Thursday, June 11, 2009

Let’s Make a New, New Deal


By Susan Feiner

FDR realized that, "People who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made." Why do most economic policies run counter to this basic point?

Faith in markets leads economists to believe that full-employment is impossible, government intervention is destructive, deficits are bad, and planning is futile. That is nonsense.

Remember Galileo? His heresy was challenging the belief that the earth was the center of the universe. It’s as heretical today to enact policies that don’t place markets at the center of the economy. Excommunicating Galileo didn’t change planetary orbits, but misguided fealty to markets does affect our future.

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