Executive summary on Reaganomics

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Jane Smiley is a novelist who writes really clear-headed and lively commentary for HuffingtonPost. Her latest post is a brilliant and concise description of... well, just go read it. I have some younger readers, and I hereby command them to click through and get a short course in post-1970s American political economy. Don't worry, kids: it's actually quite entertaining.

In my opinion, Smiley's column covers everything a regular, everyday person needs to know about Reaganomics, other than the self-evident observation that it has been a miserable failure in all it ever has attempted, even by its own standards, except its efforts to dismantle U.S. democratic institutions, transfer public wealth to private corporations, and maintain a perpetual state of war. And fear. And pestilence.

I do disagree with one detail in Smiley's analysis, though. The ultimate problem really isn't the sociopathic economists, but the transformation of the free press into a house organ for the Reagan Revolution over the past 25 years. These free-market goons would have been humiliated and laughed off the stage by real, two-fisted reporters even before they had their right foot out of the green room two decades ago.