It's Official

It’s impossible to take David Brooks seriously. It seems as if he’s not even trying to be intellectually honest. Here, he blames the imminent collapse of the U.S. economy on:

• consumers
• the credit crunch
• housing prices
• the freeze in business investment
• skills mismatch
• regulatory burdens
• the business class’s utter lack of confidence in the White House
• the looming explosion of entitlement costs
• the public’s lack of confidence in institutions across the board

And of Course ...

Obama’s failure to seize that seminal moment in history, the Simpson-Bowles report.

But not a word about the banks, insurance companies and financial institutions that hollowed out the economy in order to enrich themselves.

No Countrywide, no Goldman Sachs, no AIG, no Bank of America. Don’t they at least get a mention alongside regulatory burdens and business executives’ lack of confidence in Obama? No GOP obstructionism?

Oh, if only we had seized Simpson-Bowles! And fully funded the McKinney Act! If only those greedy old pensioners would stop insisting on getting a return on their Social Security and Medicare payments, and if the poor would just shut up, go to college and get jobs, we’d be great again!

Hell No, You Won't!

As for politicians’ sclerotic thinking about public policy, Obama has proposed investment on a green economy and at least offered the public option as a way to restructure the health insurance market. What bold approaches have Republicans offered other than lockstep opposition to the colored guy in the White House and support for tax cuts for the rich?

Dave's Best Joke

Simplify the tax code. End corporate taxes and create a consumption tax. Reshape the European Union to make it either more unified or less (?!) Reduce the barriers to business formation. Reform Medicare so it is fiscally sustainable. Break up the banks and increase capital requirements. Lighten debt burdens even if it means hitting the institutional creditors.

Dave, the Republicans won’t even keep the FAA afloat for a week without turning it into a crisis. You really think they’ll go along with breaking up the banks and “hitting” institutional creditors?

Down With the EU!

Of course, your suggestion for reforming the EU, we're all with you on that one. Just as soon as we figure out what you're talking about.