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Let’s Make It Official: Obama Is Not Serious About a Real Recovery
A bold jobs plan will have to be pushed from the grassroots
Just over one year ago, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner wrote a New York Times op-ed titled "Welcome to the Recovery," in which he proudly announced that "a review of recent data on the American economy shows that we are on a path back to growth."
Members of the nurses union, National Nurses United, and other workers converge on Wall Street to protest against financial intuitions and inequality on June 22, 2011 in New York City. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images) It was the domestic equivalent of George W. Bush's infamous "Mission Accomplished" banner trumpeting the end of the Iraq War.
Yes, “the devastation wrought by the great recession is still all too real for millions of Americans," Geithner conceded. But despite the fact "we suffered a terrible blow," America was "coming back."
But a variety of recent data show precisely how delusional Geithner—and his boss in the White House—have been.
President Obama long ago ceased talking about how America’s growing inequality means that working families have lower wages to spend and thus—through their collective consumer spending—cannot induce corporations to hire new workers and invest in new equipment.
Wage gains have actually been lower over the past 10 years than they were during the Great Depression years, as former Labor Secretary Robert Reich points out:
All told, it’s been the worst decade for American workers in a century. According to Commerce Department data, private-sector wage gains over the last decade have even lagged behind wage gains during the decade of the Great Depression (4 percent over the last ten years, adjusted for inflation, versus 5 percent from 1929 to 1939).
Job growth among big corporations—whose profits climbed 29 percent in 2010 after exploding 243 percent in 2009—is occurring offshore:
Big American corporations are making more money, and creating more jobs, outside the United States than in it. If corporations are people, as the Supreme Court’s twisted logic now insists, most of the big ones headquartered here are rapidly losing their American identity.
Prominent among these is General Electric, whose CEO Jeffrey Immelt remains as chair of Obama’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness. GE has been engaging in a wave of domestic plant closings while offshoring more jobs and imposing painful concessions on healthcare that will lower its U.S. workers’ buying power.
Three economic trends underscore how far the United States remains from a true recovery:
1) JOB GROWTH CONCENTRATED IN LOW-WAGE SECTORS
Fully 75 percent of U.S. job growth in 2010 was from industries that pay an average of under $15 per hour, according to the National Employment Law Project.
2) SPENDING CONCENTRATED AMONG AFFLUENT
Relying on data from Gallup, Don Peck reports in The Atlantic that from May 2009 to May 2011, consumer spending for those making more than $90,000 actually went up 16 percent. However, for the vast majority in the under-$90,000 category, it has remained flat.
"Three years after the crash of 2008, the rich and well educated are putting the recession behind them," Peck writes. "The rest of America is stuck in neutral or reverse."
3) GOVERNMENT JOB LOSSES FEED DOWNWARD CYCLE
“There is no sector showing especially strong growth right now, and with the government shedding 30,000 jobs a month, we will be fortunate if the unemployment rate doesn't rise over the rest of the year," warns economist Dean Baker.
But Obama’s Chief of Staff William Daley and top political advisor David Plouffe believe "It would be political folly to make the argument that government spending equals jobs."
The Obama team's unwillingness to make the same argument that was so successful for Franklin Delano Roosvelt in the 1930s betrays both cowardice and a misreading of the American people's desperation for jobs. In the end, its overwhelming desire to win over “independent” voters by showing that Obama is tough on deficits will likely prove to be self-defeating.
The loss of jobs—whether in the public or private sectors—will merely continue the cycle of lower spending power and fewer jobs. A continued economic slump is unlikely to win votes from independents, as pollster and analyst Ruy Teixeira convincingly argues. Citing research by John Sides, Teixeira declares, "voting preferences among pure independents are more influenced, not less, by the state of the economy [than by the deficit issue]."
But deficit hawks like Daley and Plouffe have been winning out over economic advisors like Christina Romer and Jared Bernstein, who have departed after failing in their efforts to prioritize job growth, the New York Times recently reported. Romer, now a professor of economics at the University of California, Berkeley, said:
Playing it safe is not going to cut it... Not proposing anything bold and not trying to do something to definitively deal with our problems would mean that we're going to have another year and a half like the last year and a half— and then it's awfully hard to get re-elected.
Yet “playing it safe” seems to be what we are almost certain to see. There is not much for labor to cheer about in the programmatic ideas the White House has floated so far, according to Dean Baker. “The list of remedies [a cut in the payroll tax, an infrastructure bank, and three NAFTA-style “free trade" deals, among others] leaked ahead of time does little to inspire hope,” Baker grimly writes.
America's labor movement must by now recognize that President Obama, for all of his strengths, is unwilling to take the lead in shepherding the nation out of the Great Recession.
If there is to be any bold jobs program to emerge, it looks like it will have to originate from labor itself, and be backed up by massive grassroots activism. Lobbying the White House has failed.
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78 Comments so far
Show AllAnd just what are all of Obama's strengths besides enriching the already rich?
Obama's strengths? They never actually specify what these are. Thanks aliensoup for your clarity.
Obama's greatest strength has been turning what could have been a two year recession into a paradigm change that is rapidly turning the US into a third world nation, vastly enriching the wealthiest 1% and the corporations in the process.
Obama is the best corproate money magnet the Democratic Party has ever had and the Party really doesn't care about anything other than getting more corporate money than the Republicans get.
While no friend of the Obama administration I am an ally of truth and accuracy. The reality is that our downward trending towards third world status was seeded a long time ago by Reagan, nurtured and watered by Bush 41, Clinton , Bush 43 and the crop has matured under Obama.
The real fault lies with all of us actually, for allowing our government to do this.
Another strength, from the point of view of his handlers: He has a polished delivery that does not inspire much anger and contempt in the population, no matter what he does or fails to do.
Yes, this is his greatest strength... He's got the perfect camoflage for performing the task he's been assigned. He receives sufficient opprobrium from the right, who's interests he serves even moreso than his own base, so that his base is left confused and assuming their job is to somehow defend the charlatan rather than join in the chorus of disapproval. His one strength was his masterful ability to get us to keep our eyes on his so-called narrative of change, while scarcely perceiving how deeply Obama was getting us permanently enmeshed in his Wall Street pals web of deception against American sovereign interests.
Doesn't everyone get it by now? He's just not that into us, now that alll the expanding markets are overseas, his cadre's profits and interests have also been off shored. He's all about the banksters bottom line, and if they say Americans need to be more competitive with the other banana republics of the world, it would be fiscally irresponsible to argue otherwise.
Cheers jclientelle, good point!
He's Unisom in a suit.
If the labor movement pins any of their hopes on Trumka, they're toast:
"Obama, Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis and Trumka will all participate in a Labor Day "celebration and rally" in Milwaukee on Monday, an appearance confirmed by the White House this afternoon, which separately announced the president would travel to Wisconsin for the Laborfest."
http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/116435-obama-will-appear-labor-day-alongside-afl-cio-chief
In Wisconsin, of all places. Where were they when the people were surrounding the capitol during the cold, snowy days of winter? AFL-CIO members ought to sue that bastard, Trumka. He partied while they paid his salary (over $260,000/year) with their hard-earned money.
"President Obama, for all his strengths..."???
What strengths? When has Barack Obama shown anything remotely resembling "strength? Obama is the human embodiment of weakness, dithering, hedged bets, obvious evasions, and bare-faced lies. He has not shown the courage of his convictions, because clearly, he hasn't any.
What appears under cursory observation as "confidence" and "strength" is actually a kind of tightly disciplined adherence to the most cynically calculated, non-controversial and cowardly possible political path. Obama cannot and will not "change" anything. There is no "hope" of that. Obama is an obstacle to change and the enemy of hope. Change can't come from the White House. Economic advisors Romer and Bernstein were used as callously as streetwalkers and must no doubt feel as cheap; or worse since most streetwalkers do that job out of necessity and Romer Bernstein took it voluntarily. Like Van Jones, Carol Browner and dozens of others, their "access" was never to be; they were part of the Obama sales pitch to what his campaign knew was a weak and desperate Left.
We can always be counted on to say "Well at least we got better appointments from our guy (the Democrat). Then the "better appointments" get neutralized, sidelined, or simply surrendered because the big gelding doesn't want to be "divisive".
Bybee is right that a far bolder jobs plan is necessary and he's right that no such thing will come out of the WH (per Plouffe and Daley). He's also right that a small powerful and rich sector has absorbed essentially all the gains of the last 3 years, such as they are. He may be right to assert that better policies might have to come from "labor itself". Is anybody in labor listening?
Been saying it for years; will say it again: Barack Obama isn't "President" in any sense except the ceremonial. He's the White House lawn jockey. It's cruel to put it that way and I do so advisedly. Why sugar coat a bayonet?
"He's the White House lawn jockey."
Actually, Lawn Jockeys are useful. You could tie your horse's reins to one. Barry can't even do that. By the time you came out of the general store, Barry and his family would be off on one of their seven taxpayer funded monthly vacations and your horse would be wandering three miles down the road.
Minimum wage jobs are at least better than no jobs. We need an employer of last resort program to provide a minimum wage community service type job to every one willing and able to work for the federal minimum wage. It could replace much of unemployment. Where unemployment benefits would be more than the minimum wage for full-time work, the unemployment drawers could work for that much and stretch the time they can get unemployment by having only the not CURRENTLY earned portion of unemployment count toward the amount they can draw on until they find a job that will pay at least as much as their full unemployment benefit or they use up their benefit.
Where does my support for President Obama end. He has failed us completely. How he figures to get re-elected is beyond anyone with any kind of common sense. Because of his decisions we are going to end up with someone like Rick Perry, or worse or as bad, Michelle Bachmann. Hopefully I can immigrate to Canada.
I think the Republicans are pushing a set of hopeless clowns for president in the hopes that Obama will get re-elected because he's given them more than they could have hoped for.
Precisely...no Republican, including Obama's idol Ronny Raygun, has delivered as much Republican legislation in a four year term as Obama delivered during his first two years in office.
The Republicans will direct their resources toward taking control of the Senate in 2012, which Obama will love, since that will give him more cover for moving the right wing agenda forward.
Actually, Clinton came close -- ending "welfare as we know it", ending the Glass-Steagall Act, passing NAFTA (with the majority of his fellow Dems voting NO), focusing on a balanced budget, not acting on global warming, "reinventing" (i.e., cutting) government, failing to take advantage of the end of the Cold War to move the US away from militarism. Meanwhile, his judicial appointments were judged most similar to Gerald Ford's.
But we gotta vote for the lesser of 2 evils, right?
Don't bother heading for Canada. the same corporations that own Obama are buying politicians in other nations.
Although Obama's decisions during the past three years have been shaped by FOX network propagandists and other Republican operatives, Obamabots have demanded no accountabilty from him. How is that any better than Perry or Bachmann?
You already answered the question of how he'll get re-elected. Fear of Rick Perry, Bachmann, et. al. Works like a charm...everytime.
Seriously, I have more respect for the autonomy of right wingers many days than I do Democrats.
We could end up stuck with Rick (God forbid!) Perry if Obama keeps this up, which he shows every intention of doing. If the voting public was ignorant enough to vote for GW Bush - twice! then Perry should have no problem slithering through the cracks, aided and abetted by the corporate media, which could care less about his rabid religious views and bloodlust for executing innocent people. He's executed more inmates than Bush. I didn't think that record could get broken. Just think how many people he can kill if he gets his hands on the military - although Obama's no slouch in that department himself. And when is CD ever going to get the paragraphs fixed?!
My conscience will not permit me to vote for Obama. Sorry, but I don't vote for lying corporate shills. I didn't recognize him the first time around, but I do now.
It appears Obama knew he would be a one-term president. Recently he said something about accepting a one-term presidency. No one wins unless the oligarchs say so.
The R's said, in 2008, that by 2012 the Dem who was elected in 2008 would be a pushover and then they could have their one party state. It's a longer longshot since he just took over the CIA (and is likely our de facto Presidfent anyway) but I've always seen General Petraeus being the white knight who rides in on his white horse to "save" the Republican Party and our Nation from either Ron Paul, who will begin shutting down their precioius wars or a wingnut who might not win.
It's all theater. Sorry, I wish it wasn't true.
The only thing that Barry the Liar really cares about is the re-election of Barry the Liar. This appeasing POS reminds me of what the great Lily Tomlin once said, "No matter how cynical you become, it's never enough to keep up."
I'm tempted to say that America is lost. The politics is hopelessly corrupt and the will of the people has been left in the dust. As the Wall Street whore Geithner demonstrated in this piece, these "experts" don't know crap about what they are talking about and yet they continue to be positioned in offices of the highest power. They also continue with the charade because it benefits their class.
Damn Obama, for his betrayal. I can't wait for his announcement later this year (when it is considered politically expedient, of course) that the Keystone XL pipeline has been approved by his administration so that we can become more energy self-sufficient with that filthy but friendly Canadian tar sands soil. In 2008 I hoped I was voting for a man who would act like FDR and I got a weasel with no principles who could became Bush 2.0
Its gonna be win-win for barry in 2012.
He will either get a second term, or have a cushy corporate gig waiting for him that pays a lot better than the $400k his current job pays.
Either way, Barry wins while you and I lose.
I think he's dead serious -- about doing everything his owners and managers tell him to do to keep an economic recovery from happening. If they still think he can be useful to them, the Republican candidate will be the scariest radical they can put in there.
Let’s Make It Official: Obama Is Serious About Impoverishing the American Worker.
WHY? So they will be willing to work for slave wages on behalf of the rich bastards that own Obama.
Can you say THIRD WORLD NATION ?
How did you achieve the large font, the bold letters and italics?
Thanks,
Algerbert knows html. I'd rather all text be the same, and consider the content.
Elizabeth H,
I understand your point. But consider for a moment what Shakespeare would have done wih html.
I think he would have used it. Limiting emphasis to capital letters and/or exclamation points is somewhat boring. That said, I realize it can be overdone so I try to maintain some perspective.
;>)
But when I think of the enormous human creative effort by many thousands thousands of people spent making a "cool-looking" web pages for some capitalist, I think of all the more worthwhile efforts all that human creative effort could be spent. Will any web page ever achieve the stature of a Picasso, an Mozart Concerto, the enduring usefulness of Newton's laws or Maxwell's equations, or the engineering elegance of Roebling's bridges?
Nothing exposes the naked face of capitalist alienation of human creative potential than the industry that employs so many smart people for such trivial rubbish as web development.
Picasso, Mozart and Roebling all worked for capitalists, capitalist interests, or people who acquired wealth through the capitalist system.
Newton was in charge of the Royal Treasury.
I don't know anything about Maxwell but his equations. ;)
Tom Larsen,
For bold font, < b > Text followed by < /b > (NO spaces between the "<" and character followed by the < /b >)
Italics is < i > text here < /i >
For bigger font, < h1 > is the largest. I use < h2 > normally. Remember ALWAYS to follow the text you made bold or bigger with the cancel command (i.e. the "/") e.g. < /h2 >
< h2 >< i > Text here < /h2 >< /i >
Thank you! I wouldn't have thought that posting on a forum like CD would necessitate learning html. But I learned the < p > paragraph command out of frustration with not being able to make a readable post !
Go here...
http://www.w3schools.com/HTML/default.asp
Let's make it official: We're serious about making obama exit the White House ASAP, and making sure that no reptile-ublican slithers in behind him.
It's time for me to let it rip. For all these anti- Obama folks what grand solutions do you envision and who will lead the charge. Surely not the Tea Party or GOP who are the main contributors to our trip into the sewer. The GOP so called Candidates for 2012 are the refuse of our society and just talk and have no real dynamic plans but the destruction of this Country.
The facts are that the GOP for years has contributed nothing to the common good of our once grand society.
So I find it quite odd that as soon as we elected Mr Obama President the refuse of America showed up. Most of us really understand what lies behind this anti-Obama rot and thats what it shamefully is ROT and some really ROTTEN stuff.
Now had Hillary been elected or Senator McCaine I am quite certain the Uglies would not even existed.
Now I even read in the news is how the GOP does not even want to fund natural disasters. Great so In any GOP State where a Hurricane or Earthquake hits the Dems should be so kind and just say no.
Me I am voting for only those who want this Country to really succeed and if the Candidate is from Pluto and only those who prove their intent to me will get my vote. A recent pole shows some 87% of Americans dislike Congress and that is the real truth of where we are now.
Why are we still talking about this guy Obamer, or whatever his name is. The Dems must throw him out, and let's hope Kucinich or Sanders primary him. I suspect the Tea Party will split the R's and the Progressives will split the D's, and we are again going to be left with the lesser-of-two-evils. More importantly they should be concentrate on overturning congress, and getting the newcomers to pledge to sign on to the Fair Elections Now Act at http://fairelectionsnow.org/about-bill
You're right. Until we get public financing of campaigns and overturn the Supreme Court's "money is speech" and "corporations are people" policies we're fighting a losing battle. If we all prioritized getting public financing of campaigns in as many states as possible, while keeping up pressure at the national level with the Fair Elections Now Act we'd begin to make some progress. Until we do, money will continue to trump the many and the corruption of our government will continue. Dylan Ratigan on MSNBC is in the process of developing a constitutional amendment he will be promoting. I'm anxious to see what that looks like.
I'm listening to another voice in the wilderness of myopic opinion. Until we create an enviornment in Washington of public service above selfish interest we are doomed to the disfunctional dreck that holds offices at present.
A lot of really good information in the article. However this piece of analysis bothered me:
"The Obama team's unwillingness to make the same argument that was so successful for Franklin Delano Roosvelt in the 1930s betrays both cowardice and a misreading of the American people's desperation for jobs. In the end, its overwhelming desire to win over “independent” voters by showing that Obama is tough on deficits will likely prove to be self-defeating."
In my view Obama is not expressing "cowardice" and "misreading" the US public. And neither is Obama spineless or a sellout. The very real austerity that Americans are forced to endure on all kinds of fronts is bi-partisan and INTENTIONAL. Obama is serving the corporate interests that put him into office.
The meme that Obama is a weak negotiator et al, parallels the meme that G W Bush wasn't too bright. Meanwhile Bush, like Obama now, achieved major successes for his corporate backers.
Most people consider Obama to be a "failure." But that assumes that he was supposed to succeed. Yet he has had major successes for the MIC, Wall Street, corporate "health care", the fossil fuel industry, the education "reform" movement, and now presiding over the demise of Social Security and Medicare. All of Obama's reforms for "hope and change" are a pretext to shift even more wealth upward to the already super-rich. Obama did not "fail" the American people because he was never serving them. The process of disillusionment is the process of being without illusions. If the American people can learn from the example Obama, that the office of the presidency, the Senate and Congress are wholly owned by corporate America, that would be a positive step forward.
And the next step?
First, what the "next step" should NOT be: Electoral politics. Our time and resources should not be put into electing a more "progressive" candidate. Obama was that candidate. The electoral system is structured to PREVENT real democracy (by not least the massive amounts of corporate cash required). It's ok to vote, just don't give any candidate your hard-earned money and spend no more of your time on elections than it takes to vote every 4 years (like 20 minutes).
Second, the article does suggest what to do here: "A bold jobs plan will have to be pushed from the grassroots." We need to create independent mass movements - not connected to the duopoly and I would argue not concerned with electoral politics. We learn a denatured version of our own history. Every progressive reform that was achieved in US history, from the 8 hr day, to Social Security, to the Clean Water Act, on and on, was propelled into existence by a mass movement of everyday Americans.
The ruling class is organized, and very effective at serving its own interests. That is what we have seen with the 40 year declining standard of living for most of us. It is high time that working people organized to serve OUR interests instead of our masters.
I would argue that the myriad problems we face have their source in our economic system. Join an activist organization that is anti-capitalist. This is the next step.
I agree -- except I think that working for public financing of campaigns is the only useful electoral activity. Accept that neither political party is serving us, and put our money, time and effort into organizing ourselves -- politically and economically. Check out YES! Magazine, David Korten's books, and the Rebuild the American Dream Movement.
Tom,
Your last paragraph summed it up perfectly.
Yes, Tom. I absolutely agree with you.
On another note, it's extraordinary to me that the CEO of a major transnational corp. would even have any time in his busy CEO-schedule to serve as the "chair of Obama’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness." (Not that I truly believe that these people actually "work" for a living.) No wonder!
From the sounds of it, however, the whole Council is a lie (the name certainly sounds fake) and the head of G.E. is doing exactly what he's supposed to be doing, i.e. nothing, since it's never been about creating jobs for Americans; it's only ever been about lining the pockets of CEOs and filling the coffers on Wall St. And on those counts, Obama has been very successful.
So to repeat what others have been saying here, it shouldn't come as a surprise that the president has never been "serious" about wanting a "real [economic] recovery."
Still waiting for the tar-sands pipe-line "decision"!
Hope they're won't be too many disappointed environmentalists who are still holding out hope for Mr. green-jobs president.
The function of Obama is as a repository for 'hope' or rage or whatever psychic debris is floating around anywhere along the political spectrum. I feel sorry for the man, who hasn't been able to budge from his position between a rock and a hard place since the campaign trail. I halfheartedly actually made phonecalls for the guy during the '08 campaign, I suppose thinking at least we could have a president who wasn't so godawful embarrassingly stupid and hoping that maybe it wasn't just more cynical branding. Most young people I know didn't even vote. Even those who are well informed and pretty active vibrant and imaginative people. I have to admit I can well understand now the reticence in expending energy in such an exercise of futility (which, if it wasn't already clear, became VERY clear when Kucinich wasn't even allowed into the debate... that certainly told you something about mainstream media's collusion with the status quo of power in the US). I sense a fed-up-ness that cannot neatly be pigeonholed, however much the NYT, the WSJ, Financial Times, The Economist, Fox, Time/Warner, NPR or whoever might try to encapsulate a 'divergence' of views. The crux of it is that we have to extricate ourselves from the distractions of the internet, print media destined for landfills and synaptic flashes of delusion in our heads, and get serious about what it is that is truly of value in our culture... what scientists or philosophers or artists or journalists who actually give a damn about the next seven generations might have to share with us, and set aside the distractions of celebrity 'culture' that forever postpones our grappling with actually transitioning into communities where people know and empathize with one another and have the humility and maturity to at long last focus on turning the worst of the momentum of greed and violence around. We have got to dismantle the machinery of war, the disease and toxic mechanisms & effluent of greed, recognize ourselves as participants in the ecosystems of the planet and learn how to respect the life and beauty of this singular, amazingly complex earth. Like the poet says, 'what do you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?"
If you're interested. You can achieve the effect of a carriage return or paragragh by inserting the following symbol where you want it: except it doesn't show! Sorry!
It's the less than sign "<", then a "p", followed by the greater than sign ">", no quotation marks, no spaces.
I truly enjoyed your comment, Matangicita !
Since wage gains have actually been lower over the past 10 years than they were during the Great Depression should we call this the Greater Depression?
Negative comments on the internet are part of our current problems ...
Our country might prosper if there were a little more positive thinking ...
Wow! I've got a bridge to sell you.
YOU JUST PROVED MY POINT !!!