This Australia professor of economics provides more data on the skewed distribution of wealth following the "recovery" from the 2007-2009 "recession". Once again we see an academic analyze data and come to conclusions that are obvious to an ordinary working person: the rich have gotten richer and most working people have gotten less--actually, they are barely treading water. He writes in his opening paragraph:
It shows that the so-called economic recovery in the US has not delivered any tangible benefits to the vast majority of citizens and has rather, concentrated real gains among the top-end-of-town. Given that the recovery has floated on the fiscal stimulus the findings reinforce the biased nature of policy in the US. That indicates poor fiscal design by an incompetent and corrupt government not that fiscal policy is inherently unsuitable for advancing public purpose.But, that is the last time he uses the word "corruption" related to his analysis. Thereafter, this skewed distribution of wealth is all about incompetence.
Okay, so he does mention that...
The reality is that the neo-liberal attack on public purpose has changed the way the distributional system operates – with workers now finding it harder to gain access to real income growth despite contributing more per hour (productivity growth stronger).But, he doesn't develop this line of argument; instead, he continues on in the usual liberal way of expressing moral condemnation and criticizing incompetence, and aims his blows at the Obama administration.
The raft of anti-union legislation, deregulation of wages and conditions, etc have combined to shut workers out of the real growth pie.
That is a stunning indictment of the current US Administration. They cannot blame the recalcitrant Republicans because at the critical time they controlled the legislature.So, it's all about Republicans and Democrats! This avoids any real look at the system itself and keeps his criticisms well within the limits of acceptable discourse among academics or anyone who plays an important role in mainstream institutions.
...But it is clear by the appointments he made to his Administration and the policies he allowed to be implemented (in the name of fiscal stimulus) that his attention was biased towards preserving the wealth of Wall Street rather than the jobs and homes of the millions of workers who showed faith in him and put him into office.
Subsequently, he has shown the antithesis of leadership by actually conceding ground to the Republicans on the need to cut the deficit. The last thing a responsible leader would be doing in the US situation is advocating and offering deficit reduction.
This also preserves the notion that there is no alternative, that the capitalist system is part of the natural world that we must accept--it is not a man-made system, or more specifically, that it certainly has not been constructed by a class of people who have made up rules and created a system that has enabled them to appropriate the wealth that working people create.
Academics like Bill Mitchell provide a very important service to the Empire. They pose as learned people--and they do have many skills, but their core political and economic assumptions have been carefully cultivated to align with the interests of the ruling capitalist class. Those who can't stomach this process are weeded out. You see, such highly trained people have been through a long process of indoctrination and selection to insure that they serve the needs of the Empire. A few academics escape this process with their independent faculties intact, but not very many. This phenomenon is well described in a book by Jeff Schmidt entitled, Disciplined Minds.
