| They hit every one of the neoliberal memes: * Prosperity gospel (as if developed economies have slow growth for want of just one more tax break on the wealthy. Just one more! That'll fix it right up!) * Laffer curve invoked without any attempt to determine where on it current policy lies * Saving the whales is killing the economy (they were spiders in this example -- point for satire?) * Trying to sneak financial deregulation under the skirts of the above * Opaque economic growth model with self-serving result presented as factual * The rich will leave (as if the pressure isn't coming from their pumped assets and a firesale wouldn't fix this) * Tut-tutting about debt to pretend at fiscal conservatism * 100% attention on upper class concerns, 0% on lower class concerns * Upper-class conservative-coded hobby talk free of any concern that it might give away the above I think they were earnest and just wildly out of touch, though, given all the allusions to 15 year old economic discussions. That's when these memes were at their peak. They simply don't understand the credibility hit they have taken since then. I'd love to see a conversation between them and Gary Stevens. These memes are his origin story. |