On 2011-12-30, at 2:11 PM, nathan tankus wrote:
> Yves Smith isn't a marxist but she certainly isn't a liberal either.
> she detests Obama and the democrats. she's done invaluable work
> bringing up things like regulatory corruption and the despicable
> practices in the foreclosure crisis among many other things.
Yves Smith is part of the liberal intelligentsia which is very angry with Obama and the Democrats for their numerous concessions to the Republican right and failure to aggressively tackle the housing and financial crises. In fact, dissatisfaction with Obama goes beyond traditional liberals like Krugman, Stiglitz, and Reich and encompasses leftward-moving "independents" and even conservatives whose faith in neoclassical economics has been badly shaken by the financial crisis. Smith, the pen name of Susan Webber, is a management consultant with a Wall Street background, and she may belong to this cohort.I don't know enough about her political background. A couple of weeks ago, I linked to an article by Cullen Roche, an economist who blogs at Pragmatic Capitalism, where he described his disillusionment with conservative economic theory and embrace of a strongly heterodox school characterized by some as "Keynesianism on steroids." These folks have left Ron Paul behind, but their thought is very much in flux, and it is not clear where they, like many who identify with the Occupy movement, will evolve politically. I can't recall a time when the two major parties were as held in such low esteem as they are now.