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Obama's Economic Sermon on the Mount
As President Obama approaches the 100-day mark of his presidency, he delivered a speech Tuesday at Georgetown University in which he laid out what he sees as the foundation of a new economy. Using this crisis--and his gift of oratory--Obama signaled that the fight for the next economy begins now.
He alluded to the Sermon on the Mount to describe the stronger, more fair economy he envisions: "There is a parable at the end of the Sermon on the Mount that tells the story of two men," he said. "The first built his house on a pile of sand, and it was destroyed as soon as the storm hit. But the second is known as the wise man, for when '...the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house...it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock.' We cannot rebuild this economy on the same pile of sand. We must build our house upon a rock."
I think the speech is important for what it reveals about Obama's understanding of the task ahead--building a new economy out of the ashes of our failed one.
But real and grounded concerns about the administration's bank bailout plan remain. As Nobel prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz wrote recently in a New York Times op-ed the Obama administration's plan is "far worse than nationalization: it is ersatz capitalism, the privatizing of gains and the socializing of losses...the kind of Rube Goldberg device that Wall Street loves -- clever, complex and nontransparent, allowing huge transfers of wealth to the financial markets...." Other good thinkers share this view, including Paul Krugman, Simon Johnson, William Greider and Robert Reich.
While Obama's speech lays out some strong principles for a new foundation, the administration's financial team remains unwilling to understand that we're not just going through a financial crisis or a panic, but the failure of a whole model of banking. We are living amid the blowback of an overgrown financial sector that did more harm than good.
As The Nation's Greider has argued we need a new banking system--smaller and more diverse and responsible to the public interest. Creating this new system is where public resources should be committed, not to saving banks that are "too big to fail". We should create public banks and non-profit savings and lending cooperatives to serve as an important check on private commercial banks. We need to make banks the servants--not the masters--of our economy. Only when we do that will a new regulatory framework do what's needed; it would be a mistake to simply re-regulate the shadow banking system which got us into this mess.
If this realization begins to sink in through the failure of the current plan--and Obama's commitment to pragmatism and experimentation suggests he might be willing to move to Plan B with sufficient pressure from mobilized citizens and thinkers who envision a different model than the Summers/Geithner approach--then we're on the road to laying the foundation, the rock, for a new economy.
But creating that new economy will require what Obama himself might call "tough choices"--and some different "pillars" from the ones he outlined today. We need affordable health care; pensions above social security; and sustained public investment in areas vital to high wages in a global economy--affordable colleges, world-class public schools, and a 21st century infrastructure. We need to restructure--not just re-regulate--the financial sector so that banking is once again a "boring" occupation devoted to making loans to the real economy, not peddling exotic and (as we now know) toxic instruments. We need to break-up and restructure major banks that are on life support and "too big to fail." And we need to fight for the Employee Free Choice Act--so that workers are able to organize and bargain collectively, and the middle class is rebuilt and strengthened.
The mother of all fights lies ahead--beyond the first 100 days--as lobbies mobilize to halt the reforms needed to rebuild and reconstruct a new economy of shared prosperity. The drug and insurance companies, the business lobby, multinationals that seek to retain tax havens -- they will all warn ominously of massive job losses, failed businesses, and much suffering for each and every needed reform offered.
Despite the flaws of the bank bailout, President Obama has signaled that we can work toward a new economy. But it will require a massive mobilization of citizens. We've had thirty years of the markets-know-best-and-are-self-correcting, government get out of the way, let CEOs rule, maximize executive profits--dogma. The catastrophic results are in. Now begins the fight to rebuild a balanced economy in which government is on the side of the people, corporations are held accountable, and workers are empowered.
Long-term challenges should be seized, not ignored--lest we remain on shifting sands.
- Posted in
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54 Comments so far
Show AllUsing this crisis--and his gift of oratory--Obama signaled that the fight for the next economy begins now.
You mean The Geithner Plan? The plan to continue The Big Swindle. Is that what Barry-O means? The new economy is what? - a little lubrication as we bend over yet again and grab our ankles?
KY time my friend.
Life is always a challenge and is forever changing, I acknowledge the negative and dwell on the positive. I believe in prosparity for all.
vdHeuvel should be a little more harsh on Obama for kow-towing to Wall street so hard. He has taken huge sums of money from them and appointed the same neo-liberal groupthinkers to fix a problem they helped create. There are also some deep-seated structural problems such as our so-called pluralistic interest representation system, which is corrupt to the bone. Our election system is also corrupt, and our public information systems are corrupted, but that is the subject for another debate.
Obama also defended himself from criticism that he was favoring the Banks, he replied that FDIC receivership takeovers of the larger banks would cost the taxpayer far more money. Either Obama is not as intelligent as we thought he was, or he is blatantly lying. Relatively moderate economists like Stiglitz and Krugman have written in detail why this is completely BS.
Other economists like Dean Baker, James Galbraith, and Michael Hudson also have a lot to say about it.
While real change can only come from bottom-up massive civil disobedience, we need to also hold our so-called elected officials accountable. vdHeuvel seems to let Obama off the hook, at least in this article
Nah, she thinks by bowing he will pay attention.
Pathetic, isn't it?
Well said. If we had a press with any backbone, Barky would be confronted in public about these issues. I would love to see a real reporter call him on issues you mentioned such as this one:
"Obama also defended himself from criticism that he was favoring the Banks, he replied that FDIC receivership takeovers of the larger banks would cost the taxpayer far more money. Either Obama is not as intelligent as we thought he was, or he is blatantly lying."
On February 24 Obama said (with respect to the US electorate's concern about bailing out the people that caused the financial meltdown) "I get it".
To date it is apparent that Obama doesn't get it.
Until the millions of people that showed up for Obama's inauguration on that cold January day return to DC and camp out in front of the Capitol and White House, Obama and the best congress money can buy will not change their tune.
Obama can do his Sermons on the Mount til we are all blue in the face and with eye-balls glazed by his soaring rhetoric, but when he comes off the mountain to deal with economic problems, what is there substantively to Hope for in the way of the "new" economic order about which he has orated? Van den Heuvel, one of the most ardent of his admirers, can apparently think of nothing that is new in what he is proposing: it's just more of the same done by the same economic advisors who have done it before, with himself essentially standing on the sidelines to cheer the Summers/Geithner team and reassure us, the suffering crowd of spectators of their miserable actions, that we are "winning" the game, that there are "glimmers" of a better future so long as we stay the course for the "tough times" that lay ahead. The time for excuses for Obama is past, when nothing can be offered in defense of his economic policies except to say that we the people have to "mobilize" to "make him" do what we elected HIM to do. To use the sports analogy once again, "Coach" Obama definitely needs a new team. Stiglitz, Hudson, Krugman and many other great economist "players" are sitting on the bench while the S/G ones fumble every time they touch the ball. Obama may have some vision from the mountain (in fact he said early on that his is the "vision" which aides only enact), but if he does he needs people on the plains of everyday economic policy formulation who can make the economy work. We the citizens can't easily march onto the field and coach the players, but we can insist that the coach do so in an effective manner...or move to fire the coach.
Here! Here! Jerry. Great post. /cm
Sioux Rose
JERRY: Well-done. Your post speaks for me, too.
I want to hear the one about chasing the money-lenders out of the temple. Then see him fire Summers and Geithner.
Joe
Me too, Joe, I'd pay good money to see that show!
"We need affordable health care; pensions above social security; and sustained public investment in areas vital to high wages in a global economy--affordable colleges, world-class public schools, and a 21st century infrastructure. We need to restructure--not just re-regulate--the financial sector ... "
Yet, Ms. vanden Huevel, you utter not one word about the bloated military budget, the well over 500 billion dollar a year military, not including the costs of "contingency operations overseas", Barky's new phrase replacing "global war on terror".
Barky has already asked for an $83 billion dollar "supplemental" appropriation over and above the budget, an action he said, unlike Bush, he would not pursue, instead including all those extra costs in the budget itself. Ir-Af-Pak has already cost over a trillion dollars and Barky wants to escalate further.
Close all the overseas bases and stop invading countries that have not attacked the United States and we'll have all the money we need to finance that wish-list above -- AFTER we pay off the 12 trillion dollar national debt run up by our overseas "expeditions".
You might like to take a peek at what I posted today on "Overseas Operations Contingencies" to replace the "Global War on Terror." http://sunstateactivist.org/ssablog/?p=224
"There are signs of this in Secretary Gates’ “new style” armed forces unveiled in his latest military budget: the shift from “big battle” weaponry like F-22 fighter planes toward lighter planes, including a doubling of the number of Predator drones, that are more adaptable to quick use against pockets of counter-insurgency operations wherever in the American Empire any “insurgency” (i.e. opposition to American imperial intentions) “breaks out.”"
A letter to the editor of the Harrisburg Patriot-News that I wrote today follows:
The U.S. is involved in "counterinsurgency" wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. There is some possibility that this country will resume similar efforts in Somalia.
What is a counterinsurgency? It is a war instigated by an invader against a resisting indigenous population that can never be won, but that is enormously profitable to large corporations (and to their supporters who take money from them to finance political campaigns) that build implements of warfare and provide support services, aka the military industrial congressional media complex.
Because of the enormous expense involved in maintaining a needless and mostly useless world-wide conglomeration of military bases, more than 700 in over 100 countries, and "the world's most powerful military" a counterinsurgency effort is also a great reason to cut "entitlement" programs like Social Security and Medicare, and also to ensure that a single payer health care system similar to those in every other western nation will be impossible to implement.
Thank you George Bush. Thank you Barack Obama. And everyone else, although its a fruitless exercise, don't forget to vote in the next election.
Douglas K. Shaw
When Bush took over in 2001 our "defense" budget was about 297 billion a year.
Now it's, well, well over six or seven hundred billion a year, if anyone can sort out all its different aspects tucked away here and there in the federal annual budget.
When Clinton was president we sere supposed to have a large reduction in "defense" spending due to the end of the Cold War. That "peace dividend" never really happened. If I remember correctly, the defense (I'll stop using quotes since my point has been made) budget actually only went down about a billion.
Now, if we cut our current defense budget, about six hundred billion, in half, that would take us back to approx three hundred billion. Such a huge cut would be seen as drastic by most in Congress, including many Democrats who would become nervous at the prospect of not "defending" America. And there would be a great uproar.
I think many of you here would agree with me that this assumption would be nonsense. We could easily cut down to two hundred billion and "defend" our country. What, after all, is this enormous military needed for? Certainly not defense. But to move out into the world with all our military bases and small and major wars. Such non defense related missions are the only excuses for this spending. Our bloated military is used to enhance our standing in the world, and only in the most cynical of "realistic" terms is that seen as “defense.”
I believe we spend more on the military than all the rest of the world put together. We should feel secure with our superior edge, even at two hundred billion. Our nuclear arsenal ensures that no one will ever attempt to invade the United States.
Ditto. Well said. The patient can improve his diet and lifestyle but if he has war profiteering cancer, he'll still die.
KvH is never bothered by these little things you mention, she concerns herself with the "big picture." Only academic elites and the "big" shots get her ear.
Kind of harsh. Look how many folks cannot think beyond the current system for solutions, and she comes off a bit better I think.
The banks will do what they want in the end, some are already returning the stimulus money and the big boys are defying the new rules.
Bank of Marin wants to give back stimulus money
Mar 17, 2009 9:32 AM (29 days ago) AP
- A San Rafael-based bank wants to give back millions of dollars in bailout money it received from the federal government.
Bank of Marin Bancorp wants to return the $28 million it was given in December as part of the government's effort to ease the credit freeze.
The bank's chief executive officer says new rules were imposed on banks as part of the stimulus package signed into law last month.
CEO Russell Colombo says he thinks it's in the best interest of the bank's shareholders, customers and employees to return the money.
This story continues below
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The U.S. Department of the Treasury still must approve the request.
The request from the Bank of Marin comes as a number of banks around the country also seek to return federal stimulus money because of new restrictions.
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This is not limited to small banks like the one cited either. You know I heard an interview on "Fresh Air" today that made these points:
There is an estimated eight trillion in loans outstanding on the books of our banks. These include of course the two trillion in credit default swaps. Of the loans 98% are healthy and 97% are current ( no missed payments) so only one of every four dollars loaned out is represented by what they are calling "toxic assets". Seems to me that we are being manipulated ( again). Is this whole thing a giant swindle?
I think the questions should be:
1. If the banks which got money are insolvent: why give them money?
2. If the banks which got money are not insolvent: why give them money?
Yes, we have been swindled, cheated, robbed, conned, defrauded by Mr. Obama and his den of thieves.
A few dozen bankers and other rich filth dangling from lampposts would probably reform our financials in a hurry.
Yeah, Katrina, TARP is ALL ABOUT FAIRNESS for the disenfranchised. It makes one wonder what parallel universe Katrina and her connected inside the beltway friends live in?
more deep thoughts from kvh.
inspiring oratory? better than bush is not inspiring. at least w/bush you got your BS in a sentence or two. now, it's a whole crappy lecture.
oh, and kvh, where does social security and medicare fit in this "new economy"? something (obama's words) tells me those programs are on the chopping block. to pay off the f-ups of the masters who got filthy rich on the "old economy."
at what point does one get ill from kool-aid?
My father can't stand KVH. He would usually call her "abortion lady". My mother was somewhat concerned about the way KVH would look like she was too lavishly dressed but sort of accepted some of her social liberal views. I used to not understand my father's anger up until the recent times. Now that I am equally fed up with KVH but for different reasons such as her playing kissyface with Wall $treet by putting partisanship over principle, it's quite amazing that my parents, despite their generally conservative nature, and I, despite my strong progressive/liberal/independent nature, are both fed up with KVH. Sometimes I wonder just how conservative my parents and their friends would have remained had KVH, Obama, and others had been actual economic populists and not DINOs.
"We need to make banks the servants--not the masters--of our economy."
Not according to Goldman Sachs! They are currently positioning themselves to pay back the $10 Billion in TARP money they received in an effort to continue "business as usual"; mega-bonuses to their employees for carrying-out directives which may not benefit the citizens of the U.S.A. or their small shareholders, but will certainly benefit their major shareholders, CEOs and other employees.
Of course, at this point, they have not mentioned paying back the $13 Billion in TARP money they received from AIG's TARP money that covered their investment losses with AIG. Is this just another "oversight" that big bankers seem to conveniently miss in their effort to conduct business-as-usual after they scam the taxpayers?
Terry Gross from NPR did a great interview with Simon Johnson (former Chief Economist at the IMF) today (4-15-09). If you have the time, go to the NPR website and listen to what he had to say about this issue. It's an interview worth listening to!
I did catch that interview and agree with your impression thereof. Did you catch the next interview with the fellow who believes there is no problem with the banks at all, that they are healthy and solvent?
No, but missing it undoubtedly saved me from vomiting in my car.
Way too vivid an imagery!
"But it will require a massive mobilization of citizens."
Karen,
There has already been a massive mobilization of citizens; it is called an election.
If I am not mistaken, the people who voted for Mr. Obama believed that he would change the way things are done on Wall Street and in the banking system. But he lied. He has appointed the same apparatchiks to his administration. The same ones who brought the economic catastrophe.
So you continue to encourage the fools who believed in Mr. Obama's ethics?
"Won't get fooled again."
As everyone can see, the Demoks don't start wars but neither do they end wars. The Demoks don't deregulate but they don't re-regulate either. The Demoks don't commit crimes against humanity but neither do they prosecute such criminals. The Demoks' function is to hold the fort while the Repuks go to rehab.
Funny!
As Homer Simpson and I never get tired of saying: It's funny because it's true.
(Also applies to your "...saved me from vomiting in my car" line, BTW.)
· Yr Obd't Servant
On April 5, 2009, President Obama stood on the world stage amongst thousands of flag-waving Czechs and spoke of good humor, home town Chicago, the will of the people over tanks and guns, old conflicts, revolution, moral leadership as the most powerful weapon, iron curtains that fell and the state of 21st century nuclear weapons.
An excerpt:
…We are here today because enough people ignored the voices who told them that the world could not change. We're here today because of the courage of those who stood up and took risks to say that freedom is a right for all people, no matter what side of a wall they live on, and no matter what they look like. We are here today because the simple and principled pursuit of liberty and opportunity shamed those who relied on the power of tanks and arms to put down the will of a people…
Some argue that the spread of these weapons cannot be stopped, cannot be checked -– that we are destined to live in a world where more nations and more people possess the ultimate tools of destruction. Such fatalism is a deadly adversary, for if we believe that the spread of nuclear weapons is inevitable, then in some way we are admitting to ourselves that the use of nuclear weapons is inevitable…
As the only nuclear power to have used a nuclear weapon, the United States has a moral responsibility to act…It will take patience and persistence. But now we, too, must ignore the voices who tell us that the world cannot change. We have to insist, "Yes, we can."
...Words must mean something…There is violence and injustice in our world that must be confronted. We must confront it by standing together as free nations, as free people. I know that a call to arms can stir the souls of men and women more than a call to lay them down. But that is why the voices for peace and progress must be raised together…
Human destiny will be what we make of it...Let us honor our past by reaching for a better future. Let us bridge our divisions, build upon our hopes, and accept our responsibility to leave this world more prosperous and more peaceful than we found it. Together we can do it.
On February 9, 2009, 89 year old Journalist Helen Thomas, asked President Obama if he knew of any Middle Eastern state with nukes.
Everyone in the world, except for many Americans knows the answer is Israel. In fact, the State Department has published reams of material about President Kennedy's concern about the Israeli bomb.
"No government, not even the most democratic, can force us to live under this threat. No state in the world can offer any kind of security against this menace of a nuclear holocaust, or guarantee to prevent it…A state that lives in fear of destruction must not threaten the whole world with annihilation…Any country, which manufactures and stocks nuclear weapons, is first of all endangering its own citizens. This is why the citizens must confront their government and warn it that it has no right to expose them to this danger. Because, in effect, the citizens are being held hostage by their own government, just as if they have been hijacked and deprived of their freedom and threatened…when governments develop nuclear weapons without the consent of their citizens - and this is true in most cases - they are violating the basic rights of their citizens, the basic right not to live under constant threat of annihilation…Is any government qualified and authorized to produce such weapons?" Mordechai Vanunu, 1987, from Ashkelon prison.
In April 1999, thirty-six members of the House of Representatives signed a letter calling for Vanunu's release from prison because they believed "we have a duty to stand up for men and women like Mordechai Vanunu who dare to articulate a brighter vision for humanity."
President Clinton responded with a public statement expressing concern for Vanunu and the need for Israel and other non-parties to the Non-Proliferation Treaty to adhere to it and accept IAEA safeguards, and ever since the silence has been deafening, but hope resurrected in Prague.
"Words must mean something [and] violence and injustice must be confronted by standing together as free nations, as free people…[and] Human destiny will be what we make of it."
The least a person of conscience can do is send a message of support to President Obama for daring to articulate a brighter vision for humanity.
And please, add a post script to FREE VANUNU NOW!
Fax: (202) 456-2461
http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/
White House Comment Line 9-5 EST (202) 456-1111
Eileen Fleming, Author, Founder WAWA:
http://www.wearewideawake.org/
Producer "30 Minutes With Vanunu" and "13 Minutes with Vanunu"
What can I say except this, you rock! :)
Sermon on The Mount spun for 21st century
About 2,000 years ago, when Christ was about 33, he hiked up a hill and sat down under an olive tree and began to teach the people;
"Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven."
In other words: it is those who know their own spiritual poverty, their own limitations and sins honestly and trust God loves them in spite of themselves who already live in the Kingdom of God.
How comforted we will all be, when we see, we haven't got a clue, as to the depth and breadth of pure love and mercy of The Divine Mystery of The Universe.
God's name in ancient Aramaic is Abba which means Daddy as much as Mommy and He/She: The Lord has said, "My ways are not your ways. My thoughts are not yours." -Isaiah 55:8
Christ proclaimed more: "Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth."
The essence of meek is to be patient with ignorance, slow to anger and never hold a grudge. In other words: how comforted you will be when you also know humility; when you know yourself, the good and the bad, for both cut through every human heart.
"Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, they will be filled."
In other words: how comforted you will be when your greatest desire is to do what "God requires, and he has already told you what that is; BE JUST, BE MERCIFUL and walk humbly with your Lord."-Micah 6:8
"Blessed are the merciful, they will be shown mercy."
In other words: how comforted you will all be when you choose to return only kindness to your 'enemy.'
"For with the measure you measure against another, it will be measured back to you" Christ warns his disciples as he explains the law of karma in Luke 6:27-38.
"Blessed are the pure in heart, for they see God."
In other words: how comforted you will be when you WAKE UP and see God is already within you, within every man, every woman and every child. The Supreme Being is everywhere, the Alpha and Omega, beginning and end. Beyond The Universe -and yet so small; within the heart of every atom.
"Blessed are The Peacemakers: THEY shall be called the children of God."
And what a wonderful world it would be when we all seek peace by pursuing justice; for there can be none without the other.
"Blessed are those who are persecuted because they do what God requires, theirs is The Kingdom of Heaven."
And one fine day the lion will lie down with The Lamb and man will make war no more and that is the Kingdom of God.
Eileen Fleming, Author, Founder WAWA:
http://www.wearewideawake.org/
Producer "30 Minutes With Vanunu" and "13 Minutes with Vanunu"
If god is all powerful then he is responsible for all the evil in the world;
If god is responsible for all the evil in the world, then god is not good.
Take your evil god and sell crazy somewhere else.
There is no evil with God hoytdouglas, thus he is all powerful over good. In Gods realm evil does not exist. Evil is a human manifestation brought upon ourselves when we rejected the world of good and god that we originally lived in and chose to live in the world of illusion where evil abides.
When you awaken from the illusion of maya and return to Abba, your world will only be good and love and peace will abound.
When we all awaken and return to God we will find ourselves and our lives are founded upon the rock of love and truth once again.
Man is made by his belief. As he believes, so he is. (Bhagavad-Gita)
What Christ preached was a religion for slaves, "never mind the hardships here in this existence, you will serve here but rule in heaven".
I do not understand why the Romans executed him, that religion is perfect for keeping folks in line.
Hmmm Red, you get it in exactly the right way and actually the Romans murdered him exactly because the religion is perfect for keeping people in line. I think you think you can't agree with it or support it, but it is obvious you actually do. Just think about what line the people are kept in compared to those who are the keepers line and ask yourself which line you stand on.
I am not much for lines at all, I shop online mostly. Hey, that really isnt as funny as Id hoped.
What can I say except this, you rock! :)
I heard Obama's speech and he sounded to me like someone reciting a bunch of crap he doesn't fully understand himself.
I guess Summers and Geithner were able to steamroll him pretty easily.
As for building our new economy on rock he's got to be f*ng kidding.
Our new economy is being built on debt and soon-to-be worthless currency...And that's far worse than sand.
I voted for Obama and shed tears of joy when he was inaugurated, but I feel betrayed by his actions since taking office. Reconstituting the Clinton Cabinet was the first cause for my concern. He tenaciously stands behind Summers and Geithner, both of whom have conflicts of interest with Wall Street and their role in the deregulation of the financial industries.
William Black (University of Michigan Law School) forsees the coming of what he terms "Corporate Government." Obama is appearing, more and more, to be the one who is poised to pick up the baton in bringing this about. His cozy relationship with the financial industries, his advocacy of a national health insurance system rooted in the insurance industries and his kicking the auto workers in the groin all point to an allegiance to big business and Corporate America. But, as Hillary so aptly put it during the primaries, "he gives a good speech."
Nuff said.
aka: fascism.
After reading the speech, he offers no concrete proposals for how he will avoid the repeated bubbles and busts the banksters thrive on, nor how he would reign in health insurance premiums, or create good paying jobs.
Talks cheap, this is just same old same old. The only thing concrete he has done or proposed is to give money away to the banksters and taken it away from union autoworkers.
His blind adherence to globalization and free trade, which is the root of problems on main street, suggest things will not get better. Of course, those economic indicators can get "manipulated" to give the appearance of an improvement, and the money makers and plunge protection team can manipulate the stock market which many wrongly feel is an indicator of a healthy economy.
And when people start feeling the economy is getting better, the financial speculators will drive up oil prices screaming it's peak oils fault, prices will rise, the Fed will increase interest rates in what is still an unhealthy economy to crush inflation, which will not work, but it will bankrupt those having credit card debt and other adjustable rate debt, such as those who are not eligible for refinancing according to his housing plan, and will cause another housing crisis that they will say that nobody could foresee, requiring more bank bail outs.
I keep being reminded of Christina Romer, the head of Obama's economic advisory board. She is always being interviewed by some TV talking head, but never has anything of substance to impart--just mindless chirping while she grins and waves her hands. I get the impression of a twittering gasbag telling a fairytale to a group of pre-schoolers as they prepare for their afternoon naps.
Why do we need banks?
Why do we need banks?
Oh yeah, we need banks because we have to have banks because we need banks.
I smell a rat.
A rigged game.
3 card monte being
sold as necessary.
Need a loan for a house? Who built it? Do they trust you? Work it out. They will know where you live if you don't pay.
Eff Banks. And USURY, Eff it.
Oh sorry, can't do that, because we need banks.
We do not need banks or insurance companies.
No credit cards. No credit. Work it out the old fashioned way.
Like Human Beings. WE DO NOT NEED BANKS. That is an illusion.
There's always credit unions or at least local banks which aren't so bad compared to the big ones. Yep, the market's rigged alright and I can't stand Wells Fargo in my state either.
Terrance Mitchell
Redfield, South Dakota
Poetic justice azjoe! :)
Cicero: "Freedom is participation in power."
Not word one from Obama or Vanden Heuvel regarding any nuts and bolts rebuilding of a middle-class job growth engine to replace our tens of millions of lost manufacturing jobs. The Nation ain't what it used to be, but then neither is the Washington Post. Vanden Heuvel has been snuck onto one too many PBS round tables as a token of "balance" and has thereby absorbed the establishment terror of mentioning any discarding or re-configuring of "free trade" globalism. If every other item on her wish list were put in place without rebuilding U.S. competitiveness with the rest of the world's industrial producer/exporter nations they would become immediately unaffordable. Without a substantial middle-class there will not be a sufficient revenue base to pay for all the goodies she lists. It would also require curtailing Chinese currency manipulation as a barrier to American imports and a tremendous reduction and re-prioritization of the Pentagon's budget--none of which were mentioned.