Puget Sound Liberals Weekly Newsletter #232
Enhancing Freedom, Opportunity and Cooperation in
Through informing and networking Liberals and Liberal Organizations.
Our vision is hundreds of thousands of well-informed Puget Sound Liberals
working together.
Our Website Our Editor To Unsubscribe Table of
Contents * Featured Articles Opportunities Petitions Communication to Our Members Commentaries from Our Members John Burbank: Reducing SS
Isn’t Fiscally Responsible Linda McVeigh: Washington Needs More Medicaid Funding Liberals and Democrats Links to the Beef Obama Replaces McChrystal with Petraeus Wall Street Regulatory Reform* Congress Doesn’t Heed Public Opinion Conservatives Criticize Obama for Holding BP
Accountable* Allowing Undocumented Children to Become Citizens State and Local Links
to the Beef David Spring: I Can Win Against a Corporate Executive Republicans Might Win Washington’s 3rd
Congressional Seat Help Gather I-1098 Signatures** Nation and World Links to the Beef Featured Advocacy Group: Public Campaign Billionaires Challenge Others to Donate Their Wealth* Our Liberal Spirit Viewing a Glass as Half Full or Empty Recommended Books Our
Political Priorities ·
Fair Clean
Elections and Open Government ·
Fair Taxes and
Competent Spending ·
Investment for
Productivity ·
Quality
Health, Education, Jobs, Income ·
Environmental
Protection and Energy Independence ·
Security and
Equal Rights ·
Justice and
Peace Everywhere ·
International
Cooperation and Leadership Conservatives oppose all of these Let’s
End Our National Nightmare
Let’s
Restore Our American Dream More on Conservative opposition to our
American Dream Washington State’s 5 Major Needs · Federal Funding for Health and Education · Substituting
a Progressive Income Tax · Replacing
Conservative Legislators Quote of the Week Some people see a glass as half full. Others see it as half empty. George Carlin
Calendar of Events
Saturday, June 26 at 6:30PM at
Sharon and Will Creeden’s home (1661 Harbor Ave SW, #202, Seattle) - InspireSeattle
Potluck and Discussion. For more.
Opportunities
Commentaries
that have addressed major issues
Obtain
a free ‘Corporations Are Not People’ bumper sticker.
Petitions
Tell
President Obama to strengthen the ban on whaling.
Communication
To Our Members
Thanks to those of you who expressed regret that starting in
July our newsletter will only be published every other week; but expressed
appreciation for my excuse that caring for my left too little time. Dave Thomas
Commentaries
From Our Members
John Burbank: Reducing Social Security
Isn’t Fiscally Responsible
The inside-the-beltway crowd is sneaking
up on us again. You may have picked up on some news regarding the “National
Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform.” President Obama appointed this
group of past and present political leaders to “propose recommendations that
meaningfully improve the long-run fiscal outlook, including changes to address
the growth of entitlement spending and the gap between the projected revenues
and expenditures of the Federal Government.” In plain words, that means they
are planning to cut Social Security benefits.
This amounts to bad timing and bad behavior. Let’s consider some facts. The
standard formula for retirement security has been a combination of Social
Security, pensions and savings. But that foundation no longer exists. While
Social Security remains solid, the other two are either non-existent or
crumbling. Savings have fallen to about 3 percent of personal income. Our
401(k) retirement accounts may be more aptly labeled 201(k) accounts — $100,000
in a 401(k) at retirement will get you about $600 a month. In this great and
lasting recession, the collapse of savings and pensions means that more and
more Americans, both employed and unemployed, will face poverty and insecurity
as they age into retirement. Only one barrier stands between them and being
flat broke. That is Social Security.
In our state, More than 1 million people receive Social Security benefits —
more than 15 percent of our entire population, including nine out of ten people
age 65 and older. In Snohomish County, 88,000 people receive benefits,
including more than 61,000 retirees, 7,000 widows and widowers, 13,000 disabled
workers and 5,500 children.
Thanks to Social Security, these people have a modicum of economic security.
After all, you don’t get rich on Social Security, but you can keep your head
above water. The average Social Security payment is a little more than $1,000 a
month.
Keep in mind that these payments are earned. That is, workers pay into Social
Security with every paycheck. In doing so, they get three insurance packages in
one. If they are disabled, they receive disability insurance for the rest of
their lives, and their spouses and children are also protected from the
poorhouse. If they die, their spouses and children receive life insurance on a
monthly basis. When they retire, they know they can count on a steady stream of
checks from the Social Security system.
Those checks come from the $2.5 trillion Social Security Trust Fund. This money
is wisely invested in Treasury bonds, still considered the safest investment in
the world. It grows predictably over time. It’s been built up to make sure
there is enough money to cover all retirees when my generation of baby boomers
is fully retired.
Now would be an especially good time to increase Social Security benefits. This
is not Wall Street’s money; it is the workers’ savings. If Social Security
benefits were increased by $100 a month, the average benefit would increase by
about 10 percent. That would be a good dividend, especially for the half of all
retirees who depend on Social Security for four-fifths of their income.
But instead, the Fiscal Responsibility Commission seems to be intent on cutting
Social Security benefits. They are considering ways to nickel-and-dime away the
accounts of average citizens, under the guise of “fiscal responsibility.”
Here is a better idea: The commission should propose a financial transaction
tax. This would curb the out-of-control speculation and gambling that brought
down our economy. Peter DeFazio, an Oregon congressman, has introduced this tax
with his bill, “Let Wall Street Pay for Wall Street’s Bailout Act of 2009.” The
government would levy a quarter of a percent tax on financial transactions,
exempting pension funds, mutual funds, education and health savings accounts
and the first $100,000 of transactions annually. This tax would bring in about
$150 billion a year from the speculators, forcing Wall Street to eventually pay
back the almost trillion-dollar bailout we provided them in the past couple of
years.
That would be the fiscally responsible thing to do. We would appreciate the
trade-off — protect Social Security while taxing the speculators. But in this
topsy-turvy world, who knows? We have yet to see if the president and his
commission will listen to Main Street or Wall Street. Stay tuned. John
Burbank
Linda McVeigh: Washington Needs More Medicaid
Funding
Published by Seattle Times
on 6/20/2010
If federal funds to support increased demand for
Medicaid are not made available to our state, it isn’t just legislators running
for re-election who will suffer [“State shouldn’t bank on Medicaid money,”
editorial, Opinion, June 13].
Sure, it will be difficult for legislators to cut $480
million from the state budget before elections. But it will be even more
difficult for the working families who will suffer as a result of the budget
cuts. Funding for health care and education likely will be slashed. Class sizes
will grow. Community health clinics will close.
Lawmakers in our state have already cut nearly $4
billion from our state budget. If they have to make an additional $480 million
in cuts, we’ll all suffer. Linda McVeigh, Executive Director, Country Doctor Community
Health Centers, Seattle
Liberals
and Democrats
In
his weekly radio address, President Obama criticized Republicans for
obstructing jobs, home ownership, holding BP accountable and many nominees to
administration posts. As
usual, President Obama has been super busy coping with a variety of challenges.
Apart
from paying gulf residents damages, they should be hired for wetland and beach
reclamation, thus replacing their lost employment and performing a vital
service. But President Obama has not mentioned
such a possibility. Nor
has he indicated what carbon emissions regulations he favors.
Like
Presidents Roosevelt and Reagan, President
Obama can overcome a midterm slump to be re-elected.
Obama Replaces McChrystal with Petraeus
General
Stanley McChrystal inappropriately criticized President Obama and other federal
officials in remarks which were described in Rolling Stone magazine. It is difficult to change horses in
mid-stream. But General David Petraeas
(who will replace McChrystal) created and successfully implemented the counter
insurgency strategy in Iraq which President Obama has chosen and McChrystal has
been implementing. So General David
Petraeas is well qualified to continue the strategy. In addition, Petraeas may bring more
diplomatic skills than McChrystal to influencing Pakistan to decrease the flow
of al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters into Afghanistan. This is one event which may assist
President’s reputation for firmness without rancor. For
more.
Fiscal Irresponsibility
Like President Obama, House Majority
Leader Steny Hoyer refuses to consider raising taxes on Wall Street
Speculators. He suggests instead that it
may be necessary to raise taxes on less wealthy main street Americans and to
cut social security benefits. For more. For more. For more.
Co-Chair of the National Commission on
Fiscal Responsibility Alan Simpson seeks to
undermine social security by not
paying back money from trust fund used for tax breaks primarily for the
wealthy.
House
Financial Services Chairman Barney Frank (D-Mass.), along with a bipartisan
task force that includes members of the Center for Arms Control and
Non-Proliferation, Cato Institute, Center for Defense Information and others,
announced the release today of a new report that identifies $960 billion in
Pentagon budget savings that can be generated over the next ten years from
realistic reductions in defense spending. The report was produced by the
Sustainable Defense Task Force, a group convened in response to a request from
Rep. Frank to explore options for reducing the defense budget's contribution to
the federal deficit without compromising the essential security of the United
States. For more. For more.
Our deficits
should be reduced by increasing income taxes upon our wealthiest people.
A financial transactions tax will both raise money and discourage
speculation. It would raise a ton of money. For more.
Wall Street Regulatory Reform
Wall
Street Regulatory Reform will hopefully pass before the July 4th
congressional recess. But which
regulations will be included are still being decided in the conference
committee. Wall
Street lobbyists are strongly opposing regulations necessary to prevent future
speculative bubbles. Our treasury
department is siding with Wall Street to oppose derivative reform. Attempts
to reform credit rating agency procedures are weakened. For
more. Attempts
are still being made to weaken ‘too big to fail’ mega-banks.
Wall
Street bankers resist regulations to inform stock owners of fees and risks.
Bought-off
Democrats are opposing derivatives reform.
As
of Thursday evening, the conference committee still has not indicated what they
will decide concerning derivatives and other important reforms. A full report should be possible next week.
Within the next few
months, Health care reform will end some private insurer abuses.
Democrats are daring
Republicans to try to repeal health care reform. In spite of
health care reform, abuses continue. States can improve
health care reform.
Gay Rights
President Obama is expanding the rights of gay workers
by allowing them to take family and medical leave to care for sick or newborn
children of same sex children. For more.
Congress Doesn’t Heed
Public Opinion
Conservatives Criticize Obama for Holding BP Accountable
Republican Congressman Joe
Barton and other Conservatives have criticized President Obama for holding BP
Accountable for damages resulting from its oil leak, thus revealing to all
Americans that Conservatives believe corporations can do no wrong and
government should just leave them alone.
This is so at odds with
American opinion that Conservatives that probably agree with Joe Barton have
forced him to retract his statement, which he only half-heartedly did. For
more. For
more. For
more. For
more. For
more.
Allowing Undocumented Children to Become Citizens
Our congress is considering
the DREAM Act which would allow high school graduates who entered the U.S.
under the age of 16 to earn the right to become legal residents and eventually
U.S. citizens, provided they have no criminal record and either go to college
or serve in our military. It would also
remove federal restrictions on their eligibility for in-state tuition. This would affect many of the 65,000 children
of immigrant parents who graduate each year without U.S. legal status.
Here’s the Beef
Ten
ways to start making change.
Fall
Election May be Decided by Who Votes.
Conservatives
accuse President Obama of being a Socialist.
Socialists deny that he is.
Some
Republicans oppose forcing BP to pay those it has harmed.
Wow!
A really strong criticism of President Obama’s oval office speech.
Senate considers,
but doesn’t decide among three approaches to regulating green house gases. The main argument is carbon caps or not.
State and
Local
It Is Time to Stop Selling
Elections to the Highest Bidder
Is it possible for an average person with no money to
win a legislative race in Washington State? This year, we are going to find
out. I am Democrat running against a 4-term Republican incumbent in a heavily
Republican District. To make things even harder, I am also running against a
wealthy corporate executive who claims to be a Democrat. At first glance, one
might think I don’t stand a chance.
Of course, that is what the "political
experts" said in 2008. I had no money and I had never ran for office
before. I was simply a parent and a teacher who was upset about the fact that
our school district was one of the lowest funded, most overcrowded school
districts in the nation – even though homeowners in our school district pay
some of the highest State taxes in the nation.
The political experts pointed out that the average
challenger spends more than $200,000 to win a legislative race in our State. I
had less than $25,000. They noted I was running in a heavily Republican
district where Democratic challengers get only 40% of the vote – even when they
spend $200,000! Just to make things even harder, well known Democrat incumbents
actively campaigned against me in 2008. They were mad at me because I wanted
millionaires and major corporations to pay their fair share of State taxes -
and I had criticized Democratic party leaders for giving huge tax breaks to
major corporations - money that should have gone to our schools.
Despite all of these obstacles, I ran one of the most
competitive races in the State in 2008. In fact, I almost won! I got nearly
34,000 votes – the only competitive legislative race in our State in the past
20 years where a challenger has gotten more votes than dollars spent. In
addition, I got 6,000 more votes than any Democratic legislative candidate in
the history of the 5th District – making me the most popular Democratic legislative candidate ever in the 5th
District.
In 2010, the political experts are again claiming I
don’t stand a chance. It is likely I will be out-spent at least ten to
one. Once again, I am running against BOTH political parties. So what else is
new? But here is why I will do even better in 2010 than I did in 2008:
1.
I am a parent and a teacher. The voters trust
parents and teachers. Neither of my opponents is a parent or a teacher.
2.
My Republican opponent used to be a corporate
lobbyist who advocated for deregulation of banks and oils companies.
Deregulation turned out to be a very bad idea and the voters are pretty mad at
big banks, oil companies and corporate lobbyists right now.
3.
My Democratic opponent made his money as a
corporate executive for Accenture, formerly known as Arthur Anderson, the
accounting firm responsible for the Enron scandal.
4.
The voters blame corporate lobbyists and
corporate executives for our current economic mess. They also blame BOTH
political parties. The voters are angry and they are looking for someone they
can trust to go clean up the mess in Olympia. They know I will.
5.
The legislature cut another billion dollars
from public schools in the past two years. The parents of East King County are
as upset as I am about this. I am the only candidate who has offered a specific
solution to the school funding problem.
6.
I have far better name recognition now than I did
in 2008. The voters remember I am running to save our public schools, they know
I nearly won in 2008, thousands of them already voted for me in 2008 - and they
are planning on voting for me again.
7.
While I had one of the largest groups of
volunteers in the State in 2008, I have even more now. Most are parents who are
as committed as I am to fixing the school funding crisis.
I think I will win the Primary and the General
Election this year. If I do, it will be one of the biggest political upsets in
the history of our State. And it will send a strong message to other
legislators that elections in our State are no longer for sale to the highest
bidder. We parents are not going to put up with any more excuses. Either
legislators will fund our schools - or they will be out of office! David
Spring M. Ed. Candidate for State House, 5th LD, Position 2
Republicans Might Win Washington’s 3rd
Congressional Seat
Republicans may
win the seat held by Brian Baird who is not running again. But given his Conservative votes, not much
would change for the worse. Democrats
would be one vote farther from being able to invoke cloture to stop
filibusters. But in the absence of the
ability to stop filibusters, Democrats should primarily use reconciliation
procedures to pass reforms by designing them to affect federal revenue.
Help Gather I-1098 Signatures
Dear
Dave. Good news. We have gathered 285,000
signatures. We are NOT done. Our goal is to gather 325,000
signatures.
Please return any signatures you have to the campaign as soon as possible. We
will start verifying the signatures gathered so far this weekend.
Can you help gather signatures at the Seattle Pride events this weekend?
If you can join us on Saturday for the Capitol Hill Pride Festival click
here and if you can help work the parade lines on Sunday downtown click
here.
Gathering signatures while people wait for parades to start is a really
effective strategy. So join us Sunday morning at Westlake Park downtown.
Gathering thousands of signatures this weekend will make sure we have a large
cushion before we submit signatures to the Secretary of State before July 2nd.
Thank you for your work, Kelly Evans, Yes on 1098
Greetings
Dave.
Here is some info
for letting your readers know about the pride festival this weekend and how
they can help 1098. "This weekend
is the Pride Parade in Seattle. Gathering signatures as people wait for parades
has been one of the most successfully tactics. People have nothing else to do,
and when you tell one person about the initiative, usually 4 or 5 others are
listening and many of them sign.
The parade is
Sunday morning and we will be meeting at Westlake Park (where the parade
begins). We will work the lines as the
parade gets going. We will be organizing two shifts, one starting at 9 am and
the second starting at 1 pm and we will meet at the Seattle Center at the Equal
Rights Washington Tent. You can sign up
with the 1098 campaign here. You can also call Erik at 360-510-9460 if you
can't find us on Sunday. Erik Magnuson, Erik@yeson1098.com
How
would I-1098 affect Washington’s regressive tax system?
How
would I-1098 affect the Business & Occupation tax for small businesses?
Here’s the Beef
Nation
and World
Featured Advocacy Group
---------------------------------- Public Campaign ------------------------------------
Cooperating with other advocacy groups, Public Campaign advocates for fair
elections based upon full public financing of political campaigns. Assistant Senate Majority Leader Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) and Sen.
Arlen Specter (D-Pa.) have introduced the Fair Elections Now Act (S.752) in the
Senate, and Reps. John Larson (D-Conn.) and Walter Jones (R-N.C.) have done so
in the House (H.R.1826) as well.
The Fair
Elections Now Act would allow congressional candidates to run for office using
only small donations and limited public financing. Candidates would qualify by
raising a set number of small donations from members of their community, and
agree to not raise any large contributions. Once qualified, they would receive
limited public funds and would see their on-going small donations matched on a
four-to-one basis.
The Fair
Elections Now Act would allow federal candidates to spend more time focusing on
the people they represent and addressing our nation's problems, rather than on
raising money from wealthy donors and special interests.
To find our more,
read "Breaking
Free with Fair Elections" by Public Citizen. This publication makes
the case for Congressional Fair Elections. Read about why the time is ripe; how
the system works; the cost of the program; and the success of Clean Elections
in the states.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Explaining the BP Oil Leak
From
2005 through 2007, many books were published which described the Bush
Administration’s deception, corruption and incompetence. During the last several years, many books
were published which described our housing-credit bubble, its collapse and how
to prevent future bubbles. I predict
that the next wave of books will concern the reasons for the BP oil leak.
The
first thing to note is that both public and private organizations and
individuals find it easy to put off spending to prevent catastrophes if they
are viewed as rare. Here in Washington,
we are struggling with funding several major projects (Seattle viaduct and SR
520 bridge) which are vulnerable to collapse if an earthquake occurs. Given other pressing needs for spending, we
often view even fairly common catastrophes as rare. This happened with prevention of the 9/11
terrorist attack, the housing-credit bubble and the BP oil leak. Both BP and the Bush and Obama
Administrations treated the possibility of a massive oil leak as extremely
unlikely. BP and other oil companies
doing deep sea drilling prepared ridiculous defenses of the safety of their
drilling. As has been publicized, their defenses were
essentially identical, referred to walruses in the Caribbean, and included
other misinformation. Yet these were
accepted uncritically by both the Bush and Obama Administrations.
BP
established a timetable for its drilling.
When various difficulties threatened to delay its drilling, shortcuts
were taken which violated necessary precautions against an oil leak. In particular, As built drawings were not
updated in accordance with standard engineering practices. The result was that it was difficult to
identify problems and solutions for correcting the problems. Without these precautions, the oil leak
occurred.
Having
not taken seriously the possibility of an oil leak, BP also did not have any
effective ways to respond to one. Since
it occurred, a series of experiments have been conducted, which failed, except
for the latest attempt which has had only limited success.
Faced
with a massive public relations problem, BP has behaved deceptively. It wouldn’t release workers from the oil
platform until they signed a statement that they hadn’t been hurt. It reported that the amount of oil leaking
was much smaller it has been. It reported
many more people were attempting to clean the beaches than were doing so. To indicate that the oil and dispersants
would not harm people, it refused to allow beach cleaners to wear protective
masks. So similarly to what happened in
the cleanup of the twin towers site, workers are suffering from exposure to
caustic substances. BP has tried to
suppress visual images of damage to birds and other wildlife. These deceptive practices were bound to fail,
given the scrutiny that was sure to occur.
They indicate BP’s corporate mindset which puts its financial interest
ahead of other concerns.
The
Obama Administration has also failed to respond well to the oil leak,
especially to the plight of the wetlands and beaches and the workers who
depended upon them for seafood and tourists.
Besides making BP responsible for initial damages, BP should be held
responsible for paying for a wetlands and beach reclamation and enhancement
program which employs the now unemployed workers, paying them a fair wage. Such a jobs program (which won’t add to the
federal deficit) is much more important to the coastal communities than simply
damage payments for continuing unemployment.
Many
suggestions have been made for reclaiming wetlands and beaches. Two examples which I find intriguing are
Louisiana Governor Jindal’s suggestion that Mississippi river water be diverted
to push the oil back out of some of Louisiana’s wetlands and a suggestion that
micro-organisms can consume the oil.
Both of these may have unintended consequences which render them
harmful. For example, fresh Mississippi
river water would destroy oyster beds, unless it could somehow be rendered
salty at the beds.
The
books to come should address these facts and others to become better
understood. Dave Thomas
Billionaires Challenge Others to Donate Their Wealth
I am
very glad that Bill
Gates and Warren Buffett are challenging other wealthy people to contribute
their wealth to philanthropic causes.
I hope that many of them do so. I
think they would gain much more satisfaction doing this, than giving it all to
the heirs.
But
I think differently than many people. I
recently listed 16 major projects in which I have invested great amounts of
time and efforts. I only envisioned that
three of them would produce modest amounts of money for me. But they failed to do so. All the others were done for personal
satisfaction, often including satisfying social needs that I thought should be
met.
I
have accumulated lots of stuff cheaply that I thought might become useful,
which I am now painfully giving away.
But I have never accumulated expensive stuff. I have fantasized that I might have purchased
Microsoft stock early, knew how to make big money speculating on the stock market,
winning at the racetrack, or lotteries.
If I obtained big money in any of these ways, I wouldn’t want to retain
it. I would want to use it to further
liberal causes. I would want to be a Tim
Eyman of the left, sponsoring liberal initiatives. I would want to assist consistently liberal
candidates to win legislative office at both state and federal levels. I can imagine no greater satisfaction than
that which the four large Colorado donors must have felt for enabling the
turning of Colorado from very red to quite blue.
I
hope at least some of our wealthy Washington people will adopt the vision of
these Colorado donors. I hope that other
wealthy people will do the same in other states. And that others will contribute their wealth
to other worthwhile causes. Dave Thomas
Here’s the Beef
Some
Afghan villagers are fighting against Taliban.
Our
Liberal Spirit
Viewing a Glass as Half Empty or Half Full
Our glass seems today to be
both half empty and half full. We need
to focus upon making it more full.
Many of our recent
accomplishments - some of them historic - are far less than what we
envision. If President Obama and many
Democrats don’t understand the extent to which we must create more far reaching
reforms, we who do understand that they are needed must cooperate to force our
understanding and appropriate actions based on our understanding upon President
Obama and other Democrats. For more.
When our freedoms and
opportunities are less than are needed, we need to cooperate to extend
them. Consistent Liberals are increasing
realizing this and organizing coalitions to act to force more reforms necessary
to providing freedoms and opportunities to Main Street Americans.
Recommended Books – See our list of books for liberals
Joseph Stiglitz and Members of a UN
Commission of Financial Experts, 2010, The
Stiglitz Report. Reforming the
International Monetary and Financial Systems in the Wake of the Global Crisis
The Stiglitz Report
recommends many of the same reforms that Nouriel Roubini recommended in his
Crisis Economics which was described last week and is repeated below. A major difference is that the Stiglitz
Report emphases not only the prevention of speculative bubbles, but also
alleviating global poverty, reducing global warming, and protecting our environment
as necessary goals for a sustainable future.
Nouriel Roubini,
2010, Crisis Economics. A Crash Course in
the Future of Finance
Nouriel Roubini
was one of the few economists to predict the housing-credit bubble and its
collapse. He offers specific suggestions
for stimulating the economy while preventing future speculative bubbles,
including:
·
Changing
compensation for traders and bankers to bring their interests in line with
shareholders
·
Far
greater transparency and standardization of securitization and regulation of
its products
·
Under-the-table
derivatives must be made transparent, put on central clearinghouses and
exchanges and registered in databases, with their use restricted
·
Rating
agencies must be paid by investors instead of by the institutions that issue
the debt
·
‘Too
big to fail’ mega-banks and many less visible firms must be broken up into
smaller banks.
·
Glass-Steagall
banking legislation must be enacted, updated to apply to shadow banks as well as banks
·
Regulation
should be consolidated in fewer more powerful regulators, with better
compensation for regulators
·
Central
banks must proactively use monetary and credit policies to curb speculative
bubbles
·
The
IMF must be strengthened and given the power to supply the making of a new
international reserve currency, with the emerging economies given more
influence upon IMF policies
These suggestions
are much more specific than suggestions made by those who still believe that
speculation offers benefits. They are
also similar to those offered by Joe Stiglitz who also predicted the
housing-credit bubble and its collapse.
I will comment next week on Joe Stiglitz’s suggestions.