Chris Hedges, “Death of the Liberal Class.”

If you had any doubt, witness two recent articles.

The first, from Bloomberg, discusses comments made by a certain Charles Munger, the vice chairman at Berkshire-Hathaway, and a firm believer in bailing out the rich and leaving the not-rich “suck it in and cope.” Nice.

The second, via NYT, is a little Krugman op-ed on those poor, unfortunate, rich folks who just might—if Obama has his way—have to start paying a bit more in taxes. And they’re angry about it. Good times.

At least the rich are happy to shout their classist ideology from the rooftops.

Our Best Economic Minds Are Failing Us
The problem: 50+ years of economic theory proven to be one big FAIL by the bank/wall street meltdown, and in the wake of the collapse, nobody seems able to construct a new model. One side says “Government Spending = Socialism,” the other says “Laissez-Faire = Enslavement To Wall-Street.” Clearly, the government and the market are pretty much here to stay, so how can we make them work together? Is there a practicable theory for uniting utilitarianism with human greed? Can we make global capitalism work for all the people all the time? Can we bring together the socialists and the capitalists, the bleeding-hearts liberals and the libertarians, Adam Smith and Karl Marx?  Or is this simply too much to ask of mere humans? [It’s definitely too much to ask of a Newsweek article, which … Read More »

So a reader writes in to Naked Capitalism with some comments about the state of the economy and society, about his (and my) generation’s future prospects compared with that of his parents and earlier generations, and some theories about ‘where it all went wrong.’ While his initial comments are quite interesting (insofar as his experiences—and those of his cohort—reflect my own experiences), and while Yves Smith’s reply is also somewhat illuminating, the comments are the icing.  Gogo.

When the Hegemon Goes Down