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Rage is Good
Hopefully, the demonstrations planned on Wall Street April 4 will contribute to the global uprising. Our president and Congress need the pressure.
The world has turned against American hegemony before: against the Vietnam war, against the World Trade Organization and against the invasion of Iraq. On all three occasions, the world was right and Washington was wrong.On this occasion, the global economy is being devastated by the Wall Street crash. Hundreds of millions are are hurtling into extreme poverty, export industries are collapsing, currencies being destabilized.
As the conservative French president Nicolas Sarkozy says, "Laissez-faire, ces't fini." (Laissez-faire is finished.)
As nations blame Wall Street and move to protect their people, the protests need not be anti-American nor anti-Obama. Sarkozy cannot be accused of being anti-US. Neither are Iceland nor Ukraine. The global opposition might just may be what we need, an organized populist counterforce to the business and banking lobbies entrenched in Washington.
Obama's stimulus package and proposed budget are not the problem. They represent the most progressive government initiatives in a half-century. But as Franch Rich noted in the New York Times March 1, Obama "was fuzzy when it came to what he wanted to do about" more bailouts. The Obama administration is in trouble on the question of what to do about the financial system andthe credit crisis. But Rich is wrong for once in suggesting that it's "bad news" for Obama that "the genuine populist rage in the country...cannot be ignored or finessed."
The "bad news" is really an opportunity for progressives, unions and Democrats to build a bottom-up populist alternative to the "greed is good" politics of Wall Street, which has infested both parties. Obama should privately welcome "populist rage" as a stimulus to reform. If he does not, he may see right-wing populism making a comeback as soon as 2010.
Some progressives, including even Warren Beatty, think it's time to introduce a discussion of socialism, if only to point out that our present course is one of socialism for the banks and corporations. Obama himself says good things about Sweden's nationalization of banks, but quickly demurs that Americans are not "culturally" ready for such an option. At the Washington Post, Harold Meyerson, a democratic socialist in the tradition of Michael Harrington, prefers re-regulation to either nationalization or socialism at this point: "to avoid socialism (to whatever extent throwing public money at banks is socialism) you need liberalism (that is, the willingness to restrain capitalism from its periodic self-destruction.)
My sense is that we are moving too rapidly towards economic hell for a socialist ideology to catch up. While efforts to dust off and legitimize the term will go on, Meyerson is right that the battlefield just ahead is over reregulation, which may evolve into a contentious, awkward, bureaucratic nationalization out of necessity. That is why the sturdier, and heavily regulated Canadian and Swedish banking systems already are being closely examined.
But Obama is not only post-Sixties, he is post-Thirties too. Coming of age in the Reagan era, he was convinced that a healthy dose of President Clinton's Rubinomics was the alternative to Reaganomics. It was the Clinton administration who crusaded for the deregulation of Wall Street at home and for neo-liberal privatizations in Latin America, Africa and Asia. A whole generation of "new Democrats" came to believe in market fundamentalism and magic bubbles. They privately dismissed those Canadians and Swedes as girlie-bankers. Now they are busted.
Clinton deregulated the derivatives market and hedge funds, so called because they are investment instruments designed to "hedge" against risk, where the supposed values are "derived" from underlying assets (for example, when shaky home loans were bundled into securities and sold to third parties as if they were AAA-rated.) Under Bush, between 2002 and 2008, the derivative market rose in estimated value from $106 trillion to $531 trillion, 35 percent to 40 percent of all corporate profits with no oversight, according to Obama Economic Advisory Chair Paul Volcker. That was because, under Clinton and his treasury secretaries Rubin and Alan Greenspan, there was deliberate elimination of oversight when it was proposed by Brooksley Born, head of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. She was fired for her efforts.
The Clinton era, with its modest increase in most family incomes while the rich became the super-rich, apparently had a deep effect on Obama and most certainly on his generation of Democrats. Last year Obama raised nearly $7 million from Wall Street investment firms. Wall Street became a cash cow for Democrats who looked the other way. As a centrist, Obama toyed with notions of "nudging" the Wall Street firms into better behavior by designing a better "choice architecture" in place of traditional regulation (the term is that of his close University of Chicago friend Cass Sunstein.)
Obama has filled his most senior economic positions with people directly responsible for the deregulation policies that contributed to the unfolding catastrophe. They include:
• Top economic adviser Larry Summers, who as treasury secretary in 2002 championed the law de-regulating derivatives which, according to the New York Times, "spread the financial losses from reckless lending around the world;"
• Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, who worked for two Republican administrations and Henry Kissinger's private consulting firm, then orchestrated the recent bailouts of Rubin's Citigroup and American International Group, the insurance giant;
• Budget Director Peter Orszag, another Rubin protégé;
• Michael Froman, another Rubin student, was Obama's transition team point person on the economy (The transition team also included Rubin's son, James Rubin);
• Securities and Exchange Commission Director Mary Schapiro has made a reputation for self-regulation. An appointee of Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, and Bill Clinton, she ran the industry-dominated Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) which oversees Wall Street self-regulation--and missed the Bernard Madoff scandal;
• Gary Gensler, the new director of Obama's CFTC, drafted the 1992 law exempting derivatives from oversight by the agency he now heads.
These are only brief snapshots of the tangled conflicts of interest that make a profound re-regulation of Wall Street unlikely at this point. If a street gang member in Los Angeles had conspired to rob an investment banker of a few thousand dollars, he would receive a multi-year prison term with added time for being a gang "associate." But some of the people responsible for the greatest financial scandal in many decades are flying high in high government offices, their friends colleagues rewarded with million dollar bonuses or mega-billion dollar bailouts, while some complain, incredibly, that a cap of $500,000 on executive compensation is not only unfair but will cause a talent drain from Wall Street.
The logical question is why Obama has appointed such people to key decision-making positions in the first place. No one can know the answer to such a question. Franklin Roosevelt, when asked why he appointed Joseph Kennedy to a leading regulatory position, is said to have replied, "It takes a crook to catch a crook." (A defective gene pool from long years of Ivy League inbreeding comes to mind, but that would be unkind.)
In this crisis, Obama seems to be at the progressive end of the political spectrum in Washington, not his preferred position in the center. Where is the movement to push him? Congressional liberals seem uncomfortable criticizing the new president's appointees. This reluctance runs deeper than partisan politics, involving what Rep. Barney Frank describes as an overwhelming desire to preserve the financial institutions. For one example, without naming names, when asked how he could have voted for Henry Paulson's massive bailout package, a leading liberal Congressman said "when the experts look you in the eye and tell you the whole system is going to collapse, it's hard to be a no vote."
The blogosphere usually can be counted on to raise hell, but its middle class whiteness and affinity for Obama make them unlikely leaders of a populist economic revolt. Organized labor has the capacity to fill the streets and generate heat in Congressional districts, but it is delighted with the president's stimulus and budget packages and the appointment of Hilda Solis as Labor Secretary, so are likely to hold its fire for a time.
It's not clear what has happened to the anti-globalization movement of the past decade, but the opportunity now exists to argue for a system of global financial regulations, including capital controls, and a global living wage. Otherwise, financial capital will flow towards banking havens which are the least regulated, and threatened governments will move towards protecting their constituencies from unregulated global capitalism.
That is why the potential threat of worldwide anger in the streets, including the streets of American financial districts, is so important as the only strategic pressure point that that might cause Obama to ride herd on his recovering deregulators while a progressive populism comes alive in American politics.
Rage is good.
- Posted in
71 Comments so far
Show AllObama is not thinking like FDR. He is another Democrat who believes in Rubinomics, which is only more MiltonFriedmanism.
Good article with a weak ending. Hayden is always astute with his critique and also always short on solutions.
If all Obama does is "ride herd on his recovering deregulators," we are still screwed. We need what Robert Reich calls structural change. We cannot permit the financiers to run our economy. Pre-Reagan the economy was run to benefit the manufacturers, those who made products being the basis of any real economy not those who manipulate the money and credit markets. We need to re-make ourselves into an economy of producers, which may be green energy innovators but not limited to only green energy. We need to use what Americans really excel in doing, which is invention. We need to put our stimulus funds not into dead banks but vigorous venture capital. If we settle for less, we simply won't survive except as a third rate version of Europe.
Margalo
Our economic system, with our own regulations removed, is designed to do EXACTLY what it is doing now....blow up slow and start whinning down faster. If it brings down the rest of the world's economies, then that's what they get for hanging out with us!
"Too big to fail'???? hell...it's too big to survive!
""Too big to fail'???? hell...it's too big to survive!"
Hahahaaaa! That is funny. Too bad it is tragic too.
We need to re-make ourselves into an economy of producers, which may be green energy innovators but not limited to only green energy. We need to use what Americans really excel in doing, which is invention. We need to put our stimulus funds not into dead banks but vigorous venture capital. If we settle for less, we simply won't survive except as a third rate version of Europe.
Exactly! Whenever there is growth in demand, a society must innovate or face a decline in the standard of living. For the record, ridiculous innovations like CDS, and CDO do not count as they are finance based and not production oriented.
What is truly interesting is that China have today stated that their domestic economy is showing signs of recovery (global markets are still a mess), because their Government injected a huge amount of money into the domestic economy, in fact, increasing their deficit by a factor of 7!
If this pans out to be true, it may demonstrate that the Chinese economy is more resilient, and better run, than the US economy.
Never criticize a man until you've walked a mile in their moccasins - Native American proverb.
you are correct....i posted several times in other threads on china -- more as a companion discussion to what is emerging gradually as the "alternative" in a national way to the US dictated system...i posted an article discussing that China - basically ALONE among the pre-eminent economies (despite its 20 million unemployment rate - manyother things it is still "catching up" with in the 21st century) making the measures that are the OPPOSITE of what the US , european first world countries are doing and promoting in other countries:
where in the USA -- the economic debacle, as usual, is used to justify UNEMPLOYMENT as a tolerable thing , and that in itself as a way to "reform" things to produce LOW wage replacement jobs....CHINA is actually creating jobs AT HIGH WAGES....
where there are BAILOUTS of financial institutions in the west -- china is infusing money DIRECTLY into communities, towns and giving them the measn to "create credits" backed up by the government....where in the west people are told "if you want a job be prepated to move to where the jobs are"....
china , seeing that the 10 million unemployed in the coasts for the loss of manufacturing for export goods jobs are going BACK to the provinces -- is FOLLOWING the movement of people WITH jobs to create and telling them -- STAY THERE " we will do things that are needed to be done ".
where the west doesn't encourage or instill a sense of "national destiny" and cooperation - along with the need to have a job for young college grads with no job prospects --
china is telling the 10 million new college grads who hoped to have fancy jobs in the fancy places in shanghai, macao, beijing, canton, etc...in the coasts to "go to the provinces -- you ARE needed THERE"....
EXACTLY as their country NEEDS to develop the hinterlands to create a more EVENLY distributed economic stability.
BUT china ISN"T just pouring money beyond the stated 600 Billion dollars (1.2 trillion yuan) in that "stimulus" just beacuse the west DEPENDS ON IT and wants china to do MORE --
china is doing it because HER PEOPLE NEED IT and is the way to develop .
now -- THAT"S national wisdom. that the west -- for all its supposed "advanced financial structure" that is NOW IMPLODING all over the planet -- can learn a thing or two from!
and what ELSE is china doing by the way: using its savings , part of it only -- to invest abroad -- and buying up things left and right...........
lol.
as one article writer said:
"IF COUNTRIES were companies -- CHINA TODAY stands alone as the most STABLE AND BALANCED company".
teddy, sorry I have not read your other posts....I will in future.
This is great stuff. Thanks!
Never criticize a man until you've walked a mile in their moccasins - Native American proverb.
that's ok.
i forgot to mention that an article reports (written by a CHASE BANK high official making an observation on what china is doing) --
that China is using its stated 700 billion dollars -0- not for bank bailouts -- they don't need them anyway - but SERIOUSLY pouring money into EXPANDING PENSIONS, HEALTH CARE as well as jobs in the provinces that were neglected in the rush to the Coastlines for the export oriented jobs.
as i was saying some threads ago : China is LEARNING FAST!
they are NOT abandoning export-orientation , of course not.
but they are spreading their investments more EVENLY and paying attention to the PEOPLE as "DOMESTIC CONSUMERS" which is largely untapped -- and only 1/3 of its FULL potential .
but how to do it? GIVE PEOPLE JOBS at DECENT or HIGH WAGES of course,
it is SO SIMPLE that it is AMAZING how the west could never operate on that basis ..even as china was once forced to operate under THAT western global structure pressure when it was still "backward"....
but -- it seems -- not anymore -- if the state leaders can have their way and the chinese see the wisdom of it....
or ELSE they'll have a revolution on their hands.
and NO country , not china , not russia, not the usa wants THAT.
so -- in effect - CHINA is doing it the RIGHT WAY....
putting its money and investing IN - ITS PEOPLE.
as an example:
the president or prime minister the other day announced where the money goes:
NONE GOES to the export oriented "industries"..they are to operate as they already are operating an will simply have to weather the storm of foreign markets until things stabilize...but
china is FIRMING UP ITS INTERNAL economy , which is the wise thing to do.
they are doing it under the principle of FIRST THINGS FIRST:
FIRST THEIR OWN PEOPLE ....
Hey teddy, thanks for the reference to Henry C.K Liu. Article titles at his website read like an encyclopedia of the Deconstruction of Capitalism.
http://www.henryckliu.com/index.html.
and while the USA coddles the bankers and criminals....while putting band-aid on where MONEY OUGHT TO GO -- to ordinary people through better wages and investments in jobs for domestic consumption...
look at the OPPOSITE that China is doing: investing on its PEOPLE:
=============
China Business
Mar 6, 2009
Wen pledges cash for growth
By Olivia Chung
HONG KONG - Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, in a keenly anticipated speech to the country's top legislative assembly on Thursday, offered barely enough to maintain optimism in China's ability to weather the global downturn, even as he declined to announce new plans to stimulate the economy.
China's mainland stock markets, which had surged about 6% on Wednesday on the prospect of a new stimulus package being announced to the National People's Congress (NPC), faltered before recovering in late trading.
Wen pledged to the 11th NPC in Beijing that China, the world's third-biggest economy, would maintain growth at about 8%, a rate seen by many analysts as the minimum necessary to absorb new
workers and avoid social unrest as millions are laid off amid the global economic downturn.
Investors had expected a spending package on top of the 4 trillion yuan (US$584 billion) stimulus announced last November and to be spent over the next two years. Instead, they heard Wen outline plans, not clearly part of that package or in addition to it, that included a lower tax burden for individuals and companies, higher fixed asset investment, and permission for municipal governments to raise money by selling through the Finance Ministry 200 billion yuan in bonds.
Wen said the country will act to expand consumer demand, seen as vitally important as exports slump, with higher pay for public sector employees, including 12 billion yuan to be spent on increased wages for 12 million teachers.
The widely watched CSI 300 Index closed up 0.87% while Hong Kong's benchmark Hang Seng Index slipped 0.97%. The city's China Enterprises Index, which follows companies listed in Hong Kong and with stakes of at least 30% held by mainland state or local governments, closed down 0.69%, reversing earlier gains.
Wen said China's priority in the year ahead was to deal with the global financial crisis and promote steady and rapid economic development. His speech, similar to the United States presidential State of the Union address, details the government's work over the past year and its plans for the coming year.
Wen acknowledged that 2009 could be "the most difficult year for China's economic development since the beginning of the 21st century", with the global financial crisis still spreading and yet to bottom out. He also said a trend towards global deflation was becoming more obvious and that trade protectionism is rising.
Listing key government tasks for the year, he said, "We must channel government investment to areas where it best counteracts the effects of the global financial crisis and to weak areas in economic and social development."
In his two-hour address, Wen said the government will "significantly increase" government spending to expand domestic demand and adopt "a proactive fiscal policy". No government investment will be made "in the regular processing industries".
WTF -- the article below is by the CHASE BANK writer...
but note: that is just a SIMPLE assessment of what the chinese are doing.. there are other far more voluminous and sophisticated articles -- written by HENRY CK LIU for asiatimesonline
that cover just about everything on economics and culture and history ..and practically every article he wrote since years ago -- including discussions on the "history of monetary policy and banking, dollar hegemony as imperialism"...
"banking bonkum and alan greenspan , the Wizard of Bubble Land"......
"the coming trade wars"...
etc...written years ago -- all came true.
and he has written articles of being concerned for how China OUGHT to move..and worried about china adopting the "washington consensus"...and seems to be happy at present that china is doing some things opposite to that, such as "movign towards HIGH WAGE, FULL EMPLOYMENT economy"...
because Henry CK Liu's basic position is:
"WITHOUT PEOPLE -- there is NO economy...THE TRUE WEALTH OF ANATION -- are its PEOPLE...CHINA has always been a culture of inherently SOCIALIST values...the western mode is completely ALIEN to chinese history and culture....and CHINA's TRUE national Destiny is towards a STABLE ECONOMY that it had through the centuries".
WTF -- below is a small excerpt from another very involved and long article by Henry CK LIU -- it is but one of dozens upon dozens of extremely knowledgeable and precise and detailed analyses over the years...even one page alone of one of his articles will take me a few postings here...
the excerpt is only from the first page, he also talks about Economic Nationalisms, how the disfunctionality of capitalism's deregulation, corporatism, low wage drive, etc...came to be and why countries "should by now see...and silence the neoliberals once and for all"...etc...
and I think he touches briefly in this article on another issue he explored years ago more voluminously : "GLOBAL WAGE STRUCTURE TOWARDS HIGH and EVER RISING WAGES" - as the "other suppressed half" of the balance of power between capital and labor...in that there "while there is a UNION of sorts of Business and capital globally...there has never been a UNION in equal measure speaking for WAGES". ...and how that ought to come around and how...
he is probablyk the best writer on global affairs i have ever read...someone i DON"T think Geithner or GREENSPAN would WANT to share a stage with in a debate........because this guy will TEAR into them....right up to teaching them things about the history of economics and telling everyone where greenspan and the washington consensus and "money capitalists" and bankers have been HIDING THINGS from people...lol.
he even discussed American History in ways americans don't know about...unbelievable..including specific individuals, banks, corporations, waging money wars...etc....and why things today are as they are based on those...and traces the true history of the world wars (as wars between the banks of england, austria, usa, etc.)
article is titled
THE SONG STAYS THE SAME
OBAMA, CHANGE and CHINA
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China_Business/KC06Cb02.html
===============
"Yet barely a decade into the 21st century, with a globalized neo-liberal trade regime firmly in place in a world where the market economy has become the norm due to dubious US ideology backed by US financial power, protectionism appears to be fast re-emerging and possibly igniting a new global trade war of complex dimensions, as market fundamentalism has brought on what may well be the greatest economic crisis in recent history.
The irony is that this new trade war is being launched not by the poor economies that have been receiving the short end of the trade stick, but by the US, which on all counts has been winning more than it has been losing from global neo-liberal trade, with the European Union following suit in lockstep. Japan, of course, has never let up on protectionism and has never taken competition policy seriously.
Workers in every country have all, in their separate ways, been victimized by deregulated global market fundamentalism. The current financial/economic crisis cannot be solved without introducing a new world economic order that sets the raising of working wages as the priority goal of reform and restructuring to raise demand to redress overcapacity. In short, a global income policy is urgently needed.
Chinese economic policy at a crossroad
Alas, led by the US, most government bailouts and stimulus programs around the world thus far are formulated on a model of giving taxpayer money to corporate employers so they can further cut employment and further push down wages to further weaken consumer demand. China appears to be the only exception of this trend since the reins of leadership were passed to Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao in 2002, albeit there are still vocal forces in Chinese policy debates insisting on continuing to follow faulty US models of growth through deregulated markets, and to depend on exports to achieve prosperity. Hopefully, facts will now silence these wrongheaded vocal voices and allow China to finally move on a path of balanced domestic development.
The rich nations need to recognize that their efforts to squeeze every last drop of advantage out of an already unfair trade regime will only plunge the world into deep depression. History has shown that while the poor suffer more in economic depressions, the rich, even as they are financially cushioned by their wealth, are hurt by political repercussions in the form of either war or revolution, or both. Already, reports of social protests are appearing around the world. (See The coming trade war and global depression, Asia Times Online, June 16, 2005)
The current economic crisis is a manifestation of the dysfunctionality of the unregulated global financial system promoted by US neoliberalism. US transformationalism under George W Bush was aimed at transforming the entire world by "enlarging" US-style democracy through opening up national markets everywhere for US transnational corporations. US policy on China aimed at accelerating the push on the Chinese economy towards unregulated market fundamentalism through "peaceful evolution", a strategy entertained by all US administrations, regardless of the structural adverse impact such evolution would have on the socio-political stability in China. This strategy is futile because the Chinese socialist revolution cannot be manipulated to self-destruct merely to enhance US global national interests.
Continued 1 2 3 4
many years ago -- a friend asked my opinion...whether he should stay in new york and finish up his doctorate in internet architecture -- something like that ..a very advanced degree...OR go home to taiwan (which of course china claims and will never give up as a province and it will eventually be up TO china -- NOT the USA or taiwan -- it's just a matter of time) -- and i told him: what are you wasting your time in new york for? the time will come when the US economy will collapse...you better get out before that happens and start to establish yourself in china, one way or another.
I believe i was right.
in the early 1990's 2 main leaders in china were so enamored of the "neoliberalism" fostered on them to "open up" -- and much of china's export orientation came out of that.......BUT they were also soon enough removed from power - for being too enamored of the washington consensus way....
and the guidance of the present leaders - president and prime minister who basically share the responsibilities in their one party system - have gradually returned china , albeit with other "washington consensus lovers" voices still trying to push , to what WEN JIABAO and HU have said:
"CHINA WILL NEVER ADOPT ALL OF THE WESTERN WAYS...we will do things the CHINESE WAY as we ALWAYS HAVE".
and they are RIGHT to do so.
5,000 years of the longest continuous civilization on earth can teach a thing or two...including what to do WITH "capitalism".
Yes and they learned a lot from us and now we can learn from them.
If we had 5 times more people living in the USA, We would have a big problem!
I think Europe knows why China Works now....
Obama will have to be educated but he is surrounded by those Gangsta Banksters who are bringing us down by borrowing the peoples money to give to the banks in hopes that they will lend the broke and unemployed people a loan so the economy will get stimulated.
It is a Classic Pyramid scheme and it's picture is on the back of the Dollar federal reserve note.
I can see it even with out the tin foil Hat.
Another reason China is doing well is that it refuses to let its currency float on the market. Therefore, it stays stable and does not go down with ours. Good question is how long will they be willing to prop up the US by buying huge amounts of Treasury bonds? Of course, as we are their largest customer, they cannot afford to let us fail.
Margalo
Greed is good, to conservatives.
Rage is good, to progressives.
With so much goodness going on, why do my closest friends and I all feel so bad?
Bill from Saginaw
Did Mr. Hayden really mean to say "even Warren Beatty" at the beginning of the 8th paragraph? ("Some progressives, including even Warren Beatty....") I hope not, otherwise we're all in bigger trouble than I even thought! Sean Penn, Danny Glover, Harry Belafonte, or Susan Sarandon, maybe, but certainly not Hollywood's Beatty. Assume he meant to say Warren Buffet? Just pointing out what I think is the slip of someone's pen. elle
Great, Tom Hayden is quoting Rich who is quoting who as their sources of POPULIST RAGE?! Not the “populist”, that’s for sure. Once again, the Ivy Tower of discontent attempts to dictate the reasons and the ways American populism is enraged. Instead of reporting what’s on the ground by going to city council meetings or talking to mayors or employment security offices or going to the grocery store or the school yard (not college campuses), these overt propagandist are actually in the process of defining for us the reasons for “rage” and what to do about it. And for what purpose other than to define the policy in DC? Precisely.
My problem is not if there is or isn’t rage, the problem is the complete lack of defining the rage, the frustration of the people, and thus the positions of the people(!), because none of these OpEd types actually do the basic groundwork to find out what is going on outside of their isolated echo chambers.
These guys are more interested in shaping policy and opinion than actually shaping their opinion by the voices of the population. That’s not representation.
Yes, this is Tom Hayden, one time student radical of the 60's, author of The Port Huron Statement, barely able to mutter even in monotone, rage...is...good... But if you read between the lines you can see clearly where he says, with conviction, "I love Big Brother".
President Obama is President in name only just as George W Bush........Where did he get the ideas for all the cabinet positions?
Tom Hayden traced some of them back to their Clinton Times. But, there is more if you are willing to believe that The Council on Foreign Relations and Bilderberg Club are making the decisions. Research the names and you will find relationships and inter relationships. Every one of the Department Heads is either a Bilderberger or Council on Foreign Relations.......Even some let go like Tom Daschle and Bill Richardson had attended Bilderberg Meetings.....
Just follow the money to AIG....AIG and the Greenberg family had a relationship with the elections of 2000 and the Supreme Court. AIG and one of their companies, Kroll are connected with World Trade Center and were funneling money outside of the U.S. prior to 9/11/2001 (Rsearch: Richard Andrew Grove)....
No one is stopping the Federal Reserve from handing out free money to its friends and Congress has no oversight! The U.S Treasury is doing the same without regulation and without control......2 TRILLION DOLLARS has gone out the door and nobody knows where it went.
There has to be a "Flat Tax" with no deductions for incomes over 1 million dollars 38% all income over 2 million 50%........All accounts "Of Shore" have to be declared. It is a Federal Crime not to declare when you move more than $10,000 out of the United States......it is time to enforce those laws.
Very well put. Socialism is not the answer, beuracrats want to screw us as bad as the captains of industry. The answer is the abolishment of the Federal Reserve, end fractional reserve lending, and.... I know I'll get heat for this, end farm subsidies and deregulate the farming industry so small farmers can slaughter their own meat, along with an increase in taxes for pesticides and fertilizer. Mix that with a national single payer health care system and the end of our foreign empire and I think we'd be in good shape.
Don't see that happening though. The important part is without control of the coinage of money (which the constitution says belongs inthe power of congress) taxation vs. tax cuts, and socialism vs. capitalism doesn't matter.
We do n ot need to abandon private property, because ownership will lead to better maintainence and efficiency. We do need to find a way to end huge consolidations of wealth so more people have access to private property. If everyone owned and operated something instead of everything being owned by the elite who pay us meger wages to maintain it. Wealth and property are not the problem, its the mass consolidationof wealth. The wealthiest 100,000 are probably directly, or indirectly, responsible for most of the worlds abject poverty.
And governments and regulatory agencies do not protect us, they protect the status quo while giving an illusion of accountability. You think the FDA helps the consumer more than the food producers? They lobbied for that bill so they could export their beef with a stamp of approval from the government. Teddy didn't save the day because one afternoon while he was a rough rider he found a finger in his sausage.
The idea that someone has to own something to take care of it is nonsense. When I have witnesses employees in a firm or agency such abusing company property, it is because they are penalized for the overhead time required to take care of the equipment.
And if you believe that government regulations don't protect us (tell a coal miner that), what is your alternative? Everyone run an analytical lab and product safety lab in their basement? And assuming they do that, if they do find that their air is being poisoned by a business upwind, what do they do. Get a gun and go the the plant managers office?
---USAn---
U.S. Citizen
I agree with some of what you write. A government with too much ownership will also be repressive. We do need proper government-regulated capitalism, not our current predatory capitalism which goes beyond laissez-faire captalism. The problem has been the steady deregulation of Reaganomics, inspired by Milton Friedman, and continuing with Rubinomics. Our regulatory agencies have been taken over by the industries they're supposed to regulate and the Bushies mandated them not to regulate. There are also tax cuts for the wealthy, weakening of labor unions and, later, Bush the Elder's and Clinton's so-called free trade agreements without proper labor and environmental protections.
Regarding Roosevelt and Sinclair, Roosevelt saw an opportunity to embrace a movement to get votes and was also concerned, as was Jefferson, with too much control by our corporatocracy. While it started with the overthrow of Hawaii and Cuba, if we ignore the Indian genocides, Roosevelt was the architect of the current U.S. imperialism.
In many ways, he is the epitome of the average U.S. citizen's view--somewhat socially liberal and pretty hawkish in foreign policy.
"Socialism" as we know is a demonized word in a world were we find the bankers already have Lemon Socialism in their pockets and stashed away in secret tax free accounts. When Socialism started to catch on in the 20's after the Russian Revolution, the Bush and Wall street bankers invested in Nazi National Socialism (as a hedge) which set the pure idea back to where it is ...OK we still got the ideal of Democratic Socialism... but those parties only front for countries where democracy is also run by the rich corporations and their interlocking boards of directors to the Global financial Bank of International Settlements.
Now England wants to make up a new system with the USA and big powers and just gave Teddy Kennedy a Knighthood. Somethin is up.
The Term "Socialism" is now the new Media buzz word demon and political football for everything bad (DEBT and new Debt we are creating).
Tom Hayden seems to think a New, New World order is in the works... He is right and I think when the big boys tell us that the system has failed and they need to build a new system, they are in trouble too.
Rallying for a fair or real Socialism will just put us in debating society mind frame, and I find myself doin this a lot.
But when we are marchin in the streets, we need a better term or rally for our goals... like Tom Hayden says we got Rage left and rage is good so we need to build on that Rage without marginalizing our selves. Save up and focus the rage against the "ism" and demon that counts.... "Central Banksterism".
Banks are the stooges (agents) of the Central banks. So when a Lefty like Tom confuses real Socialism with taking on the debts of the stooge banks (toxic ones) and ignoring the Fed and the European system of Central Banking it is based on, he is also following in the mind-set of the Chicago School of Economics.
Tom has no solution because we are using the same demonized words and symbols that have been alloted to us because they put us in the political disadvantage on the Left side which is the Bad side by definition of the political spectrum.
If we start fighting smart instead of lecturing each other on "isms" we might enjoy the struggle more. And there is no way we can win if it's torture to carry on.
Terms we use now as solutions are so out of date and powerless because if Obama Is a "radical Communist", What the Hell am I?
Tom is right... Rage is good, and good for laughs too.
"Laissez-faire, ces't fini."
Peut etre il a dit "Laissez-faire, c'est fini"
exactly.
the "conservative" French PResident Nicholas Sarkozy -- declared that too..exactly that first phrase:
"Laissez-faire, ces't fini."
Stiglitz suggests "conservatorship" as a more palatable alternative to "nationalization" which to the brainwashed sheeple sounds too much like the oligarchy-demonized word "socialism".
That's a hoot. They are looking for a word they can use to steal our money.
Maybe some of you caught it when on TV A Senator or congressman asked Fed Chairman Bernake what word can we use for what is goin down... Socialism? Nationalization? they all sound bad and Bernake smiled with the confidence he was talking to a child said, "Public/Private Partnership".
So you see they are gonna screw us with that Old One.
Be prepared! ... You sound like you already are.
if you keep posting the truth Mr. Hayden you will be on Obama's persona not grata list, very soon (if not already). Mr. Obama does not like dissent.
Rage is good - but only when it leads to effective action.
erasing double post
I don't see any rage, not in the US, not yet, lots of talk and speculating and listening to experts that know zilch, but spout their prognostications as if their PhD's in economics now really mean something. But really, they know shit, just like me. But I know bullshit when I see it and there is a helluva a lot of that stinking up the faux news shows and failing newspapers.
Anger at bailouts? Where? Here's billions more to AIG, GM, Citicorpse, etc. Hope it works this time fellas.
Where's the rage? Suppressed by Zoloft, Prozac, corn syrup, hydrogenated fats, and Rupert Murdock's televised diversions.
The only rage I see at the moment is the kind that was in fashion a few years ago with therapists; here's any angry pillow, you can hit it and shout into it all you want. The channels for venting rage have been suppressed. Keep to the sidewalk and designated free speech zones. Don't even hint at venting your anger publicly, especially as a group, you will be corralled, locked up, pepper sprayed, hosed, cuffed and arrested. They rule by fear and so far it's working.
Only vast numbers fearlessly willing to put their bodies into the fray will change anything. Ever notice that here in the US we don't see the news about the dissident mass protests in Greece, or France, or Iceland, etc? The blackout is intentional. Shut up and behave.
Rage is not good or bad, it's just RAGE. I don't need a feelgood moral position to allow myself to express it. It is.
Hope the bailout works this time? It worked just fine the first two times. The purpose of the bail out is to enrich the wealthy. It works just as planned.
Rebelnow is absolutely correct when he compares our peaceful lawful demonstrations where we march down a street on a non work day with our pretty signs and flags with a nice visit with our rent a friend. Our demos are just like punching a pillow----no noise, no result -- you just lose the force of your righteous rage.
Rebelnow is also right to say that only vast numbers fearlessly willing to put their bodies into the fray with change anything. Yes, they are not allowing the 'major media' to let our brain dead citizens have any idea of what is going on in the rest of the world.
Our nation is full of people who are terminally ignorant and scared of every thing. "Oh, look!!" say our 'leaders', "there is a terrorist, a bad guy over there. We have to protect ourselves by bombing them with shock and awe (and tons of expolsives) to defend oursleves. We are number one and always the good guys!"
And the Americans put up those sickening yellow ribbons and bumper stickers that say "PROUD TO BE AN AMERICAN".
Step one in our resistance is to TURN OFF THE BOOB TUBE!! They are putting parasites in our brains through that tube. It's getting pretty late in the game now. Wake up America! The hell with the empire! We need to take care of ourselves.
Just like we don't live in a democracy (see filibuster, Senate or Federalist # 10) we, never had a "free market" G0d knows there have always been tariffs, and our dear federal government is forever giving land and money to captains of industry. And our economists have always worked for the system, as have the media, etc. Basically, our country is all bought and paid nor until..the shit hits the fan (as in now)
So, we're in for a change. Rule of the rich has failed, so now what? How about we try democracy--after all, the people (Hamilton called the people "a great beast") know how the shoe fits and right now it doesn't fit.
WELL PUT !
as a favorite writer of mine -- HENRY C K LIU for Asiatimesonline would say in one of his many excellent articles:
"The USA is really a Protectionist Nation Masquerading as a Free Trader".
Hayden sez: "Congressional liberals seem uncomfortable criticizing the new president's appointees. This reluctance runs deeper than partisan politics, involving what Rep. Barney Frank describes as an overwhelming desire to preserve the financial institutions."
***
If you want to "preserve" these financial (sic) institutions, quit throwing money and grab a cylinder of formaldehyde. They're already corpses.
"On this occasion, the global economy is being devastated by the Wall Street crash. Hundreds of millions are are hurtling into extreme poverty, export industries are collapsing, currencies being destabilized."
More to the point, Tom. The global economy has been devastated by the Wall Street thugs. But the rest of your point is well taken.
For those that are interested, check out the Daily Kos report on Jim Cramer, the pseudopopulist sociopathic liar on CNBC. That hoodlum belongs in jail!
Just out of curiosity: What exactly does it take to get Americans to hit the streets all over the country??? I am baffled re the lack of civil unrest right now.
A close American friend, when asked the same question, BTW replied drily the other day: "Switch off their TVs."
Considering that I always moan whenever I have the misfortune of being reduced to watching American TV, aka endless inane commercials interspersed with - very occasional - actual sane content in between (with the exception of PBS, although they have tons of reruns), I find that hard to believe.
So, once again, what is keeping Americans from venting their rage about what has been done to them publicly?? Any ideas?
i have stopped following american tv shows for years . except PBS in fact..and even then it's become "too few good ones" ..lol.
that might be a clue as to why americans are timid ..they are generally -- so DEAD intellectually, culturally for lack of a healthy dose of what's going on in the real world outside of the sofa and bells and whistles that they think is "the world"....
their REALITY is about baseball and the "world series"...or football "heroes"......everything is a SUBSTITUTE for what is happening in the real world and americans don't know the lessons of CIVIC DUTY being taught by even the peasants of Bolivia or Argentina or Venezuela or China, or afghanistan....
THOSE people are ALIVE in more ways than americans can be as they have become.
Your observations are very correct.
And, as far as those USAns who do fall into destitution, they simply blame themselves - for not working hard enough.
USAns are, first and foremost, stupid fucks.
In the name of God in heaven, they are stupid, infantile, fucking idiots!!!
And as for me, there is nothing to do but get drunk and depressed and dread the hangover I will have in the morning. Bless those hangovers - they keep me from becoming an alcoholic like my father and a couple of my brothers.
---USAn---
I feel sorry for you friend,you need help!
Patronizing comments like yours are not welcome.
Try drinking more water before going to bed...
And drink more water when you wake, along with acidic fruit...
A hangover is mostly dehydration...
And a little lemon or lime juice in a glass of water aids digestion and reduces lactic acid...
Bring America Back !!!!...Sir or Madam GoldenMean, you are one s---d f--k american who is definitely not patronizing PJD, with your generous offer of an anti-hangover receipe !!! An anti-drinking recipe also might be named O'Douls, or even
diet Pepsi. But those just may take all the fun out of PJD's self-pity !
Bring America Back !!!! indeed. Read de Tocqueville.
go to just about ANY workplace, especially if it's a very corporate oriented one :
any TALK about politics is DISCOURAGED...people's eyes GLAZE OVER ....and their interest is whipped up by the LATEST "news" about some STEROIDAL baseball player......you talk about world economics -- and americans think it's TABOO -- or one is being "confrontational" and must exercise "respect for fellow workers" by "not raising the voice" -- which is REALLY a code for NOT TALKING ABOUT ANYTHING of real importance - except to carry on with :"your job" -- EXACTLY as the corporatized world dictates. ........
or ELSE.........policy says "you are fired for disrespectfulness in the work place".
they are CLEVER - and americans have LAPPED IT ALL UP like syrup.
Good point Teddy...
Where you work and what you do and what position of authority you have under or over others defines and conditions your paradigm of reality and view of the economic "crisis"...
I am self employed, and usually work alone, as a gardener, carpenter, mason, painter, and handyman... I choose to use natural, local, healthy materials when possible, and sometimes work With my clients to teach them how to garden or do maintenance themselves... I consider myself a Green anarcho-syndicalist with a bit of libertarian perspective on some issues (guns, drugs)...
My brother in law worked for Lockheed-Martin, now Boeing, as a project lead figuring out computer systems for military aircraft that are probably involved in the extraordinary rendition and bombing of civilians... He considers himself a liberal democrat, but is unwilling to carry out any conversation about politics, since he was raised to believe that politics and religion are controversial, and therefore taboo...
On the day we met, I asked what he does for a living, he said computer programming for Lockheed-martin, I said I could never work that kind of job (regarding computers, and implying working for a military contractor)... I haven't been welcome in HIS house ever since... My sister justifies it since he is providing for their family...
Unfortunately, this is the culture for the 30-40% of Americans who work for the MIC... Don't talk, dont even think to yourself about these controversial issues, and if someone else does, then ostracize or blacklist them from your work or life, even if they are family...
We felt much closer to the war during the sixties and our outrage overcame the sixty's version of American Idol.
"any TALK about politics is DISCOURAGED...people's eyes GLAZE OVER ....and their interest is whipped up by the LATEST "news" about some STEROIDAL baseball player......you talk about world economics -- and americans think it's TABOO -- or one is being "confrontational" and must exercise "respect for fellow workers" by "not raising the voice" -- which is REALLY a code for NOT TALKING ABOUT ANYTHING of real importance - except to carry on with :"your job" -- EXACTLY as the corporatized world dictates. ........
or ELSE.........policy says "you are fired for disrespectfulness in the work place".
they are CLEVER - and americans have LAPPED IT ALL UP like syrup."
I get into arguments about politics all the time at work.
Not "culturally ready" my ass. The polls show that most Americans are ready for socialist reform. The right-wing radio squawkers and their listeners/regurgitators are in the minority.
There is anger building. I see it everyday. People are still struggling and will still be struggling post-stimulus. The iron is hot for revolution. I know I'm angry, and I'm a middle-class white guy. "Middle class whiteness" Geez. The middle-class is a dying breed courtesy of the elites.
We the people, are the seed corn of our country. The insufferable, arrogant elite is destroying us thereby destroying our country. The courts, the judges, the lawyers and the newspapers are actively contributing in this treasonous behavior.
Here are the names of just a few of the guilty:
Paulson, Fuld, Greenberg, Andrea Orcel, David Sobotka, Peter Kraus, Thomas Montag, David Gu, David Goodman and Fares Noujaim.
I just don't see any justice at all on the horizon. We have lost our democracy and have become a police state. Too bad. It was such a noble experiment. It seems the rich always fuck everything up.