While Roubini certainly deserves a lot of respect, I have to disagree with him about what will save our economy. The first thing we need to acknowledge is that it is not salvageable at this level. People keep pretending that it’s 2005, and that we’d all be hunky-dory if not for that “financial crisis” that “came out of nowhere.”

The financial crisis has its roots in the trickle-down economic policies that began in the early 80s. The notion that we could reward speculation over labor, and somehow create a thriving economy from buying and selling things at greater prices and with higher debt levels was and is absurd. The idea that we could impoverish the majority of our population (by outsourcing their jobs) so that the capitalists who produce nothing could become wealthier and wealthier is completely ignorant and totally dismisses psychology and human behavior, not to mention simple math. A healthy economy will ALWAYS require us to actually MAKE things that can be sold here and abroad. A healthy economy requires JOBS for people so they can continue to buy goods and services from one another. There is no other way.

As it stands, if they insist on keeping the majority of Americans in perpetual poverty, and if they insist on growing the wealth/income divide even more, then they must understand that prices of everything will continue to fall to such levels that the majority of Americans (and other poor people around the world) can afford to pay for them.

At the very least, they should understand what is causing our “crisis” before they come up with more hare-brained “solutions” to the “crisis.”