This is from Slate (link) and is so blatantly half-assed and short-hindsighted that it begs me to challenge it, so I will in my own half-assed way which at least remembers things that happened more than 10 years ago.
The Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks by al-Qaida were meant to harm the United States, and they did, but in ways that Osama Bin Laden probably never imagined. President George W. Bush's response to the attacks compromised America's basic principles, undermined its economy, and weakened its security.
Boilerplate, but I take exception with "in ways that OBL probably never imagined". This indicates that the opposition had a pretty good idea of the economics involved in sucking the Americans into wars to ruin their economy. The rest of it is blatantly partisan (vs. Bush and the GOP) and mind-bogglingly simplistic and superficial in attribution of the USA's current economic malaise.
Example: Today, America is focused on unemployment and the deficit. Both threats to America's future can, in no small measure, be traced to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Increased defense spending, together with the Bush tax cuts, is a key reason why America went from a fiscal surplus of 2 percent of GDP when Bush was elected to its parlous deficit and debt position today. Direct government spending on those wars so far amounts to roughly $2 trillion—$17,000 for every U.S. household—with bills yet to be received increasing this amount by more than 50 percent.
I won't quibble about the numbers, but the emphasis above is mine as it is evidence of an axe to grind at the expense of the big picture and gutted fundamentals of America's post-industrial society and economy. Perot came up with "giant sucking sound" in 1992 about American jobs moving south, but we can look back on NAFTA as the "good old days" in terms of North American employment. The Rust Belt started to decline in the 1970s and the US has been hemorrhaging jobs ever since. To sum up after Mexico, all those manufacturing jobs moved to Asia and show no signs of coming back.
THAT is NOT Bush's fault, and if I had to blame anyone it'd be FDR with his "New Deal" back in the 1930s. That is not meant to be a comprehensive policy statement, but the culture of Entitlement which that swept in led to the high cost of doing business in the US, and the Environmental and Litigation lobbies which were waiting in the wings and always there (respectively) knocked the US economy to its' knees and put the bullet in the nape of its' neck.
The thing to do when you get into a hole is to stop digging, and American politicians as a group have no concept of actually DOING it, even if they'll mouth words about restraint. Regardless, history didn't start in 2001, and the system which has brought America to the current pass didn't pop up mushroom-like overnight (though it is fertilized much the same way). My message to Mr Stiglitz: if you're going to ascribe causes to profound issues in huge systems, make sure there's some depth to your simplification for the casual reader. Most Slate readers won't question your cant, but we're not all so ignorant that you can slide such sloppy journalism past us.
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