Robert Kuttner is on Washington Journal, and the wingnuts are politely losing it. He's talking about his new book, The Squandering of America, which is about how broken our current political and economic system is.
Still no video card, and it's getting frustrating. I'll be back to link the Washington Journal video later. Meanwhile, there's a web site marketing the book. Check the chapter summaries. Good stuff, seriously.
Chapter Summary
Introduction: Failures of Politics
There is a common threat to the widening inequality and insecurity affecting American families and the catastrophic risks afflicting America's financial markets. That is the steady dismantling of the managed form of capitalism that served both opportunity and security-and economic dynamism--in the decades after World War II. The wreckage of the mixed economy reflects the power of conservative ideology and financial elites, who exercise disproportionate influence on both political parties. As a consequence, the instruments of broadly distributed prosperity are largely outside mainstream legislative debate. Instead, too many leaders of both parties are focused on such elite issues as budget balance, the alleged financial crisis of Social Security, further deregulation of finance and trade - policies that will do nothing to relieve the economic stress on ordinary voters. When politics does not deliver for people, the people give up on politics. So, if the Democrats are once again to be champions of regular Americans rather than a second party of Wall Street, they need to again embrace a progressive economics. And for that to occur, the people need to take back our democracy from financial elites.
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