EMAIL SIGN UP!
Most Popular This Week
Popular content
Today's Top News
Larry Summers, Tim Geithner and Wall Street's Ownership of Government
Lawrence H. Summers, one of President Obama's top economic advisers, collected roughly $5.2 million in compensation from hedge fund D.E. Shaw over the past year and was paid more than $2.7 million in speaking fees by several troubled Wall Street firms and other organizations. . . .
Financial institutions including JP Morgan Chase, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch paid Summers for speaking appearances in 2008. Fees ranged from $45,000 for a Nov. 12 Merrill Lynch appearance to $135,000 for an April 16 visit to Goldman Sachs, according to his disclosure form.
That's $135,000 paid by Goldman Sachs to Summers -- for a one-day visit. And the payment was made at a time -- in April, 2008 -- when everyone assumed that the next President would either be Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton and that Larry Summers would therefore become exactly what he now is: the most influential financial official in the U.S. Government (and the $45,000 Merrill Lynch payment came 8 days after Obama's election). Goldman would not be able to make a one-day $135,000 payment to Summers now that he is Obama's top economics adviser, but doing so a few months beforehand was obviously something about which neither parties felt any compunction. It's basically an advanced bribe. And it's paying off in spades. And none of it seemed to bother Obama in the slightest when he first strongly considered naming Summers as Treasury Secretary and then named him his top economics adviser instead (thereby avoiding the need for Senate confirmation), knowing that Summers would exert great influence in determining who benefited from the government's response to the financial crisis.
Last night, former Reagan-era S&L regulator and current University of Missouri Professor Bill Black was on Bill Moyers' Journal and detailed the magnitude of what he called the on-going massive fraud, the role Tim Geithner played in it before being promoted to Treasury Secretary (where he continues to abet it), and -- most amazingly of all -- the crusade led by Alan Greenspan, former Goldman CEO Robert Rubin (Geithner's mentor) and Larry Summers in the late 1990s to block the efforts of top regulators (especially Brooksley Born, head of the Commodities Futures Trading Commission) to regulate the exact financial derivatives market that became the principal cause of the global financial crisis. To get a sense for how deep and massive is the on-going fraud and the key role played in it by key Obama officials, I highly recommend watching that Black interview (it can be seen here and the transcript is here).
This article from Stanford Magazine -- an absolutely amazing read -- details how Summers, Rubin and Greenspan led the way in blocking any regulatory efforts of the derivatives market whatsoever on the ground that the financial industry and its lobbyists were objecting:
As chairperson of the CFTC, Born advocated reining in the huge and growing market for financial derivatives. . . . One type of derivative—known as a credit-default swap—has been a key contributor to the economy’s recent unraveling. . .
Back in the 1990s, however, Born’s proposal stirred an almost visceral response from other regulators in the Clinton administration, as well as members of Congress and lobbyists. . . . But even the modest proposal got a vituperative response. The dozen or so large banks that wrote most of the OTC derivative contracts saw the move as a threat to a major profit center. Greenspan and his deregulation-minded brain trust saw no need to upset the status quo. The sheer act of contemplating regulation, they maintained, would cause widespread chaos in markets around the world.
Born recalls taking a phone call from Lawrence Summers, then Rubin’s top deputy at the Treasury Department, complaining about the proposal, and mentioning that he was taking heat from industry lobbyists. . . . The debate came to a head April 21, 1998. In a Treasury Department meeting of a presidential working group that included Born and the other top regulators, Greenspan and Rubin took turns attempting to change her mind. Rubin took the lead, she recalls.
“I was told by the secretary of the treasury that the CFTC had no jurisdiction, and for that reason and that reason alone, we should not go forward,” Born says. . . . “It seemed totally inexplicable to me,” Born says of the seeming disinterest her counterparts showed in how the markets were operating. “It was as though the other financial regulators were saying, ‘We don’t want to know.’”
She formally launched the proposal on May 7, and within hours, Greenspan, Rubin and Levitt issued a joint statement condemning Born and the CFTC, expressing “grave concern about this action and its possible consequences.” They announced a plan to ask for legislation to stop the CFTC in its tracks.
Rubin, Summers and Greenspan succeeded in inducing Congress -- funded, of course, by these same financial firms -- to enact legislation blocking the CFTC from regulating these derivative markets. More amazingly still, the CFTC, headed back then by Born, is now headed by Obama appointee Gary Gensler, a former Goldman Sachs executive (naturally) who was as instrumental as anyone in blocking any regulations of those derivative markets (and then enriched himself by feeding on those unregulated markets).
Just think about how this works. People like Rubin, Summers and Gensler shuffle back and forth from the public to the private sector and back again, repeatedly switching places with their GOP counterparts in this endless public/private sector looting. When in government, they ensure that the laws and regulations are written to redound directly to the benefit of a handful of Wall St. firms, literally abolishing all safeguards and allowing them to pillage and steal. Then, when out of government, they return to those very firms and collect millions upon millions of dollars, profits made possible by the laws and regulations they implemented when in government. Then, when their party returns to power, they return back to government, where they continue to use their influence to ensure that the oligarchical circle that rewards them so massively is protected and advanced. This corruption is so tawdry and transparent -- and it has fueled and continues to fuel a fraud so enormous and destructive as to be unprecedented in both size and audacity -- that it is mystifying that it is not provoking more mass public rage.
All of that leads to things like this, from today's Washington Post:
The Obama administration is engineering its new bailout initiatives in a way that it believes will allow firms benefiting from the programs to avoid restrictions imposed by Congress, including limits on lavish executive pay, according to government officials. . . .
The administration believes it can sidestep the rules because, in many cases, it has decided not to provide federal aid directly to financial companies, the sources said. Instead, the government has set up special entities that act as middlemen, channeling the bailout funds to the firms and, via this two-step process, stripping away the requirement that the restrictions be imposed, according to officials. . . .
In one program, designed to restart small-business lending, President Obama's officials are planning to set up a middleman called a special-purpose vehicle -- a term made notorious during the Enron scandal -- or another type of entity to evade the congressional mandates, sources familiar with the matter said.
If that isn't illegal, it is as close to it as one can get. And it is a blatant attempt by the White House to brush aside -- circumvent and violate -- the spirit if not the letter of Congressional restrictions on executive pay for TARP-receiving firms. It was Obama, in the wake of various scandals over profligate spending by TARP firms, who pretended to ride the wave of populist anger and to lead the way in demanding limits on compensation. And ever since his flamboyant announcement, Obama -- adopting the same approach that seems to drive him in most other areas -- has taken one step after the next to gut and render irrelevant the very compensation limits he publicly pretended to champion (thereafter dishonestly blaming Chris Dodd for doing so and virtually destroying Dodd's political career). And the winners -- as always -- are the same Wall St. firms that caused the crisis in the first place while enriching and otherwise co-opting the very individuals Obama chose to be his top financial officials.
Worse still, what is happening here is an exact analog to what is happening in the realm of Bush war crimes -- the Obama administration's first priority is to protect the wrongdoers and criminals by ensuring that the criminality remains secret. Here is how Black explained it last night:
Black: Geithner is charging, is covering up. Just like Paulson did before him. Geithner is publicly saying that it's going to take $2 trillion — a trillion is a thousand billion — $2 trillion taxpayer dollars to deal with this problem. But they're allowing all the banks to report that they're not only solvent, but fully capitalized. Both statements can't be true. It can't be that they need $2 trillion, because they have masses losses, and that they're fine.
These are all people who have failed. Paulson failed, Geithner failed. They were all promoted because they failed, not because...
Moyers: What do you mean?
Black: Well, Geithner has, was one of our nation's top regulators, during the entire subprime scandal, that I just described. He took absolutely no effective action. He gave no warning. He did nothing in response to the FBI warning that there was an epidemic of fraud. All this pig in the poke stuff happened under him. So, in his phrase about legacy assets. Well he's a failed legacy regulator. . . .
The Great Depression, we said, "Hey, we have to learn the facts. What caused this disaster, so that we can take steps, like pass the Glass-Steagall law, that will prevent future disasters?" Where's our investigation?
What would happen if after a plane crashes, we said, "Oh, we don't want to look in the past. We want to be forward looking. Many people might have been, you know, we don't want to pass blame. No. We have a nonpartisan, skilled inquiry. We spend lots of money on, get really bright people. And we find out, to the best of our ability, what caused every single major plane crash in America. And because of that, aviation has an extraordinarily good safety record. We ought to follow the same policies in the financial sphere. We have to find out what caused the disasters, or we will keep reliving them. . . .
Moyers: Yeah. Are you saying that Timothy Geithner, the Secretary of the Treasury, and others in the administration, with the banks, are engaged in a cover up to keep us from knowing what went wrong?
Black: Absolutely.
Moyers: You are.
Black: Absolutely, because they are scared to death. . . . What we're doing with -- no, Treasury and both administrations. The Bush administration and now the Obama administration kept secret from us what was being done with AIG. AIG was being used secretly to bail out favored banks like UBS and like Goldman Sachs. Secretary Paulson's firm, that he had come from being CEO. It got the largest amount of money. $12.9 billion. And they didn't want us to know that. And it was only Congressional pressure, and not Congressional pressure, by the way, on Geithner, but Congressional pressure on AIG.
Where Congress said, "We will not give you a single penny more unless we know who received the money." And, you know, when he was Treasury Secretary, Paulson created a recommendation group to tell Treasury what they ought to do with AIG. And he put Goldman Sachs on it.
Moyers: Even though Goldman Sachs had a big vested stake.
Black: Massive stake. And even though he had just been CEO of Goldman Sachs before becoming Treasury Secretary. Now, in most stages in American history, that would be a scandal of such proportions that he wouldn't be allowed in civilized society.
This is exactly what former IMF Chief Economist Simon Johnson warned about in his vital Atlantic article: "that the finance industry has effectively captured our government -- a state of affairs that more typically describes emerging markets, and is at the center of many emerging-market crises." This is the key passage where Johnson described the hallmark of how corrupt oligarchies that cause financial crises then attempt to deal with the fallout:
Squeezing the oligarchs, though, is seldom the strategy of choice among emerging-market governments. Quite the contrary: at the outset of the crisis, the oligarchs are usually among the first to get extra help from the government, such as preferential access to foreign currency, or maybe a nice tax break, or—here’s a classic Kremlin bailout technique -- the assumption of private debt obligations by the government. Under duress, generosity toward old friends takes many innovative forms. Meanwhile, needing to squeeze someone, most emerging-market governments look first to ordinary working folk—at least until the riots grow too large. . . .
As much as he campaigned against anything, Obama railed against precisely this sort of incestuous, profoundly corrupt control by narrow private interests of the Government, yet he has chosen to empower the very individuals who most embody that corruption. And the results are exactly what one would expect them to be.
Comments
Note: Disqus 2012 is best viewed on an up to date browser. Click here for information. Instructions for how to sign up to comment can be viewed here. Our Comment Policy can be viewed here. Please follow the guidelines. Note to Readers: Spam Filter May Capture Legitimate Comments...
59 Comments so far
Show AllThe Golden rule: Those with the gold make the rules. How true it is.
On Barack Obama's first days in office these persons were appointed to his cabinet.
Mr Obama was fully aware of their background.
In appointing them it was as clear as day that in an Obama administration it would be bUSiness as USual.
The bankers won the election. The US taxpayer will be forking billions and trillions over to them in the next decades.
.
In the Wall Street Casino, Summers is the house that always wins. Does it matter what Wall Street bookie or economist gambler runs the Casino? Or is the problem our relying on the Casino for our well-being?
Sioux Rose
This story (or ultimate morality play) will NOT have a happy ending.
"...that it is mystifying that it is not provoking more mass public rage."
Not so much. Anytime one tries to calmly explain to members of the "mass public" what's really going on - that "our economy" is truly one giant Ponzi scheme (according to Prof. Black) - one gets thrown the standard conspiracy nut look. "You're crazy. If that was really the truth, everyone would know about it. Why do you hate capitalism so much?"
There's greed, and then there's uncontrollable psychotic greed. How is it that $10 million doesn't satisfy? Or $20M? Or even a billion? Or tens of billions?
Hey, Pfizer - stop with the erection drugs and find a pill to help the money-monger psychos before they kill all of us...
Mr Greenwald says:
"This corruption is so tawdry and transparent -- and it has fueled and continues to fuel a fraud so enormous and destructive as to be unprecedented in both size and audacity -- that it is mystifying that it is not provoking more mass public rage."
This is so, in large part, because the mainstream media has deflected that rage toward the AIG bonus issue, which is insignificant when compared to the massive fraud, theft, bribery and self-dealing practiced by the global political class and financial elite. The bonuses -- how much, who got them, and what Congress proposed to do to get them back -- totally dominated the mainstream news for nearly a week, when we should all have been focusing on Geithner's developing bailout plan.
And when that was announced, it was proclaimed a triumph by the media. Why? Because the stock market rallied.
If the press weren't so dangerously and willfully stupid, they'd be laughable.
We all need to keep our eyes on the ball, and pressure our new president to rid his administration of these thieves, before he becomes fully associated with them in the public mind. For all Obama's faults, that would not be a good thing.
Dave ...
"Pitchforks and torches" are exactly what I had in mind, and I agree that nothing short of that will accomplish anything.
I especially agree on the matter of tax revolt.
And a further note on Mr Greenwald's reference to Simon Johnson's Atlantic article. Mr Johnson is scathing in his criticism of the politicians and the oligarchs (his term, and one that I like a lot), but he never questions the underlying assumptions of the globalized economic system, which requires large-scale international finance for its care and feeding. His Baseline Scenario blog is a sustained, more technical iteration of the Atlantic thesis, and nowhere does he consider the possibility that the system is simply unsustainable and will always be unjust so long as it is based on standardized financial flows and division of labor driven by the profit objectives of multinational corporations.
Is Obama aware of what his appointees are doing? Is he oblivious or complicit? I've been watching politics for over 40 years, and rarely have I seen such a sharp and immediate contrast between words and action, such as I've seen with Obama.
Please stop being naive.
I believe "complicit" to be the correct answer, but "oblivious" is equally damning.
You're not saying this, bg2, but there are apologists who earnestly argue that Obama has so MUCH on his plate-- which is undoubtedly true, as it would be true of any new president in turbulent times-- that he really hasn't gotten a handle on the details and implications of his economic (and foreign aka military) policy.
They suggest or imply that he's more or less being led around by the nose by the Goldman-Sachs division of the Executive Branch, and may be a bit bamboozled. Obama's certainly hopelessly-- yes, hopeLESSly-- outnumbered by the Goldman-Sachs banksters who "serve" as his financial praetorian guard.
Their point is that if anything, Obama is more to be pitied than censured. He's presumed to be doing his best in an impossibly difficult spot-- and armchair kibbitzers aren't helping.
So they counsel patient support, with what amounts to a good cop/bad cop routine: keep the faith, give Obama credit where credit is due, Accentuate the Positive, yes we can, ding dong bush is dead!, the grownups are REALLY back in charge-- but on the other hand, Eliminate the Negative: keep up the (constructive) public feedback and MAKE those politicians forsake their old venal, self-serving ways. Keep those politicians' collective cloven hooves in the fire!
I can't come up with a specific example right now, but floating around in the back of my head are bits of scenes that might come from history or Monty Python, such as a ragged man in the stocks being flogged, crying out between shrieks of agony, "If the King knew what you buggers was doing, he'd soon set things to rights!"-- cut to a shot of the King sipping a goblet of wine, watching the flogging from a palace window and commenting idly on the surprising redness and viscosity of the prisoner's flowing blood.
I fear that We the People are again doing the very thing we're not supposed to to-- messing with Mister In-Between.
· Yr Obd't Servant
Sioux Rose
O.S. Your sometimes delicious but often twisted (in a good way) wit makes me realize how it was that Charles Chaplin and Peter Sellers, to name two examples, were also Aries. Mars can be a f--king riot, when he gives up his guns to pursue more benign forms of explosive (gut blasting humor) expression.
It's the Venus 'thing'. Mars on his own is quite the bad boy. Venus walks in the room and he's a changed man.
Sioux Rose
LUCKY LEFTY earns an "A" in Cosmic Chemistry by being observant to the oldest, most enduring and poetic dance in the timeless universal program!
Ken Ward
Bill Moyers plays a clip in his program showing Geithner telling a Congressional committee that he has never been a regulator. Has Geithner ever read the website of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, which states unambiguously that the institution of which he was president is a regulator of the banking system? Did he have a special contract excusing him from this aspect of his duties?
Can't fool all the people all the time. People are realizing the scope of the corruption. It is a revolving door and one could do worse than to just look at the directors at the New York Bank of the Federal Reserve. It is the business end of the Fed, and it has surely been doing some business. Appointments like Geithner reveal the quality of Obama's concern for the nation. We are furious and our numbers are growing. The only thing left is to figure out how we can regain control of our government.
Somewhat on a side note, the disclosure included Michael Froman, the deputy national security adviser for international economic affairs. Nice title. He waived some money from a Citigroup fund. Thanks to the internet I was able to find that he was chief operating officer at Ditigroup Alternative Investments, which was involved in Digital Information Technology Corp., a Japanese concern started in 2006 as a "system integrator for solving to the various problem of an enterprise customer... huge bio science data processing."
Now the reason for the waiver is so that Michael Froman won't have to recuse himself on issues like "India infrastructure."
There is that issue again! Now, whether we want international corporations controlling our medical records and managing huge dna databases for fun and profit is worthy of discussion. What is exceedingly dishonest is to bilk the taxpayer to pay for it under the guise of healthcare. Using our need to fund another profit center is just disgusting, but perhaps to be expected from Citigroup and the head of their captive government.
The "financial disclosures" of the White House and the strikingly frank and categorical denunciation of the fraud of our banks amd treasury "regulators" by William Black---both featured in this article---are a potent one-two punch that should help knock these faux "regulators" out of the box. In bringing the situation out so sharply, Greenwald clearly shows that he is deserving of the I.F. Stone award that he was granted along with Amy Goodman. Not since the Watergate scandal, I think, has the time been so ripe for a house-cleaning wave of reform to sweep the rascals from office. We lack only (so far) a conscientious jurist like John Sirica or a crusading congressional investigator like Senator Sam Ervin to begin to accomplish the re-claiming of our government as an instrument of the people and not of the special interests that have seized control of it. I can think only of Patrick Fitgerald in Chicago as a prosector up to the task of bearding the titans of political power. (Or what a "comback kid" role for Eliot Spitzer, as many are suggesting). As for the congressional investigator we have the possibility at least in the key position in the House of one of the very few members of Congress with the courage and intelligence to speak and vote against the bailout legislation supported by both parties: Dennis Kucinich, who is chair of the domestic policy sub-committee of the House Committee on Oversight and Governmental Reform. See the committee's website at: http://domesticpolicy.oversight.house.gov/ Whether the overall committee chair, Adolphus Town, would allow Dennis the freedom to convene an investigation of Geithner, Summers, the other Rubin acolytes in goverment and the Wall Street firms that paid them handsomely for "visits" is yet to be seen. But I believe that the "public outrage" the absence of which is noted by many commenters might suffice, if appropriately focussed (and supported by journalistic voices the like of Greenwald, Goodman and Moyers), to bring pressure to bear on allowing Kucinich to conduct just such an investigation. At least I would urge those of us who ARE outraged and ready to express our demand for governmental action to explore this avenue of moving from outrage to action.
We definitely need to take action. The question is what and how? Since a media campaign is impossible through the MSM, at least directly, then it will have to be online. But there should be demonstrations. I remember when the Vietnam protests began. LBJ was elected partly on the basis that he would end the Vietnam war, and after being elected proceeded with a massive mobilization. It took a while for the public to catch on, the protests were few, small and scattered, but finally large numbers of people began to take to the streets. The problem then as now is that the people in power closely monitored, infiltrated and disrupted the antiwar and other movements to effectively discredit and marginalize them. These efforts continue to this day and have become far more extensive, subtle and sophisticated. You've got to assume that every online communication can be monitored instantly at essentially zero cost, unlike the old days when phone lines had to be tapped, and people physically watch. Now we can all be watched online in real time, and moles can infiltrate and disrupt any set of postings, and keep track of everybody posting (addresses can be traced to computers pretty easily).
One complication to be wary of is that the corporate media will use any attacks on Obama from the left to drive a wedge between the left and the blacks. The MSM will encourage the blacks to circle the wagons around Obama, just like the rednecks circled the wagons around Bush because they saw him as one of their own, and so saw any attack on him as an attack on themselves.
Sioux Rose
JERRY D: Excellent post! I, too, hope the right forces of justice enter the blackhole to turn things around by exposing what's really going on in a manner the sleeping masses can and will respond to.
Thanks Sioux (no relation) Rose, I've benefitted by so many of your posts.
Concerning the "right forces of justice,' I have suggested an instrumentality for that: the Kucinich sub-committee. Does any one else see this as a viable possibility? I know for sure that Kucinich would be amendable, but the question is how we can "encourage" him in the face of the obstacles he'll no doubt encounter. As one somewhat personally acquainted with him and having actively supported him in his two presidential bids, including being his local (Gainesville FL) campaign manager in 04, I can do my bit in this regard; but it would probably require quite a few other bits. It seems to me that tactically our best chance for succesful citizen action for now is not in the streets but in the "halls of Congress" or in the courts of law. Any thoughts on this?
Sioux Rose
Good evening, Jerry: Yes, Kucinich is a possibility. John Conyers must still have plenty of data from when he "almost got there" (i.e. impeachment), and then there's Bugliosi's primer on how to proceed, and no doubt elaborate legal strategies from Marjorie Cohn. There must be others!
By the way, on another thread you mentioned a get-together among us Florida folk, and I know that Ezeflyer lives in Florida, as does BornFreeman, myself, you, a previous poster named Kristine (I think it was), and no doubt others. I would certainly be willing to drive an hour or two for such an ad hoc "convention." If in Gainesville, it would be ideal once the students are gone!
I thank you for your posts, too. One can feel like a character walking dark empty streets, a scene metaphorically right out of "The Twilight Zone" were it not for like-minded others able to see what is in plain sight, but unacknowledged by the many. It may be time for a new take on that old film "The Somnambulist."
Sioux and other Floridians (maybe some in south Georgia): thanks for renewing the "get together" idea. It stands: students are gone by mid-June, I'm out of town and country for two weeks end of June, beginning of July. I'm sure I could bring in a few of my local "like-minded others" to a confab. Write me: jerrydrose11@yahoo.com
Sioux Rose
I will write to your email. Hope others do, too.
When will the U.S. sheeple resist being herded?
GOLDMAN SACHS = A Man with SACKS of GOLD and we all know who makes the rules don't we? Obama is just the latest puppet of Wall st. and the plutocrats. Does anyone in this country really believe it could be any other way now? The Republic died way back when. We've been in an Empire for quite some time. Like the Roman Empire all the Republican forms will be honored as rituals , even elections but all power is centered in these elites and out of view. I got news for everyone this is just how Hamilton and the Federalists wanted it way back when. They won. The Roman aristocracy ruled the same way and without titles. Sound familiar?
if i passed a check i knew to be bad, i'd be arrested, prosecuted and punished, as i should be.
these pin-striped muggers have conspired for years to pass trillions in bum checks.
where's a cop when you need one?
and why are we on the hook to pay for their felonies?
Thank you Glenn for putting this information up for the public to read. I remember when Obama chose Rubin to be his economic advisor and from there I knew Barry would be Bill Clinton v2.0. Even now, my family, friends, and coworkers still can't get over their blind support for Obama. I beg them to reconsider the fact that all this bailout and stimulus phony is nothing but the same kind of things Dubya has been pushing and that McSame would have done. Instead, I get stupid responses such as "Oh shut up and put a smile of your face Jenny dear and quit being a losing Naderite ! The economy will be recovering and soon you'll be getting rich ! If government doesn't inject money into the system and doesn't rescue Wall $treet from the financial hell, then we'll all suffer !" I read some of George Lakoff's ideas but I'm not sure they work. How do I get these people to listen and learn ? I love them all and I don't want to see them suffer because of their own blindness.
From Aesop's Fables
The Little Mice Plan to Bell the Cat
Believe me, said a youthful mouse,
That cat makes too much fuss,
The silly thing just sits and waits
to capture one of us.
You're right, a peer said, looking grim,
I find the cat disgusting;
you never know just where she is!
No wonder we're mistrusting.
Quickly a committee formed
and came up with an answer!
A bell around the kitty's neck
would neutralize the cancer!
The crowd rejoiced: OUR PROBLEM'S SOLVED!
But Grandma Mouse looked leery,
She sighed a tired sigh and said:
I've just one simple query.
Who'll be the one to volunteer
to go and bell the kitty?
And all kept perfect silence then,
especially the committee.
MORAL: Many a plan has just one flaw:
No one has the courage to try it.
I guess I'm in a minority by thinking that the blatant looting of the Treasury is so unsupportable that it will be more likely to precipitate monetary reform than merely breaking up the insolvent banks. BTW whatever happened to "stress testing?"
Stress testing was another of the "just give us some more time to fix it" dodges. We could say with tongue firmly in cheek that the patient had a heart attack during the stress test so they called a good taxidermist and a robotics expert to keep up appearances and always film the "patient" (banks) from a distance. And lets not forget the feel good vocabulary. We have gone from toxic assets to "legacy" assets. We are staying in Afghanistan because of "legacy" issues and we don't have universal health insurance because of "legacy" business practices. In other words, we have a legacy of being crooked, murderous, war profiteering, mendacious bastards and Obama is not about to rock that boat. His audacity is limited to having the balls to promise seniors they wouldn't pay taxes if they made less than $50,000 a year when he knew it was a bald faced lie.
"Stress Testing" The real stress will be the formation of real money based on "stuff". Ithica Money et al will be the a new beginning. Money (dollars) will be of little value in the case if there is a great inflation from all of the money that has been given to the banks. If there is a deflation, then having a debt to pay will be impossible. Since there seems to be an equal chance of both happening, or each in a sequence, the only valuable item will be chickens roosting in a hutch in your back yard. Be sure to talk to your neighbors and include them in the discussion so that thee will be enough eggs to go around.
We already know this.
AT this point, it no longer matters whether Obama is complicit or incompetent. Not improving our situation (unemployment and foreclosure are still out of control) and the double-talk is enough to discredit him. He needs to be held accountable for not firing Geitner and the rest of the ship of fools.
The mainstream channels won't tell us anything. Writing e-mails or letters to a non-responsive President and Congress is mostly futile (though we should try it anyway) unless we have a good percentage of the population or money.
Debating our friends certainly helps. WE need more voices: those who don't know are the ones most in need of articles like this. (I know, Jennifer, I've seen exactly the same problem. My Democrat friends tend to think in relative terms [Obama > Bush] when I point out Obama's failings. When I rant about Republicans, we talk in terms of absolutes.) Even if we can't persuade everyone, simply dispelling mainstream myths or encouraging alternative/foreign news (or just critical thinking) might make people more amenable in future arguments.
The realistic pessimists argue we really have no future as serfs in a world fascist empire. That's true only if we accept it (even as serfs, we can still fight) and only if we believe the fascist capacity for manipulation (and the people's gullibility), control (and the people's docility), understanding of consequences (and the people's stupidity), and internal cooperation (the inhumanity/indifference of all authority) to be infinite on an environmentally stable planet.
That being said, only mass action and climate change can force a permanent change in the status quo. If they want our money, labor, and compliance, then that will be our coordinated leverage (boycott, tax protest, general strike, etc.) Only then will the mainstream seriously consider moderate demands like re-regulation, fewer tax havens, and a Green New Deal over corporate bailouts and war.
COINTELPRO type operations, even if backed by police force and Internet hacking/IP scanning, can only marginalize, mislead, and delay us (though individually, we're all targets); for the already failed states, they only serve to waste public money (and are a liability as no secret can be kept indefinitely).
And there's more. A lot more...
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a4iGjejJVRko&refer=home
GwNorth April 4th, 2009 2:12 pm
"The bankers won the election. The US taxpayer will be forking billions and trillions over to them in the next decades."
Yes, the bankers did win the election. There also seems to be some confusion with regard to the potential cost of this bailout. Check it out:
http://www.financialsense.com/fsu/editorials/sutton/2009/0403.html
The best comment by Black was " Madoff is a piker compared to these guys". I witnessed Summers screw up at Harvard and not surprised by the outing of this shyster. Hell, he could not even answer or carry his own phone and roamed the yard in a limo(black) with a fawning entourage! It was clear to me that he was in it for the money! It is sad that great institutions that produced men like Brandeis and Holmes are now breeding grounds and holding pens for public looters instead of dedicated public leaders.
On another thread, people were discussing the possibility of a general strike.
Unfortunately, most workers in the US aren't engaged in work the oligarchs would value enough to care if we went on strike or not. What are we going to do, occupy WalMart?
There are exceptions - especially the teamsters and the longshore workers could make a big difference. I don't know what the effect of a mass walkout at
Google or Yahoo would be, but I suspect not that much.
But a strike where everyone walks out of work and comes out into the street (with "torches and pitchforks" and pots and pans) could possibly have an effect. On the last two Maydays, immigrant workers have held huge demonstrations in several cities. Maybe other labor forces and political organizations could join them.
I think talking with the unions and the Mayday organizers would be a place to start organizing a general strike.
Is this just pipe dreaming?
Doesn't this article show and prove how incompetent or corrupt the Obama administration is in fact?
Of course, this does. Indeed, I feel helpless and sick knowing.
This situation is beyond belief.
Dave,
I just don't know why people are not more enraged? The only reasons I can come up with to justify no action is American narcissism and cognitive dissonance working in tandem to pacify their minds.
Anyway, this attitude makes me ill and discouraged that we can recover from our military fixation and economic demise.
Nice work Glenn, my respect for you grows daily.
I like the ideas detailed below about possible actions by Kucinich and Conyers and that's fine. I've been hear about possible actions by Kucinich and Conyers for 9 YEARS and here we are. While legislative action CAN provide relief - we haven't seen anything even remotely like that but we've heard the excuses for 40 years.
So put some wood on the fire. Call a Gnr'l Stryke - right from here. Nobody goes to work on Wednesday the X Day - we call in sick "Sorry boss, puking and vomiting and diarrhea all night long. Not in today." Call and leave the message at 5am (can't argue with a message) - SICK OUT. And maybe somebody decides to sit down that day with 100000 of their close friends in the middle of Main Street - every Main Street - in waves.
1. Card Check NOW
2. Single Payer NOW
3. Out of Iraq/Afghanistan NOW.
If we hit those points, it will start an avalanche. Card Check - as originally written - changes the balance of power in the workplace; Conyers Medicare for all DESTROYS the Corporate lock on Health Care and frees massive sums not spent on corporate richfilth animals; Out of Iraq/Afghanistan puts our Thumb in the eye of the MIC and frees BILLIONS AND BILLIONS of our $$$ to work here at home . Those three will shatter the dam.
I'm tired of talking folks. It is past time we reminded these animals of what real Americans are about when they get fed up with richfilth bullies who think they own our world. THEY DON'T, we've just let them use it a lot longer than we should have. WE HAVE CHANGED OUR MIND.
Our parents and grandparents did not fight Adolf Hitler so that we could lay down for the grandchildren of the double Traitor Prescott Bush, and his current Overseer. No more Richfilth Traitors making our country a land of torturers, usurers, and degraded despots.
WE ARE NOT ENTERTAINED!!
People have asked me about 3 Tags instead of just the 1: Card Check; Single Payer; Out of Iraq/Afghanistan, and Here are the reasons:
1. Any single stick can be broken, put 3 together not even the strongest can break it.
2. There is no confusion about what they mean. OUT means OUT. Single Payer is already written. Card Check is written and known (before the dims and our POTUS proceed to mangle and rape it to death).
3. Every single one of these shifts the balance of power from the corporations to us. Card Check in the workplace; Single Payer in health care; and Out of Iraq, the MIC. Every single one puts money in our pocket, puts power in our hands, and frees money to rebuild this broken country.
4. Each of the 3 has major constituencies it brings to the table: Anti-War (all of us); Health Care (all of us); and Labor (all of us).
And all we have to do is stay home and buy nothing.
10 million, 20 million, 30 million adults stay home from work.
Workplace Empty
Schools Empty
Colleges Empty
Stores Empty
Freeways Empty
Silence that will shock the world and change American history.
And no marginally literate high school graduate with a badge and a gun, "just following orders" gets to degrade a Citizen or shoot them in the face with rubber bullets or push their face into the pavement and taser them as punishment merely for standing up as a Citizen.
Remember the song from "Old Blue Eyes"? "Start spreadin' the news..."
While I'm certainly sympathetic to a general strike (or something like it), I know how hard this will be to bring about, and I wouldn't want to throw away the seemingly more attainable (if difficult) approach by way of congressional investigation and/or criminal or civil court actions. I revert to my Watergate example, in the post above, when some important abuses in government operations WERE successfully addressed, and not through the instrumentality of boycotts or street demonstrations, but through an honorable and law-respecting federal judge (Sirica) and a chaiman of a Senate investigating committee (Ervin). IN ADDITION to our power as citizens to resist government action by our actions as individuals, we have courts in which we can sue (and many a change in public policy has come about by just such suits), and by the actions of our elected representatives. So I renew my earlier call to brainstorm with me on how that avenue of redress can be facilitated by our citizens' actions:
jerrydrose11@yahoo.com.
Massive noncooperation is exactly what's needed now. But it needs to be informed by an understanding of the exact nature of current power relations in the U.S. What Glenn Greenwald is describing is not just the failure of democracy in America. He is describing a power consolidation by the financial elite to concentrate even more economic power in yet fewer hands. Clearly, Obama is playing the role of confidence-building front man to allow the assets of the U.S. Government to be openly transferred to Wall Street banking firms. The rest of us will play the role of debt slaves for the remainder of our and probably our children's lifetimes. Liberals have been intimidated into silence "to give Obama a chance" and they will remain silent just long enough for the wealth transfer to become irreversible. Then the noise will begin, but it will far too late by that time. It's also important to realize that the latest moves are the culmination of a long series of previous moves over the past 30 years by the economically powerful. Because the earlier consolidations were not successfully resisted, the current one became possible, then inevitable. Debt has been their weapon of choice during this power consolidation and they intend to use its full force against the American and European people. Their purpose is to inculcate a higher degree of discipline into the work force, by which they mean lower wages, less health care, fewer benefits, and more competition between workers for jobs. This is necessary to continue increasing profit margins under current conditions. A mass strike is an outstanding idea. Who will organize it?
Another tiny group of sociopaths willing to cause mass destruction to serve their perverted aims.
They knew what they had to do in order to achieve their goals. Causing destruction on a huge scale was nothing to hold them back; in fact, there was no other way to get what they had wanted so much, for so many years. On this they were very clear.
Read this, 9112010.com, and see if it doesn't make sense, if you can really say, after reading it, "No, they just couldn't or wouldn't have done it." And if you can't honestly say that, what does that mean for our future?
Even with a healthy case of skepticism, even with a fair ability to grasp history, even knowing that ancient, basic rules are inviolable, I am still caught off guard when confronted with the sheer bald-facedness of the crimes that this Ponzi scheme keeps getting away with.
I am saddened because as long as the Military/Industrial/Political/Media class can keep a stupefied American public...well, stupefied, things will continue to go down that hurt us, our children, and every living being on this planet.
Well...enough. I have been bitch-slapped again and it's time for me to get out in the garden and renew my work to slowly, purposefully, detach from this matrix and form new attachments that will help move this world towards health.
Mass Uprisings Are Just A Mouse-Click Away
"What makes this so?"
"The fact that there's a computer in most homes + the populist mood that's enveloping our nation."
"But how will such translate into mass uprisings?"
"Sitting in front of every computer is someone who's angry as hell about these bailouts and perpetual wars, but who, individually at least, has no way to express his/her disdain except, perhaps, to cuss out loud &/or send off a rant to a website such as commondreams, neither of which stands much chance of turning things around."
"Based on?"
"History telling us that it takes collective action to turn things around."
"Otherwise?"
"Nothing but the futility of momentary individual glimmers of hope."
"The answer being?"
"Connecting and coalescing these individual glimmers of hope into an invincible movement for change."
"Based on?"
"Yes we can."
yourstruly: Nationwide Genr'l Stryke - Sick Out: Card Check; Single Payer; Out of Iraq/Afghanistan
1. Card Check NOW
2. Single Payer NOW
3. Out of Iraq/Afghanistan NOW.
If we hit those points, it will start an avalanche. Card Check - as originally written - changes the balance of power in the workplace; Conyers Medicare for all DESTROYS the Corporate lock on Health Care and frees massive sums not spent on corporate richfilth animals; Out of Iraq/Afghanistan puts our Thumb in the eye of the MIC and frees BILLIONS AND BILLIONS of our $$$ to work here at home . Those three will shatter the dam.
All are clearly defined. Card Check is written, Single Payer is written, and Out means "Out". Can it be any simpler than that?
So, if Labor, Healthcare, and Anti-War folks called for a mass unified 1 Day Sick Out - would you be excited? Would you stay home and buy nothing? Would you do it again, 3 weeks later? Would you do it again 3 weeks after that - Shut this Country Down?
Think about it. Businesses empty. Workplaces empty. Schools empty. Colleges empty. Freeways empty. Streets empty. It would be a silence that rocked America and changed this country forever. You could tell your grandkids.
Would you? Are you ready to act? We cannot count on the corporate "suits" to do the right thing and the elected "suits" on both sides of the aisle have all been paid for by the richfilth animals. You know this. EVERYBODY knows this.
So we MAKE THEM.
But here's the toughy: If they did, Would You? Are you ready to act? Have you had enough?
Peace.
Massive noncooperation is exactly what's needed now. But it needs to be informed by an understanding of the exact nature of current power relations in the U.S. What Glenn Greenwald is describing is not just the failure of democracy in America. He is describing a power consolidation by the financial elite to concentrate even more economic power in yet fewer hands. Clearly, Obama is playing the role of confidence-building front man to allow the assets of the U.S. Government to be openly transferred to Wall Street banking firms. The rest of us will play the role of debt slaves for the remainder of our and probably our children's lifetimes. Liberals have been intimidated into silence "to give Obama a chance" and they will remain silent just long enough for the wealth transfer to become irreversible. Then the noise will begin, but it will far too late by that time. It's also important to realize that the latest moves are the culmination of a long series of previous moves over the past 30 years by the economically powerful. Because the earlier consolidations were not successfully resisted, the current one became possible, then inevitable. Debt has been their weapon of choice during this power consolidation and they intend to use its full force against the American and European people. Their purpose is to inculcate a higher degree of discipline into the work force, by which they mean lower wages, less health care, fewer benefits, and more competition between workers for jobs. This is necessary to continue increasing profit margins under current conditions. A mass strike is an outstanding idea. Who will organize it?
We also need a massive grass roots movement to demand an instant runn off vote in all elections in this country. With this system the voters indicates their first and second choice for each office. If no one receives over 50% of the vote, the second choices are added to decide the winner. This way you could vote for a third party candidate with out fear of wasting your vote. We may be able to elect a third party candidate who is not controlled by the elite as the Republican and Democratic parties are. It is being tried in local elections around the country. The powers that be will of course fight it with every thing they have.
Face it, we have the 'Best' Government MONEY CAN BUY.
So don't blame Congress for doing the bidding of the rulers and owners. The right-wing NeoCons are now trying to blame Congress in order to divert attention away from the behind-the-scenes absentee-landlords of our government, and the true Ownership of the government by the exact-same financial Swindlers and Extorters.
And just look at the jagged difference between the forces of the Empire and the Common Dreams insurgents, as even now Common Dreams tries to raise a few thousand dollars to survive at all, while just the Junkie Rush Limbaugh gets $40 million per year and hundreds of millions of dollars of radio airtime. And Rush is only one in the legion of right-wing propagandists lavishly funded by the corpocracy and its fascist plutocrats. Why, they have a whole propaganda-tv channel in Fox. As well, they hold financial power over all the other mainstream news outlets, including, sadly now, PBS. So there you have it.
In the real world, a vote for Obama was a bitter pill taken to avoid the (come on, admit it) infinitely worse plague of McCain/Palin (and you complain about Obama, just think...) And electing the first black president was in itself a progressive step. Unhappily, as Obama has sincerely tried to mollify and 'unite', he has filled some slots with the Clintonistas recommended by ex-prez Bill- he of the $100 million reward/bribes-in-arrears. And those slots included the critical financial ones, as well as one for Hill.
Obama, rube of the Beltway as he is, was taken for a ride by his whisper-in-the-ear DLC-sleeper advisors. And he, like all Americans, not being an economist, was taken in be the CEO-Mr Bigshit titles and the Capitalist-Economists' obfuscations. We thought, hey, they must know something we don't because it looks like a swindle. Well, it is now revealed, it WAS and IS a swindle.... they were and are all CON(fidence)men!
But the children shouting that the Emperor(Capitalism) Has No Clothes are STILL being ignored because of the immense clout of money in media... "yes, we can now see the emperor's ass, but he WILL have clothes when he gets to his destination, he is just being prevented from doing so by those shouting he has no clothes... yes, we were willfully blind before and now we see, but at least we can see the emperor has some really big balls to parade down the street like this....yes, we can see the truth, but all those who now say the emperor has no clothes, you are FIRED."
So what we need now is a class traitor, like FDR, that will pony up millions to form a viable third party that will be able to elect the likes of a Ralph Nader or a Michael Moore or a Dennis Kucinich into power, and to fund a media revolution so there will be sources of news that are not in thrall to the financial gods. And anybody like this will go down in history like the revolutionaries that overthrew King George and took his 'property' and like those Boston Tea Party patriots that threw the UNTAXED Corporate tea into the harbor, as it was UNFAIR TRADE carried on by a BIG Corporation of the day, backed by the rules of the King. They wanted Fair Trade not 'Free' Trade. Like Ross Perot proved, a viable third party can exist, but only with real backing.
Any takers?
FVHorn with all due respect, you're wrong. Nobody is going to save us but us. The time is now passed for "Hope". Not going to happen. The richfilth animals have a lock on the game and they have no intention of letting go - that's why we have to take it from them. The trick is to do it without letting them shoot you. You lose points for letting a marginally literate high school graduate with a uniform and badge shoot you. And the way we do that is to shut this country down - and give them no one to shoot, and no one to degrade, and no one to cook with their fancy dancy microwave weapons - we stay home. Labor, Healthcare, and Anti-War. Nationwide Genr'l Stryke - Sick Out: Card Check; Single Payer; Out of Iraq/Afghanistan. That's what we voted for. That's what WE DEMAND. Si se puede Mr. El Presidente. We made him, we can break him and anybody else who wants to side with richfilth animals against us.
It is that simple. More coming soon...be prepared...
Peace.
another rule: god fights on the side with the heaviest artillery.
one must stress that the book "superclass" by david rothkopf be read by all.
this financial meltdown is not the work of neocons or of expressly some group of greedy bastards in ny, london, hong kong or tokyo but rather the work of a group of economists who posited the stable market hypothesis as well as free markets. this is the direct result of deregulation pushed by the worshippers of milton friedman. it has been picked up by the dems sadly enough. this was patently obvious by clinton's signing of the repeal of glass-steagall.
but even further rothkopf's book examines those who influence what happens to 6.5+ billion people on a daily basis. there is a whole cadre of superclass that can be divided into politcal superclass, economic superclass, military/defense superclass etc ad nauseum.
we must understand what it is that exerts control and influence. we must take care to examine the potential unintended consequences of actions such as strikes etc. how many people have been driven to the brink of economic calamity and would be willing to take part in concerted efforts at chnage yet who would also be palcated with a few dollars thrown their way in the form of a slightly better job?
globalization, speed of communication, speed of transportation and speed of cash flows have all allowed for the rise of the superclass as currently configured. these people do not necessarily have national interests in mind and indeed we see that the corporations that are controlled by them are not bound by country of origin either.
thoughtful, diligent research and creative, critical analysis and planning are required to achieve any action that has a hope of altering the way that the superclass deals with the subclass(one's term).