What Next?

Posted: January 21, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: Team Obama, U.S. Economy | Tags: , , | 37 Comments

The more I read the news, the more I’m convinced that the powers that be are purposefully trying NOT to get it.  I don’t think they realize that the Great Recession was not just the normal little business adjustment that comes from a hiccup in markets.  It wasn’t just some short run misalignment of Aggregate Demand and Aggregate Supply.  There are serious systemic problems in the financial system and the way we do things.  Politicians in the United States are hellbent on repeating the same damned mistakes.  We’re seeing massive presidential appointments of the people that created the problems to positions that recommend future policy. Companies like General Electric have been part and parcel of our problem, and yet, who does the President want to ‘reboot’ jobs and competitiveness?

Signaling a shift to a new phase of the administration’s response to the nation’s economic woes, President Barack Obama will sign an executive order Friday establishing a new Council on Jobs and Competitiveness that will be led by General Electric CEO Jeffrey Immelt. The signing coincides with a visit to a GE branch in Schenectady, N.Y., the birthplace of the company.

The new panel will replace the President’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board, and will have a new mission: to find “new ways to promote growth by investing in American business to encourage hiring, to educate and train our workers to compete globally, and to attract the best jobs and businesses to the United States,” according to the White House.

You don’t promote competitiveness by hiring  the head of a monopoly that feeds on no bid contracts and promotion of military adventurism.  It’s like putting Count Dracula in charge of your blood banks.  Again and again, I see this President do something I would expect a mainstream Republican to do while the current crop of Republicans are hammering out which crazed creationist will lead the country back to the third century.  What fresh hell is this?

There’s people asking those questions over at Project Syndicate.  Brit economist and member of the House of Lords Robert Skidelsky who wrote the book ‘Life after Communism’ has written a new article.  It’s called ‘Life after Capitalism’. I guess I’m not the only one thinking that this current house of cards is about to collapse.  While the running dog congressional lackeys of multinational corporate interests here are trying to keep the mess afloat, a few folks realize that there are economies out there in the greater world about ready to clean our clock. They are not all doing it by selling their souls to multinational corporations, believe me.

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