Surviving Capitalism (Not) : Timothy Geithner saved Wall Street, not the economy

We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Thursday, January 31, 2013

Timothy Geithner saved Wall Street, not the economy

Click here to access article by Dean Baker from Real-World Economics Review.

For me the article suggests a very different conclusion than is reached in this paragraph:

...the economy has already lost more than $7 trillion in output ($20,000 per person) compared with what the Congressional Budget Office projected in January of 2008. We will probably lose at least another $4 trillion before the economy gets back to anything resembling full employment. And, millions of people have seen their lives turned upside down by their inability to get jobs, being thrown out of their homes, or their parents’ inability to get a job. And this is all because of the folks in Washington’s inability to manage the economy. [my emphasis]

The ruling class, which usually installs its own members as Treasury Secretary as in the example of Geithner, manages the economy very well for the economy of their class. Banksters have done exceptionally well since the crash of the general economy.