My take on Taibbi

Matt Taibbi has penned the most telling blow against the Obama administration in the latest Rolling Stone called Obama's Big Sellout. The howls of protest are already being heard on both left and right. The criticism is mostly nitpicking because the coup d'etat by the banksters is certainly a fact.

But the problem is MUCH deeper than whether Robert Rubin's flacks have taken over Treasury, or whatever. Of the 40,000 economists in USA plying their trade, maybe 20 could be accused of "getting it right" with the most recent economic calamities. There has been a LOT of Kool-Aid consumed in the past 35 years in this country. It is almost certain that if the gang now running the monetary institutions had never met Bob Rubin, they would still have acted pretty much the same.

Think about it, when was the last time you read the reasons economic regulations lead to prosperity in anything resembling a major press outlet? It wasn't always so--when the Keynesians ran the economics departments at our groves of academe, lectures on the causes and cures for market failures were routine. I once wrote about an old professor who once played a major role in the Kennedy administration. It explains this story of the different economic worldviews much better.