Losing Their Immunity PAUL KRUGMAN

[dtotire]

Losing Their Immunity

By PAUL KRUGMAN

Published: October 16, 2011


The answer is: yes, many of the protesters do understand what Wall Street and more generally the nation’s economic elite have done for us. And that’s why they’re protesting.

On Saturday The Times reported what people in the financial industry are saying privately about the protests. My favorite quote came from an unnamed money manager who declared, “Financial services are one of the last things we do in this country and do it well. Let’s embrace it.”

This is deeply unfair to American workers, who are good at lots of things, and could be even better if we made adequate investments in education and infrastructure. But to the extent that America has lagged in everything except financial services, shouldn’t the question be why, and whether it’s a trend we want to continue?

For the financialization of America wasn’t dictated by the invisible hand of the market. What caused the financial industry to grow much faster than the rest of the economy starting around 1980 was a series of deliberate policy choices, in particular a process of deregulation that continued right up to the eve of the 2008 crisis.

Not coincidentally, the era of an ever-growing financial industry was also an era of ever-growing inequality of income and wealth. Wall Street made a large direct contribution to economic polarization, because soaring incomes in finance accounted for a significant fraction of the rising share of the top 1 percent (and the top 0.1 percent, which accounts for most of the top 1 percent’s gains) in the nation’s income. More broadly, the same political forces that promoted financial deregulation fostered overall inequality in a variety of ways, undermining organized labor, doing away with the “outrage constraint” that used to limit executive paychecks, and more.



more:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/17/opinion/krugman-wall-street-loses-its-immunity.html?_r=1&src=ISMR_HP_LO_MST_FB

[LiberalEsto]

1. Deregulation

Deregulation is the cause of many of our problems.

Deregulation of media has led to the demise of hundreds of small newspapers, tv and radio stations and the creation of huge corporate monopolies. Few if any cities have more than one newspaper, and the loss of competition has created useless, unreadable newspapers spewing corporate P.R.

Deregulation of the energy industry has led to poor service, sky-high prices and decaying infrastructure. There is little if any innovation or investment in improvements.

Deregulation of the financial industry has led to gigantic bank monopolies, the loss of hundreds of small local banks, rapacious greed and ever-increasing fees and charges. It has led to bad mortgages and untold numbers of foreclosures. Students with private loans have no hope of ever having the loans forgiven, and they can no longer declare bankruptcy because of them. You can be homeless and the bank holding your private student loan still insists that you pay them.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

2. Duplicate in GD

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x2131144

[Laelth]

3. k&r for the truth. n/t

-Laelth