Finally! Somebody is making sense....

Professor Benjamin Barber should be on Obama's Cabinet.

Here's an excerpt from a recent interview on the Tavis Smiley show on PBS.

On Obama and the economic crisis:

Barber: So the question here is going to be now what new ideas do we have, or are we simply going to try to restore where we were two or three years ago or 10 years ago, get back to people spending money they don't have on commodities they don't need?

Are banks going to go back to lending people money to buy stuff for which there is no real express want or need? Or are we going to change our habits? Are people going to begin to say, "Happiness is something we don't have to buy?" Capitalism has to change its habits, and consumers have to change their habits. And there, the president needs to provide leadership, and that means more than bailing our industries, bailing out companies, bailing out banks, going back to where we were five years ago.

If we succeed in redressing this crisis by simply going back to where we were in 2005 or 1995, we're in deep trouble, because it'll be back again, worse, the next time. We've got to change how people think, we have to change how people view capitalism, capitalism has to change its habits and go back to making honest money by meeting real needs, not easy money by manufacturing needs for people who can't afford the goods being thrown at them.