Our entire government, and press, is acting as though 1933 never happened.

commentary by Roger Erickson

Van Hollen Calls Simpson-Bowles a Framework for Debt Deal
Representative Chris Van Hollen, the House Budget Committee’s top Democrat, predicted the proposal by President Barack Obama’s 2010 deficit panel will be the “framework” for averting the so-called fiscal cliff of spending cuts in January.

Has no one in policy or journalism ever heard of William Vickrey, or Marriner Eccles, or FDR, or even fiat currency itself - let alone modern currency operations? Do they really think we're still on a gold standard currency system, or that they can simply continue to lie outright to a public whose intelligence they treat with complete disdain?

Talk about a COMPLETE abdication by the press of its responsibility to challenge political statements and financial lobbies! I'm beginning to wonder if any journalist now working reads anything except lobbyist press releases. No one seems prepared to just do their job - to just think, and simply ask useful questions.

I sent this to the Bloomberg journalist who wrote this story, James Rowley, and cc'd Warren Mosler. Let's see if Rowley responds, and rises to the occasion.

Could We Do This for All Members of Congress, the Fed, and the Treasury Department?

commentary by Roger Erickson

How to Think, Not What to Think at Leavenworth

Ft. Leavenworth's new commanding general, Lt. Gen. William Caldwell, ... believes ... the Army's professors, instructors and doctrinal writers must not "tell or teach our young officers here about what to think. What I want you to do is teach them how to think."

He said one way is to allow officers to spend a year working at a government agency or a think tank.


Shades of Gen. Patton!  

In the case of policy staff tasked with budget and fiscal policy issues, wouldn't it make sense for them to actually worked at the Reserve desk of a bank, so they'd at least have seen existing monetary operations in action?

Has Tim Bernanke ever worked in an actual bank, at the Reserve Desk?  How about anyone on Congressional Budget or Banking committees?  How about Nobel Prize winning economists?