Nothing new under the sun
In 2007 Joseph E. Stiglitz wrote:
Unemployment stands at a respectable 4.6 percent.
Whoopee I hear you cry, but
there is a big BUT.
A national debt that will probably have grown 70 percent by the time this president leaves Washington;
A swelling cascade of mortgage defaults;
A record near-$850 billion trade deficit;
Oil prices that are higher than they have ever been;
And a dollar so weak that for an American to buy a cup of coffee in London or Paris—or even the Yukon—becomes a venture in high finance.
Note: I separated it out to make the points clearer
The piece is well worth re-reading as it is a snap shot of the future if Mitt Romney wins the election.
Tax cuts coupled with warmongering.
Been there....Done That...It was an unmitigated disaster, we are only just slowly starting a recovery from near total collapse.
And it gets worse. After almost seven years of this president, the United States is less prepared than ever to face the future.
Give Romney a chance and this is right back to where we will be.
What Stiglitz concluded then and it is still applicable
And in any case there’s more to be done. What is required is in some ways simple to describe: it amounts to ceasing our current behavior and doing exactly the opposite. It means not spending money that we don’t have, increasing taxes on the rich, reducing corporate welfare, strengthening the safety net for the less well off, and making greater investment in education, technology, and infrastructure.
So what's new Mitt?
Absolutely fucking nothing.
Romney just wants to give the same tired old tax cut trickle down claptrap another run for our money.
Hell no, the last time around nearly bankrupted us.
The article is well worth a read, just to get the details straight the last time we took conservative economics for a spin.
8:55 AM PT: One more paragraph
In short, there’s a momentum here that will require a generation to reverse. Decades hence we should take stock, and revisit the conventional wisdom. Will Herbert Hoover still deserve his dubious mantle? I’m guessing that George W. Bush will have earned one more grim superlative
Unless G W Bush gets his wish, and Romney is elected.