Nobel-Winning Economist Says Obama's Plan Hurts the Folks Who Elected Him (that's us)

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Nobel Prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz, who spoke out against Bush's lack of economic responsibility-taking for the disaster we're still living through is now pointing his finger at Obama. See, as politicians go, Obama is way better than Bush, but he seems to be just as bad in certain ways. According to Stiglitz, Obama's big solution to our economic issues is "ersatz capitalism."

"Ersatz," in case you're curious, is defined by Merriam-Webster.com as "being a usually artificial and inferior substitute or imitation." So, in this case, it's not capitalism that Obama is practicing here. Thankfully, he's not saying it's socialism, either, but here's what he does say:

What the Obama administration is doing is far worse than nationalization: it is ersatz capitalism, the privatizing of gains and the socializing of losses. It is a “partnership” in which one partner robs the other. And such partnerships — with the private sector in control — have perverse incentives, worse even than the ones that got us into the mess.

So what is the appeal of a proposal like this? Perhaps it’s the kind of Rube Goldberg device that Wall Street loves — clever, complex and nontransparent, allowing huge transfers of wealth to the financial markets. It has allowed the administration to avoid going back to Congress to ask for the money needed to fix our banks, and it provided a way to avoid nationalization.

But we are already suffering from a crisis of confidence. When the high costs of the administration’s plan become apparent, confidence will be eroded further. At that point the task of recreating a vibrant financial sector, and resuscitating the economy, will be even harder.

I've been saying, for a while now, that the government has been using the same old tricks to try and fix a failing system. Obama's government is no different in this sense. He is trying the same tricks that got us into this mess in the first place. Instead of forcing the men in suits to take responsibility for their choices, he's letting (almost) everyone keep their jobs and money while the real cost of the failure gets dumped on to us little people.

Gotta love that (crisis-of-)confidence builder, Obama. I almost miss Bush who you could always tell was a lying bastard. Obama seems like such a nice guy, but now he's ignoring the needs of actual Americans in favor of the needs of made-up businesses with corrupt people running them. Lovely.

Hay, Barry, where's my universal health care, man? I haven't seen a doctor in a decade. Yeah, you're welcome for your vote, jerkweed.

Bush Thinks $3 Trillion War is Fine for Economy

This is something I wanted to post about last week but just didn't find a moment, so I'm staying up extra late to get it done. Not that it matters, since the cost of the war in Iraq and its obvious effect on our economy won't be going away any time soon.

Back on February 29, 2008, Democracy Now did almost an entire hour with Nobel Prize winner, Joseph Stiglitz and Professor of public finance at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, Linda Bilmes--the authors of the book "The Three Trillion Dollar War: The True Cost of the Iraq Conflict" (get it from Amazon here: http://snipurl.com/21kf0 ). It seems they've put a rather large price tag on the war and George W. doesn't believe the war is having that big of an effect on the US economy!

Check out the video excerpt from the February 29, 2008 Democracy Now episode (available on ThePete.Com or Utterz.com) to hear these words for yourself or just read them below. Juan Gonzalez, co-host of DN introduces a clip from the "Today" show:

JUAN GONZALEZ: We turn now to take an in-depth look at the cost of the Iraq war. Last week, President Bush rejected charges that the war in Iraq has hurt the US economy. He addressed the issue during an interview with Ann Curry on the Today Show.

ANN CURRY: Some Americans believe that they feel they're carrying the burden because of this economy.

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: Yeah, well--

ANN CURRY: The economy, they say, is suffering because of this war.

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: I don't agree with that.

ANN CURRY: You don't agree with that? It has nothing to do with the economy, the war, the spending on the war?

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: I don't think so. I think, actually, the spending on the war might help with jobs.

ANN CURRY: Oh, yeah?

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: Yeah, because we're buying equipment, and people are working. I think this economy is down because we built too many houses.

JUAN GONZALEZ: While President Bush claimed the war has nothing to do with the economy, one of the country's leading economists has just published a book that puts an estimated price tag on the war in Iraq. The number may surprise you: $3 trillion.

That's the estimate calculated by the Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz and his co-author Linda Bilmes. According to the book, the Iraq War has become the second-most expensive war in US history, after World War II.

Pretty crazy, huh? And what a guy--our fearless leader not thinking a war that cost us $3 trillion is going to hurt our economy.

Where do you think all that money came from? Tax payers? Investors in the Fed? I wish. I'm no expert, but I have trolled the Fed's website and done a bit of reading elsewhere. My theory is that they just made the money from nothing. Really, that's what all banks do when they loan out money. It's not their money they're loaning--it's someone else's. The thing is, when you get it, you spend it and it then counts as part of our economy. But if you follow the trail back, it's not your money--so effectively, it's created from nothing.

That's assuming my brain, educated by the American public school system and Spider-Man comics, didn't screw something up. I could easily be missing something and I hope I am. However, it doesn't look like that's the case. What it *does* look like is that we the people are going to need more than just $600 each to make all of our money worth more again.

If I had any money, I'd put it in Euros. :)

To read the transcript from the Democracy Now broadcast, check it out here: http://www.democracynow.org/…dollar_war

You can also check out the entire episode in video or audio form here:
http://www.democracynow.org/…/29/stream

And to pick up the book "The Three Trillion Dollar War: The True Cost of the Iraq Conflict" and give me a few pennies, buy it through my Amazon link here:

http://snipurl.com/21kf0

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