The recovery of the nation's economy entirely depends on a New York Yankees-Los Angeles Dodgers World Series. That's how thin is the ice upon which we are collectively treading, and that's as logical an economic prognostication as any of the others I've heard recently.
For example, in February, Alan Greenspan proclaimed that the nation's recession will "surely be the longest and deepest" since the 1930s. And yet, six short months later, he told ABC News that he is "pretty sure we've already seen the bottom." Then last week, this octogenarian oracle stated that the U.S. has to tighten credit and raise taxes to pull out of the nation's longest and deepest recession since the 1930s.
Now he tells us! Where was this dude when George W. Bush was pissing away the largest budget surplus in American history?
That's right, he was—in his then-official capacity as the chairman of the Federal Reserve—cheerleading Bush's disastrous tax cut plan, which funneled the bulk of the surplus to the nation's richest one percent and left the rest of us crawling around on all fours looking for the pennies that fell out of our pockets and rolled into the corner. This is the same dude who completely missed the housing bubble (even he admits that) until it was too late and the economy was in full crater mode. This is the same dude who was in favor of privatizing Social Security, the same dude who enjoys reading Ayn Rand.
And, of course, when the heat began to rise, Greenspan decided, like all con artists, that it was time to sprint to the exit. Greenspan is, as Paul Krugman aptly put it, a "three-card maestro." Like J. Edgar Hoover, Greenspan was a dangerous man to have placed in a position of power for that long (20 years as Fed chairman). And now, here he is, jacking his jaws again. And people still lend him their ears.
Economists have the easiest job on the planet. Greenspan is only the best known in a field legendary for babbling esoteric theories and always being wrong. If you get a nice university or consulting sinecure, like most influential economists, you get showered with accolades and honors and, in Greenspan's case, you get to marry a much younger woman who is also a mouthpiece for your world view on the TV news.
Have you ever heard these guys (yes, they're mostly men) pontificating on NPR or CNN or MSNBC? They are always absolutely certain that the "worst is over" and that the "markets are healthy" and that blah blah blah, but you just know even while you're listening to them that they haven't a clue as to whether what they're saying is true or accurate or even worth saying. They are like trained seals, paid to spin for bigger, more efficient markets and always for "progress" and "development." But what if the current economic situation is the writing on the wall that even greed is finite, that there will never be enough money to satisfy the most power-mad among us?
Matt Taibbi summed this disconnect up perfectly this week on his blog: "I watched carefully the reporting of the Dow breaking 10,000 the other day and not anywhere did I see a major news organization include a paragraph of the 'On the other hand, so fucking what?' sort, one that might point out that unemployment is still at a staggering high, foreclosures are racing along at a terrifying clip, and real people are struggling more than ever. In fact, the dichotomy between the economic health of ordinary people and the traditional 'market indicators' is not merely a non-story, it is a sort of taboo—unmentionable in major news coverage."
Can the nation, therefore, simply accept my economic theory, please? We need a New York Yankees and Los Angeles Dodgers World Series.
You'll really like my theory after this one: The nation's economy depends on all Americans eating twice their normal portions for Thanksgiving dinner.
