Why Blog
As someone whose dissertation studied the role of innovation (both technical and financial) in creating regional economies and then spent the last 15 years in the private sector as an entrepreneur, I think I bring a unique set of experiences with which to analyze the 2008 economic crisis.
How can we learn from the past to avoid mistakes that have gotten us in the midst of a global crises?
The role of credit money, financial deregulation, monetary policy, irresponsible fiscal policy, and the rampant spread of an attitude on Wall Street that bred fraud, greed, and depraved indifference threaten our society like no other time in history. Clearly the problems of today are orders of magnitude more complex than the economic crises of 1907, though it was a critical event that ushered in our modern era of central banking.
This blog is dedicated to critiquing, analyzing, and reflecting on current events as the pertain to these issues. It is my sincere hope that someone who actually can make a difference will wake up and realize we are on a collision course with the Second Great Depression.
I hope my commentary will join the chorus of those of us who believe our future path is disastrous and can sound a clarion call for complete re-evaluation of how the United States approaches fiscal and monetary policy. I argue that the American Century is over, and that the United States is entering the greatest economic crisis in the history of the republic. While I cannot foretell the timing of this, I can tell you it will happen as we have set the stage for crisis of massive proportions by our wanton borrowing, runaway health costs, destabilized job markets, and financial industry deregulation. In fact, I wrote an article in 1995 arguing that then Secretary of the Treasury Robert Rubin’s push to repeal Glass-Steagall would usher in a new era of Robber Barons. Ironically, if the Robber Barons were around today, they’d be doing a much better job at pulling our economy back from the edge of the abyss.
There are many arrogant and ignorant who will dismiss my commentaries as “permabear” or pessimistic. If you listen carefully you will soon realize I am not a pessimist, cassandra, doomsayer, or defeatist. Far from it. I am a realist who subscribes to the theory of Long Waves in capitalism. What this means, in short, is that there are multiple levels at which the macroeconomic cycles of prosperity and contraction that propel the fortunes and misfortunes of any capitalist society are interacting. When forces amplify too far in one direction, there is a massive counteraction leading to drastic movement in the opposite direction. The principle holds true for booms (expansions) and busts (depressions/contractions). We are just gathering steam for a massive contraction, fueled by the excesses and policy mistakes of the past 20 years.