RUB IT IN: RUBIN FOREVER.

PLUS DE CHANGE, PLUS DE PLUTOCRACIE:
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In his blog post, "Morning Joe" (July 19, 2009), Paul Krugman deplores the absence in the Obama administration of a great economist such as Stiglitz (and, implicitly, and naturally, himself). Paul makes a few observations:

"...the larger story is the absence of a progressive-economist wing. A lot of people supported Obama over Clinton in the primaries because they thought Clinton would bring back the Rubin team; and what Obama has done is … bring back the Rubin team. Even the advisory council, which is supposed to bring in skeptical views, does so by bringing in, um, Marty Feldstein..."

[Martin Feldstein is an extreme conservative (by European standards) economist, a partisan advising G. W. Bush to privatize social security, and a fanatical enemy of Europe, who views Europe as a natural enemy of the USA, and who naturally opposed the European currency in all ways.]

OK, let Paul finish his discourse:

"The point is that even if you think the leftish wing of economics doesn’t have all the answers, you’d expect some people from that wing to be at the table...

Joe Stiglitz stands out because in addition to being on the progressive wing, he’s also, as I said, a giant among academic economists. But I think the real story is more about excluded points of view than excluded people."
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So I sent the following comment supporting Paul's views:

Indeed, many people supported Obama because they were sure that Clinton would bring back the Rubin team of plutocratic critters.

So Obama brought back the Rubin team, demonstrating that the plutocratic octopus is everywhere, and that there is something deep about Nader's insistence that the game is rigged.

Nader did not invent that line: it's the old saw that Communists and Socialists were using already a century ago.

After the Communists and Socialist made headway with that observation, the plutocrats produced the fascists who carefully imitated Communist and Socialist headlines with their own propaganda (Mussolini and Hitler said that they carefully did so).

So now, here we are. Just standing in place is called being part of the "progressive wing". Because what we are facing is a regressive movement. People who insist that destroying the earth is no worries of theirs, people who insist that worth is defined by financial profits, and that only a small oligarchy can have access to these financial profits, and that the entire population should pay to make it so, are not conserving any of the character of the republic.

In truth, they are regressives, who want to go back to the Middle Ages, and have already partly succeeded to do so. Why? Because they are turning into the new Lords. Politicians are motivated to help them achieve this status, because they are themselves rewarded the old fashion way, by being elevated to considerably greater riches as Clinton was (the average Congressman and Senator are already multi millionaire while they "serve" their mandates, namely themselves).
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Patrice Ayme
http://patriceayme.wordpress.com/
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P/S: A president, though, contacted Stiglitz, and gave him a mission: try to define a better definition of GDP.

This has been one my war horses: to redefine GDP completely (and I have an elaborated solution, involving USING ENERGY AS CURRENCY, which allows to discard the inefficient part of GDP, and introduce in GDP what is very worthy, but not in the present GDP).

That president is located in Paris, he is the president of France, and his name is Sarkozy. It is instructive to realize that Merkel, Sarkozy, and even Brown, are way left of Obama, and are using American intellectual resources to progress. But, once one has realized that economically Obama is the Rubin team, that is not very surprising.

One thing that would surprise Americans, though, is the spite and anger, even among leaders, that the impudence of American plutocracy is causing overseas.
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