"I’m operating on a hunch here, but I think many, if not most people, are starting to get this, and simply need an articulate, insightful candidate to bring the picture into focus for them. That candidate will likely be elected."

That candidate should read Paul Krugman's Conscience of a Liberal. It's a very optimistic look at what could happen because of demographic change in the US. Krugman feels we have a chance for a New New Deal starting with universal healthcare )"Medicare for all".

Tom 

I fail to share the optimism that people will actually learn a lasting lesson from the housing bubble collapse. We've seen the whole free-markets, deregulation, supply-side house of cards proved wrong again and again, but the beast simply will not die.

Any one remember Savings and Loans? Reagan's deregulation took a thriving, profitable, largely community-based alternative to commercial banks and destroyed it. An entire sector of the banking industry, and it was just gone.

It is, of course, true that regulatory overreaction and drastic new liquidity rules pushed the few survivors over the edge and forced them to sell themselves to the commercial sector. Supply-siders love to point this out, but it is just the other edge of the same sword. Devotion to the idea of unfettered markets killed the S&L's. The overreaction was just the coup de grace.

Lesson learned, one would think, but it never works that way because the people arguing for completely free markets are not really interested in rational discourse. All their pretty theories are just a means to an end; allowing the wealthy to skim as much money off the top of the top of the economy as possible.

Yes, we need a thoughtful and articulate candidate to bring the economic picture into focus. We also need one who will shoot down the blather coming from the seated politicians.

Pelosi recently bragged that never in the 77 years since its inception has the veterans program gotten as much money as it did under her leadership in the House. Yeah, and 77 years ago the house I'm living in probably cost $2,000.

nice list Dr. Bernstein. I am waiting to see Greenspan in line at the soup kitchens. 

I concur with everything you say in spades. We desperately need someone to begin framing this election emphasizing policy, philosophy/values, and party reponsibility. It is not, as the MSM would have it, simply a contest between individuals where "character' and worse, "charisma" or "star quality" are primary.

But I have come to the conclusion that Dems are so conditioned to incrementalism they are unable to offer a broader vision of the good society than a laundry list of laudable programs for this or that constituency or problem. And, unfortunately, our leaders are also enthralled in the myth of American superiority or exceptionalism, either because they don't know better or for reasons of politically expedient blather. In any case, the model for a better society for the bulk of the population already exists and has shown its durability and effectiveness. And it is not a return to the New Deal. It is Continental social democracy which combines careful regulation of market forces (including labor markets and oligopolies) with a much wider and deeper variety of public goods and services available without or with much lessened regard to private ability to pay (e.g. mass transit, health care, education, etc.). I am not so naive as to believe American politicians will ever cite Europe as a possible model, nor should they; the model does not fit all US conditions perfectly. But at least, our spokesmen should begin to speak up on behalf of what government can and has accomplished to make life better for all of us, not just the owners of large stocks of capital here as well as abroad. To that end, citing some examples from other societies might be helpful. Also the next Dem Administration should create a process for recognizing and rewarding exceptional public sector performance on both the individual and, more importantly, the institutional level. This might partially offset the MSM focus on scandal and failure, not to mention the right's constant attack on government as at best a necessary evil, but an evil in any form. And surely they can learn to stop maligning bureaucracy and bureaucrats while praising business efficiency.

When big Dems do that they just play into the hands of our adversaries by reinforcing public cynicism about government and possible public solutions to problems affecting the mass public.

Merry Christmas and let's make it a better New Year of all our people, not just the rich.

Right, and then if you've got high ground on one topic, it's possible to carry over into others. That's true. Being a worry wart, I recall how strong the case seemed, how industry reform was regarded as inevitable, during the Clinton administration, but then ... well you know what happened.

A strong editorial as usual by the Times. In the calm of future years, his record will be much more dispassionately evaluated.

http://www.oilandglory.com

It seems obvious to me that our economic position is inextricably linked with our political and stragic positions on energy. As long as we are relying on oil for the functioning of our transport-dependent economy, we are easily held hostage to the whims of those regimes controlling that resource.

It has recently come to my attention that an engineer and author by the name of Robert Zubrin has proposed a solution that would address at least three of the items on Jared Bernstein's Best and Worst list. In his newest book, "Energy Victory", (http://www.energyvictory.net/), Zubrin argues that Congress should pass a law requiring all new gasoline-powered vehicles sold in this country to be flex-fueled vehicles, capable of running on any mixture of gasoline, ethanol, OR methanol. This would open up the vehicle fuels market to multiple energy suppliers and release us from the stranglehold of foreign energy dependence. By including methanol in the mix, we make sure we don't create a new economic cartel dominated by corn growers to replace the oil barons, and we lessen the chance that demand for alcohol-based fuel would damage the food production sectors of our economy.

Zubrin relates that he discussed the idea with Bush's advisors, but was told that "they don't do mandates." In other words, to maintain an ideologically pure position against government dictating (a very specific, targetted) business practice, the present administration is willing to place the country in a position in which our entire national economy can be tipped toward catastrophe by the market-controlling policies of theocratic regimes such as that of Saudi Arabia or Iran. Or that is their cover story...

While moving to alcohol-fueled vehicles won't solve all our problems (we still require oil for many things), Zubrin argues that it will reduce the ability of those theocratic governments to fund terrorist organizations sworn to our destruction, it will empower new economies in the third world to supply the demand for biomass to produce methanol, and to boot, it will help to mitigate the problems caused by pumping old carbon into the atmosphere.

As discussed elsewhere in this thread, passing such legislation over the obvious veto of the oil toadies in office today requires the political will to actually solve the problems we face, not just willingness to continue the status quo. I'm not sure that any political candidate has the stones to see something like this through, just as I'm doubtful that any candidate can actually implement a universal healthcare system. We have to reach the point that we see, and our candidates are brave enough to say, that government CAN offer solutions to the problems we face.