On the economy

Reuters/Rick Wilking
Sen. Barack Obama speaks in Golden, Colo., Sept. 16, 2008.
From Salon:

Launching punches against John McCain as hard as any he has yet delivered, while laying out a clear explanation of what his plans for a "21st century regulatory system" entail, Barack Obama gave his most forceful speech on the economy so far in this campaign, Tuesday morning in Golden, Colo.

He picked a good time to do it. With Wall Street in turmoil, major financial institutions declaring bankruptcy or being swallowed up by their competitors, unemployment rising, consumer spending falling -- and one day after the sharpest drop in the U.S. stock market since Sept. 11 -- the state of the economy is on the front burner as never before in this presidential campaign.

The key sentence:

So let's be clear: what we've seen the last few days is nothing less than the final verdict on an economic philosophy that has completely failed.

When Obama refers to an economic philosophy that has "failed," this is what he is talking about: The theory that markets are perfectly self-correcting, that the best government is the government that lets the rich do as they please, and prosperity will trickle down to everyone else, has taken an enormous body blow.

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