another reason to believe the story is that it is consistent with both Goolsbee's and Obama's belief in free market, corporatist ideology. The only difference between Obama and Clinton (both Bill and Hillary) and the GOPers is that the Democrats put a human face on their corporatist program. It's the difference between getting shot in the head and being gut shot. There is a difference but you still end up mortally wounded. With the Democrats, democracy just takes a bit longer to bleed to death.

and I'm a life long Democrat!

and this Eccles passage, of course, comes straight from Keynes. Sound familiar? He could be talking about today! You'd think we would have learned something from the LAST great depression!

I would add to this that the concentration of wealth in the hands of a relatively small group of people, wealth beyond the capacity of any person-sane or not- to spend, motivated the creation of things like collateralized debt obligations and other sophisticated derivatives. The rich had too much to spend so they had to invest it somewhere, and investment bankers and hedge fund managers were more than willing to oblige, skimming their own cut off the top in the process, of course.

A partial solution to this, to decrease the likelihood of this happening again- A PROGRESSIVE INCOME TAX-- aka, tax the bejesus out of the wealthy so they won't have such a strong motivation to invest in destructive "financial innovations". And certainly, tax stock options for hedge fund managers and others as income.

For those who would object that this would decrease the less wealthy's access to credit, make homebuying more restricted, and decrease financial innovation, I say, that might not be a bad idea. Look what unregulated innovation has gotten us- a global train wreck fer christ's sake! It's time to try something different. If you can afford to pay your mortgage, is restricting your access to credit a bad thing? If the people originating the mortgage can sluff off the risk onto someone else while masking the true nature of that risk, is restricting innovation a bad thing? File the answer in the DUH! file.

and this Eccles passage, of course, comes straight from Keynes. Sound familiar? He could be talking about today! You'd think we would have learned something from the LAST great depression!

I would add to this that the concentration of wealth in the hands of a relatively small group of people, wealth beyond the capacity of any person-sane or not- to spend, motivated the creation of things like collateralized debt obligations and other sophisticated derivatives. The rich had too much to spend so they had to invest it somewhere, and investment bankers and hedge fund managers were more than willing to oblige, skimming their own cut off the top in the process, of course.

A partial solution to this, to decrease the likelihood of this happening again- A PROGRESSIVE INCOME TAX-- aka, tax the bejesus out of the wealthy so they won't have such a strong motivation to invest in destructive "financial innovations". And certainly, tax stock options for hedge fund managers and others as income.

For those who would object that this would decrease the less wealthy's access to credit, make homebuying more restricted, and decrease financial innovation, I say, that might not be a bad idea. Look what unregulated innovation has gotten us- a global train wreck fer christ's sake! It's time to try something different. If you can't afford to pay your mortgage, is restricting your access to credit a bad thing? If the people originating the mortgage can sluff off the risk onto someone else while masking the true nature of that risk, is restricting innovation a bad thing? File the answer in the DUH! file.

gimme an F'in break! This just goes to prove the point that Greenwald made a few days ago in his "The Religion of Centrism and Balance"== that anyone who tells the truth about our economic and political situation is labeled "divisive" and "angry" and "unserious" by the yammering class. I don't think Leonard is a yammerer, but in this case, he's acting like it.

I apologize for jumping on my disagreement with one adjective Mr. Leonard chose. I totally agree with his main point, satire of economics is far too rare and is a subject rich in possibility. Thank you for bringing the Theory of Interstellar Trade to my attention.

And is there any reason to suspect that Krugman is being hacked? That the piece was actually written by someone else?