Our Economy Has Failed -- Until We Admit That, We're Screwed

[bhikkhu]

18. Has failed at what?

I think a better statement would be that government policies have failed to manage things well, and as a result we have a crushing level of economic inequality.

I wouldn't blame it on the US economy in general, which still retains some level of market dominance globally, provides for 160 million jobs or so, maintains the average US household at a level of comfort far above the world average, and so forth. Currently, we have had 21 months of private sector job growth, growth in exports to a record level, a decline in trade deficits, a reverse of the long-term slide in the manufacturing sector, etc.

I wouldn't argue that the damaging level of economic inequality that we do have began with Reagan-era policies, or that it needs to change, but to equate the problem with "the economy" is to lay it all on the private sector, which has no real way of changing things. It is the result of a host of government policies, and change there can only come at the ballot box.

If we elect another batch of teabaggers who preach that "government is the problem", and the markets need to be left alone to solve things, we continue the slide to third-world levels of inequality. If we elect people to government who recognize the issues and will practice "good government" of the style that has served many other countries so well, a much better level of equality is just a matter of time.