Naomi Klein & John Grisham versus Bankers, Lawyers and Milton Friedman

[Joanne98]

For OpEdNews: Kevin Anthony Stoda - Writer

Have the tenets of Naomi Klein's book, THE SHOCK DOCTRINE, affected Americans view of the world and how does her work fir in with our age and memories of America? This article begins to explore the shifting paradigms in America's social and political education. The article looks at the works of sociologist William Cecil Headrick and the writings of John Grisham as well.

My older brother majored in business in the early 1980s. His professors forced his classes to watch a whole series of videos by the monetarist, Milton Friedman (and various generations of cronies from the Chicago School of Economics). My brother argued and argued with his professors about the blatant propaganda and poor economic development offered by Friedman as a core character in the theory of doing business in America.

"Friedman's basic assertion that money supply and monetary policy is (almost) all that matters for nominal output fluctuations."

http://homepage.newschool.edu/het//essays/monetarism/friedmanchicago.htm

This popular monetarist model had already reached its pinnacle in America in the 1970s and helped lead to 20% interest rates across the land in the year before Jimmy Carter was elected president. However, the New Classicals Economic Theorists from the Chicago School, who learned from such monetarist foibles came to be in charge of American national policy in the 1980s and eventually resurfaced as both neo-liberals and neo-cons in the subsequent decades. Likewise, a subsequent turn towards neo-classical political-economic-inspired leadership soon took power globally Finally, in the last decade, all of this misguided theory and practices combined with the bottomless spending pit of a 3-front war on terrorism--and led to the greatest global economic collapse (in 2007-2010) seen in over 3/4 of a century.

http://www.opednews.com/articles/1/Naomi-Klein--John-Grishom-by-Kevin-Anthony-Stod-100907-601.html

[Demeter]

1. Yup

Garbage in, garbage out.

[fasttense]

2. Hey, 20% interest rates weren't so bad.

If you had money to save, it earned good money if you just left it alone. True the interest rate to borrow money was always higher then the interest through savings, but it encouraged everyone to avoid borrowing.

[CTyankee]

3. My mother (who had no debt) made out very well during the high interest days.

She was getting 10% on her CDs. It accelerated her net worth nicely and she paid off her mortgage early (it wasn't that much, but still, it put her in a safe place financially).

[Uncle Joe]

4. Kicked and recommended for Naomi Klein and John Grisham.

Thanks for the thread, Joanne.