Reply #20: Outstanding new interview with Galbraith this month. Government by blackmail. [View All]

[madfloridian]

http://www.istockanalyst.com/business/news/5295650/james-k-galbrait-university-of-texas

"GALBRAITH: Oh, yes. But I was actually just in Washington getting a little flavor of the environment. It is much more divided, much more bitter there. It is not leavened by kind of personal relationships and ability to deal across party lines that used to be there.

And I think because you really have at the core of the Republican party these days an insurrectionary movement - a movement which is really playing with threats that no serious group of members of congress would have made 30 years ago."

"GALBRAITH: There needs to be a clean vote on the debt ceiling, and this method for doing public policy needs to be laid to rest. It is a tremendous threat to the stability of the country, the financial markets. You don't mess with the full faith and credit of the United States government in order to achieve a political objective, and particularly not in order to achieve, for example, completely - say the reduction cutting of Social Security benefits or of Medicare, which are completely unnecessary for any economic purpose.

And that is what we are seeing here, basically a form of government by blackmail. That needs to be ended. It needs to be made very clear that is a dangerous game and an extremely poor way to make public policy."