On The Bail-Out
I would like to recommend watching a speech by Naomi Klein, journalist and author of “Shock Doctrine,” at the University of Chicago, carried by Amy Goodman on the “Democracy Now” web site, and now posted on this web site:
zeemax-contrariancomment.blogspot.com/2008/10/ideas-have-con…
To deepen your understanding, I would also recommend that you read a bit about “economic developmentalism” on wikipedia here:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Developmentalism
that explains what it means for a country to become developed, autonomous, and legitimate, particularly in Latin America and Asia. She mentions it several times in the speech but she is addressing economists and students and doesn’t explain it much. She gives a brief overview of the free-market system that the U.S. has exported to developing countries for years for it’s own benefit.
I have been aware for some time of the thesis of her book analyzing the Friedman school of free market economics that has led to the current crisis and have seen her on TV. But I just got around to watching this talk that was given just after the first bailout was voted down but before the final passage. The free-market system has been tested, she says, and it has failed. But it will come roaring back…and has already started.
I have to tell you, that she is one of those “best and brightest” that the USA has to offer…to us and to the world. The next president, she says, we will see a turning from a “yes you can” to “no you can’t” because there won’t be any money for health, green jobs, alternative energy. Obama’s health plan costs 85 billion. AIG just got 85 billion. They are using this crisis to shut down possibility, she says, and deepen the crisis…the “shock” that they will use (and Friedman predicted) to insist on continuing the free market and their own profits.
She calls on the brilliant young creative minds at the school: “We need your minds at work,” she says. “Don’t retreat into your sacred texts. Join us in the real world,” she says,…
as tears streamed down my face.
Tags: USA
Zoe
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