[Peace-discuss] The Economic Consequences of Mr. Bush

[C. G. Estabrook]

[From the current Vanity Fair.  --CGE]

	The Economic Consequences of Mr. Bush
	The next president will have to deal with yet another
	crippling legacy of George W. Bush: the economy.
	A Nobel laureate, Joseph E. Stiglitz, sees a
	generation-long struggle to recoup.
	by Joseph E. Stiglitz December 2007

When we look back someday at the catastrophe that was the Bush 
administration, we will think of many things: the tragedy of the Iraq 
war, the shame of Guantánamo and Abu Ghraib, the erosion of civil 
liberties. The damage done to the American economy does not make 
front-page headlines every day, but the repercussions will be felt 
beyond the lifetime of anyone reading this page.

I can hear an irritated counterthrust already. The president has not 
driven the United States into a recession during his almost seven years 
in office. Unemployment stands at a respectable 4.6 percent. Well, fine. 
But the other side of the ledger groans with distress: a tax code that 
has become hideously biased in favor of the rich; a national debt that 
will probably have grown 70 percent by the time this president leaves 
Washington; a swelling cascade of mortgage defaults; a record near-$850 
billion trade deficit; oil prices that are higher than they have ever 
been; and a dollar so weak that for an American to buy a cup of coffee 
in London or Paris—or even the Yukon—becomes a venture in high finance.

And it gets worse. After almost seven years of this president, the 
United States is less prepared than ever to face the future. We have not 
been educating enough engineers and scientists, people with the skills 
we will need to compete with China and India. We have not been investing 
in the kinds of basic research that made us the technological powerhouse 
of the late 20th century. And although the president now understands—or 
so he says—that we must begin to wean ourselves from oil and coal, we 
have on his watch become more deeply dependent on both.

Up to now, the conventional wisdom has been that Herbert Hoover, whose 
policies aggravated the Great Depression, is the odds-on claimant for 
the mantle “worst president” when it comes to stewardship of the 
American economy. Once Franklin Roosevelt assumed office and reversed 
Hoover’s policies, the country began to recover. The economic effects of 
Bush’s presidency are more insidious than those of Hoover, harder to 
reverse, and likely to be longer-lasting. There is no threat of 
America’s being displaced from its position as the world’s richest 
economy. But our grandchildren will still be living with, and struggling 
with, the economic consequences of Mr. Bush...

[Rest of the article at
http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2007/12/bush200712]