Why the financial crisis was bad for democracy

[xchrom]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/why-the-financial-crisis-was-bad-for-democracy/2013/04/05/84d668de-9c73-11e2-9bda-edd1a7fb557d_story.html


(Photo illustration by Darren Haggar and Tal Goretsky) - “The Alchemists: Three Central Bankers and a World on Fire,” by Neil Irwin. Irwin, a Washington Post columnist and economics editor of Wonkblog, was the Post’s beat reporter covering the Federal Reserve and other central banks from 2007 to 2012. The book is based on reporting that took place in 27 cities in 11 countries. It tells of how the central bankers came to exert vast power over the global economy, from their 17th century beginnings to the present, and tells the inside story of how they wielded that power from 2007 on as they fought a global financial crisis.


***SNIP

n a democratic society, there will always be tension over which decisions should be made by expert appointees, and which by those with the legitimacy and accountability that come with competing for citizens’ votes. The technocrats can make complex decisions quickly, quietly and efficiently. The words “quick, “quiet” and “efficient” are rarely applied to the U.S. Senate or the Italian Parliament — but these institutions are imbued with an authority that comes directly from the people, the explicit consent of the governed.

So, in a crisis, which do you want: unaccountable decisiveness or inefficient accountability?

Consciously or not, we’ve made our choice: The financial crisis and its long, ugly aftermath have marked the triumph of the technocrats.

And the shift of power to the unelected isn’t confined to economic policy and central bankers. In the United States, massive health-care costs threaten to bankrupt the nation if left unchecked; the key method the Obama administration pushed for in its 2010 health-care reform law to deal with the threat was a 15-member Independent Payment Advisory Board, which will recommend ways to reduce Medicare costs that will take effect automatically unless Congress overturns them.

[HiPointDem]

1. "a 15-member board to recommend ways to reduce Medicare that will take effect automatically"

this is the model of their new world order, too.

completely evacuate any semblance of even representative democracy.

check out those free trade agreemetns.

[xchrom]

2. +1