More Sage Advice From David Brooks On Maintaining the Status Quo By Advocating Change

David Brooks tells us how to fix the US economy. He tells us a story about a young woman who is disadvantaged. She came from a bad family situation and she lacks the skills required to compete in a global labor market. There are millions like this young woman, and we have to create government programs to help her and others like her. He refers to this as socialism. He advocates combining socialism with policies that will help corporations to be more profitable. He calls that capitalism. Some would call that corporate socialism. The application of the policies that he advocates is what contributed to the financial crisis and our current economic malaise.

This is classic David Brooks. He shows that he is fair and balanced by demonstrating his compassion for the unfortunate. He advocates economic policies, however, that have contributed to an increase in the number of the disadvantaged. There are millions of Americans without jobs who have the skills to perform those jobs. Those jobs are going elsewhere and cutting taxes for corporations and easing regulations will not keep them here. Moreover, the political party that he supports is doing whatever it can to eliminate government programs that might help the disadvantaged. He fails to remind us of that. Instead he puts the onus on the president to advocate policies that his party will not support.