Economist Joseph Stiglitz speaks to the Wall Street Occupiers

As reported at Slate, economist Joseph Stiglitz spoke words of support to the Occupiers of Wall Street:

You are right to be indignant. The fact is the system is not working right. It is not right that we have so many people without jobs when we have so many needs that we have to fulfill. It’s not right that we are throwing people out of their houses when we have so many homeless people. Our financial markets have an important role to play. They’re supposed to allocate capital, manage risks. But they misallocated capital, and they created risk. We are bearing the cost of their misdeeds. There’s a system where we’ve socialized losses and privatized gains. That’s not capitalism; that’s not a market economy. That’s a distorted economy, and if we continue with that, we won’t succeed in growing, and we won't succeed in creating a just society.

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What’s not to like about cap and trade?

Barack Obama once promoted "Cap and Trade" as an alleged method for reducing carbon emissions, but has since backed off of that idea. Thank goodness, because cap and trade is a terrible approach for several major reasons that are well illustrated by this video, "The Story of Cap & Trade" by Annie Leonard. Now, if we can only get Barack Obama to quit using the term "clean coal" as if such a thing is economically feasible.

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