Crystal Clear

An anonymous commenter to this blog wrote:

I really don't get where you are coming from on this blog...times are
rough...here's the proof...we need to be counter cultural...but nothing
practical here....blah blah blah

Well, I think it's crystal clear where I'm coming from. To begin with, while I like a lot of things about President Obama (and obviously voted for him), I don't like Obama's picks for his key economic advisor and Treasury secretary, Lawrence Summers and Tim Geithner. I've said this time after time ad nauseum. Summers is a retread from the Clinton years who was partly responsible for all the deregulation that got us into our current problem. Geithner is turning out to be a lackey for his friends in the big banks. Together they're not doing anything to tame the big banks and prevent the same problems from happening again a few years down the road.

If the commenter would go and listen to someone like Simon Johnson, I think he would at least understand the critique, if not agree with it. It's the same that coming from economists Paul Krugman, Joe Stiglitz, Jeff Sachs, and others as well. We've got to shrink the banking and financial sector and make it MORE BORING and LESS THREATENING to our economy.

As for the countercultural posts, like James Kunstler, there is a part of me that feels that our society and economy may well be heading for REALLY troubled times, in part due to things like peak oil and our almost incomprehensible indebtedness. I don't know if they are right, but I think they're at least worth paying attention to for their analysis. They were, after all, right about the economic crisis we are in.

So that's where I'm coming from.

Ps. If the 'anonymous' commenter would point the way to his/her blog, I would be glad to look at what kind of 'practical' solutions they are recommending and have a good dialogue about it. But it's awful easy to take potshots from behind your anonymity.