Making serious economic reform, part II
In a previous post, I discussed economic reforms that should be made in the sick, corrupt financial markets. But this is only the start of efforts the next president and Congress must make to prevent a startling decline that is already evident in America. Whatever the Dow shows, most Americans are suffering and for the first time in generations, young people wonder, with good cause, if they can live better lives than their parents.
Real change is needed, and the question is whether the American people and their elected representatives have the guts to face the truth and move ahead. The laughable gas-tax holiday and much wishful thinking about alternative energy and hydrogen cars represent the school of destructive denial. This is "sustainability" that seeks to sustain the current unsustainable economic and social arrangements. It can’t be done.
Yet much of the current mess was caused, not by inexorable laws of economics, but by policy changes to benefit the rich and transnational corporations, as well as a sprawl economy at the root of the current recession. We can change it.
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