Letter: Alan Greenspan blames public schools for plutocratic proliferation
September 25, 2007
Substance:
Alan Greenspan was interviewed on Democracy Now on Monday, and he laid out a line of free market propaganda that should be taken as an insult to any rational thinker; but notice how his line sounds so similar to Bill Gates and the corporate standardistas
The question was put to him that, since he had excoriated Clinton from his throne on the Federal Reserve that the US gov’t must exercise fiscal responsibility by cutting social spending and reducing the deficit, then why did he not do the same to Bush for his fiscal profligacy on huge tax cuts for the rich as well as his massive war spending.
His first answer was a rambling explanation that he had always been consistent ever since the Reagan years in trying to maintain a certain level of federal gov’t debt to keep the economy healthy. He said he favored US gov’t indebtedness at all times!!! He always publicized that he feared a zero deficit. Reallllly????
Then he was asked how he felt about the massive increase in income disparity between the rich and everybody else. The example was given that top corporate CEOs had earned an average of 40 times their average worker’s salary at the beginning of the Reagan years (when Greenspan took over the Fed), and now the difference is 400 times higher.
He said that it’s all the fault of the public schools. Our 4th graders do pretty well in international competitive tests, but by 12th grade the US kids bomb out. The US school system cannot provide the educated workers that the US economy needs, so he favors a relaxation of immigration for educated foreigners (the HB-1 visas) so they can take the unfilled jobs, and then if the US schools can better train our kids for these jobs there will be more workers competing for these jobs and the salaries will drop, and Voila! WE WILL ELIMINATE INCOME DISPARITY.
Yes, by LOWERING the average societal income (screwing everybody at the bottom) without affecting the obscene wealth going to the CEOs.
How stupid does he think his audience is? Oh, I forgot.. Bush got re-elected with the same kind of propaganda
Pete Farruggio
Berkeley, CA
pfarr@cal.berkeley.edu
