Paul Craig Roberts

Template:Infobox US cabinet official

Paul Craig Roberts (born April 3, 1939) is an American economist, journalist, blogger, conspiracy theorist, and former civil servant. He is best known as a journalist specializing in economic affairs from an anti-establishment, liberal conservative perspective.

He was the United States Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy under President Reagan in 1981.

Early life and career

From 1975 to 1978, Roberts served on the congressional staff. As economic counsel to Congressman Jack Kemp, he drafted the Kemp-Roth bill (which became the Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981). He served as economic counsel to Senator Orrin Hatch, The Wall Street Journal editor Robert L. Bartley offered him an editorial slot. He wrote for the WSJ until 1980. He was a senior Fellow in political economy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, then part of Georgetown University.

From early 1981 to January 1982, Roberts served as assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy.

After his time in government he turned to journalism, holding positions of editor and columnist for The Wall Street Journal, columnist for Business Week, the Scripps Howard News Service as well as contributing editor to Harper's Magazine.

Ronerts was professor of business administration and professor of economics at George Mason University and was the inaugural William E. Simon Chair in Political Economy at Georgetown University, serving for 12 years.

From 1993 to 1996, he was a Distinguished Fellow at the Cato Institute. He also was a Senior Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution.

Works

In The New Color Line (1995), Roberts and co-author Lawrence M. Stratton argue that the Civil Rights Act was subverted by the bureaucrats who applied it.

Honors and recognition

He was awarded the US Treasury's Meritorious Service Award for "outstanding contributions to the formulation of United States economic policy".

In 2015, the Mexican Press Club honored Roberts with its International Award For Excellence In Journalism.

Views

Criticism of Bush

In 2006, Roberts wrote that "true conservatives" were the "first victims" of the neocons of the Bush administration. He criticized the Bush tax cuts, believing they "were nothing but a greedy grab" and were "not necessary policy adjustments but rewards to the mega-rich who underwrite political careers and provide grants to economic departments and think tanks", however, also stating that "they are not a significant cause of today's inequality." He has said that supporters of George W. Bush "are brownshirts with the same low intelligence and morals as Hitler's enthusiastic supporters."

Economy

Roberts is a vocal critic of neoliberalism and the financialization of the economy, having condemned jobs offshoring, deregulation and privatization in the U.S. However, he has spoken in defense of his time working in Ronald Reagan's administration with supply side economics. Roberts has also soundly criticized Keynesian economics to a lesser degree than laissez-faire market economics.

Roberts has regularly questioned the veracity of official economic data. He is also critical of the world economic order. He has written that "capitalism has reached the point in its descent that it cannot exist without public subsidies for the people dispossessed by capitalism." He details his critique in his book The Failure of Laissez Faire Capitalism and Economic Dissolution of the West.

Roberts has been critical of the actions of the Federal Reserve System—from former Chairmen Alan Greenspan's and Ben Bernanke's terms to current Chairwoman Janet Yellen via quantitative easing policies and low interest rates, the latter of which he has argued (due to his view that official government data is biased) is actually negative interest rates.

Roberts has been a vocal opponent of taxing Social Security pension payments, holding that this amounts to a "tax on a tax". He also opposes the gradual privatization of Social Security, believing this would create an opportunity for speculators to play with and lose the savings of retirees.

Anti-establishment views

Roberts has argued that the U.S. has transitioned into an oligarchic police state, in which special interests and lobbyists for corporations, big banks, the Israel lobby and the military-industrial complex have significant power over politicians, and therefore, the US government's actions. Roberts has particularly condemned former Secretary of State and 2016 presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.

Roberts has also been critical of the mainstream media, believing that media bias is prevalent in favor of US political establishment views and agendas.

Israel

Roberts has criticized actions by the Israeli government in the 21st century. He cautions against confusing opinions about a right-wing Zionist government with support of world Jewry. In one of his columns, "What Became of Western Morality?" (January 2005), he noted that it is Israeli newspapers, not American ones, that protest Israeli government "atrocities" against Palestinians: "It is the goyim moralists who are silent, not the Jews. It is the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, not the goyim media, that provides reports of Israel's abuse of Palestinians".

In a 2009 article for Counterpunch magazine, titled "Pirates of the Mediterranean," Roberts wrote that for 60 years, Israel has replicated "the 17th, 18th, and 19th century theft of American Indian lands by US settlers." Roberts repeated accusations that Gaza is "the world largest concentration camp," populated by people who were "driven out of Palestine so that Israel could steal their land." He called the U.S. State Department and the U.S itself a "puppet" of Israel. He concluded that "there's no money for California, or for Americans' health care, or for the several million Americans who have lost their homes and are homeless, because Israel needs it."

The Anti-Defamation League has criticized Roberts as allegedly promoting anti-semitism for his supposed "criticism of Israel and Jews," making his writings "popular with fringe publications on both the left and the right." Roberts has been described by the Anti-Defamation League as an "anti-semite" and conspiracy theorist. He has been described as a conspiracy theorist by USA Today and Reason as well.

The War on Terror and neoconservatism

Roberts asked, "Is the War on Terror a Hoax?" and argued that it has "killed, maimed, dislocated, and made widows and orphans of millions of Muslims in six countries." Roberts called the attacks "naked aggression" on civilian populations and infrastructure that "constitute war crimes."

Roberts contends that, just like Operation Gladio, the War on Terror has been perpetrated by the military-industrial complex and the 'insane' neoconservatives under an agenda of 'US world hegemony'.

Anwar al-Awlaki

Anwar al-Awlaki was an American cleric who became linked to the 9/11 hijackers from evidence obtained by German law enforcement. This evidence was obtained during a search of an apartment owned by Ramzi bin al-Shibh, widely regarded as a key facilitator of the 9/11 attacks. In addition, al-Awlaki was alleged to have participated in the planning, recruitment, and financing of a number of al-Qaeda operations against western targets from 2004 to 2011. After being imprisoned in Yemen, he espoused a radical Islamist position and appeared to have been involved with the attempted Christmas Day bombing in 2009. In October 2011 he was killed by a United States surgical strike, likely involving UAV aircraft.

Roberts objected, calling the operation "the day America died." He wrote that although Awlaki was critical of "indiscriminate assaults on Muslim peoples" and "told Muslims that they did not have to passively accept American aggression." Roberts claimed that the U.S. lacked evidence that Awlaki was either a real threat or an Al Qaeda operative.

Promotion of conspiracy theories

September 11, 2001 attacks

Of the 9/11 Commission Report, he wrote in 2006, "One would think that if the report could stand analysis, there would not be a taboo against calling attention to the inadequacy of its explanations." (See Criticisms of the 9/11 Commission Report.) He has asserted there is a large "energy deficit" in the official account of the collapse of the three WTC buildings, and this deficit remains unexplained.

In November 2012 Roberts referred to al Qaeda's role in the attack as "unsubstantiated."

Roberts has also stated:

"Anyone who believes the official 9/11 story, like anyone who believes Oswald killed JFK, like anyone who still believes that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and Al-Qaeda connections, that Assad used chemical weapons, who believes the Gulf of Tonkin lie, who believes that Sirhan Sirhan killed RFK, that Russia invaded Ukraine, etc., is too far gone to ever be rescued from The Matrix in which they live."

2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School attack

In March, 2016, Roberts published an article claiming that many pictures associated with the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting were "doctored." He further claimed that he was unable to determine if the shootings had actually taken place or not.

2013 Boston Marathon bombings

Following the Boston Marathon bombing, Roberts stated that the law enforcement response to the bombing, which locked down a portion of a city, was a prelude to the imposition of martial law.

In 2015 and 2016, Roberts revisited the topic, claiming Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was given a show trial.

Roberts repeated the conspiracy theory in a column published four years after the bombing.

2015 Charlie Hebdo attack

In a column for the Ron Paul Institute, Roberts said that the U.S. government executed the Charlie Hebdo attack in Paris to punish France for its independent foreign policy. In particular, Roberts cited France's vote to recognize Palestine as a state at the United Nations and French President Hollande’s call to ease sanctions on Russia.

2016 Orlando attack

Roberts has questioned the official account of the 2016 Orlando nightclub shooting, stating that "the visual evidence does not match the verbal reports".

He has said that the lack of body bags, security footage, and general primary sources, should warrant suspicion in regards to the authenticity of the official account for the attack.

He suggested that this attack might be a false flag operation, conducted for increased public approval for–and eventually, the implementation of–gun control.

Published works

He has written or co-written 12 books, contributed chapters to numerous books, and published many articles in scholarly journals. His writings have also appeared in a variety of print and online publications worldwide, including King World News.

Books

• Alienation and the Soviet Economy: Toward a General Theory of Marxian Alienation, Organizational Principles, and the Soviet Economy (University of New Mexico Press, 1971) ISBN 0826302084 Search this book on .
• Marx's Theory of Exchange, Alienation, and Crisis (Hoover Institution Press, 1973; 1983) ISBN 0817933611 Search this book on . (Spanish language edition: 1974)
• The Supply Side Revolution: An Insider's Account of Policymaking in Washington (Harvard University Press, 1984) ISBN 0-674-85620-1 Search this book on . (Chinese language edition: 2012)
• Warren Nutter, an Economist for All Time (American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, 1984) ISBN 0844713694 Search this book on .
• Meltdown: Inside the Soviet Economy (Cato Institute, 1990) ISBN 0-932790-80-1 Search this book on .
• The Capitalist Revolution in Latin America (Oxford University Press, 1997) ISBN 0-19-511176-1 Search this book on . (Spanish language edition: 1999)
• Alienation and the Soviet Economy: The Collapse of the Socialist Era (Independent Institute, 1999: 2nd edition) ISBN 094599964X Search this book on .
• The New Color Line: How Quotas and Privilege Destroy Democracy (Regnery Publishing, 1997) ISBN 0-89526-423-4 Search this book on .
• The Tyranny of Good Intentions: How Prosecutors and Bureaucrats Are Trampling the Constitution in the Name of Justice (2000) ISBN 0-7615-2553-X Search this book on . (Broadway Books, 2008: new edition)
• Chile: Dos Visiones La Era Allende-Pinochet (Universidad Andres Bello, 2000). Joint author: Karen LaFollette Araujo. Spanish language.
• How the Economy Was Lost: The War of the Worlds (AK Press, 2010) ISBN 978-1-84935-007-5 Search this book on .
• Wirtschaft Am Abgrund: Der Zusammenbruch der Volkswirtschaften und das Scheitern der Globalisierung (Weltbuch Verlag GmbH, 2012) ISBN 978-3-938706-38-1 Search this book on .. German language.
• Chile: Dos Visiones, La era Allende-Pinochet (2000) ISBN 956-284-134-0 Search this book on .
• The Failure of Laissez Faire Capitalism and Economic Dissolution of the West (Clarity Press, 2013) ISBN 0986036250 Search this book on .
• How America was Lost. From 9/11 to the Police/Warfare State (Clarity Press, 2014) ISBN 9780986036293 Search this book on .
• The Neoconservative Threat to World Order: Washington's Perilous War for Hegemony (Clarity Press, 2015) ISBN 0986076996 Search this book on .
• Amerikas Krieg gegen die Welt... und gegen seine eigenen Ideale (Kopp Verlag, 2015) ISBN 386445221X Search this book on .

External links

• Official website
• Paul Craig Roberts at lewrockwell.com.
• Paul Craig Roberts at foreignpolicyjournal.com.
• Paul Craig Roberts at strategic-culture.org.
• Appearances on C-SPAN
• Column archive (2006–2010) at Creators Syndicate

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