The Evolution of Greed, or How You Will Be Made To Pay, Again...

Submitted by Vern Radul on June 30, 2011 - 10:32am

As described by his bio, Jeff Madrick is a regular contributor to The New York Review of Books and a former economics columnist for The New York Times.

Editor of Challenge Magazine, visiting professor of humanities at The Cooper Union, and senior fellow at the Roosevelt Institute and the Schwartz Center for Economic Policy Analysis, The New School, Madrick's recent book "The Case for Big Government", was named one of two 2009 PEN Galbraith Non-Fiction Award Finalists, Madrick now has a new book out just published titled "Age of Greed, The Triumph of Finance and the Decline of America, 1970-Present".

Tighten your belt a notch or two. In the first of a multipart interview Madrick talks here with Paul Jay of The Real News Network discussing the US Government deficit, the debt "ceiling", the growing jobs crisis, whether or not to cut government spending and services, the Obama administrations actions, and points out the artificiality of the so called "debate" that has led to the deficit becoming the "problem" that the administration and the government will 'deal with' rather than unemployment or the stagnant economy - thereby virtually guaranteeing that - shades of Greece and austerity - it will be you who will pay for the economic collapse - stating that:

Well, it's not an economics debate. It's political showmanship, a carnival, I think, mostly the Republicans trying to get the edge. But Obama threw in the towel on the essence of this argument some time ago, when he agreed that balancing the budget was a primary goal of his administration earlier rather than later. Once he gave in on that, by naming the Bowles-Simpson commission to come up with a plan, he was going to start losing the debate.

Real News Network - June 30, 2011
Age Of Greed
Jeff Madrick, author of Age Of Greed, the Triumph of Finance and the Decline of America, 1970 to present discusses the roots of the current crisis
...full transcript here...

Comments

Submitted by Vern Radul on June 30, 2011 - 10:37am.

My bowl is empty. Is it lunchtime yet?

Submitted by Anthony Noel on June 30, 2011 - 1:20pm.

It's so hard...

to type, with a cat on one's keyboard!

Submitted by Vern Radul on June 30, 2011 - 3:16pm.

Especially

a hungry one!

Submitted by Lafayette on July 1, 2011 - 1:12pm.

What is the deficit all about?

Frankly, I am not sure what Greed has to do with Deficits. Long before Greed arose in the "American way of life", deficits existed. Look how alarmingly it has risen, here.

If we take 1970 as a base-line, then the compound growth of the debt has been a 7% per annum. What's more, as Paul Krugman says today in the NYT:

The federal debt limit is a strange quirk of U.S. budget law: since debt is the consequence of decisions about taxing and spending, and Congress already makes those taxing and spending decisions, why require an additional vote on debt? And traditionally the debt limit has been treated as a minor detail. During the administration of former President George W. Bush — who added more than $4 trillion to the national debt — Congress, with little fanfare, voted to raise the debt ceiling no less than seven times.

So, where were the Repubs when Bush whammied the National Debt? Not complaining anywhere that I know of ...

If we look at the US budget (see here) we note that the largest expenditures are for what Americans do not see as particularly discretionary. Fully 75% of all expenditures are made in the following categories:
* Social Security
* DoD
* UI/Welfare
* Medicare
* Medicaid

Of the above, which one shows the most opportunity for reduction? You betcha, the Department of Defense.

Which expenditures, if the PotUS is smart, he will get the pro-DoD Replicants to accept to cut in exchange for increases in marginal income taxation at the higher levels of compensation.

Let us hope ...

Submitted by Vern Radul on July 1, 2011 - 2:22pm.

Hope all you want

I'll look at reality instead.

As Madrick points out in his book and in the video interview above, it appears that the deficit is what Obama will use as his excuse to avoid addressing things like the jobs and housing crises that millions of ordinary people are facing, and perhaps also use it as an excuse to enable more transferring of wealth from ordinary people to his main supporters like Wall Street, the insurance industry, weapons manufacturers, and mortgage lenders turned property owners, whom he always takes care of.

It quite obviously 'pays' to be an Obama 'supporter', after all...

Submitted by Cherokee Girl on July 1, 2011 - 8:57pm.

thank you, Alan Simpson

You sound like a republican going after "entitlements" conveniently forgetting that it was paid for and raided long ago. They are just covering their spending of OUR money. Social Security is fine, if they put back the money. Medicare doesn't need 'cuts' it needs to be streamlined and reformed to go after the fraud and abuse. Try that budget tool, you'll see what I mean. We don't have to do this on the backs of the middle class. And once again, Dems ignore this political gold, trying to walk the fence on each and every issue.

Submitted by Cherokee Girl on July 1, 2011 - 8:53pm.

I balanced the budget in 5 minutes

And I didn't hurt anyone. Now, where did I put my donut? LOL

NYT Balance the Budget Tool

Submitted by Lafayette on July 2, 2011 - 4:00am.

It takes money

VR: perhaps also use it as an excuse to enable more transferring of wealth from ordinary people to his main supporters like Wall Street, the insurance industry, weapons manufacturers, and mortgage lenders turned property owners, whom he always takes care of.

Pap for the masses.

If you want the Middle-class Rip-off by the Upper-class to continue, then keep spouting the above and we'll get Obama un-elected. That will give the Replicants solid power in Congress and put someone-like-Romney (Replicant-lite) into the White House. Iow, it's playing into the enemy's hands and will stop dead-in-its-tracks any advancement of progressive ideas in America.

Like it or not, it takes money in America to get elected to office. (Try it, you won't like it.) But it IS the only way, until election laws change. The McCain-Feingold Act made a good attempt, but the Supremes have under-minded it - this upcoming election will have Super-PACs galore.

And for what? More mindless mumbo-jumbo to manipulate mentalities via the media. And unfortunately that mumbo-jumbo works. People actually believe the defamation and insinuation that the media peddles in sound-bites and vote accordingly.

This is "Free Speech" upon which this country was founded? If George Washington could come back to have a look-see at it, he'd vomit.

Submitted by Vern Radul on July 2, 2011 - 7:13am.

This thread is about the jobs and housing crises

You come into a thread about obama joining with the republicans to sell a fake issue rather than dealing with the jobs and housing crises, and instead of addressing those issues all you have and all obama has is fear of republicans to sell?

The republicans sell fear and you figure emulating them is the way to go?

When a salesman tells you you should buy his product and the best reason he can give you is that the other guys product is crap, he may be right about the other guys product, but it also means he hasn't got anything worth buying.

Obama is either utterly powerless to produce any positive progressive results, in which case he's not worth voting for, or he's got the power to produce progressive results and refuses to, in which case he's not worth voting for.

Take your pick. Good luck. Are you an example of the best the democrats and obama have to offer now? If so, don't be surprised if someone starts up a new progressive alliance to challenge them.

Submitted by Anthony Noel on July 2, 2011 - 2:43pm.

Lafayette...

you are breathtakingly - or willfully - ignorant of the dire consequences for the working poor and middle class brought about by advocating the "lesser of two evils" approach to voting you seek to perpetuate here.

There is absolutely no basis for the belief that we have to "settle" for anything, and a vote for Obama is doing just that. (Indeed, it is far worse.) By ignoring the real issues - based on real facts - that Vern raises here vis a vis Madrick's book, you become a perfect example not of what you seem to believe (that party loyalty will eventually change things for the better), but the opposite: That unexamined party loyalty among neolibs like yourself - and neocons along with you - is the crux of the problem.

Examine Progressive history for even 20 seconds and you will see that that the very sort of alliance we seek to nurture is what led, in 25 short years - to the passage of four constitutional amendments and the eight-hour workday - and that even its dying echoes brought us Social Security, Medicare, Head Start, and civil rights. All without ever winning the White House. Or, you can leave your head in the sand.

Electoral wins are only wins when they bring about the reforms the winner claimed to support during the campaign. Failing that, they are losses - and worse yet, they are lies. The way we combat that - the way Progressives did, successfully - is by coalescing around what ANYONE, left, right and center, can see is the morally right thing to do, and by challenging presidents and congresspeople to do it. Not by continuing to give them our votes on the vague promise that things will be better next time if we do. We have all the proof we need that's not the case.

Wake up.

Submitted by Cherokee Girl on July 8, 2011 - 9:17pm.

we roll our eyes

when you wag your finger at us like that, Lafayette. You do the real Lafayette a disservice. He was one of the first Progressives. Don't you think we've considered that whole splitting the vote thing? Give us some credit for doing our own critical thinking and coming to the right conclusion for each of us and our conscience. Your fear mongering falls on deaf ears here. We are chewing gum, blowing bubbles and rolling our eyes at your long winded lectures while we get back to doing real work that will make a real difference.

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