"Trickle down," for instance, was never a serious economic theory to begin with, and it has been discredited by the facts -- over and over again. And yet you will find plenty of people, a good number of politicians, and yes perhaps even a few actual economists, who will insist that "it works."
(Quoted from Massimo Pigliucci Amazon.com review of May 21, 2012)
This is a dishonest attempt at contextualizing the author's objectives in writing the book. Substitute "Supply Side Economics" and illustrate it with the laughable Laffer Curve and broadcast it with Ted Koppel's approval on NIGHTLINE and nearly every other (admittedly rare) attempt by national broadcast media to analyze economic policies in a way that engages the disinterested populace and you get a sense of how an academically non-rigorous argument could nevertheless become such an accepted set of false premises as to shape a shrinking middle class into being politically loyal to policies that are proving themselves a threat to that very same anxious, if hopelessly distracted body politic. That outcome may not be academically 'serious,' however it sure did accomplish its purpose. Capital was unfettered.
Capital predictably fled for the lowest labor costs at any given moment on the planet until deflation set in among the developed world's consumer economies at which point simply parking the non-taxed capital offshore hidden behind bank secrecy laws from Liechtenstein to Panama to the Cayman Islands or London became the way to pile up corporate feudal reserves in personal accounts. Was Adam Smith around to insist on equal broadcast time? Any economist doing so and wishing to point out to Bill Clinton and his economic guides Robert Rubin, Larry Summers and Sandy Weil that Adam Smith predicated the right of capital to cross borders freely on the right of labor to cross borders freely was ejected from the corporate-broadcast networks' Golden Rolodexes. When President Clinton bailed out the Mexican Peso at Rubin's behest saving the Citi Bank bond market investors who then welcomed the Secretary of Treasury onto their corporate team and later when Clinton hoodwinked Big Labor into supporting NAFTA a community radio journalist, Amy Goodman, got to ask an unguarded and cocky Bill Clinton about the political likelihood that it would ever be safe for any elected official to propose policies freeing labor up to cross borders as easily as Clinton's team had helped capital cross borders. After being at first flustered by the temerity of the hardball question, Clinton brushed past Amy Goodman huffing something about there'd be time in coming years to take on that task. Still wanna do that, DNC? Is that Obama's Immigration Policy? The Great Deporter! Think the GOP is moving that way? Mittens Romney and ilk want the unwashed labor rabble to cross over into our U.S. of A. where we can grow our own THIRD WORLD desperation right here on da plantation? Will Adam Smith's Zombie or Golem return to wreak havoc?
Another dishonest aspect to this review and perhaps to Quiggen's thesis and popularization in his book is the growing credibility gap between the 'serious academic curriculum' taught in Business Schools as opposed to those submitted for peer review in Economics programs. Hence the solid paper trail of Larry Summers, Obama's Chief Economic Advisor and Rubin's guru at Harvard & Goldman Sachs & as Clinton's Secretary of Treasury to the Bond Markets. So why would Summers academic paper trail advocating sensible regulation and enforcement powers by government be problematic? Because as the record shows, and nowhere better illustrated than in the Academy Award winning documentary of the first year of our current Greater Depression, INSIDE JOB once Mr Summers was appointed to policy positions his actions protecting his own conflicted interests steamrolled deregulation and spread the risk from the boldly risk-taking (with OPM; Other People's Money) investor class to the perpetually burdened by bail-out working class, or what was left of it after the jobs and capital were incentivized to make like a Tea Bag and leave...
Search online for articles explaining FINRA and see how well the dictum supported by the wizards of Wall Street, Greenspan, Paulson, Geithner, Summers, Rubin, Weil, Blankfein, Fuld et al "Business works best when the markets regulate themselves" has worked out...
By the bye, Rose Friedman writing an opinion piece after her husband and E-CON partner Milton Friedman's passing refuted the uses to which their work was put by all those politicians and corporate policymakers as well as the MBA faculty who had no time or inclination to explore the nuances of the so-called Chicago School of E-CON.
Tune to the People's Airwaves (NPR and PBS were granted broadcast spectrum in the 1960's after Newton Minow's and Neil Postman's critiques of the cesspool of market-driven mass media and its effect on our nation's youth and future). Public Broadcasting was set up to be insulated from market pressures. So how have we gotten to a point where the salaries of NPR executives, staff and talent are competitive with the advertising industry compensation scale of the advertiser-driven broadcast corporations? Why is all NPR\PBS broadcasting underwritten by multi-national cartel capitalist ventures or by the think tanks that enable them politically? Why is there not one regular NPR\PBS program from the perspective of LABOR, while 24/7 their airwaves indoctrinate those starved for 'serious educational broadcasting' with a steady dose of MARKET PLACE, SMART MONEY, WALL STREET TODAY, etc? I am posting this comment on Amazon.com, owned by Jeff Bezos who happens to now personally own the WASHINGTON POST. We've come a long way from ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MEN and other founder myths...One fact, Jack, left: Freedom of the Press Belongs to The Owner (not the owned)...
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