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James Galbraith’s ‘Inequality and Instability’ study [New]

Written by The Big Hurt

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4 Responses to 'James Galbraith’s ‘Inequality and Instability’ study'

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1. Emocrat [New] Log in to Reply

   Monday, 30 Apr, 2012 at 6:38 pm

   Thanks for putting this up! Excellent!

   Matt Stoller put up a piece on Naked Capitalism that gives the systemic issue into the context of the Obama Administration:

   http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2012/04/growth-of-income-inequality-is-worse-under-obama-than-bush.html

   To wit, these grafs:

   Income concentrations are relatively rare, but when they happen, sharp policy moves can retain a strong measure of equality. It’s well-known at this point that President Obama did not want to make such moves. TARP, cramdown, and the foreclosure fraud settlement suggest that his interests lie in preserving the capital structure of the large banks. What about other policy priorities?

   Despite his recent speech, President Obama knows that his income tax proposal is going nowhere. So let’s look at three recent policy choices that are going somewhere.

   1) President Obama is on the verge of approving a Free Trade deal with Colombia, despite the murder of union organizers in that country. Not content with establishing similar deals with Panama (which has to do with enlarging tax havens) and South Korea, the administration is now embarking on a much vaster Trans-Pacific Partnership deal with countries all over Asia. And it’s being negotiated entirely in secret, with corporate and government officials the only ones allow to be in the room. Trade is a significant driver of lower wages.

   2) President Obama just pushed for and signed the JOBS Act, which is a substantial relaxation of regulations and accounting requirements on corporations seeking to go public. Bill Black has many four letter words to describe this bill, but it’s basically a license for Wall Street to commit fraud in the equity markets. The SEC is beginning to promulgate instructions on how this will work.

   3) President Obama just refused to issue an executive order forcing campaign spending disclosure by government contractors. President Obama actually criticized the Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United at a State of the Union address, but as with yesterday’s speech on raising taxes on millionaires, there was actually no there there.

   It’s good to know the Dems have our collective backs, eh?

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   • Tim [New] Log in to Reply

     Tuesday, 1 May, 2012 at 5:31 pm

     And don’t forget a week or two after Occupy Wall Street got traction last September, magically Congress and the White House passed stalled trade legislation in a matter of days. After the deals had languished for a year or two. The only bills that both “sides” agree on promote the status quo and/or promote new ways of stealing.

     Funny how we’re back to where we were in 2000, 2004, 2008: do you vote for the status quo? Or abstain from voting? At this point, unless Obama changes his stripes, or Romney gets working people, the economy will crash again.

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     • Emocrat [New] Log in to Reply

       Tuesday, 1 May, 2012 at 9:21 pm

       That seems to be the question of the day. We can either vote for the Status Quo, or we can vote for the Status Quo. Tough decision!

       Perhaps the only real answers don’t lie in this election cycle. But in terms of this cycle, perhaps Third Party candidates can’t win, but could provide a means of having the establishment lose face. Perhaps that’s the best we could do in this election cycle.

       It’s worth considering, at this point. We seem to be running out of options.

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2. David [New] Log in to Reply

   Wednesday, 2 May, 2012 at 8:44 pm

   Good stuff from Galbraith. Thanks for posting.

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