even life expectancy has dropped. And when your economic woes went from chronic to acute, you responded -- like so many Third World states have -- with an extensive program of nationalizing private companies and assets. Your mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are now state owned and controlled, and this week your reinsurance giant AIG was effectively nationalized, with the Federal Reserve Board seizing an 80% equity stake in the flailing company.
So, this is what the unrestrained free market finally leads to: a Third World Country.
Heckuva job, GOP.
Labels: Economy, Republican Lying
posted by Diane at 3:52 AM
2 Comments:
Go Rosa Brooks! We need to broadcast this over and over again. More importantly, the Dems need to hammer this point repeatedly, and associate this failure with the Repugs. Obama finally explicitly tied Republican policies to the country's failures in his convention speech ("you're on your own"). He needs to do this in every single speech he does from now until election day. No more Mr. Bipartisan Nice Guy. The Repugs never play fair (see CA budget standoff), so we all should stop treating them as fair players.
yeah, but like the federal government is going to make a huge profit when value is restored to the collateral held.
even though no one else would touch AIG as too risky, those guys on tv told me, absolutely, the bailout is going to be a money maker.
glad to hear it.
but perhaps you all could help me evaluate an offer i received recently to buy a bridge ...
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