Deficits Are Bad and the Sun Goes Around the Earth

[ashling]

http://truth-out.org/news/item/15868-deficits-are-bad-and-the-sun-goes-around-the-earth

In the current situation, the blame for the bad economic situation of much of the workforce turns to the failure of individual workers. There is no shortage of news articles that blame workers for lacking the skills needed to succeed in the modern economy, as opposed to blaming policymakers for failing to design policies that keep the economy operating at its capacity.

It is probably worth noting that playing the role of an Erskine Bowles and spreading confusion about basic economics carries large financial rewards. According to The New York Times, Erskine Bowles gets paid $40,000 for many of his speeches.

In addition, Bowles has collected millions of dollars sitting as a director on corporate boards. Perhaps most notable are the hundreds of thousands of dollars he pocketed as a director of Morgan Stanley, one of the too-big-to-fail banks that would have gone bankrupt in 2008 had it not been saved by the Fed. He also was pocketed hundreds of thousands of dollars as director of General Motors, until it actually did go bankrupt in 2009.

The point is that there is lots of money on the table for those who are willing to use their status to help spread confusion and convince the public that there is nothing that can be done about continuing high unemployment and stagnant wages. And every economist knows that if there is money sitting on the table, someone will take it. There will be no shortage of reputable economists and economic pundits prepared to yell about the risks of the debt, even if they have no evidence to support their concerns.