After LaRouche's Nov. 11 Webcast, It's Hard To Find Anyone To Defend the Alleged "Recovery"

There were some noteworthy signs in the interstices of an otherwise-childish debate pro- and con-Obama's economic policies, sponsored by "Intelligence Squared US" in New York on November 16. First, of the three who argued that the Obama policies are NOT working (Professor James K. Galbraith, former Fed governor Alan Meltzer, and former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer) none paid any lip-service to the idea that the US economy is in "recovery." Given the thuggish sorts of pressure the White House is exerting against academics, this refusal is unusual.

The debate's sponsor reported, and Eliot Spitzer confirmed, that he was originally scheduled to take part in the team arguing that the Obama policies are succeeding, but changed his mind last week and joined the opposing team.

Additionally, the head of the team arguing FOR the Obama policies was Larry Mishel, head of Washington's AFL-CIO-linked Economic Policy Institute, which was to hold an event the next morning, Nov. 17, asking the Administration and Congress to institute some milktoast job-creation programs. The Nov. 16 debate's moderator said that he had asked the White House to provide an official to defend Obama's policies. They had declined, but suggested Mishel instead.

The next morning in Washington, Mishel said from the podium that a "very robust economic recovery" was underway. But when EIR's Paul Gallagher challenged that lie, Mishel denied having said it, claiming to have said instead that we "need" a robust economic recovery.