Supposedly, wealthy people need tax breaks to encourage them to invest. I never believed this load of hogwash.

What else are they going to do with their money? Stuff it in the mattress? Spend it with reckless abandon? Give it all away? Build Scrooge McDuck style money bins and go swimming in them?

I couldn't agree more.

I would quibble with Stiglitz only where he describes the tulip-bubble burst of the ARM market and the dazzling derivatives by which the quants made what was apparently something out of what was actually nothing as "the beginning of a downward spiral into poverty..."

These people were already broke, and, just like the Present Occupant, the money they were spending was not their own. It just took them until now to see that a tulip is just a flower.

Verily I say unto you, there is no one so foolish about money as a rich man. Unless it is the rich man's son.

I am a great admirer of Mr. Stiglitz's work over the years, particularly in concise nature of his critique of the IMF and World Bank development programs, which he oversaw.

However, there is a fallacy of logic here: As a result that Bush's tax cuts were not good stimulus, "Therefore, the job of economic stimulation fell to the Federal Reserve Board"... This is not an A -> B implication whatsoever.

In fact, some may recall, at the time, many an economic analyst commented that the fed was too frequently interfering in interest rates. While the full effects of this could not and would not be known, there was suggestion that the Fed was attempting to drive the market far too aggressively. Ostensibly, no doubt, Bush would have approved, but if the swine at the Fed were cowtowed by the administration and not their knowledge, the crisis as described here, a closed cause and effect system, was the province of the Fed.

I am disappointed that Mr. Stiglitz saw a chance to place all the blame eggs in the President's already (rightfully) cumbersome basket. As an overseer of the frequently disasterous Structural Adjustment Programs, Stigitz is well aware that economic dogmatists make their fair of horrible mistakes intentionally.

Worst. Voters. Ever.

It's hard to imagine what sort of President Bush might have been without 9/11. Before than moment Bush was pushing globalism, WTO status for China. To properly assess the likely Bush agenda, one has to decide if the war in Iraq would have gone ahead, with or without that terrible event. Since Clinton provided continuity, after Gulf War I, and there were terrorist attacks outside of 9/11, you have to say, yes we probably would be in Iraq, even if 9/11 never happened.

Secondly Clinton's rather deft handling of the deficit allowed the American mindset to dismiss such things as cyclical matters, esoteric facts for eggheads to figure out, as long as Main Street was getting along.

The expansion of credit, first at the hands of the Federal Reserve, slid easily into the world of private finance, where it managed to escape the Federal Reserve Boards control. Leadership should have seen this coming, but they were free market advocates after all, and biased toward a policy which allowed the market to decide these things. Chide them for printing money, but the government only prints the money to accomodate the credit which is being monetized, and to do otherwise would be counter productive.

Meanwhile the Bush budgetary machine enjoyed the flow of cash, which allowed them to run a way too expensive war, off the books. Money was being passed around like candy, and lot of it ended up in Republican campaign coffers. Life was good. Lately, when the Senate committee asks Bernanke about the state of the economy, his reply should be, well let me call up the President and the Congress, and see how much they are going to spend this year, because over half of GDP is government spending, and that is a conservative estimate. The real issue when rating the Bush Presidency, is a matter of integrity, did he do the things he said he would, remain true to his core values, and his constituents? And if he did wander off the farm, did circumstances warrant it?

In that regard his Presidency reflects a not inconsequential betrayal of American values, and the trust of the American people. 9/11 counts for something, but Bush was already running counter to his stated political beliefs before that. The man is a loose cannon, and always was, and that brings a lot of questions to mind, about the political system in this country.

He mucked stuff up pretty good. They don't call it The Average Depression, do they?

"Tax breaks for wealthy people stimulate the economy"

Supposedly, wealthy people need tax breaks to encourage them to invest. I never believed this load of hogwash...

______

Yeah, similarly with all manner of tax breaks, long term. The market value of my house has embedded within it the value of my tax deductions. Were they not available, the nominal "value" would be decremented by roughly that amount. Taxation as a socioeconomic policy carrot is way overrated.

Supposedly, wealthy people need tax breaks to encourage them to invest. I never believed this load of hogwash.

Wow, you've sold me. Very informative. It's not like I just lost 5 seconds of my life I'll never get back.

What else are they going to do with their money? Stuff it in the mattress? Spend it with reckless abandon? Give it all away? Build Scrooge McDuck style money bins and go swimming in them?

While old Duck Tales references always make me smile, I have to ask: Did you not read what you wrote in the first paragraph? Because you're disagreeing with yourself.

I may be prone to repetition -- but I think few people are aware, on an objective level of how bad Bush has been for the long term future and status of the United States.

By 2006 the US Public debt was as high as that of France and Germany -- by now it is higher. Yet Republicans light to make those two countries poster-children for fiscal incompetence! The US went into the Bush administration the 2nd wealthiest country in the world -- it has slid to 10th, and the ladder steps above are big.

In 2000 I listened to Republicans sneering at the Euro, how it would fail, how it was worth less than a dollar $1 then bought you €1.14 -- earlier this year the Wall Street Journal (who made that pillock Rich Miniter their Brussels Correspondent for a few years) was predicting that because of Italy the Euro would fall appart -- now €1 buys about $1.50. The Wall Street Journal editorial page would by the way, if they had been giving investment advice or running a company have been fired long ago!

Meanwhile a row of Republican dipshits can be found to say "oh you are exaggerating, he is the best President ever for the economy." Hell, Republicans including the current candidates calling for tax cuts is the clearest evidence I have ever seen that the war of drugs has been an abject failure -- it's the only explanation I can see.

It is absolutely astonishing that the Democrats are the totally credible party of fiscal competence and restraint, the Republicans the profligate lunatics. Imaging, the left being the party of fiscal responsibility and the right . . . Who could have imagined it!