In a thought provoking article entitled “Delaying the day of reckoning. Columnist Gil Smart writes:
“…Whatever the case, it seems certain now that the third round of quantitative easing must happen. If it does, it will merely be more proof that the economy is so badly damaged that it simply cannot function without ever-more official intervention…‘too big to fail banks’? Or rethink free trade policies that ship ever more American jobs overseas?…”
“More stimulus spending would simply buy a little more time. But for what? Would we use that interval to break up the
“Until we address these things, we’re simply kicking the can down the road. One day we’ll find the road ends in a precipice. Better to turn away now, however hard it may be, than to go headfirst over the cliff.”
WATCHDOG: How the young despair when faced with what seems like insurmountable obstacles!
Concerning the “third round of quantitative easing”, It does indicate “…that the economy is so badly damages that it simply cannot function without ever-more official intervention..” But the problem isn’t governmental intervention, it is intervention of the wrong kind! The professional economists at the Federal Reserve are left to try to do with monetary policy what Congress is supposed to do with fiscal policy. The Feds must use a pea shooter of ‘quantitative easing’ because the conservative ignoramuses and / demagogues sabotage efforts to enact another stimulus bill…something that needed to be done a year ago.
Smart is correct that we require a multitude of reforms starting with higher taxes for the rich (they are taxed at a record low for the past 75 years), elimination of outrageous tax loop holes and subsidies and threatening China with tariffs on its goods if it refuses to allow its currency to rise to market conditions.
The art of reform is to gain one victory at a time and keep on fighting for more. If you have to achieve everything at once, the task is so formidable that you will never get started. Take that from one who has labored a quarter of a century to bring about reform in drug policy and harm reduction … no clear victory but much progress!
