Our Economy Was a Scam and Now We're Dead Broke

[marmar]

via AlterNet:



Our Economy Was a Scam and Now We're Dead Broke

By Joe Bageant, JoeBageant.com. Posted October 27, 2009.

America is broke. And the easy credit, phantom "growth" economy has been exposed for what it was: a credit scam.



When Barack Obama took office it seemed to some of us that his first job was to get the national silverware out of the pawn shop. Or at least maintain the world's confidence that it was possible for us to get out of debt. America is dead broke, the easy credit, phantom "growth" economy has been exposed for what it was. A credit scam. Even Hillary Clinton and Obama's best efforts have not coaxed much more dough out of foreign friends. But at least we again have a few friends abroad.

So now we must jackleg ourselves back into something resembling a productive activity. No matter how you cut it, things will not be as much fun as shopping and speculative "investing" were.

The fiesta is over, the economy as we knew it is dead.

The national money shamans have danced around the carcass of our dead horse economy, chanted the recovery chant and burned fiat currency like Indian sage, enshrouding the carcass in the sacred smoke of burning cash. And indeed, they have managed to prop up the carcass to appear life-like from a distance, if you squint through the smoke just right. But it still stinks here from the inside. Clearly at some point we must find a new horse to ride, and sure as god made little green apples one is broaching the horizon. And it looks exactly like the old horse.

Then too, what else did we expect? His economic team of free market billionaires and financial hotwires includes most of those who helped Bill Clinton sell the theory that Americans didn't need jobs. Actual labor, if you will remember, was for Asian sweatshops and Latin maquiladoras. We, as a nation one third of whose population is functionally illiterate, were going to transmute ourselves into an information and transactional economy. Ain't gonna sweat no mo' no mo' -- just drink wine and sing about Jesus all day. ..........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/politics/143521/our_economy_was_a_scam_and_now_we%27re_dead_broke

[no_hypocrisy]

1. It was a classic confidence game with * as the Front Man.

Very sophisticated and ill-disguised.

[glitch]

2. Indeed, but don't leave out the set up. Or the mop up. A very Very Long Con. nt

[Bitwit1234]

3. Don't you think

the last administration was the best pyramid scheme put over on the public we have ever seen.

[marmar]

4. No doubt.

nt

[Enthusiast]

5. Barney Frank, Fannie Mae, Freddy Mac.

Say it again. Say it again. Say it again.

We have got to place this blame where it belongs!





























:sarcasm: