Bailout Architect Runs For California Governor; World Laughs - By MATT TAIBBI
Bailout Architect Runs For California Governor; World Laughs
By MATT TAIBBI
POSTED: January 24, 12:05 PM ET
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Kashkari's platform seems to be centered around restoring jobs and schools, but also seems targeted at waste – he called Jerry Brown's $68 billion high-speed rail project a "crazy train" and said it reflected "misplaced priorities."
Humorously, and predictably, Kashkari's campaign has already sprouted serious leaks. It turns out he has a somewhat spotty voting record (I do, too, to be honest, but I'm not running for governor), and he's already had to acknowledge publicly that he has not always voted – although, he says, "I believe voting is very important."
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The Kashkari story is a perfect little allegory about the arrogance and cluelessness of the people who run the American economy. Kashkari talks passionately about free markets, forgetting that he was the individual who was actually in charge of the biggest-in-American-history government program to subvert the free market, bailing out countless institutions that should otherwise have gone out of business due to their own incompetence and corruption.
He talks about how the "free markets" allocate capital better than any system we have, but then again he was the person who had to step in when that system failed and institute a different system of capital allocation, one in which public treasure was unorganically re-allocated from taxpayers to private companies. His complaints about "misplaced priorities" are almost beneath comment – there's just not much to say about someone who committed public funds to million-dollar bonuses but believes regular people accepting government benefits have a "me-first" mentality.
Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/bailout-architect-runs-for-california-governor-world-laughs-20140124#ixzz2rMaECUZA
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