OBAMA-ECONOMIC DEMAGOGUE. SHORT EXCERPT.

FROM COUNTERPUNCH

OBAMA'S MASTER CLASS IN ECONOMIC DEMAGOGUERY  101

by Michal Hudson

The basic script is fairy tale that balancing the budget in the face of the $13 trillion in Wall Street bailouts requires cutting back spending elsewhere in the economy. The Federal Reserve and Treasury were able to create this money for the banks, but pretend to be unable to do the same for the projected $1 trillion in SocialSecurity deficits that may or may not materialize a generation from now. New wars in Syria and elsewhere can be funded by money creation, but not socialspending programs – to say nothing of financing public infrastructure cost with public money creation rather than by recourse to Wall Street. This is the great policy asymmetry of the Obama Administration’s plans to use the economic crisis as an opportunity to cut and ultimately privatize Social Security as the capstone of a financialized Public-Private Partnership.

[The public-private partnership refers to Wall Street making enormous amounts of money partnering with the federal government in repairing America's crumbling infrastructure.]