Maybe these banker guys just have better connections than the rest of us do

I’ve often said that two of the best jobs in the world to have are Economist or Weatherman. Who else gets paid so much to be wrong so often? I was reminded of this recently while reading Busted: Dean Baker On The Price We’re Still Paying For The Housing Bubble in The Sun Magazine. Granted, The Sun is about is hippy-dippy liberal as publications get, but Baker says some insightful things in the piece, key amongst them being that “Economists think they’re doing their job if they are saying the same thing everyone else is saying“. He points out that economists tend to say what their bosses want to hear, for risk of damaging their careers; a couple of classic examples of this being of course demi-god Alan Greenspan, who finally fessed up about how wrong he was, and Ben Bernanke, who’s been saying there’s no bubble since 2005. Guess who still has the sweet job? Bernanke just began his second term as Chairman of the Federal Reserve on February 1. What boggles my mind at this point is that now that we KNOW top-level government and banking experts were so wrong, why do they still have jobs? If you were to make a series of decisions that bankrupted the company you work for, what would you expect to happen? The answer is obvious, so why do we – as a people – tolerate the ongoing abuse of the very banks we bailed out? Why didn’t the taxpayers get profit sharing and bonuses for bailing out the banks, instead of the CEO’s that caused the mess? I’ve been whining about the bailouts since day one, and have remained astounded at how little coverage the Quiet Coup has gotten. That Atlantic article just linked to explores what’s really happening in America right now, pointing out that “…the finance industry has effectively captured our government…” and that “…recovery will fail unless we break the financial oligarchy that is blocking essential reform…”. Which is why I’m glad some doomsayers are still saying that we’re Running On Empty or asking if maybe the government is Hiding How it Bailed Out AIG and Goldman. And finally congress at least seems to be looking at it this all as a problem. If you haven’t quite come to understand or accept the fact that your government has been “hijacked by the oligarchs” read this lengthy but level-headed Bill Moyers interview with Simon Johnson. You might start thinking that healthcare is the least of your worries.