James K Galbraith on Bill Moyers Journal

You know, when you take taxpayer money, you can't pay outrageous bonuses. Watch this video, it is fabulous. It is full of great historical economic information. Watching the son of John Kenneth Galbraith, who wrote the most famous book on the Crash of 1929, talk about the era we are now entering is both sobering and enlightening.

http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/10302009/watch.html

I do love Bill Moyers Journal, even if I disagree with him often on political issues. He is like the George Will of the Left. He is classy, well reasoned, and has a sort of anarchist disdain for power that I am drawn to.

One of the best points that comes out in the discussion is that the Obama administration is trying to restore what was, instead of dealing with what is. We cannot and should not restore what was. We must move forward and deal with what is. This is a fundamental shift in the economy, and fighting it is like fighting the tide. Debt levels must me reduced. Economic activity must shift toward investment and away from unsustainable consumption. If we are to ditch this bubble economy and experience real, healthy, sustainable growth, this must happen.

I share in common with Moyers, Galbraith and Will the astonishment and outrage at the behavior of the large financial institutions. Many of them ran themselves into the ground and took massive amounts of taxpayer dollars to bail their stupid selves out. Now they have the audacity to celebrate their so called return to profitability by paying egregious bonuses to traders who have access to FEDERAL FUNDS at nearly 0% and are risking taxpayer money manipulating stock prices. I apologize for the long sentence, but it really makes me mad! Worse, they have the gall to call themselves capitalists and so too are guilty of ruining capitalism's image for the good guys!

People, the outrage against the behavior of these money lenders is entirely justified. Their behavior is indeed outrageous, if not outright criminal.