The message to Democrats is clear: you must dump neoliberal economics

[Passages]

The party must return to its progressive roots. A new economy is needed with new rules and new roles


As the shock of Donald Trump’s victory sinks in, pundits and politicians are mulling what it means for the future of the US and global politics. Understanding why such a divisive, unqualified figure won again is crucial for the Democrats. Did they go too far left and lose the moderate Americans who make up a majority? Or did centrist neoliberalism – pursued by Democratic presidents since Bill Clinton – fail to deliver, thus creating a demand for change?

To me, the answer is clear: 40 years of neoliberalism have left the US with unprecedented inequality, stagnation in the middle of the income spectrum (and worse for those below), and declining average life expectancy (highlighted by mounting “deaths of despair”). The American Dream is being killed, and although President Joe Biden and Vice-President Kamala Harris distanced themselves from neoliberalism with their embrace of industrial policies, as representatives of the mainstream establishment, they remained associated with its legacy.

The economics of the moment mattered, but monthly employment and inflation indicators need to be understood in a broader historical context. As the Biden administration stressed on the eve of the election, the economy looks strong, especially compared with others in the G7. But this wasn’t good enough. Americans haven’t forgotten that the Democrats let loose the financial sector (Clinton), then bailed out the banks while homeowners and workers who lost their jobs in the Great Recession carried the cost (Barack Obama). Moreover, it was Clinton who unleashed globalisation, tacitly believing in a trickle-down economics that would ultimately benefit everyone. The only real difference between Democrats and Republicans on this score is that Democrats claimed to feel the pain of those who were losing out.

The tragedy is that Americans seem to have voted for mere disruption more than anything else. Stalked by economic precarity and the spectre of downward social mobility, tens of millions of Americans voted for Trump as a way of “sticking it to the establishment”, and because many seem to believe that he has their back.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/nov/28/the-message-to-democrats-is-clear-you-must-dump-neoliberal-economics

It's a good idea to listen to the smartest and most ethical guy in the room.

Joseph Eugene Stiglitz (/ˈstɪɡlɪts/; born February 9, 1943) is an American New Keynesian economist,[2] a public policy analyst, political activist, and a professor at Columbia University. He is a recipient of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences (2001)[3] and the John Bates Clark Medal (1979).[4] He is a former senior vice president and chief economist of the World Bank. He is also a former member and chairman of the US Council of Economic Advisers.[5][6] He is known for his support for the Georgist public finance theory[7][8][9] and for his critical view of the management of globalization, of laissez-faire economists (whom he calls "free-market fundamentalists", and of international institutions such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Stiglitz

Joseph Stiglitz: Bitcoin ought to be outlawed
Nov 30, 2017
https://www.weforum.org/stories/2017/11/joseph-stiglitz-bitcoin-ought-to-be-outlawed/