… so influential are those in the financial elite – and their hangers-on in think-tanks and economics departments – that they continue to appear on our TV screens, confidently providing us with economic advice, as if they’d played no role whatsoever in shaping our economic system for the past quarter century.
Of course, we’re told there’s been a major change in their thinking, in that many of them are now willing to accept large deficits in today’s federal budget, in the name of stimulating the economy.
While this does seem like a sharp departure from the deficit hysteria of the 1990s, a closer look reveals the change may not be that significant.
In fact, financial types have always accepted deficits – when they liked the cause. Hence their lack of protest over George W. Bush’s enormous deficits, which were caused by his large tax cuts for the rich and his extravagant foreign wars.
What they don’t like is governments going into deficit to help ordinary citizens – either by creating jobs or providing much unemployment relief.
Linda McQuaig at The Star
mirabile dictu 