“There was a moment a year ago when Obama, with his enormous political capital, might have been able to achieve this ambitious agenda, and, building on these successes, go on to deal with America’s other problems. But anger about the bailout, confusion between the bailout (which didn’t restart lending, as it was supposed to do) and the stimulus (which did what it was supposed to do, but was too small), and disappointment about mounting job losses, has vastly circumscribed his room for maneuver.”

So writes Nobel prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz in an article that appeared recently in the website “Project Syndicate.”  Stiglitz served as chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors from 1995 to 1997 and his most recent book, “Freefall:  America, Free Markets, and the Sinking of the World’s Economy” is a best seller.

Obama recently called upon another economist, former Fed Chair Paul Volcker, to help shore up his support for financial regulatory reform.  It would probably be a good idea if he pulled out Stiglitz too, and used this well respected economist to both instruct Congress (and the public in turn) about how best to resurrect our economy and the nation’s well being along with it.

The GOP is a captured, bought and paid for, party.  It’s masters are the very oligopolic industries that most need reform and that means Obama will never get any political support from that group no matter what he does.  But he need not go it entirely alone.  He needs to continue bringing into the spotlight respected, non government leadership like that represented by Volcker and Stiglitz.  

Both these men are well spoken.  They can address the issues correctly and in a way that the public at large can understand.  They can frame the issues in ways that will unmask the GOP for who they truly are:  Representatives for large, trans-national corporations. 

Again, thanks to that fount of economic thought, Economist’s View for highlighting Stiglitz’s article.

Tags: GOP, Obama, Stiglitz, Volcker

This entry was posted on Saturday, February 6th, 2010 at 11:35 am and is filed under Economics, Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.