Thanks Dean.

I tried to post this (below) as a comment to the Hoagland op-ed, but due to some technical glitch at the WaPo site it wouldn't take. So I'll post it here, if that's all right:

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Jim, who is this "we" you hang out with? The tribe of deregulators and warmongers at The WaPo, I guess.

You should get out more often. Out here in America, most of us did not vote for the ideologues in the White House in 2000. Most of us did not want to invade Iraq until your friends at the WaPo drummed the Bush/Cheney/Rice/Powell lies into our heads and hearts for months on end. Most of us have not spent the last decade making a fortune on Wall Street ponzi schemes or DOD no-bid contracts or any other kinds of financial shenanigans.

Most of us, in fact, stayed focused on feeding, clothing and housing our families, keeping them as healthy as we could and trying to make plans for the future. And all the while you and your tribe of "we"s at the WaPo were "catapulting the propoganda" for George Bush.

I don't remember you being up in arms about the need to share the wealth when when times were good and your tribe of "we"s were getting rich. So I think it's a little late for you to discover equal opportunity now that there's blame to be allocated.

Most of "us" won't stand for it.

Of course now that Obama has picked folks like Summers & Gensler...

http://www.propublica.org/article/obama-regulatory-pick-blocked-influence-of-agency-hell-now-head-1219#When:09:44:25Z

...all will be good.

Of course we wouldn't want anybody who was right 8, 16 or even 30 years ago about dergulation, oversight, taxes, labor, jobs, housing and income policy put into power, 'cause they don't have "experience" or that would be too idealogical.

What is so sad that not just the Post, but all the big rags (newspapers) have had the chance, over the years, to help make this country better.

And all the have done, will continue to do, is support the person in the White House. Some so-called journalist who becomes a editor forgets where he/she came from. And what has happened to all the investigative reporters? Guess they have all been bought off by wall street.

Have any of the editorial page "bright lights" anywhere ever bothered to tell the readers, in the simplest possible terms, that insurers are primarily intended as generators of investment capital? And that "coverage", such as it is, is at best a part of their cost of doing business?

And what would the public's irrational attachment to their private insurance be if that fact were to be revealed?

This "We" has been around for a long time. I've poked myself occasionally to remind myself that I'm in the majority not included in the pundit "we." With the present crisis, the pundit "we" seems to be appearing a lot lately as the pundit elite seeks to spread the blame for the situation the Captains of FIRE have gotten us into. One commentator, so desperate to spread the blame to all, included anyone who'd obtained a job during the bubble.

I wish that one of these people would write a "we" article that listed the political and economic elites of the country as the responsible parties (including anyone who ever uttered the phrase "the era of big government is over"), and forced them to the deserved obscurity of, say, DW Griffith.

But instead, Obama has given them jobs.

"The point is that the Post and it crew of cronies have badly failed the world in a large number of ways and continue to do so."

Truer words were never written! But let's be clear about who the "crew of cronies" includes. Of course, it includes the wealthy and powerful forces of predatory wealth, the military industrial complex and so forth... And of course, all of the corporate media in America (which is to say almost all of the media both electronic and print) were essential to the success of the fraudulent and reckless policies of the past 8 years and more.

But absolutely critical to the success of all the bad ideas among the "crew" were the cooperation and cheerleading provided by elected Democrats in the Congress of the Unites States. At every turn, congressional Dems had the opportunity to block these bad ideas, policies, and programs. At every step congressional Dems had the power to expose the lies and criminal activity involved in carrying out these schemes. But precious few of our Democratic leaders stood up to be counted forcefully in opposition to these foolish manuevers. The so-called conservative and "centrist" Democrats have been by far the most complicit and have the most explaining to do. But with the help of the other crew members they will not have to answer any questions at all. They will simply bellow as loudly as they can about how "someone was asleept at the wheel" or that we must tighten regulations and so on, ad nauseum.

One needn't have been an economist or well-placed individual to understand that the people in command of public policy on the national level have been little more than expensive whores to the highest bidders for years. The interests of the people always have come second when our "leaders" were given a choice between the public interest and serving the interests of those who could fill their campaign coffers now and hire them for lucrative lobbying posts later. Millions of us on the outside looking in at the orgy of greed and excess taking place both in government and the private sector have known this would occur for a long time. The only mystery was when it would happend and the only surprise is that it all happened such close proximity. The house of cards has now fallen and the illusion of prosperity is fading. It is very clear who the responsible parties have been in creating and enabling the various messes we now face economically, militarily and so on. But the moment anyone points out who the culprits were and are, they are shouted down by a din of deniers and of those who have an interest in keeping the current game going.

Getting back to the critical role of conservative and centrist Democrats, their chief representative now is preparing to take the oath of office next January and become our President. He campaigned on "change" and he campaigned for a "new politics" and came to represent some mythical beast known as "post" partisanship. He has appointed a very impressive array of people to his cabinet. Among them are some of the most prominent Democratic advocates of all the policies Dean Baker is condemning as being foisted on the nation by the Washington Post and it's "crew of cronies." Oddly, however, nobody points out the complicity of these people in Iraq, the economic collapse or any of the associated problems. I pray that Obama's policies do not reflect more of the same go along/get along tendencies of the "centrist" Democrats who were so instrumental in the "crew of cronies", but the problem is I dont' see any indication of anything other than a slight tweaking of the status quo despite all the hllabaloo over how big a stimulus package Obama may come up with. Massive spending without a national health insurance plan like those in Europe and Canada won't make a dime's worth of difference to the average American or with respect to the major problems our current system causes in our economy. Tweaking the Iraq and Afghanistan policy with Bush's Sec. of Defense isn't going to bring about any withdrawal from either country let alone orderly withdrawal. The list goes on and on.

Unless and until concerned Democrats and others are willing to admit that a massive part of the problem is and remains "centrists" who lick the boots of predatory wealth and who do their bidding, we will never escape the darkness they have plunged us into.

congratulations, dean baker. you've written the dumbest column a smart person has written in months. blaming the country's troubles on the washington post is idiotic. did the post warn of the housing bubble? did any newspaper? if you did, good for you. did the post warn that the biggest cause of the deficit is the broken health care system? first time i've read that anywhere. maybe you've been warning about that for years. and maybe you're even right about it. again, if so, good for you. and you blame the post for u.s. trade policy? maybe they support it. maybe a lot of people did and are wrong. but don't blame it on the post! how much attention does anyone pay to a newspaper's editorials and op eds anyway? the post supported both gore and kerry. but bush won both times, indicating how much influence post editorials have. do you really think bush would have changed his trade, deficit and housing policies if the post had editorialized differently. if so, you need to have your head examined? the post won six pulitzer prizes this year: including one for exposing the shameful conditions at walter reed and another the disgraceful use and behavior of military contractors in iraq and the frightening power of cheney. and a couple of years ago the post won one for exposing the disgraceful practice of rendition. god bless them for that. you are juvenile if you think one damn good newspaper can do everything. sure post publisher donald graham has his links to the rich, famous and powerful, being one of them. sure you can criticize him and the post editorial pages for a lot of things. but get real. graham could dump the post in five minutes if he didn't have a commitment to public service and make a lot more money from his kaplan courses and tv stations. his descendants may, god forbid, do just that. you don't agree with him on a lot of things. fine. on a lot of them, i agree with you, not him. there are days i could throw up after reading will and krauthammer or some dopiness hiatt or malaby or samuelson or cohen or some other person writes on the editorial or op ed page. but i'm happy to have the post around for the great good it does the country. or would you prefer the washington times and its jailbird, lunatic messiah of a publisher and its racist editors as the only newspaper in washington? get real, dean baby!

Lenders intentionally designed mortgages to never be repaid. Homeowners with two incomes were routinely maxed out, just to make teaser payments that didn't even cover the interest due. The whole thing collapsed right on schedule, when the ARMs all adjusted at once.

This is just the macro result of a million micro decisions all adding up at the same time. Even if the micro decisions seemed like they made since at the time, they add up to a big disaster.

Myself, when 9/11 happened without leaving a lasting impact on the economy, and the war began, again without a lasting impact on the economy, and we all began to be inundated with sales pitches to refinance, and home prices climbed, I knew in 2003 that I needed to sell my house the summer before the 2008 presidential election. Do these basic ideas connect for anyone else?