The article posted by Larry Beinhart on Alternet this morning is worth a good read. He looks at the economy over the last ten years and realizes that there was no ‘boom’ between ‘03 and ‘07, but that the entire round of economic growth — 37%! — was based on debt, which was driven by over-saturated financial markets, which were flooded when Bush’s tax cuts to the rich produced copious windfalls to the wealthy. Beinhart’s take is that recession began when Bush was elected and never ended. It was only the housing bubble that made the economy look so good!
He explains a big part of the rise in gas and oil comes from the dramatic drop in the power of the dollar, relative to other currencies. He also sees the rise in food prices as only the latest in a seven-year pattern of ever decreasing economic strength.
Sorry for the bad news. Maybe I’ll post a lolcat later to make up for it.
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2 Responses:
April 28th, 2008 at 11:03 am
I’m not one to follow economic conventional wisdom very closely, and I can’t brag any sophistication in the field. But Beinhart’s interpretation tallies with what I would have guessed.