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Changing the Rules of the Blame Game
A cartoon in the Sunday comics shows that mustachioed fellow with monocle and top hat from the Monopoly game -- "Rich Uncle Pennybags," he used to be called -- standing along the roadside, destitute, holding a sign: "Will blame poor people for food."
Time to move the blame to where it really belongs. That means no more coddling banks with bailout billions marked "secret." No more allowing their executives lavish bonuses and new corporate jets as if they've won the megalottery and not sent the economy down the tubes. And no more apostles of Wall Street calling the shots.
Which brings us to Larry Summers. Over the weekend, the White House released financial disclosure reports revealing that Summers, director of the National Economic Council, received $5.2 million last year working for a $30 billion hedge fund. He made another $2.7 million in lecture fees, including cash from such recent beneficiaries of taxpayer generosity as Citigroup, JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs. The now defunct financial services giant Lehman Brothers handsomely purchased his pearls of wisdom, too.
Reading stories about Summers and Wall Street you realize the man was intoxicated by the exotic witches' brew of derivatives and other financial legerdemain that got us into such a fine mess in the first place. Yet here he is, serving as gatekeeper of the information and analysis going to President Obama on the current collapse.
We have to wonder, when the President asks, "Larry, who did this to us?" is Summers going to name names of old friends and benefactors? Knowing he most likely will be looking for his old desk back once he leaves the White House, is he going to be tough on the very system of lucrative largesse that he helped create in his earlier incarnation as a de-regulating Treasury Secretary? ("Larry?" "Yes, Mr. President?" "Who the hell recommended repealing the Glass-Steagall Act back in the 90s and opened the floodgates to all this greed?" "Uh, excuse me, Mr. President, I think Bob Rubin's calling me.")
That imaginary conversation came to mind last week as we watched President Obama's joint press conference with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown. When a reporter asked Obama who's to blame for the financial crisis, our usually eloquent and knowledgeable President responded with a rambling and ineffectual answer. With Larry Summers guarding his inbox, it's hardly surprising he's not getting the whole story.
If only someone with nothing to lose would remind the President of that old story -- perhaps apocryphal but containing a powerful truth -- of the Great Wall of China. Four thousand miles long and 25 feet tall. Intended to be too high to climb over, too thick to break through, and too long to go around. Yet in its first century of the wall's existence, China was successfully breached three times by invaders who didn't have to break through, climb over, or go around. They simply were waved through the gates by obliging watchmen. The Chinese knew their wall very well. It was the gatekeepers they didn't know.
Shifting the blame for the financial crisis to where it belongs also means no more playacting in round after round of congressional hearings devoted more to posturing and false contrition than to truth. We need real hearings, conducted by experienced and fiercely independent counsel asking the tough questions, or an official commission with subpoena power that can generate evidence leading, if warranted, to trials and convictions -- and this time Rich Uncle Pennybags shouldn't have safely tucked away in his vest pocket a "Get Out of Jail Free" card.
So far, the only one in the clink is Bernie Madoff and he was "a piker" compared to the bankers who peddled toxic assets like unverified "liars' loan" mortgages as Triple-A quality goods. So says Bill Black, and he should know. During the savings and loan scandal in the 1980s, Black, who teaches economics and law at the University of Missouri, Kansas City, was the federal regulator who accused then-House Speaker Jim Wright and five US Senators, including John Glenn and John McCain, of doing favors for the S&L's in exchange for campaign contributions and other perks. They got off with a wrist slap but Black and others successfully led investigations that resulted in convictions and re-regulation of the savings and loan industry.
Bill Black wrote a book about his experiences with a title that fits today as well as it did when he published it four years ago -- The Best Way to Rob a Bank Is to Own One. On last Friday night's edition of Bill Moyers Journal, he said the current economic and financial meltdown is driven by fraud and banks that got away with it, in part, because of government deregulation under prior Republican and Democratic administrations.
"Now we know what happens when you destroy regulation," Black said. "You get the biggest financial calamity for anybody under the age of 80."
What's more, the government ignored warnings and existing legislation to stop it before the current crisis got worse. "They didn't even begin to investigate the major lenders until the market had actually collapsed, which is completely contrary to what we did successfully in the savings and loan crisis," Black said. "Even while the institutions were reporting they were the most profitable savings and loans in America, we knew they were frauds. And we were moving to close them down."
There was advance warning of the current collapse. Black says that the FBI blew the whistle. In September 2004, "there was an epidemic of mortgage fraud, that if it was allowed to continue it would produce a crisis at least as large as the Savings and Loan debacle."
But after 9/11, "The Justice Department transfers 500 white-collar specialists in the FBI to national terrorism. Well, we can all understand that. But then, the Bush administration refused to replace the missing 500 agents." So today, despite a crisis a hundred times worse than the Savings and Loan scandal, "there are one-fifth as many FBI agents" assigned to bank fraud.
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner "is covering up," Black said. "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 massive losses, and that they're fine...
"They're scared to death of a collapse. They're afraid that if they admit the truth, that many of the large banks are insolvent, they think Americans are a bunch of cowards, and that we'll run screaming to the exits... And it's foolishness, all right?
"Now, it may be worse than that. You can impute more cynical motives. But I think they are sincerely just panicked about, 'We just can't let the big banks fail.' That's wrong."
Black asked, "Why would we keep CEO's and CFO's and other senior officers that caused the problems? That's nuts... We're hiding the losses instead of trying to find out the real losses? Stop that... because you need good information to make good decisions... Follow what works instead of what's failed. Start appointing people who have records of success instead of records of failure... There are lots of things we can do. Even today, as late as it is. Even though we've had a terrible start to the [Obama] administration. They could change, and they could change within weeks."
He called for a 21st century version of the Pecora Commission, referring to hearings that sought the causes of the Great Depression, held during the 1930's by the US Senate Committee on Banking and Currency.
Ferdinand Pecora was the committee's chief counsel and interrogator, a Sicilian émigré who was a progressive devotee of trust busting Teddy Roosevelt and a former Manhattan assistant district attorney who successfully helped shut down more than a hundred Wall Street "bucket shops" selling bogus securities and commodity futures. He was relentless in his cross-examination of financial executives, including J.P. Morgan himself.
Pecora's investigation uncovered a variety of Wall Street calumnies -- among them Morgan's "preferred list" of government and political insiders, including former President Coolidge and a Supreme Court justice, who were offered big discounts on stock deals. The hearings led to passage of the Securities Act of 1933 and the Securities Exchange Act of 1934.
In the preface to his 1939 memoir, Wall Street Under Oath, Ferdinand Pecora told the story of his investigation and described an attitude amongst the Rich Uncle Pennybags of the financial world that will sound familiar to Bill Black and those who seek out the guilty today.
"That its leaders are eminently fitted to guide our nation, and that they would make a much better job of it than any other body of men, Wall Street does not for a moment doubt," Pecora wrote. "Indeed, if you now hearken to the Oracles of The Street, you will hear now and then that the money-changers have been much maligned. You will be told that a whole group of high-minded men, innocent of social or economic wrongdoing, were expelled from the temple because of the excesses of a few. You will be assured that they had nothing to do with the misfortunes that overtook the country in 1929-1933; that they were simply scapegoats, sacrificed on the altar of unreasoning public opinion to satisfy the wrath of a howling mob..."
According to Politico.com, at his March 27 White House meeting with the nation's top bankers, President Obama heard similar arguments and interrupted, saying, "Be careful how you make those statements, gentlemen. The public isn't buying that... My administration is the only thing between you and the pitchforks."
Stand aside, Mr. President, and let us prod with our pitchforks to get at the facts.
- Posted in
104 Comments so far
Show AllThere is always the assumption, despite the growing evidence, that Obama is an honorable And decent man. Wonder how long that charade is going to last?
It really is amazing just how short a time it took for him to become as stupid as Bush aside from the all to obvious spun accounts of how Obama weilds a threatening tone. It insults us.
I'm 50 years old. Obama is no fool, and yet he expects the US public to buy his financially-convoluted fraudulent giveaway to the banks. Honestly, although I'm no conspiracy theorist, the only explanation I can find for his behavior is fear of being killed.
Let me offer an alternative explanation: he's a player.
odoco
Thanks Bill, for truly keeping hope alive, and sensibility, and integrity. This country is now being manipulated by a financial cartel divorced from governmental control, in fact, it may well be controlling the government. I don't want to sound the 'radical alarm bell' here, but that is the classic beginnings of a fascist state - the merging of the corporate / government entities. I would hope, indeed pray, that those folks in the lower socio-economic realms that align themselves with the right of the political spectrum would begin to see that this struggle, this greed and manipulation, truly is 'class' originated. The Republicans have used the term 'class war' to deflect any criticism, always stating it is the language of the Marxists and Leninists. Well, I agree! And Marx and Lenin (and Engels) described the current situation perfectly.
The one thing the financial and political elites of this country have always feared is the consolidation of the lower masses into a single political entity - and the ability to express itself through participatory democracy. That time is nearing. Poor whites, Hispanics, blacks, union workers, field workers, domestic workers, workers for justice and peace, all of us - the time is now to demand accountability. This is not the time to be optimistic about Obama, or to believe your congressmen / women or your senators - this is the time to be vocal, write letters, get involved in the political process - especially during primary season, it is the time to stop contributing money to the two major political parties, IT IS TIME TO STARVE THE MACHINE.
If you want to "starve the machine", forget about contributions, writing (sigh) more letters, and "getting involved". The best way to "starve the machine is to not spend money on Main Street, not write letters to the MSM editor, but write letters to the businesses that buy ad space in their papers and tell them why you're no longer patronizing them. And don't join the "political process". Its a complete waste of time. They'll wring your wallet and your energies dry. For fools only.
Starve the beast by not feeding it money or energy.
Vote with your dollars. Its the only real vote that counts. And its working.
Pull your money out of big "national banks. Don't spend.
it seems to be working.
odoco
Moonpie - I agree with your last statements, and am doing those things - not spending money, being extremely careful where I put my money, etc. I understand how capitalism works, especially the malignancy that we now call capitalism.
But I strongly disagree with you assumption that pulling out of the system entirely is the thing to do. Whether or like it or not, or even believe in it, we still have a semblance of an electoral system in this country. No - I am not naive; yes, I understand how the system is often rigged and controlled by the power elites. having said that, I will also say that if we do not attempt to reclaim that system for the people, reinvigorate it with an eduated citizen and electoral integrity - then the big money boys will control everything for sure. Abandoning the system that controls the country (yes, yes, I know all about money control . . .)insures that those who profess to live by democratic principles while simultaneously raping the people will have a free ride.
Not get involved? Not make public statements? I understand your point about money being the engine that turns the capitalistic machine - but there is more than money involved here - and if you think not then you may be thinking in the same vein as those who now do our bidding for us.
Sioux Rose
ODOCO: Back in l990 Ted Turner sponsored a writing contest, and it was aimed at visions of a better future for mankind. I was inspired and for 2 months was unable to sleep and wrote till 2 or 3 AM (even though I had to get up at 7 to get my children to school). The "story" came through me, and its theme was a global TRANSITION. One of the key aspects of "this transition" was that formerly title owners became title givers, that all that had been amassed had to be given back.
It's interesting how computers have facilitated a global economy and now this Ponzi scheme has also impacted nations around the globe. I share these items to suggest that the next revolution will be labor rising on an international level against today's pharaohs who are the global corporations operating without conscience, and as revealed by John Perkins and Smedley Butler, they operate at the pleasure of the corporations, i.e. pharaohs.
This time when "Moses" says "Set my people free," the chains will be broken on a worldwide scale as labor will rise... however those with the whips (and today they include the most obscene reach of weaponry) will use them. The change/transition is inevitable, its growing pains likely severe.
Sioux Rose,
Your post and some of the language in this article remind me of the notion of a jubilee, a year in which debts are forgiven. It occurred to me that it's no wonder that nobody cares if we are spending our great-grandchildren's tax money now to repay bankers/stock gamblers, because in a few years, when every drop is squeezed out of every avenue of credit or revenue, we will just declare a "jubilee year". It will be such a boon for impoverished third world nations, blah blah blah, but the big winners will of course be the biggest debtor nation, US.
When it comes to "odious debt," which the bank bailout certainly is, EVERY year should be jubilee year.
Illegal contracts must never be honored, much less enforced.
Sioux Rose
ELAINEM: Money is in and of itself a fiction, a paper that SYMBOLIZES an equivalent in genuine wealth, that is, those THINGS endowed with VALUE. So long as there is trust, these unnatural equivalents can still operate as a basis for transactional arrangements. So long as there is trust... and therein lies the rub!
Currently the very concept of money (given the way it's been inflated by the mojo masters of Wall st) has become so vastly departed from the probable worth of things that a process tantamount to (nuclear) fision is underway.
I can't help but see the symbol of the Tarot's card of "The Tower Struck by Lightning," and it is my least favorite card in the pack of 78 universal symbols. All depict issues and circumstances that confront everyman/everywoman. The Tower means it's all coming unglued.
That 911 attacked Wall St (Mammon, the house that greed/usury built) and the Pentagon (Mars, the house that aggression built) and BOTH are bankrupting not just US citizens, but arguably the entire world is powerful SIGN that these bases for calculating the wealth and health of societies MUST end. The tower means collapse, and on 9-11-2001 the numerology was 23/splitting apart (from the Ancient Chinese I ching) which is also today's number.
Seven years after the split apart, it's STILL splitting... a silent nuclear fision process that is utlimately separating the wheat from the chaff. As citizens look on, realize that what they may have worked their lives for--in the form of a home's cost or their pensions--disappear because some bastards played fast and loose with lots of ZEROES, games of exploit conducted through complex FALSE mathematical forumulas, you know that the reverberations among citizens has only begun to rumble... much IS truly coming apart, which is to say, systems of the world that was. And what is yet to come calls for passion, purpose, and visionary zeal. Without a doubt, we cannot afford to pour new wine into the old wineskins held as sacrosanct by the wizards of the grand temples upheld in homage to Mammon and Mars. These "value systems" have corrupted the world and all things that matter!
It's like those airplanes knocked the lids off the Genie bottles and all the pent up evil from those two nasty fortresses got out to freely foul the world.
I can FEEL the rumbling. I got goose bumps just thinking about it.
The unraveling is coming, and hopefully it will end up a better world, but you know that these entrenched systems won't disconnect without a shrieking, wrenching tear.
Still, I have planted vegetable seeds, and they're coming up nicely. I may need a new blouse one of these days!
Sioux Rose
ELAIN: Good one! In my first screenplay there is a character, Aunt Rae, who used to be an entertainer in New Orleans. She moves to Key West when it's still a wild town, and maintains in a trunk all her wild New Orleans' day clothing... and then one day a woman comes to town, turns out to be the lost twin sister to the boy she (Aunt Rae) inadvertently adopted. And guess who buys those clothes? Anyway, there's a bit of the "Aunt Rae" in me. I think Imelda Marcos could have fun sifting through my stuff... 3 decades of vintage outfits. They came in handy when I hosted a cable TV show for 7 plus years in the Keys. Should buy me a lot of tomatoes as the days of a return to the earth and barter again return. What size do you wear (LOL)?
12 on a good day, and there aren't many of those days left. If you are petite enough to be on TV, maybe I have something that will fit you! I can't help hoarding a few things from my youth, and thrift store finds, even if they don't fit me and never will. (I have granddaughters with a window of opportunity coming up.) And hey, I think most of us have a few wild things in our trunks, and not just metaphorically speaking. I've got some pink satin stovepipe disco pants, oh my.
"The one thing the financial and political elites of this country have always feared is the consolidation of the lower masses into a single political entity - and the ability to express itself through participatory democracy."
This statement is spot-on perfect. We have been divided long enough.
I wish Black were wrong, but I'm just not stupid enough to believe that he is. Summers-Geithner-Axelrod-Emanuel are the President's Achilles' heel. I think I channel Molly Ivins and Thomas Paine when I say "OH, SH*T AMERICA!"
An Achilles Heel that he himself created. Are we to believe that Barack Obama, the Harvard graduate, appointed men to key positions in his administration without being aware of their history, their leanings and their probable paths of action?
Revolutionaries want things to become so bad that people are forced by the very calamities around them to take up arms. I wish to see no violent revolution in this nation but the circumstances seem ever more ripe for such an event. Of course we have a ways to go yet but we seem on the descending path to calamity.
If I went around passing bad checks all over town, I'd be prosecuted for fraud. If you parked the car while I went into the bank, you'd be accused of conspiracy in my bad check scam. And if two cops saw what was going down and stood aside, that would implicate them as well.
Why are these MBA thugs and their accomplices in Congress and the SEC being held to a different standard? Why aren't the RICO statutes being applied?
Who's guarding this henhouse, anyway?
Three cheers for Bill Moyers, Michael Winship, and Bill Black (and Paul Krugman, Joe Stiglitz, Nowriel Roubini, Simon Johnson, Robert Reich, Jeffrey Sachs - and probably a host of other leading economists who know better than what Obama is doing so far about the economy). We have to hope he will get the message, as you say, and step aside so we can get about the business of straightening out this mess. I'm a bit dismayed that the clamor for this change hasn't caught on more since Friday night when Moyers and Black first talked. It should be the lead on every "progressive" website around the world. It should make the evening news soon!
The comedian, Lewis Black, in one of his monologues was describing the reallllyyy rich in this country who evidently are competitive people. They go by the number of houses and countries they live in. They go by the number of super expensive exotic automobiles, etc. Yachts by number and footage. But he says I can beat all of them with my personal 'balls washer.' He says he pays all her health care, big salary, great retirement.
So when he walks into a big party, she is in front of him washing his balls while everyone looks on, flabbergasted. No one has a personal ball washer but him...
I almost choked to death laughing my ... off.
You don't suppose Obama is Bush's ...?
Naw. Naw, hell no. Jeez, ya think?
To use a physical analogy the banksters were manufacturing gold bars (the overrated mortgage backed securities) their accomplices in the rating business were then certifying that the gold gars were solid 99.9 pure gold but priced well below the price of gold. The greed-headed investors snapped up the gold bars in record numbers, one day a buyer of the gold bars needed some cash so he took a gold bar to a gold dealer and attempted to sell it. The gold dealer assayed the gold and discovered that the bars were actually gold plated lead. When news of this hit the street nobody was willing to buy gold bars, and their value plummeted. Since both the greed-headed investors and the banksters had made massive campaign contributions to Uncle Sugar the Banksters and investors ask Uncle Sugar to buy the gold plated lead bar so they could return to the vital roll banksters and investors play in the economy.
The hitch was that the banksters and investors wanted Uncle Sugar to buy the worthless lead bars at the price of gold.
Uncle Sugar faced a dilemma, let the banksters sell their worthless lead bars off at the cost of lead, which would result in the banksters ending up in prison on fraud charges, let the investors sell off their lead bars at the price of lead which would cost the investors billions of dollars, both of which would starve Uncle Sugar of his sugar. Or Uncle Sugar could buy back the worthless lead bars at the price of gold and saddle the Fed, the Treasury and especially the American taxpayers with an enormous debt load and a pile of worthless lead bars.
Uncle Sugar, as beholding as he was to the banksters and investors, said screw the taxpayers and is now buying worthless lead bars at the price of gold.
But the rub is that the banksters were running many other scams, and when the gold bar scam was disclosed other investors looked closely at their other financial investments they’d bought from other banksters and discovered that they too had been screwed.
As these other investments (derivatives) plunged in value it became clear that just buying back the gold plated lead bars would not be enough to keep the financial Master of the Universe and the banksters solvent. Uncle Sugar would have to buy back the entire package of fraudulent worthless securities…at or near their original value.
This was beyond the means of even Uncle Sugar, to create the amount of money required to buy back that many nearly worthless securities Uncle Sugar would have to max out his Visa Card. Long before enough worthless securities had been purchased to allow the banksters to go back to their old ways Uncle Sugars Visa card would adjust up to a 25% interest rate and create hyper inflation.) Uncle Sugar's other option would be to print so much money that the value of the dollar would be less than the cost of the paper and ink it takes to print them. (At which point it would take a wheelbarrow of greenbacks to buy a loaf of bread [aka hyper inflation].)
I think the underlying problem is a massive case of denial centered on Wall Street that's spilling over to Washington. Unlike the denial of the banksters at least Bernie Madoff manned up and admitted his guilt.
Wall Street can not accept that like Madoff, they were running unsustainable financial scams (derivatives). Wall Street is unwilling to accept the fact that their financial schemes differ only slightly in style from Mr. Madoff’s financial voodoo Ponzi scheme.
The banksters, The Fed., the Treasury, the White House and Congress are much like Bernie Madoff’s investors that can’t accept the fact that their investments have disappeared into thin air. In the unlikely event the banksters are called to justice you can bet that damned few are going to admit their guilt...unless Uncle Sugar sweetens the deal.
What we are currently facing is that the Treasury of the United States, the Fed, and the Federal government are attempting to bail out financial scams (derivatives) seventy times larger than Bernie Madoff’s measly $56,000,000,000.00 Ponzi scheme.
Should The Fed., The Treasury and the Federal government follow its current path these institutions will soon be insolvent. A path that if followed has no guarantee that it will succeed and a high probability of massive failure which will be catastrophic for the vast majority of the World’s population.
Really the only question to be answered at this point in time is who is going to take the fall, one percent of the banksters plus half of the rest of us? Or zero percent of the banksters and ninety nine percent of the of us?
odoco
Mad Hoosier - excellent post, illustrative and relevant. As I have said so many times here, until there is legal accountability, nothing changes. When immunity and impunity are devices of the powerful, the system never corrects itself, and the people are forever at its mercy.
Good post.
The Fed and the Treasury are responsible for regulating the financial system. IF the Fed and the Treasury admit that the banksters ruined the financial system they incriminate themselves, especially since they supported much of the de-regulation that allowed the banksters to create their ponzi schemes.
The representatives of the people allowed this to happen thus the people take the fall.
I really appreciate Bill Moyers' efforts but where was he a few years ago?
A few years ago Bill Moyer was knocked off PBS by the FCC and was out in the wilderness with the rest of us. And there were many trying to get him to run for President.
Madhoosier, what an excellent analogy.
I would disagree with one thing, though: "the fact that their investments have disappeared into thin air." SOMEBODY got that money. It went somewhere, bought something, whatever, but some M.F.'er got it and probably still has it hidden somewhere.
Switzerland has virtually totally anonymous banking laws as do the Cayman Islands.
If Bernie managed to stash some away there Uncle Sam won’t be able to get his hands on it unless Bernie was dumb enough to leave a trail or the account numbers for investigators to find.
The way Ponzi schemes work is that as new money comes in and instead of investing it in stocks, bonds or what have you the new money is applied as the steep profits on the existing accounts. When the economy hits a recession and people start withdrawing money and less new money comes in the house of cards collapses.
The few people that withdrew a lot of money (money that had been growing at 12% a year, supposedly year after year) in the months before the collapse will make out like bandits. (Assuming that the bankruptcy judge doesn’t take it back)
In reality I doubt that less than a third of the supposed $56,000.000.000.00 ever really existed since a very large portion of that $56,000,000,000.00 was Bernie’s scam and existed only on paper and in Bernie’s imagination.
Madhoosier,
I agree with you that a great deal of this "crisis" was because of the movement of "theoretical money" substituting for real assets.
It's hard to feel bad for people who have airplanes and yachts getting taken because they believed they really could get a 30% return on their investment, but they did give up actual cash and someone somewhere has it now.
My husband, a man of few words, has for years said "Nuke Switzerland" whenever the topic of hidden finances comes up. He says the law should be changed so that if you want to do business in the US you should be required to make ALL of your finances available to authorities, whether you have them in a Swiss bank account or not.
The status of Switzerland (and that of other countries that provide secrecy in banking) is the way the criminally wealthy publicly thumb their noses at the rest of us.
Recently, Switzerland agreed to grant access to at least some of its accounts.
Sioux Rose
MADHOOSIER: A most excellent parable. Should humanity survive the triplicate sins of corrupt finance, coveting war, and unsustainable (given the overload) ecosystems... yours would be a great "Aesop's Fable" for 22nd century children.
It would seem there is a third option: since all the Wall St ponzi schemes were largely based on an illusion of worth, what actually owns value still exists: human resources & resourcefulness, the merchandise in our shops, the homes already built, the land that blooms. What has failed is the symbolic basis for tender. Therefore as is being seen in communities developing their own parallel "dollars," we may see more direct barter which is not a bad thing.
I dine once every two weeks at an upscale Italian restaurant about 40 miles from my home and the staff knows me. I asked if they have seen a drop in business, and given that they cater to the upper end of the "market," they said no. I mentioned that I used to give away clothes I no longer wore, but was considering holding them as a basis for trade against such things as squash and tomatoes. They laughed when I said I felt things were about to "get to that." And since I am yet to develop a green thumb, I have no problem trading clothes to those who might like a new blouse in exchange for some produce. What IS collapsing before our incredulous eyes is the false system that allots to things an illusory basis for presumed value. Everything that has genuine value existed before this fall, and will continue to exist. It comes down to who gets to lay claim to it?
If all these toxic loans also include the ACTUAL HOMES that people have foreclosed on, given the insane odds (the tax payer picking up more than 90% of the fees/risk according to the Chicago School/domestic disaster capitalist team) the homes should belong to the people. Someone asked on another thread who has access to bid on these items? And who among this team of compromised integrity is fit to scrutinize, given the tendency among insiders to skim off the top?
It would be ideal to have a citziens' army lock up all the Wall St brokers and their bosses until they emerged with a deal that was fair for all... not in their favor exclusively.
It's to early to give up on Obama, but there is danger ahead, the more powerful a family, the longer it takes for an abuser within the family to hit bottom and get help. They often go the voluntary route, fancy treatment centers, counselors indeed all available resources, until a criminal act forces them to actually go through a program and demonstrate change before being released. Even then the success rate isn't wonderful. It is the process of first resort for the poor, but for the powerful it is last resort.
Small business has failed all over main street in the small towns of our nation, but we are now faced with the to big to fail, and we are still hiding their problem. If we don't start now, and continue to hide this problem things will get really ugly before it unwinds.
Thanks Bill for the good work
No it isn't to early.
The time to call him out is NOW--because by using others its too early wait and see approach or starstruck cult hero allegiance blindness this stuff gets rammed through.
odoco
I agree Vern. Obama's support of Bush's coverup of illegal wiretaps (and actual expansion of the interpretation of the Patriot Act), the hiring of the very thugs who destroyed the economy, equivocating on Iraq, etc. all give pause. He is doing some good things, e.g. environmental issues, but unless we push him we will, undoubtedly, either succumb to his own ambition and hubris, or be controlled by the system, or both. It seems it always works that way.
Those are just a couple of bones tossed so people can point to these minor policy shifts as representing some seachange.
Obama's ideological high-minded prattle is getting old fast. He must think we are fools for not recognizing what it really is: lying.
Seriously though if he does dare rise against his masters, what do you figure his life expectancy would be ?
It's to(o) early to give up on Obama,...
----------------------------
No, it's not.
Last night Keith Olbermann finally gave Obama the smack-down he thoroughly deserves over his use of "states-secrets" privilege and something entirely new called "sovereign immunity" to block all lawsuits (regarding spying and torture) against the government.
With this move Obama not only shows he accepts the Bush/Cheney idea of an all-powerful "unitary executive" but actually began to build and strenghten it.
We're now at the mercy of a government that can literally violate us and our rights in any manner possible and then BLOCK us from taking them to court.
These are the powers a tyrant dreams about.
Again, Obama is doing this now, not Bush.
Do you wish to rethink your comment that it's too early to give up on him?
(When I find a link to the video I'll post it).
Olbermann had to get up to speed...he screwed up when he and one of his regular sidekicks (the British one with glasses) mocked and dismissed the G20 demonstrators.
and he regularly hounds FOX? Please.
Turley, however has been Obama's case for awhile.
His name is Richard Wolfe, or as you so eloquently call him (the British one with glasses). I find him to be a calm and collected voice of reason, with no visable agenda. He was referring to the protestors correctly as "Professional Protestors", who come out whenever there is an event that can get them publicity. That is why the protests ranged from "Free Tibet" supporters to "More Rights for Single Fathers". He was also pointing out the British Press' tendency to ask only "Gotcha" questions to any leader that happens to be in front of the podium on that day. But don't let me get in the way of your rant, heaven forfend!
I will substantiate what you watched on the 'Daily Show.' I thought at the time with Obama's behavior prior to his election and all the documentation after his election that it is pretty unavoidable. I wonder if we are too jumpy after 8 long years with a sociopath, then I remember all his 'bipartisan' enablers, and my actually witnessing his two faced behavior and the crooning of 'forward looking' and the equally noxious 'impeachment is off the table' music from the siren of Congress. And I am running to the bathroom to vomit the poisonous words from my brain.
Pelosi as the guest all over the bandwidth of images. I cannot, will not watch. No more. I have had all I can hate from this culture. When hate is a soul killer, a mind killer like the current rash of psychopaths murdering their children or innocent people where an ex-wife works or a little girl in a fucking suitcase. Jeeze. It huurrtttss. And these cheap suited politicians are in bus station bathrooms sucking long and hard on the moneyed balls of inbred fruit flys so they can lie to us, steal from us and laugh at us.
We are the deer in the headlights.
Sorry, but "sovereign immunity" is not "something entirely new." It used to be called "the divine right of kings."
Funny thing, that sense of entitlement. It seems able to reproduce itself across generations, vast oceans of space and time, and even bloodlines.
"In their lives there's something lacking/what they need's a damn good whacking"
---George Harrison, "Piggies"
Yes Jethro, the "unitary executive" apparently isn't unitary enough for Obama, hence "sovereign immunity". It is as new as torture...ooops I mean "enhanced interogation"
The concept of "sovereign immunity" has been around quite some time. Historically speaking (in the context of the history of the USA), the practice of exercising sovereign immunity took some hits. Today, the federal courts may not uphold efforts to revitalize claims to sovereign immunity, if those efforts put at risk core rights articulated in the Constitution (particularly the first Ten Amendments).
We have to wonder, when the President asks, "Larry, who did this to us?" is Summers going to name names of old friends and benefactors?
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If Obama doesn't know who did this to us than he's a bigger idiot than Bush.
Ten minutes and a dial-up internet connection and you can know all the involved parties.
Besides, Obama is only interested in looking forward, he's said so many times.
If *I* knew along with 10's of thousands of people like me knew then Barack Obama knew.
Its the same bloody thing as the Iraq Invasion and all the "laymen" who knew Iraq no threat, had no WMDS and did not support Al Qaeda.
This hiding behind "I did not know" is a crock.
Sioux Rose
DAVE B: Exactly! NO odds in the world would have put together the very persons responsible for deregulation and the pain felt round the world unless the whole thing was premeditated to start with. Of course it is. Do you think Moyers doesn't see/get that?
Precisely. Moyers does get it. He understands perfectly, but he is where Loyal Opposition thinks Obama is. Moyers can't get too strident or he'll lose his job at Petroleum Broadcasting Corporation. We are fortunate Moyers can walk that tightrope and bring us people like William Black.
Sioux Rose
ANTI: I think you're right. In some journalism/writing classes they recommend that the narrator suggest not TELL. Moyer's is a master of THAT art. It helps him toe the diplomatic line and maintain his job.
Politicians do a lot of gladhanding, the objective of which is advancement in their chosen career field. By means of this effort, they might be invited into the hidden primary where discussions are held and arrangements made to advance a candidacy that, subject to the endorsement of New Hampshire, will emerge as the “serious” contenders as reported by the MSM – which becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Nobody who has passed through the hidden primary will emerge honorable and decent and all candidates who are not invited to the hidden primary, when mentioned at all by the MSM, will be ridiculed as vanity candidates. Obama would not be president, could not even have been considered a serious candidate, if he had not already confirmed that he would protect the interests of the wealthy from the public. At all times the nation is supposed to “come together” for its leaders, despite the fact that such unity serves only those whose interests trump those of the public.
Sioux Rose
Class Act: Excellent analysis. Is it possible Moyers doesn't get it? Or is he playing naive like Lieutenant Columbo barely letting out the suggestion that Obama might BE an insider? It's not like Obama is some innocent bystander, he PUT THESE PEOPLE into positions where they could free up what's left of America's assets. Is this the next installment of "Shock and Awe," this time directed at America's fiscal future?
One wonders if all this was planned like the "Project for a New American Century" long enough ago to have provided time to build those 2.2 million holding pens, a/k/a prisons. Then when the really bold set forth to protest, they'd have their beds waiting, with Habeas Corpus iffy, and many Tasers acting as "Thy rod and thy staff" to corral the remaining sheep herds.
Exactly, Sioux Rose. He's not an innocent bystander. He bamboozles with his words, but his actions speak louder. As far as I am concerned, this is the financial equivalent of 9-11. Yet again, all the regulators, prosecutors, investigators - the entire law, order and defense infrastructure stands down, stand aside while the country is attacked from within. What is taking place is against the rule of law and is as outrageous as the Bush lying for war, torture, spying, etc.. In fact, it's just a continuation, a consolidation. And yes, I think it is planned.
I want to like the guy, but Bill Moyers plays dumb so well that I'm not sure he's playing.
"I want to like the guy, but Bill Moyers plays dumb so well that I'm not sure he's playing."
I've listened to Bill Moyers for a long time, and he makes me think. Unlike everything else these days, the movies, television, books, etc., where nothing is left to the imagination, I find it very refreshing to listen to one who speaks softly, hinting at possibilities, asking questions and never giving the answers, putting in place all those things that makes your brain kick into gear and sents you off to find the truths and answers behind the words he's given you.