Your suggestion that Obama policies are accelerating these issues is somewhat tortured. It seems to me that the transfers of wealth that have been accelerating for decades are indeed real. I do not see much in the way of institutional increases that will continue beyond the current economic crisis. The question I see is whether or not Obama should be decelerating them now. Dave has argued that stimulus spending and bailouts are counter-productive to recovery. You seem to state the opposite.

I think Dave and I agree with you on the need for reform, I suspect we disagree on the urgent places that it is needed.

I also think that the freeze is a promise for how we will behave after the crisis, as opposed to a cut in the short-term that would cripple a recovery. It says to investors that we will be on the straight-and-narrow as soon as we see the recovery upon us.

thx for the comments.

yes, these are long-run trends, decades in the making. the evidence is both obvious and vast. try stagnating middle class incomes, widening income inequality, or increasing financialization on for starters.

obama’s great challenge is decelerating them. instead, his economic policy is accelerating them. i’ve written at length what decelerating them might require – more, bigger, better stimulus, more and more meaningful reform, and a boatload of institutional innovation.

i think liberalgeek might be well-served by reading my original post, because he seems to have misunderstood it fundamentally.

cheers,

umair