Never let it be said that a Harvard boy can’t talk the talk. In a recent speech, Barack Obama takes dead aim at those crazy free-market folks who’ve been running our economy for the last eight—no, make that sixteen!—years, thus rejecting our sacred New Deal heritage:
“Unfortunately, instead of establishing a 21st century regulatory framework, we simply dismantled the old one – aided by a legal but corrupt bargain in which campaign money all too often shaped policy and watered down oversight. In doing so, we encouraged a winner take all, anything goes environment that helped foster devastating dislocations in our economy.”
The only problem is that we don’t have “devastating dislocations in our economy.” For most people, family income has remained flat through the Bush years, but it was quite high by the end of the Clinton era, and it’s still high. We’re entering a mild recession, which will pass. Yes, we have had plenty of fraud, plenty of insider deals, but, for the most part, our economy could best be improved by eliminating the endless subsidies, like ethanol, for which Obama has voted time and time again.
I’m not a fan of the Bush Administration, to put it mildly, but Obama’s Know Nothing approach to the economy is disturbing, particularly in a candidate whom I hope to vote for. During the Ohio primary, Obama and Hillary struggled to outdo one another in their denunciations of NAFTA, which almost everyone in Ohio knew had nothing to do with their state’s problems, and today Obama’s disconnect from reality continues. If the white working class were really as dumb as he believes them to be, his “strategy” might make sense. As it is, one can only say “Rev. Wright, move over!”
As a sidelight, one has to note the exquisite weasel-wording in the sentence “In doing so, we encouraged a winner take all, anything goes environment that helped foster devastating dislocations in our economy.” Obama isn’t saying that deregulation caused “devastating dislocations” in the economy, or that it “fostered” such dislocations, or even that it “helped foster” them, but only that deregulation “encouraged” an environment that “helped foster” them—a shift from 100% causality to about 7¾%. And, of course, we really haven’t had “devastating dislocations” in the first place. But, hey, he sounds pissed! And that’s what counts!
