Steve Benen must be the biggest Rachel Maddow fan on the face of the Earth. Who else would Tivo her show?
He seemingly loved what she did on Friday, to share it now. One segment she talked yet more about the “stimulus” legislation, referring to concessions to Republicans on it, and let out the following:
“If you’re working up policy to fix an economic crisis, which is characterized by there being no spending in the economy, and someone in that debate says, ‘OK, but cut the spending out of the rescue plan,’ they’re bad at making policy. (emphasis mine)
When she first got that show, there was all kinds of blog talk about how rare it is for there to be admitted liberals on TV. Going by the mainstream squish definition, they had a point. After all, this is the same media (including Rachel’s current boss) that thought nothing of presenting the lackeys of various war contractors as unbiased “analysts”. However, here she uses her national forum to remind us of just how narrow the spectrum of acceptable discourse still is.
I have a question for Ms Maddow, lemme set it up:
- A deliberate decision was made by our elite to depend on conspicuous consumption as the economic engine.
- The reason spending has cratered is due to the House of Cards of debt that’s been built over several years (from 2nd mortgages for buying more crap & treating houses as investments rather than, um, housing, to the finance sector trading bundles of bad loans as if they had real value & other companies seemingly becoming allergic to holding necessary operating capital) finally collapsing.
- The debt incurred at lower class levels was due to a lack of purchasing power, thanks to the combination of stagnant wages & a currency flood constantly eroding the value of what little they did have.
Ok, we firm on that? Now, here’s the question: have you considered the possibility that, rather than current conditions being an abberation, the previous spending was unsustainable to begin with? If not, why not? If so, what led you to conclude otherwise?
