Reply #4: Dean Baker: "we have an election based largely on nonsense." [View All]

[Better Believe It]

Why Growth Still Feels Like Recession
Think the US economy's 2% growth is a good news story? Think again: it has to be 2.5% just to stop joblessness rising
by Dean Baker
October 29, 2010

This can't be emphasized enough. Missing the housing bubble was an act of astounding incompetence for an economist. This is driving the school bus into oncoming traffic; it is the kitchen cook burning down the restaurant; it is the computer technician causing a complete freeze of the company's systems.

None of these highly-paid, highly-educated people got fired or even missed a promotion. Instead, they are running around telling people earning $20,000-30,000 a year that they have to tighten their belts and accept lower social security benefits.

If politics and the media in the United States were not so corrupt, this would have been topic No1 in the election. Candidates would have been pushing plans to aggressively stimulate the economy and to throw the Wall Street crowd in jail. But a candidate who said such things would not get enough money to run a serious campaign, because you need to court the Wall Street types to pay for a campaign these days. And the media would have ignored and/or ridiculed such a candidate.

So, we have an election based largely on nonsense. People are rightly angry that their lives are being ruined by disastrous economic policy. But they have no idea where to turn. And the latest data tell us that the situation is likely to get much worse in the year ahead.

Read the full article at:

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/10/29-4