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OCTOBER 22, 2008

End of an Error

BY JONATHAN CHAIT

Last year, I published a book describing how right-wing economics had come to dominate American politics. Whenever you write a book about something bad that's happening, you get asked for the solution. I'd shrug and admit that I didn't have one. The questioner would usually look slightly disappointed, so I'd add that nothing lasts forever, and eventually something will come along to change things. The financial crisis might be that something.

When liberals talk about turning economic lemons into political lemonade, the usual model is the New Deal. The free market failed, government swept in, and the political landscape was transformed. Of course, the economy has recessions all the time, and most of them fail to result in a New Deal. In 1982 and 1992, to name a couple of examples, lousy economic conditions led to major Democratic victories. But neither led to any major transformation, and each was followed, in 1984 and 1994, by blowout Republican wins.

Why did the Great Depression fundamentally change the nature of government? First, obviously (to quote Rodney Dangerfield in Back to School, when he was asked to characterize The Great Gatsby), it was, uh, great. The current downturn probably won't last anywhere near as long as the Depression. On the other hand, economic analysts are throwing around terms like "calamity" or "total meltdown" with a distressing frequency that we haven't seen in previous recessions.

Second, the Depression--as my colleague John B. Judis put it in The Paradox of American Democracy--"destroyed in one stroke the edifice of wisdom and invincibility that businessmen had erected for themselves." After the stock market crash of 1929, Americans saw rampant speculation and greed as the source of their ills. That kind of reaction generally hasn't happened since. The 2001 recession occurred because the tech bubble burst and terrorists struck; the 1991 and 1982 recessions were caused by the Federal Reserve; etc.

Today, the public is reverberating with revulsion for Wall Street, a sentiment powerful enough to have caught backers of the financial bailout by surprise the first time it came to a vote in the House. The polling firm Greenberg Quinlan Rosner annually surveys the public for its sentiments toward "big corporations." Over the previous five years, unfavorable ratings have outscored favorable ones by an average of eleven percentage points. In the current survey, unfavorable ratings scored 25 points higher. And this is before the financial crisis has even had much impact on most people.

The New Deal ultimately triumphed because even Republican presidents--Dwight Eisenhower, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford--came to accept its basic premises. And this reflected the fact that corporations themselves grew comfortable with the New Deal, which many saw as a stabilizing force. In 1970, 57 percent of Fortune 500 executives told a poll that they wanted the federal government to "step up regulatory activities." Presidents of both parties enacted progressive tax reforms and major new regulations with nary a peep of protest from business.

Starting in the early '70s, business transformed itself into the aggressive, narrowly self-interested lobby we know today. You can read about how and why this happened in John's book or, preferably, mine. Suffice it to say that business's power has driven the rightward turn in American politics. Just as the New Deal survived Republican and Democratic administrations alike, so too has the era of conservative reaction that followed it. Republican governance has brought orgies of deregulation and upper-bracket tax cuts. Democratic governance over the last three decades has, at most, trimmed some of the wildest excesses.

It's been striking, then, to see corporations express such disgust in recent weeks with the GOP right. After two-thirds of House Republicans voted against the bailout, conservative economics writer James Pethokoukis of U.S. News & World Report noted, "I've heard from plenty of those folks, professional money managers and such, who are furious that the bailout/rescue plan went down to defeat yesterday and claim to be washing their hands of the GOP, at least for this election cycle. (But maybe longer.)"

There's nothing unusual about businesses cultivating support among both parties, or even tilting toward Democrats when they hold the majority. What's novel is that, rather than paying Democrats to leave them alone or cut their taxes or regulations, businesses have started to embrace government activism, just as they did during the heyday of postwar liberalism. Last year, my colleague Jonathan Cohn reported in The New York Times Magazine on how, unlike in 1994, business is now agitating for genuine health care reform. Likewise, writing in The New Republic, James Verini has described a similar movement on environmental policy ("The Devil's Advocate," September 24, 2007).

Meanwhile, conservatives have found themselves casting wildly about for solutions that fit their preconceived notions. Having searched frantically for a big government villain behind the free-market meltdown, the finger of blame settled upon the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977, which requires banks to lend to low-income neighborhoods. (In fact, as economist Janet Yellen has pointed out, banks that are subject to the CRA made subprime loans at a dramatically lower rate than independent mortgage companies, which are not covered by the CRA.)

When asked at the first presidential debate how he would lead the country out of the financial crisis, McCain prattled on about earmark spending, which accounts for less than 1 percent of the federal budget. He gave the air of a man retreating from the world around him into the comfort of old bromides: Hey Grandpa, tell us that joke about bear DNA again.

That sort of dogma can carry the day when it's backed by a solid wall of business support. But corporations may be starting to realize that low taxes and low regulation may not define their long-term self-interest. "I've never seen anything like this," one investment banker told The Washington Post. "You've got two big investment banks saying, 'Please regulate me.'" What do you call it when a conservative gets mugged by rampant laissez-faire? Maybe, just maybe, the end of the era of conservative rule.

 

Watch Jonathan Chait discuss this column with TNR editor Franklin Foer

Jonathan Chait is a senior editor at The New Republic. This article originally ran in the October 22, 2008, issue of the magazine.

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47 comments

Jonathan, I loved your book. One question regarding businesses' shift in the 70s: how did globalization affect their perception of their self-interests, if at all?

- Mizzou

October 3, 2008 at 6:22pm

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Funny comment about buying your book Jon in instead of Cohn's. Also, at the very end of 'Error' piece, are banks saying 'regulate me', or are they really saying, 'regulate us, to protect me from the other guy'? I heard the same comments by bankers on NPR, but I'm almost wondering if they want protection from everyone else. Understanding the motivation for the call for more regulation will affect the framing required when it comes to actual crafting (swallowing the bitter pill might be a more accurate statement) of said regulation. And what happens if thing get better quickly? Will banks say 'hey, (Mr. Short Memory sez) things weren't really that bad in the end. Don't crimp our style."?

- jet

October 7, 2008 at 12:30am

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On Mizzou's question: it changed everything. Globalization introduced competition to markets that had developed in the post-war decades without much. It was the age of oligopolies in textiles, steel, autos, aerospace, rubber, glass, industrial, construction and farm machinery. Add to that the ancillary industries that depended on them--machine tools, industrial equipment, power systems. Note that nearly all the above were heavily unionized. Advancing competition from Japan and Europe compelled American industry to rethink the social compact linking the interests of business-labor-consumers prevailing in the post-war years. American industry, seeing its markets increasingly vulnerable to off-shore competition on price and quality, realized that as oligopoly gave way to global competition, the post-war model was over. This is the point when industry really started to push back against unions and the rich compensation and working conditions and benefits the unions represented. The movement gathered steam throughout the '70s and into the '80s and to this very day. At least that's what I think happened.

- wscothan

October 7, 2008 at 1:51am

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What about the subprime loans to the poor? What about the the community development act? What about the greed of the CEO's of Fannie and Freddie? What about their buddies in the Do nothing Congress? You totally missed it.

- derwin brigham

October 7, 2008 at 7:41am

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That makes two of us -- I liked your book too! Bought it in an airport Borders and cite it in a chapter I did for a forthcoming book. Let's hope that an Obama administration and congressional Democrats can cooperate to seize the opening afforded by this mess to give us a sounder regime of taxation and regulation (including consumer product safety).

- cforeman

October 7, 2008 at 7:51am

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We can argue about the merits of financial deregulation, but there is absolutely no doubt that much - if not most - of the deregulation which occurred outside of the financial sector in the 1980s was good for consumers and the economy. Very few people would advocate a return to the entire regulatory regime and tax structure of the 1970s. And if there is one thing about which almost all economists agree, it is that protectionism is destructive. This is not good news for the Left. The Reagan Revolution did not repeal the New Deal, but it did thankfully curtail the regulatory and government excesses of the 1960s and 70s. And Obama will not repeal the most important aspects of the Reagan Revolution. We live and learn as a nation. If Leftists think we are on the verge of another "New Deal" they are delusional. This is not 1929 when we had a very small federal government. Today we already DO HAVE a large federal government. There IS a safety net, unlike 1929. I suppose you can make the argument for certain policies designed to help workers cope with the more disruptive aspects of a globalized labor market, but the main issues we face today ( education reform, entitlement reform ) do NOT unambiguously call for a sharp turn to the Left. In fact, I would argue that Democrats have yet to deal with the reality that in order to make big changes and build a lasting new coalition, they will have to take on some of the very intererst groups which Democrats have cultivated since FDR, and which now hang like an albatross around the neck of anyone who advocates reform. The fact is, there is just not much room to grow government a lot from this point. An aging population will ultimately require painful choices on Medicare and Social Security. These programs will either have to be reformed or means-tested. And NO serious effort is being made by Democrats to deal with the horrific state of our urban public schools, because they dare not take on the teacher unions. Democrats are in good shape politically right now for this election, because for the moment, circumstances are in their favor. The country is sick of Bush, Republicans have betrayed their own principles, the economy is tanking, and Americans are sick of war. But once Obama is elected and the Democrats gain seats in Congress, I predict the victory party will be short-lived. And then, the American people will see that in many respects, the Left is still philosophically bankrupt.

- Hayekian

October 7, 2008 at 8:13am

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Two words, Jon: You. Wish.

- Stephen Goar

October 7, 2008 at 8:20am

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Bush campaigned as a "compassionate conservative". He has certainly proved his "compassion" -- for example by carpet bombing Africa with tax dollars for AIDS -- but can you name ONE policy of Bush's, other than his tax cuts, that were "clearly conservative"?

- Romeo

October 7, 2008 at 8:28am

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It should be no surprise that established businesses like government regulations. Regulations can make it harder for competition to take hold. Google "baptists and bootleggers" for more information.

- JimBeam

October 7, 2008 at 9:15am

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Americans are conservative however the administration has been anything but conservative fiscally. It bothered me that early in this administration it was said that "If we learned anything from the eighties deficits don;t matter" I hoped that was a lie when it first came out but it appears it was a true statement.

- David from Binghamton

October 7, 2008 at 9:47am

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I loved your book, too. People will probably appreciate it even more now. Everyone who wants to understand how we got to where we are today should read it.

- Connie Boyd

October 7, 2008 at 9:48am

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Jon - Great article, as usual. Few commentators have such a solid grasp of policy, as well as knowledge of Grand Lakes University's Thornton Mellon. I suppose it is time for me to forgive TNR for endorsing Joe L.

- JGonzoBHAHSBaron

October 7, 2008 at 9:49am

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You aren't telling the whole truth on a couple of counts: 1. The "Free Market" didn't cause the depression. The crash would have resulted in a resession had it not been for a number of Governmental blunders that followed. One being the Smoot-Hawley bill, and another being the FED's decision to keep monetary policy tight when it needed to be loose. These are widely excepted facts at this point. The idea that it was a result of "greed" has long since been debunked. 2. It is also widely accepted that the New Deal actually PROLONGED the depression. Keeping prices high when they needed to come down, freezing wages, burning crops to keep prices up while people were starving, all now known to be disasterous measures. The 'make work' programs didn't work either (any economist can tell you why) as unemployment stayed high until WWII. Things didn't start getting better until much of the New Deal was ruled unconstitutional. 3. That many banks didn't fall under the CRA net misses the point entirely. The Boston FED released a document in the 90's informing banks how they can and should lower their lending standards for all banks... not just those under CRA. On top of that, Fannie and Freddie were the biggest buyers of the mortgage backed securities (pushed to do so by the GOVERNMENT). This 'created a market' (rather, it distorted the market) and encouraged lenders to lower their standards since they could make low risk money buy selling to Fannie and Freddie. What disturbs me about all of what is going on is that journalists like yourself right articles like this in order to try to push your own political agenda, but you do so by distorting the truth and not giving the proper information.

- Cole

October 7, 2008 at 10:00am

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Republican/Democrat aside, it seems that the current slump and associated low opinions of Congress and Wall Street may have a common root - our "representatives" in high elected office have figured out that they don't even have to *pretend* to represent us any more. Tyler's (or Toynbee's) Thesis has come home in spades, except that the general population was left out this go-round. Our elected officials figured out that all they had to do was please their contributors, and the general public would pick up the tab. It's time for folks to go to jail - let's not leave the politicians out in the cold.

- hawk

October 7, 2008 at 10:05am

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End of conservativism? I think you guys have been saying that since, what, 1956?

- John

October 7, 2008 at 10:30am

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Big corporations wanting health care reform? Do you suppose it could possibly be that they want to lay those health care premiums off on taxpayers? Maybe Jonathan's dreams will come true and we'll get a Democrat hat trick...the White House and both houses of congress. Then we can experience what real social engineering feels like.

- Snardius

October 7, 2008 at 10:30am

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Of course shoving health care costs onto to the public at large is in a corporations interest. Having people dependent on the nanny state is in their interest. They won't have to pay us as much. But the question is whether it is in our interests as a whole. So the same people who got us into this mess want to vote for Democrats. That's great. Expertise in running a business is not expertise in economics. In regards to the Great Depression, people still think they it was a failure of capitalism. As Milton Friedman showed, the Fed really, really messed up. Anti-semitic bankers let the Bank of New York go under. The New Deal prolonged the problem. And the anti-free trade stuff by Hoover hurt as well. The Fed also inflated money supply in the 20's. People didn't learn the right lessons from the Depression. No wonder they picked the wrong cure.

- Geoff

October 7, 2008 at 10:41am

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In her book, "The Forgotten Man," Amity Shlaes points out that the Depression became the Great Depression by the programs implemented by Hoover and Roosevelt. This is why those of us who study history and try to learn from it, are known as conservatives. That is why liberals became teachers and administrators in the public schools and have dumbed them down to the point that people actually believe liberalism could work... even though it fails everytime it is tried. That doesn't mean you don't have to restrain greed with laws of moral restraint. But liberalism always ends up creating a dictator who does not live under the rules and restraints he sets for the "masses" he seeks to control.

- Phil Strickland

October 7, 2008 at 10:43am

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Big corporations wanting health care reform? Do you suppose it could possibly be that they want to lay those health care premiums off on taxpayers? Maybe Jonathan's dreams will come true and we'll get a Democrat hat trick...the White House and both houses of congress. Then we can experience what real social engineering feels like.

- Snardius

October 7, 2008 at 10:53am

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It was self-inflicted: The Republican Party is not fit to lead until it can scrape the neoconservative fungus from its leadership. Preemptive War, the Noble Lie, nation-building, embracing the Welfare State, Immigration Reform, no balanced budget, and the complete abandonment of Limited Governance as a concept has killed the Party. That, and re-branding conservatism as Paleo-conservatism and cutting them adrift. I do not expect the neos to give up the leadership. Probablt, the conservatives will have to start a third party.

- Holman

October 7, 2008 at 11:16am

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Your article is nonsense. Conservatives rule this country. Who do you think put us in space, builds everything, raises the children, and elects the next president. Why do you think the calls were 100 to 1 against the bailout? What cry did you hear against the bailout- It was socialism!! Conservatives have no allegiance to big companies and their CEOs, because that is the domain of Dems, which is why Wall Street has given more to Obama and these companies have given more to Dems. Chris Dodd got more than $12 million from these people. I have news for you and all liberals. John McCain won't lose in any Southern state. These polls are wrong. John McCain will be our next president because conservatives Dems and Repub have the only ideas that work- less government, limited government, say "no" to do gooders who want to control your life and ruin the economy. Only liberals who mask themselves as conservatives have won-Carter and Clinton. Obama is being exposed as no conservative.

- garrettgirls

October 7, 2008 at 11:45am

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Laissez-faire capitalism has never been tried. The day a fully deregulated market with a limited government focused solely on it's role as "Protector of Individual Rights" is established is the day myth of statism's "security" is destroyed. It's not a coincidence that the freer nations of the world are always richer, cleaner, and stable as compared to their statist counterparts.

- Pepe

October 7, 2008 at 12:12pm

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Mizzou, that's an excellent question. Corporate benevolence arose, in part, from the protected status US companies enjoyed after WWII. The ris eof international competition was an important factor in making them feel less secure, and thus more prone to fight against unions and regulation they had previously accepted. Both Judis's book and mine discuss this.

- Jonathan Chait

October 7, 2008 at 12:26pm

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Twilight my ass, McCAin has caught up! RE: CBS, Zogby, Diago/Hotlne . Check it out for yourselves.

- Corley

October 7, 2008 at 1:08pm

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I'm a moderate Democrat who is undecided about the Presidential election, although I lean to Obama about 51/49. Obama is clearly very left-wing, which is why the hard core liberals and left-wing radicals love him. But McCain offers zero help for middle-class people with health care issues, and continues the mindless tax cutting advocacy that is the main reason for our mushrooming annual deficits and total national debt. The takeaway from my first paragraph here is that I am not a partisan right-winger or Republican. But folks, the truth is that a very large majority of the current financial crisis is the fault of Democrats who insisted that mortgage lenders lower lending standards for low-income borrowers. CRA played a part in the political pressures that Democrats used against regulated banks, but the main culprits in the current meltdown are Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. At Congressional urging - again mostly by Democrats - these entities bought many hundreds of billions of subprime mortgage loans that were granted under absurdly relaxed lending standards. Without Fannie and Freddie making the capital available to make these poor quality loans, the current financial crisis would NEVER have happened. The housing bubble would not have grown so large, and the current situation where commercial banks capital bases' have been disastrously eroded would not have occurred. This capital erosion is what is causing the credit crunch - banks are afraid to lend to other banks because they don't know how solid the balance sheet is of any financial institution. I'm not absolving the sharks on Wall Street from their complicity in this mess. They were quite willing to create a market for junk mortgage backed securities for their own short-term profits. But the main fact is this - if these lousy mortgage loans were paying as agreed, we would not be in this crisis. This problem is overwhelmingly the result of an economically unsustainable idea that everyone is entitled to own a house. My comments here are based on my experiences as a (now retired) federal bank examiner, and as someone who is very familiar with the mortgage lending industry.

- WJR

October 7, 2008 at 1:11pm

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It would be nice to see the end of conservatives ruling who are New Dealers masquerading as conservatives. It would be nice if liberal polices could be properly identified as such and the blame fixed appropriately(hint-the current crisis illustrates the failure of big government/central planning).

- lesserliz

October 7, 2008 at 1:19pm

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We have been hearing since Reagan that “Government is the problem”; that government should get “out of the way”; that the private sector can always do it better and cheaper. If one has this philosophy then it is natural to undermine government; to get it “out of the way”. Conservatives since Reagan have systematically undermined the efficacy of the government by gutting any agency which it views as “standing in the way”. You appoint “your guys” no matter how incompetent; you oust the professionals; you gut their budgets. You oppose anything which might “impede” the private sector corporations - consumer protections; food inspections; road and bridge inspection; financial regulations. You politicize the Justice Department, so that it finds nothing, even torture, objectionable. Anti-trust enforcement becomes non-existent. You never lift a voice or use the bully pulpit against corporations shipping jobs wholesale overseas. Our retailers buy their inventory from China and you ship them our money, never insisting that China adjust its foreign exchange rate. Then you borrow the money back from China to plug our budget deficit, caused by corporate tax cuts and cuts for the top 1% of Americans. You ship the borrowed money to our oil suppliers and oppose any effort to reduce dependency by seeking alternative renewable sources of fuel. After all, you’re an oil man. You start an unnecessary war costing hundreds of billions of dollars much of it going to favored construction companies doing work shoddy enough to electrocute ten soldiers in their showers. Hired thugs masquerading as “security details” rake in more of the money, answering to no one. You “rebuild” Iraq (which we never had to destroy anyway) while the Iraqis have almost $80 billion in the bank. You shred the Constitution, abridge habeas corpus. You get elected by selling your “values” while robbing the country blind. You never talk about economics. You always scare the voters with the next bogeyman around the corner. When the media disagrees with you, you attack it as “unfair” with “liberal bias”. You start your own propaganda media outlets that parrot the party line. You take the country into a permanent state of war with a volunteer army - a state so permanent no one even notices it anymore as they go to the mall. You ask nothing from them but their acquiescence. “Just go shopping folks!” You want to spend a trillion dollars to rescue the financial sector, run up a half a trillion dollar budget deficit and still spew nonsense about “small government, deregulation and lower taxes”. We are witnessing the impoverishment of America. ....and this Grand Old Party (remember it?) wants four more years.

- toritto

October 7, 2008 at 2:36pm

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Jonathan Chait of The New (People's) Republic magazine has proclaimed the death of conservatism, exulting that it is "the end of an error." As someone who has watched from afar for lo these many years, cursing the Big Government, sell-out-their-own-mothers so-called "Republicans" of whom George W. Bush is the prime example, I would like to pose a question or two. How is it that an idea can fail, if it's never been tried? How is it that a governing principle can "fail" if it's never been allowed to govern? I tell you truly, Jonathan Chait has yet to see a government run by the Founder's principles. He also has yet to see our economy run according to free-market principles. In a free market, businesses whose stewards make stupid mistakes are allowed to fail. In a free market, the government does not intervene in capital markets to artificially expand the class of "qualified" borrowers because it believes itself to be the omniscient arranger of "fair" outcomes. (Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, etc.) In a free market, the government does not manipulate money policy to the advantage of one class over another (i.e., the Federal Reserve). In a free market, the government does not regulate some businesses out of existence and give other businesses taxpayer dollars, thereby forcing all businesses into the corrupt practice of lobbying out of simple self-defense. For if they do not play the game, their competitors will. In a free market, this would not be tolerated. Nor would the over-weening oppressive nanny state that Chait and his collectivist friends have been pushing for the past 80 years have been tolerated by the Founders. Chait is right in one respect. The era of conservative poseurs is over. They have been discredited for all to see. But, even that has unintended consequences. For the past 24 years, true conservatives, true free market advocates, true advocates of individual liberty in this country, have tolerated the lies and manipulations of the poseurs like the Bushies, because the alternative (they thought) was worse. Now it would seem that Chait will get his wish. The "alternative" will be here without political recourse for those of us who disagree. But you may recall the old Chinese warning about being careful what you wish for. With the fakirs and sleight-of-hand artists gone, there is no hope for the rest of us true conservatives in an Obama presidency, backed up as it will be by an absolutist Democrat majority in the House and Senate. Chait and his ilk will take this opportunity to dictate to us, believing that having the votes of a majority will entitle them to victimize the minority, starting, I will predict, with gun control. Having no more credible political alternatives as a buffer, the Chaits of this country and their predatory collectivist policies will be in direct contact with the lives and the liberties of true conservatives. Without the lubrication provided by the faux conservatives, that friction will generate heat. And heat, gentlemen and fair ladies, can generate fire. The truth of the matter is that the Chaits of this country needed the faux conservatives more than we did. Now that they will be swept, hopefully along with the entire "Grand Old Party," into the dustbin of history, the collectivist Chaits are going to come against, for the first time in a long time, the true conservatives, the true believers in free people and free markets. Believe me, they are not prepared for that. In the land they create where the Constitution and the rule of law are overwhelmed by "democratic majority rule," political power, to quote one of their revered elder collectivist statesmen, "comes out of the barrel of a gun." Mr. Chait, look around. We're the ones with the firearms. Just exactly what is it that you're celebrating? Mike Vanderboegh PO Box 926 Pinson, AL 35126 GeorgeMason1776@aol.com

- Mike Vanderboegh

October 7, 2008 at 2:37pm

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Jonathan, thanks for answering. For some reason, I had forgotten that part of the book--I only recalled the business backlash against Ralph Nader.

- Mizzou

October 7, 2008 at 4:27pm

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WJR, "But McCain...continues the mindless tax cutting advocacy that is the main reason for our mushrooming annual deficits and total national debt." How do you square that with the fact that each time tax rates are cut, revenue to the treasury goes up? Cutting tax rates expands the economy, puts more people on the tax rolls (because they get jobs) and corporations pay more in taxes. The real culprits are those in congress who spend all they get and more.

- Snardius

October 7, 2008 at 5:18pm

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Business folks are simply doing the cost / benefit analysis. I am not sure they know what is coming in terms of regulation... but surely all they see now is help in terms of government bailout money. The government is now volunteering to manage their risk. You do nothing more than cement the notiong that the Dems corruption of our political institutions is complete. They will be the party of government AND business... yikes, your vision sounds ok right now. But just wait ten years when Pennsylvania Ave becomes Kremlin West... be careful what you wish for.

- Nate

October 7, 2008 at 5:26pm

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The Title of the NY Times should now read: "THE DAYS OF A REPRESENTATIVE REPUBLIC ARE OVER -- WELCOME TO THE AMERICAN OLIGARCHY" Idealogy no longer means anything... the clintons, obamas, gates and buffet are now welcome to the ol' blue club of the Bush's, Rockefellers, and Kennedys. What is required is a bank account of a million + and connections to international bankers and capital. Believe me, you want to be part of this club, we just send our bills to the taxpayer.

- Nate

October 7, 2008 at 5:40pm

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Wow .. did a right wing site send people here to freep this post or do you always get such a large percentage of right wingers? I mean, you have just about every flavor of winger posting here, except the all-caps OBAMA IS A MUSLIM post. You even have one that pretends to be a Democrat and says "Obama is clearly very left-wing, which is why the hard core liberals and left-wing radicals love him." BZZZZT. Only right wingers buy the Obama-is-far-left narrative. Among Democrats the common complaint is that he is too centrist, with his support of FISA, his incomplete health care plan, and his balanced mix of Republicans and Democrats on his economic advisory team. The comments on this board are an interesting study in the common delusions the wingers labor under. "Americans are conservative"? Have you actually studied how Americans react to policy positions? During the Conservative reign from 1994 until now the Republicans barely got majorities in any election -- and were it not for gerrymandering in the House and the Senate bias toward small states, wouldn't have kept the tiny majorities they had for as long as they did. That hardly can be called a ringing endorsement. "Liberalism has always failed". Yep, like during the economic boom years that dominated the 1950s, when the top marginal tax rate was 90% and the New Deal was firmly intact. "Real capitalism has never been tried." The few remaining communists today make the same claim about their ideology. What America needs now is not about liberalism or conservatism, it's about a move to pragmatism and away from ideology. And Obama may be the leader to get us there.

- Anonny

October 7, 2008 at 6:10pm

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OK, let me make it simpler. Here's my bumper sticker. OBAMA IN 2008. REVOLUTION BY 2010. NOW THAT'S CHANGE YOU CAN BELIEVE IN.

- Mike Vanderboegh

October 7, 2008 at 7:52pm

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"From time to time, we have been tempted to believe that society has become too complex to be managed by self-rule, that government by an elite group is superior to government for, by, and of the people. But if no one among us is capable of governing himself, then who among us has the capacity to govern someone else?" - Ronald Wilson Reagan

- Tom Cardello

October 7, 2008 at 10:08pm

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I thought it was telling that Barack and Michelle Obama stuck around AFTER the debate to hang out with the audience. Many audience members wanted a photo op with the Obamas and you could sense their desire to connect with both him and her. True, perhaps it's the rock-star factor in action but the Obamas seemed very at ease with everyone while the McCains were MIA following some initial glad-handing after the debate. While the networks were providing instant analysis, the cameras showed only Barack and Michelle Obama working the crowd and being warmly acknowledged.

- DEE

October 8, 2008 at 12:35am

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Don't worry about the polls! Just get out and VOTE! Don't wait until the last minute ! Vote Early! Voting early will allow you to vote just in case some BS happens!

- DEE

October 8, 2008 at 12:37am

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The ideas in some of the posts above not the question(s) "How will Obama/McCain fix...,help..." The ideas that built this fine Republic, are that the individual excells for theirself, and helps when they can/want. The very idea that individuals are asking their government to "help/fix/solve" a problem is backwards. The government of the people, by the people does at it is told. Its citizens are not accountable to their governmnet, the governmnet is accountable to its citizens. Until that paradox is fixed, there will be injustice thrown at citizens in the name of "common good." The "New Deal" was not a bastion of hope in the Tennesse Valley, progress is not "progressive" at the expense of others.

- Jay

October 8, 2008 at 12:48am

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toritto ( post number 27 ) said..."Conservatives since Reagan have systematically undermined the efficacy of the government by gutting any agency which it views as "standing in the way". This is an absurd statement, and a perfect example of the intellectual dishonesty of so many people on the Left. NO major government agency or department of government has been "gutted" by any Republican president, including Reagan. To many people on the Left, any decrease in any budget constitutes "gutting" of said agency. I'm still waiting and hoping for the day we have a president who DOES GUT government agencies, including the ELIMINATION of the federal Departments of Education, Energy and Commerce, to name just a few. I'm also waiting for someone on the Left who wants to have an honest conversation about the role of government.

- Hayekian

October 8, 2008 at 1:25am

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Any man that quotes Rodney Dangerfield in Back to School is my hero.

- Andrew

October 8, 2008 at 12:28pm

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Oh, BS! The democrats have shown themselves to be as corrupt as the republicans became. They ignore their citizen constituency, in favor of corporate and foreign elites. There will be no New Deal, no creating jobs to lift citizens out of poverty, instead, we will see whatever new jobs get created will be given to cheaper foreign labor imported to displace even more citizens. A complete abandonment of civil rights and freedoms. We'll be forced into global, one world government, unelected, unaccountable.. this was deliberate, and the fault lies completely at the feet of the last democrat president, the very undemocratic Bill Clinton, who spent last week cowering in Britain, wondering if he'd better avail himself of that honorary dual citizenship in Ireland. I'm voting republican, and encouaging every dem I know to do the same.

- Jenny

October 8, 2008 at 1:45pm

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Mike Vanderboegh, poster 28, has the right idea. The founders of the United States would surely be appalled at the intrusion of the federal government (not capped since it was to be a limited government), into business, the states and even the private lives of individuals. Government was to be by, for and of the People, and not a select group lording over the land, and encroaching upon the rights of others.

- Santee

October 8, 2008 at 5:06pm

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Hayekian: How about "Appoint your guys no matter how incompetent?" Such a move is usually as effective as "gutting" Start with Alberto G. How about Brownie? Harriett Meiers would be sitting on the S. C. if she was pro-life. How about having hightly qualified lawyers fired because of their politics? Or hiring a high ranking lawyer in Justice because she went to a law school a Liberty College and was deemed "reliable"? Shall I go on? You reveal your true feelings when you state you are waiting for a President who really does gut government agencies. Isn't that what I said the right's objective was at the beginning of my post?? I'll bet you are all for re-regulation now aren't you? How are your investments doing? :-)

- toritto

October 9, 2008 at 8:54am

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Large systems like the global economy can crash---both because of human nature and their complexity in the mathematical sense. Government rescues are certainly needed now, but that does not mean it is best for governments to run things. How would government have prevented this crisis? Would a government regulator have done better than the private rating agencies in evaluating the risk of mortgage securities? Did the government have the objectivity and political will to make it harder for it's voters to get a mortgage?

- Mark R.

October 9, 2008 at 12:26pm

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Cole, you are mistaken: 1. The "Free Market" did cause the depression. Greed drove excessive use of credit to fund investments which created a bubble which burst drying up the availability of debt and equity capital to the economy, which caused the depression. To blame this on tariffs, the Federal Reserve, Herbert Hoover or whatever is simply an attempt to obscure the fundamental fact. 2. The New Deal saved the nation, without it we would be addressing each other as "comrade." 3. The CRA has little if anything to do with this most recent example of greed coming home to roost. The root cause of the current problems is a culture (and government) that exalts greed and mindless consumption. Unless this is addressed and in short order, the US will end up in history's trashbin a good deal sooner than anyone expected. Apologists for business as usual are not doing anyone a favor.

- gaston

October 9, 2008 at 5:03pm

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There undoubtedly will be a major course correction; fear has pervaded both the left and the right. Anytime liberals and conservatives agree on an issue--opposing the bailout--'is a good thing'. Human nature, and creative destruction, is wonderful.

- frando

October 10, 2008 at 8:54am

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Thank you for the article. As usual your essay was insightful. But I wonder why you ascribe the 2001 recession in part to 9/11? That does not fit with the NBER dating of that recession, ending in November 2001. If, for example, you look at a time line of the establishment employment data, the trough is around October 2001. I don't mean to detract from your article, which as noted I found informative. My concern is more about misinformation (eg, it's common to find in Wikipedia references the 9/11 recession) being propagated by someone who's associated with anti-information. On the other hand you may have evidenced-based reasons for connecting 9/11 and the 2001 recession, something beyond NBER's dating?

- Frank de Libero

October 13, 2008 at 7:54pm

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