We’re all struggling with how to think -- and what to do -- in the
face of the “great recession.” An initial progressive response was to
advocate better regulation; then Keynesian economic stimulus; now
nationalization; perhaps in the future some kind of socialism.
One theme that has reverberated through periods of “hard times” in
the past is the idea of “production for use.” It has appeared in the
form of public works job creation; worker run enterprises; self-help
mutual aid; and efforts to push the envelope on property rights tha
Phil Angelides, the former state treasurer of California, is a
tough-minded liberal with hands-on knowledge of high finance and the
social contradictions in modern capitalism. So it is remarkable that
Angelides has been chosen to chair the Financial Crisis Inquiry
Commission newly created by Congress. The commission has enormous
potential to generate deeper reforms than anything President Obama has
yet proposed, simply by digging out the hard facts of what caused the
financial collapse.
Question for the day: Where is the economic recovery going to come from?
In June 2009, the U.S. economy saw its second
steepest decline in 27 years. New jobless claims increased,
business inventories fell and exports plunged as bad economic news
persisted.
Will the once high-flying American wealth
machine continue to produce the vast inequalities of the past?
The American economy remains in dire straits, with one worker in six
unemployed or underemployed. Yet Goldman Sachs just reported record
quarterly profits — and it’s preparing to hand out huge bonuses,
comparable to what it was paying before the crisis. What does this contrast tell us?
First, it tells us that Goldman is very good at what it does. Unfortunately, what it does is bad for America.
Second, it shows that Wall Street’s bad habits — above all, the
system of compensation that helped cause the financial crisis — have
not gone away.
Leo Gerard of the United Steelworkers
union is one of America's most progressive and outspoken labor leaders.
I met him at a Cornell University conference that brought environmental
organizations and labor unions together to fuse a forward looking consensus
on the need for green jobs as key to the transformation of our declining
industrial base.
For a while, the Wall Street meltdown gave the rich a bad name.
Even they seemed embarrassed by their own excess. There were reports of designer shops packaging purchases in plain paper bags.
But as going downscale lost its novelty, the rich have grown weary of their own embarrassment. Gratuitous extravagance is making a comeback. I noticed a Tiffany's ad in a Toronto newspaper last week for a "diamond solitaire on a platinum band of channel-set diamonds. From $3,550 to $1,000,000."
President Obama was elected with a large enough mandate for fundamental change that he could forge a fresh social compact, lock in place a new set of mutual obligations and rewrite the relationship between the state and the populace.
Have you received your thank-you note? I'm still waiting for mine.
More than a year into the Wall Street bailout, I've yet to get any sort of "thank you" from even a single one of the big banks that you and I propped up with $12 trillion in direct giveaways, indirect giveaways, government guarantees and sweetheart loans. You'd think their mommas would've taught them better. But I've begun to think that waiting on a simple gesture of banker gratitude is like waiting on Donald Trump to have a good hair day — ain't gonna happen.
