Feminist Peace Network

We just love Barbara Ehrenreich for this very righteous grappling of the economy by the balls, so to speak:

“With all the talk about how to stimulate it, you’d think that the economy is a giant clitoris. Ben Bernanke may not employ this imagery, but the immediate challenge-and the issue bound to replace Iraq and immigration in the presidential race-is how best to get the economy engorged and throbbing again.”

But linguistic opportunity aside, Ehrenreich nails it when it comes to talking about what we should be talking about when it comes (sorry, it’s addictive) to the current economic  situation:

“If we have learned anything in the last few years, it is that the economy is no longer an effective measure of human well-being. We’ve seen the economy grow without wage gains; we’ve seen productivity grow without wage gains. We’ve even seen unemployment fall without wage gains. In fact, when economists want to talk about life “on the ground,” where jobs and wages and the price of Special K are paramount, they’ve taken to talking about “the real economy.” If there’s a “real economy,” then what in the hell is “the economy”?”

Her prescription?

“Any stimulus package should focus on the poor and the unemployed, not because they spend more, but because they are most in need of help. Yes, when a parent can afford to buy Enfamil, it helps the Enfamil company and no doubt “the economy” too. But let’s not throw out the baby with the sensual bubble bath of “stimulus.” In any ordinary moral calculus, the baby comes first.Far be it from me to make the revolutionary suggestion that babies are more important than profits. My point is just that our economy–with its dizzying bubbles, wild lending sprees, reckless downsizings, and planet-wide hyper-sensitivity –has gotten too far disconnected from ordinary human needs. We could take the current crisis as an opportunity to fix that, at least in part, by shoring up government support for the needy and the dislocated. Or we can wait around and watch while the appropriate imagery gets nasty, as this ghostly creature, “the economy,” starts acting like a nymphomaniac junkie in withdrawal.”

Ben Bernanke are you listening?  You should be.

Filed under: Uncategorized, Commentary, U.S. Politics