It was not even ten days ago when we stressed that American bankers, and politicians, were dancing on the Titanic's deck, while mainstream media provided the reassuring music. Well, it appears that last weekend the FED decided to launch the lifeboats, and the Bush administration scrambled to find a place aboard. The action arrived too late to prevent the well-deserved drowning of Bear Stearns, an investment bank with the reputation of having "often operated in the gray areas of Wall Street and with an aggressive, brass-knuckles approach.” Paul Krugman, a mainstream economist who often was a voice of sanity in the Bush administration's years of madness, writes in the New York Times his obituary of the epoch: "Between 2002 and 2007, false beliefs in the private sector — the belief that home prices only go up, that financial innovation had made risk go away, that a triple-A rating really meant that an investment was safe — led to an epidemic of bad lending. Meanwhile, false beliefs in the political arena — the belief of Alan Greenspan and his friends in the Bush administration that the market is always right and regulation always a bad thing — led Washington to ignore the warning signs."
One couldn't say it better. Now, the question is: what will the Democratic candidates say to the country? Are Obama and Hillary too busy counting delegates to offer a vision of economic rescue? Do they think that this election will be decided by clever commercials, and an appeal to voters' fatigue? If so, a political disaster will double the economic disaster which is under our eyes.
One couldn't say it better. Now, the question is: what will the Democratic candidates say to the country? Are Obama and Hillary too busy counting delegates to offer a vision of economic rescue? Do they think that this election will be decided by clever commercials, and an appeal to voters' fatigue? If so, a political disaster will double the economic disaster which is under our eyes.
