It's worth saying, in context of the post below, that I'm not smart enough to divine the optimum balance between risk and security, but, right now, I'm pretty sure we're too far towards the risk side of the equation. Which is why I like what Hillary Clinton's saying in this interview with David Leonhardt. “If you go back and look at our history, we were most successful when we had that balance between an effective, vigorous government and a dynamic, appropriately regulated market,” Mrs. Clinton said. “And we have systematically diminished the role and the responsibility of our government, and we have watched our market become imbalanced. I want to get back to the appropriate balance of power between government and the market.” Context matters. The moment matters. The perceived problems matter. As Leonhardt notes, "Mr. Clinton was running for president when the federal budget deficit was much larger than it is now and the United States seemed to be falling behind Western Europe and Japan in economic competitiveness. Mrs. Clinton is running when the economy has grown at a healthy clip for six years but incomes for most Americans have barely outpaced inflation." And her take, in the interview with Leomhardt, reflects that fully. To call it populism is, in a sense, reductive. It's pragmatic, and, right now, a pragmatist, assessing the state of the country and the numbers coming out of the economy, has no choice but to be a populist.
