A lonely nation turns its eyes to you.

As much as I admire the contributions of Dean Baker, Jared Bernstein, and Maggie Mahar and appreciate their willingness to join the discussions, I'm afraid  their stories -- Dean (It's the housing bubble, stupid!), Jared (The middle class isn't getting its just deserts), and Maggie (Health care reform is possible but boy is it hard to do) -- are yesterday's news.

Over the past 25-30 years an economy modeled on
industrial-capitalism has been transfigured into one modeled on
finance-capitalism.  The results are obvious:  asset inflation; increased debt loads; large
current account deficits; deteriorating infrastructure; unproductive
investment; widening of income differences -- you can add your personal favorites.

These are results that most liberals should find unsatisfactory and ones they should want to correct.  As Paul Krugman says America suffers from a "malaise" (a Carter parody?) whose cure is uncertain, as uncertain as are the understandings of the three Presidential aspirants.  And he's right; the political elite has not yet come to grips with the economic changes which have taken place and has offered no real corrective.  Indeed, the political elite has been a principal enabler.

Today's questions are straightforward:  Should we turn away from the practice of credit-debt inflation?  How harshly?  How quickly?  Who should bear the greatest suffering?

Where have you gone, Kevin Phillips?