NEW YORK, NY Oct. 7 (DPI) – A guest column in The New York Times today by HSBC’s Chief Economist predicts a permanent decline in general affluence and wealth creation in Western countries in the years ahead, owing to high debt levels, a lack of political will for economic reform and no more “one-off” postwar developments to spur growth.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/07/opinion/when-wealth-disappears.html?pagewanted=all

But 361 reader comments — most of them, and certainly the most popular ones — would have none of it.  The top recommended posts almost all rejected, in scathing terms, Stephen D. King’s dismal outlook. The article was, as one popular response put it, a “disingenuous piece of malarky written by someone with a vested interest in keeping the corporate elite gorging on cash that they have been hoarding since 2008.”

Hong Kong-based HSBC is one of the largest banks in the world, and the British-born King has built something of a reputation as a doomsayer. http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/07/12/stephen-kings-economic-horror-stories/

But his latest column – rare on the NYTimes.com site, in part for having a comment board attached to a guest column, and for being so grim — is clearly intended to scare policymakers and politicians in both the US and Europe to enact meaningful reforms.

Readers, meanwhile, went off on the economist, even though many agreed with the basic premise that the west has deep-seated problems. The most recommended post received 781 recommendations today:

A right wing screed to austerity. The American Dream was a myth, according to this author, so we all better wake up and accept our role as a global worker.

Would Mr. King bother to explain why the top, the 1% or just below, came out of this worst downturn in the American economy since the great Depression not only made whole but in better shape than before? I’d like to hear what explanation the author would have to tell us why income disparity is at its highest levels since the days of the robber barons? Why are tax rates as a percentage of GDP also at it’s lowest rates in 75 years?

I don’t buy it. No one should buy it. Another “intellectualized” version of why the rich own the world and why we should be grateful for the crumbs left. Thanks but no thanks.

Second highest recommended:

This entire article is an disingenuous piece of malarky written by someone with a vested interest in keeping the corporate elite gorging on cash that they have been hoarding since 2008.

This crisis was not inevitable, it was not unavoidable. It happened because vested interests at the top of the food chain wanted it to happen. Those at the top stopped INVESTING in the future in favor of the quick buck. They manufactured this crisis by making funny money trading paper, blowing up bubbles and cratering the middle class through their own rapacious greed.

Modern societies can choose to expand or contract. The elites want contraction because having a nearly indigent class of formerly middle class workers scratching for crumbs suits their agenda.

We would have expansion if people would INVEST in basic research, INVEST in R&D, INVEST in our crumbling infrastructure, INVEST in our educational system, INVEST in alternative energy sources…the list goes on and on. Instead the corporate elite are being allowed to sit on trillions in cash.

If we are to grow again, these corporate criminals are going to have to have a long soak in a tax tub.