Comments on: How We Got in Over Our Heads

By: A Gold

A Gold — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 18:45:22 +0000

Yet another article producing well veiled marxism. Your literary charm and skill is unmatched, but I can see the utter fallacies littered throughout:The negative savings rate is a product of pre-tax 401k and IRA accounts soaking up a significant chunk of American income, leading to a higher debt to income ratio in the unquestioned statistics. Why nobody calls that fact out I never quite understand.You also fail to mention that the subprime crisis is impacted by the shifting of criteria from strictly credit factors, to demographic factors. The color green mattered less than the color of borrowers’ skin – and yes, Clinton had his “heart in the right place” when he pushed Carter’s egg along in ‘95. His heart is aligned with Saul Alynski and pals.The consumerism in America, and the stagnation of wages, is indeed a problem. However, the failing educational system, shameful corporate tax structure, and utter lack of a national response to global economic competition are more to blame for stagnant wages than are wishy washy “political decisions” that you seem incapable of concretely identifying. Consumerism is part of capitalism and has its ebb and flow. May ebb for now, flow when expansion sets in once more.Please identify yourself as a marxist if you intend to keep writing these kinds of well dressed socialist diatribes.

By: Anonymous User

Anonymous User — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 16:33:39 +0000

Interesting. But to the extent wages are set by supply and demand it will be necessary to decrease supply and/or increase demand. One way to do that is to shorten the legal workweek in line with the increase in labor productivity over the past 50 years. Another is to clamp down on immigration. A third is place tariffs on imports from low-wage countries like China who artificially keep their prices low, thereby depressing export manufacturing in places like the U.S.Wage subsidies financed by progressive taxation — a graduated consumption tax for instance — should also not be ruled out.See my The Soft Path: Notes for a New Way of Life in America, for a discussion of all these issues. http://luke.lea.googlepages.com/tableofcontents

By: kate smith

kate smith — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 03:54:08 +0000

The economic crisis in California can be traced to an Education-Politico-Industrial Complex (EPIC). Visit sbschooltalk.com to expose school corruption, reform education, and restore justice and democracy in our schools and democracy. Money is not the problem, management is!k8longstory 4 applecorpspress

By: Anonymous User

Anonymous User — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 23:12:58 +0000

Good article and a nice summation of the problem. My only problem with the analysis is given that much of the population joined the chorus of deregulatory mythology, given vested interest is inclined toward perpetuation of the current system and given a lack of a popular cheerleader for your arguments, I’m not seeing much in the way of change.

By: Dan Rosenfield

Dan Rosenfield — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 11:26:53 +0000

Thank you for this easily understandable article.