Nobel-Winning Economist Says Obama's Plan Hurts the Folks Who Elected Him (that's us)

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Nobel Prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz, who spoke out against Bush's lack of economic responsibility-taking for the disaster we're still living through is now pointing his finger at Obama. See, as politicians go, Obama is way better than Bush, but he seems to be just as bad in certain ways. According to Stiglitz, Obama's big solution to our economic issues is "ersatz capitalism."

"Ersatz," in case you're curious, is defined by Merriam-Webster.com as "being a usually artificial and inferior substitute or imitation." So, in this case, it's not capitalism that Obama is practicing here. Thankfully, he's not saying it's socialism, either, but here's what he does say:

What the Obama administration is doing is far worse than nationalization: it is ersatz capitalism, the privatizing of gains and the socializing of losses. It is a "partnership" in which one partner robs the other. And such partnerships — with the private sector in control — have perverse incentives, worse even than the ones that got us into the mess.

So what is the appeal of a proposal like this? Perhaps it's the kind of Rube Goldberg device that Wall Street loves — clever, complex and nontransparent, allowing huge transfers of wealth to the financial markets. It has allowed the administration to avoid going back to Congress to ask for the money needed to fix our banks, and it provided a way to avoid nationalization.

But we are already suffering from a crisis of confidence. When the high costs of the administration's plan become apparent, confidence will be eroded further. At that point the task of recreating a vibrant financial sector, and resuscitating the economy, will be even harder.

I've been saying, for a while now, that the government has been using the same old tricks to try and fix a failing system. Obama's government is no different in this sense. He is trying the same tricks that got us into this mess in the first place. Instead of forcing the men in suits to take responsibility for their choices, he's letting (almost) everyone keep their jobs and money while the real cost of the failure gets dumped on to us little people.

Gotta love that (crisis-of-)confidence builder, Obama. I almost miss Bush who you could always tell was a lying bastard. Obama seems like such a nice guy, but now he's ignoring the needs of actual Americans in favor of the needs of made-up businesses with corrupt people running them. Lovely.

Hay, Barry, where's my universal health care, man? I haven't seen a doctor in a decade. Yeah, you're welcome for your vote, jerkweed.

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