There are six things Obama needs to fix as we approach "a long, profound, painful process of change."
The financial crisis is even worse than people think (and people already think it's pretty bad), and we aren't doing enough to stop it, economist and Mother Jones contributor James K. Galbraith told the House Financial Services Committee on Thursday morning. From his prepared testimony:
In 1930, John Maynard Keynes wrote, "The world has been slow to realize that we are living this year in the shadow of one of the greatest economic catastrophes of modern history." That catastrophe was the Great Crash of 1929, the collapse of money values, the destruction of the banking system. The questions before us today are: is the crisis we are living through similar? And if so, are we taking adequate steps to deal with it? I believe the answers are substantially yes, and substantially no.
Galbraith pointed to six significant problems with the Obama administration's response to the financial crisis. First, he said, the White House is being way too optimistic:
Peacenik looked and looked and looked and looked for some good news to head into the weekend. Peacenik found the Leaf score. Toronto 5, N.Y. Islanders 4. Other than that it is all bad. Bad foreign policy. Bad economic policy. Bad judicial policy. And the wingnuts are still dominating the airwaves and framing the debate. How Newt Gingrich or Karl Rove get on tv is beyond Peacenik. This article by Galbraith echos the comments of some of the now popular doomers. The status quo is not coming back. Business as usual is not coming back. A consumer driven economy is not coming back. Obama probably know this. If he tells the truth will that make things worse? Peacenik doesn't think maintaining the illusion is helpful at this point. Time for reality. Have a good weekend.
