He was educated at Georgia Tech, the University of Virginia, the University of California, Berkeley, and Oxford University. He is the author or coauthor of nine books and has published many articles in journals of scholarship. He served in the Congressional staff and was Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Treasury. He was awarded the Treasury’s Silver Medal for “outstanding contributions to the formulation of U.S. economic policy.” In 1987 the President of France recognized him as “the artisan of a renewal of economic science and policy” and awarded him the Legion of Honor. He was associate editor of the Wall Street Journal and columnist for Business Week, Scripps Howard News Service, and Creators Syndicate. He was Senior Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and William E. Simon Chair of Political Economy, Center for Strategic and International Studies, Georgetown University. He has been a columnist for French, German and Italian newspapers, and is followed worldwide over the Internet.

No, that wasn’t an obituary, and it’s not a resume. We don’t have that much space available. This is just a brief introduction – for those who don’t know him yet – to Dr. Paul Craig Roberts. Dr. Roberts, though not a member of the medical profession, has his finger on the pulse of America.

Too bad he wasn’t running for president. He’s the one man who should be steering the Ship of State.

When he was asked if our economy could recover, Dr. Roberts replied:

“There is no economy left to recover. The US manufacturing economy was lost to offshoring and free trade ideology. It was replaced by a mythical ‘New Economy.’

“The ‘New Economy’ was based on services. Its artificial life was fed by the Federal Reserve’s artificially low interest rates, which produced a real estate bubble, and by ‘free market’ financial deregulation, which unleashed financial gangsters to new heights of debt leverage and fraudulent financial products.

“The real economy was traded away for a make-believe economy. When the make-believe economy collapsed, Americans’ wealth in their real estate, pensions, and savings collapsed dramatically while their jobs disappeared.

“The debt economy caused Americans to leverage their assets. They refinanced their homes and spent the equity. They maxed out numerous credit cards. They worked as many jobs as they could find. Debt expansion and multiple family incomes kept the economy going.

“And now suddenly Americans can’t borrow in order to spend. They are over their heads in debt. Jobs are disappearing. America’s consumer economy, approximately 70% of GDP, is dead. Those Americans who still have jobs are saving against the prospect of job loss. Millions are homeless. Some have moved in with family and friends; others are living in tent cities.

“Meanwhile the US government’s budget deficit has jumped from $ 455 billion in 2008 to $ 2,000 billion this year, with another $ 2,000 billion on the books fro 2010. And President Obama has intensified America’s expensive war of aggression in Afghanistan and initiated a new war in Pakistan …

“Nothing in Presidents Bush and Obama’s economic policy addresses the real issues. Instead, Goldman Sachs was bailed out, more than once. As Eliot Spitzer said, the banks made a ‘bloody fortune’ with US aid.

“It was not the millions of now homeless homeowners who were bailed out. It was not the scant remains of American manufacturing – General Motors and Chrysler – that were bailed out. It was the Wall Street banks.

“According to Bloomberg.com, Goldman Sachs’ current record earnings from their free and low cost capital supplied by broke American taxpayers has led the firm to decide to boost compensation and benefits by 33 percent. On an annual basis, this comes to compensation of $ 773,000 per employee.

“This should tell even the most dimwitted patriot who ‘their’ government represents.

“The worst of the economic crisis has not yet hit. I don’t mean the rest of the real estate crisis that is waiting in the wings. Home prices will fall further when the foreclosed properties currently held off the market are dumped. Store and office closings are adversely impacting the ability of owners of shopping malls and office buildings to make their mortgage payments. Commercial and real estate loans were also securitized and turned into derivatives.

“The real crisis awaits us. It is the crisis of high unemployment, of stagnant and declining real wages confronted with rising prices from the printing of money to pay the government’s bills and from the dollar’s loss of exchange value. Suddenly, Wal-Mart prices will look like Nieman Marcus prices.
“Retirees dependent on state pension systems, which cannot print money, might not be paid. They will not even have depreciating money with which top pay their bills. Desperate tax authorities will squeeze the remaining life out of the middle class.

“Nothing in Obama’s economic policy is directed at saving the US dollar or the livelihoods of the American people. Obama’s policy, like Bush’s before him, is keyed to the enrichment of Goldman Sachs and the armament industry. Look at the Goldman Sachs representatives in the Clinton, Bush and Obama administrations. This bankster firm controls the economic policy of the United States. Little wonder that Goldman Sachs has record earnings while the rest of us grow poorer by the day.”

Well, so what’s so special about this reply from Dr. Roberts? Everyone saw this nightmare developing over the past year-and-a-half – we’re all gifted with hindsight. Maybe so, but Dr. Roberts fielded the above question back on July 15, 2009. His lengthy response, therefore, wasn’t “hindsight” – it was foresight. Without jobs, he was saying, there are impending disasters.

[Are you ready for some …………. shipbuilding!!??]