26 October 2011
Another Old Guy Agrees with Me about the Economy
I wonder when the President and his economic strategists will hear the OWS and other plainly upset people about the cause and effect of the banking industry's malevalent, greedy and short-sighted push for profits over long-term economic viability. In todays NYTimes, a guest opinion by history professor James Livingston echoes my last blog entry "It's the Banks, Stupid, It'sJobs, Dummy."
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According to a New York Times/CBS News poll in May, a majority of Americans believe that increased corporate taxes “would discourage American companies from creating jobs.”
But history shows that this is wrong.Professor James Livingston (Rutgers University) contradicts public perception by explaining the historical function of tax increases and decreases during the 20th Century. He draws the following conclusions:
… [C]orporate profits do not drive economic growth — they’re just restless sums of surplus capital, ready to flood speculative markets at home and abroad. In the 1920s, they inflated the stock market bubble, and then caused the Great Crash. Since the Reagan revolution, these superfluous profits have fed corporate mergers and takeovers, driven the dot-com craze, financed the “shadow banking” system of hedge funds and securitized investment vehicles, fueled monetary meltdowns in every hemisphere and inflated the housing bubble.It's time for Timothy Geitner to change his spots or to leave the economic policy of the nation to a non-banker.
Labels: Bank, James Livingston, May, New York, New York Times, Reagan, United States
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