Ratigan: When you look at the actual policies the US has with China (e.g. severely inadequate tariffs on goods imported from China), and also consider our nation's great accommodation to our overpowering banking system, you realize that these are not policies that encourage a successful domestic manufacturing operation like Germany's. So what is the key lie or prevarication that our government and society is hiding behind as they facilitate the gambling operations of our biggest financial institutions, at the cost of not being able to help new business enterprise?
Galbraith: The key lie is the die-hard Republican claim that you can successfully run any kind of successful economy without a robust and effective supervisory and regulatory system. A country that is as successful as Germany must set up a framework within which private enterprise can best function and prosper, and within which a corporation that invests its resources with a long-term perspective does not have to worry about a hostile takeover because their profits weren't big enough in any given quarter or year.
The economics profession in the US has been deeply culpable, and complicit, in spreading the erroneous idea that our economic system could function best without reliable and vigilant regulatory oversight and authority -- a fantasy that has long been nurtured by our country's right wing. The result of this hands-off, "laissez faire" policy was a market meltdown stemming from the fact that markets and banks could no longer be trusted. The crooks then took over, and honest businesses and banks were driven to the wall. This is what happens when you don't have an efficient and effective legal and regulatory system, because too many members of Congress have been bought off by corporations and the rich.
Has our Congress taken adequate steps to implement this kind of a legal and regulatory system? No. Are we therefore vulnerable to the possibility of having another financial meltdown? Yes.
(Why? One reason is that the big banking reform bill was essentially hogtied and compromised by Chris Dodd, Chairman of the Senate Banking Committee. Why did he do this? Word has it that Chris is angling for a million-dollar-a-year lobbying job working for the banksters after he soon retires as a Senator. Another reason is that Obama and the Congress were afraid to appoint Elizabeth Warren as director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Instead, Warren was named "assistant to the president and special advisor to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner. Had she been named its first director, she would need Senate confirmation, which would've been very difficult, given the obstinacy of already-bought-and-paid-for Republicans and Blue Dog Democrats. Instead, she was named as "special advisor" to a man who was afraid to see her appointed as the bureau's director. Why afraid? His main job is to protect the financial interests of the banksters!)
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