Chris
12-25-2015, 10:00 AM
The Clinton years just aren't all they're stacked up to be. And Hillary campaigns on wishful thinking.
Hillary Clinton's cargo cult economics (http://theweek.com/articles/595759/hillary-clintons-cargo-cult-economics)
Te Bill Clinton '90s sure look better in retrospect, don't they? Especially when you compare them with the last decade and a half of awesome American failures: the dot-com bubble, the Supreme Court installing George W. Bush, 9/11, the failed invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, the 2008 financial crisis, and the extremely weak recovery that followed. Even the penny-ante scandals of the Clinton days make one nostalgic. Remember when presidents had tawdry affairs instead of torture regimes or assassination programs for American citizens?
Hillary Clinton is, unsurprisingly, attempting to coast on some of that '90s nostalgia, running as a "growth Democrat," according to a New York Times article quoting many high-level Clinton supporters.
Attempting to resurrect the growth and high wages of the Clinton days is all well and good. But while much about the '90s was positive, the decade was also plagued by the manifest failures of Bill Clinton's economic policy. There is little evidence that Hillary Clinton has grappled with those failures, or even with what lay behind her husband's successes. Nor does she seem to have rigorously questioned whether the economy might have evolved such that simply trying to repeat history might not work.
Merely imitating the forms and language of the old Clinton administration is about as likely to work as cargo cults' wooden airplanes were to restart contact with Western societies....
"A cargo cult is a Melanesian millenarian movement encompassing a diverse range of practices and occurring in the wake of contact with the commercial networks of colonizing societies. The name derives from the belief that various ritualistic acts will lead to a bestowing of material wealth ("cargo")." @https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargo_cult
Hillary Clinton's cargo cult economics (http://theweek.com/articles/595759/hillary-clintons-cargo-cult-economics)
Te Bill Clinton '90s sure look better in retrospect, don't they? Especially when you compare them with the last decade and a half of awesome American failures: the dot-com bubble, the Supreme Court installing George W. Bush, 9/11, the failed invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, the 2008 financial crisis, and the extremely weak recovery that followed. Even the penny-ante scandals of the Clinton days make one nostalgic. Remember when presidents had tawdry affairs instead of torture regimes or assassination programs for American citizens?
Hillary Clinton is, unsurprisingly, attempting to coast on some of that '90s nostalgia, running as a "growth Democrat," according to a New York Times article quoting many high-level Clinton supporters.
Attempting to resurrect the growth and high wages of the Clinton days is all well and good. But while much about the '90s was positive, the decade was also plagued by the manifest failures of Bill Clinton's economic policy. There is little evidence that Hillary Clinton has grappled with those failures, or even with what lay behind her husband's successes. Nor does she seem to have rigorously questioned whether the economy might have evolved such that simply trying to repeat history might not work.
Merely imitating the forms and language of the old Clinton administration is about as likely to work as cargo cults' wooden airplanes were to restart contact with Western societies....
"A cargo cult is a Melanesian millenarian movement encompassing a diverse range of practices and occurring in the wake of contact with the commercial networks of colonizing societies. The name derives from the belief that various ritualistic acts will lead to a bestowing of material wealth ("cargo")." @https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargo_cult