"Przemek Klosowski" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 31 Mar 2011 15:06:03 -0400, Ed Huntress wrote:

They're trying to regain the mantle of being the fiscally conservative
party, which they were at one time but which they completely abandoned
under Reagan. When you're in a recession with high unemployment, it's
not difficult to play the demagogue and win votes from people who are
looking for anything that sounds like an answer.

It's a good time, politically, to revive all of their old chestnuts.
They'd resurrect Herbert Hoover if they could. d8-)

I wonder if they actually know better, and are just playing on the lack
of economics education on the part of most voters, or if they actually
believe their nonsense. I'm not sure. Most likely, it's some of each.

Joseph Stiglitz argues in the Vanity Fair that it's not about any
particular economic theory, but rather a corrupt system where the policy
is handled by the top 1% of wealth owners. He calls it the government "Of
the 1%, by the 1%, for the 1%":

http://www.vanityfair.com/society/fe...percent-201105

He points out that the widening income inequality is unsustainable and
will eventually hurt the 1% as well, but they don't seem to act on it yet.

I wish he's expanded more on that point, but columns have to fit into
defined spaces. Let's see if people begin to get it. The last two times we
faced something like this -- during the Robber Baron era and during the
Great Depression -- people eventually got it. And the result was the growth
of the middle class, first under Progressivism and then under the New Deal.

Now we have a populist movement that's bought into the sales pitch of the
plutocrats. It may be the first time we've had a populist movement bent on
cutting its own throats.

--
Ed Huntress