STOCK MARKET WATCH - Wednesday, 22 February 2012

[Demeter]

25. The Definition of Insanity: Deregulating Over and Over and Expecting Different Results

http://www.nationofchange.org/definition-insanity-deregulating-over-and-over-and-expecting-different-results-1329755040

A cynic might argue that business leaders and their friends in Congress weren't expecting different results...In either case, we've become a bipolar nation, 1% manic and 99% depressive. Our affliction is caused by a 30-year experiment in the dismal economics of delusion. Deregulation for corporations and tax cuts for the wealthy have defined conservative policy since the 1970s, when University of Chicago economist Arthur Laffer convinced Dick Cheney and other Republican officials that lowering taxes on the rich would generate more revenue.

Ronald Reagan complied in the 1980s by dramatically reducing the top marginal tax rate. And while declaring government "the problem" he eased a half-century of protective regulations on mortgage lending.

In the Clinton years, Larry Summers and Alan Greenspan and Phil Gramm and others lobbied against regulations on the derivatives that evolved into toxic assets a decade later. A lonely voice of opposition, Commodities Trading Commission head Brooksley Born, was denounced by the powerful Treasury men, who were shocked by her affront to the nation's "financial stability."

The repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act in 1999 removed long-held protections for commercial bank deposits, as the newly liberated financial institutions now coveted the unprecedented profits in high-risk investments. Soon after, the 2000s brought us the Bush tax cuts, which have cost the nation over two trillion dollars, and a further assault on the Securities and Exchange Commission by Goldman Sachs and other financial institutions committed to "self-regulation."

So what's the result of all this? The financial collapse of 2008, of course. But it goes way beyond that. Tax cuts and deregulation led to the worst inequality since the Great Depression, with the top 1% nearly tripling their income while wages leveled off. The richest 10% own 80% of the "unearned income" that gets taxed at rates lower than those for teachers or health care workers. Corporate profits are at a record high, having accounted for 88% of the recovery after the 2008-9 recession...

BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE! READ IT AND WEEP