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TechnoratiWall Street's False Armistice
The best names in Wall Street banking have announced victory. Their crisis is over, back to business as usual. So why isn't the Obama White House celebrating this good news? Because this may not be a lasting peace for the president and his lieutenants. They are left standing in the mudhole of financial ruin, still surrounded by the failing economy and gradually losing their control over events. The leading bankers worked out a rare deal for themselves that essentially says to the government in Washington "heads we win, tails you lose."
If Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan Chase and Lloyd Blankfein of Goldman Sachs turn out to be correct about the financial crisis, their institutions emerge unscathed and restored to their old dominance over the US economy. Minus a few old rivals who went bust.If the bankers are wrong, Barack Obama will be the big loser--compelled to rescue them again with still more public money. The big dogs of banking know this, so does the president. That's why he didn't throw his hat in the air when ten of the largest banks were allowed to pay back the emergency aid they received from the feds, some $68 billion. The financiers could thus declare themselves free and clear of the heavy hand of government meddling. Another triumph of free-market capitalism. A brilliant success for Goldman Sachs socialism. Barack Obama is holding the bag for what happens next.
There is rough justice in his predicament. The essential bet Obama made as president was to insist on a "voluntary" approach to rescuing the financial system, picking up the main policies launched by his predecessor. An odd-lot chorus of left and right critics (myself included) urged Obama to step up and employ the full force of government's emergency powers to take charge of the troubled system and direct their behavior. Heal the wounded banks or liquidate them, use government financing to insure the lending and investing needed to finance economic recovery. Don't leave it to the bank executives who will naturally take care of themselves first, maybe the country later.
Obama rejected that option. He was most reluctant to nationalize banks or to assert full control of those zombies that government has had to keep on life support. His political logic was obvious--maintain the appearance of temporary interventions to assist private enterprise and avoid any accusations of left-wing activism. The right called him a socialist anyway.
What are the odds Obama will win his bet? Not so hot right now, despite frequent pep talks from his economic advisers. If you think back to where this crisis began last year and what the authorities described then as their emergency response, big pieces are still missing in action.
Bush's treasury secretary, Hank Paulson, stampeded the Democratic Congress into providing $750 billion to soak up the rotten assets burdening the balance sheets of the largest banks. That plan was not pursued. The rotten assets are still largely there.
Obama's treasury secretary, Timothy Geithner, came up with an alternative approach--a complicated Monopoly game in which government would underwrite private investors to buy up the bad financial paper. That didn't happen either. The bankers let it be known they would not sell the stuff--not at discounted prices, not if it meant admitting the depths of their true losses.
Meanwhile, the government has also ducked the explosive question of derivatives--the casino-like "credit default swaps" that were very, very profitable for banks like JP Morgan Chase but became the time bomb threatening to blow up the entire system. The time bomb is still ticking. The bankers don't want give up that lucrative business. The Obama officials have not yet found the nerve to go against the bankers' desires.
Finally, there is the real economy where most Americans dwell. Obama's team is counting on a recovery in the second half of this year and his advisors keep predicting it with increasing confidence. The president is betting on that too. If his optimism is not confirmed by events, his problems multiply. The stock-market restoration celebrated by the bankers will begin to look like another financial bubble, driven by false hopes. Banking problems will worsen and they will he back for still more bailouts. And President Obama will have to take a second look at his happy assumptions. He might start by replacing some of the cheerleaders.
33 Comments so far
Show AllI'm no lover of Obama, but he knew he was too green to assault Washington out of the gate. He had to take counsel. It doesnt seem like enough has changed, so we should go back down the scary hill this fall. At that point, he may be able to play socialist, but has he got enough Stalin and Truman in him. What america needs right now is a frighteningly powerful and revolutionary leader, and Obama is not yet superpowerful, and who knows what is really in him. He doesnt seem like a ruthless streetfighter/emperor, which is what it will take.
However, when the rollercoaster does collapse, there will be elites begging for rescue, by any means necessary, including govt takeover. Maybe there will be a miracle, but with residential continuing bad through 2011, commercial just starting to go bad, credit going bad, the evidence suggests no way this gets better and not a whole lot worse.
The latest Wall Street frolic is just the point of the spear. In the 1970s, 90% of investment used to be in the 'real' economy - producing goods and services - and 10% in speculation. By the mid-1980s (thank you Mister Reagan) 95% of investment was in speculation and only 5% for producing goods and services. Speculation is based on fantasy 'value', not the actual value of goods and services.
The 'conventional wisdom' too is that we live in a 'merit-based' society with the highest compensation (insert dollars) going to those who contribute the most value. These days, the highest compensation goes largely to individuals essentially working in 'fantasy' industries (entertainment, sports, Wall-Street arbitrage, etc.) that contribute very little to the actual economy - save distraction from what really affects us all.
Really good posts by obviously well-read people, but I am confused by something Philandrel wrote:
"You are confusing economic and tangible ("real") value. Economic value is exchange, simpliciter. Increase exchange--velocity of money--increase value. Wholly abstract, exchange is unentropic, constituting economic growth. Exchange is not only a perpetual motion machine, it is a perpetual acceleration machine...."
First, I am unfamiliar with the term, "simpliciter." Second, being familiar with the term, "entropy," I do not see how "exchange is unentropic." It seems to me that given what we have been going through lately, the "unentropic" "perpetual acceleration machine" is an oxymoron.
Also, I am familiar with the term, "velocity of money" (which Mike Whitney at Counterpunch.org likes to use) which seems to me a variant of the so-called "multiplier effect."
I suspect that we need to define "exchange." Something for nothing??? Philandrel writes, "Exchange...is a perpetual acceleration machine," when we have just discovered that it is by no means perpetual. On this score I think "Metal" is much closer to the mark. Yes, exchange can be totally abstract, like playing monopoly with funny money. It can also be pure speculation, producing absolutely nothing of "value" at the stroke of a mouse-click. This is what we are living through the consequences of. By comparison, the dot-com bubble was actually more productive, as there were several conceptual revolutions occurring at that time and speculators underwriting new public offerings were gambling that they understood the consequences. Too many did not and the bubble consolidated. "Consolidation" is what is now happening in the Financialization Sector, but with far more tragic costs to all of us than in the case of the dot-com bubble, which was NOT "generalized." The current crisis in "exchange speculation" is global and the outcome is not yet known.
Dare I mention Karl Marx here? Also, for starters on the concept of Entropy, readers might be interested in the circa-1910 book (extremely hard to find! it needs republishing), "The Degradation of the Democratic Dogma," in which Henry Adams discusses entropy in a very globalistic way.
Our MSM keep referring to us as "consumers." I am a minimalist "consumer" and a maximalist "producer." Every day I wake up dedicated to being anti-entropic. I do not believe in any god. I believe in evolution as a natural outcome of the Big Bang. I do not want to die, but unlike most species I expect to. With as few toys as possible.
Philandrel: Write a book about the economic theory behind the sociology of the Great Apes, the chimps, and the Bonobos. All actually do possess Economics. Stop being so ABSTRACT. This is also a fault of Obama. Where is FDR's WPA when we need it?
-30-
william saw you at the brecht forum last year and you were devastating. i knew obama
was in over his head when he didn't name krugman gailbraith or stiglitz to dig him out of
this canyon and instead used sop. i used to be a banker. the most sociopathic greedy
and morally devoid group i have ever encountered!
"...ten of the largest banks were allowed to pay back the emergency aid they received from the feds, some $68 billion."
"...stampeded the Democratic Congress into providing $750 billion to soak up the rotten assets burdening the balance sheets of the largest banks."
$68B repays $750B? What a crock of SHIT. My tax liability is going to be ZERO from now on.
philandrel
Although considerations in Greiber's article and responding comments are not mistaken, my suspicion is they are secondary to Summer, Geithner, and Obama's primary objective in "bailing out" the financial institutions. Primary objective was to insure U.S. financial institutions as the primary source of world investment funds, thus maintaining the U.S. dollar as the world's reserve currency. Geithner's recent trip to China provides incidental evidence of this, there being no other pressing reason for his visitation. Maintaining the U.S. dollar as the world reserve currency guarantees continued acquisition of U.S. Federal bonds, insuring continued funding of U.S. Federal debt.
Investment income now accounting for over 20% of U.S. economic activity, there is a secondary reason for funding the investment houses. This is to maintain what's left of the U.S. economy after outsourcing manufacturing. Especially important in this respect is investment more efficiently produces wealth than manufacturing because encumbering less external costs. Huge income is generated by clicking a mouse key without associated labor and infrastructure costs. Of course it's all mythical, but an economy is mythical. It is an artificial construct established by social and/or political agreement, not "natural" forces. This is why Milton Friedman's "self-regulating system" collapsed when regulation was eliminated.
Sioux Rose
PHILANDREL: Good post. In support of your points about the mythical nature of any economy we need only to look to home prices. When I moved to Key West, Florida in l986 there were these units we called "smurf village" which were really one large house divided into 4 quarter units. They sold for $69,000 when I arrived. By 2000 when I needed to move (a big NY magazine gig came to a close and I had to sell my place) these units were selling for $150,000 and more. The price went up about $10,000 a year. A few years later I had friends living in mobile homes on some of the lower Keys whose places were "valued at" over $250,000! It was all about perception, or "what the market can bear." So long as the prices were being artificially inflated and homeowners thought they were gaining wealth, and bankers were making a killing on loans, and realtors got their percentage/cut, all was well. Till the balloon burst. I feel sorry for those who bought in at the peak as now they are financially tethered to debt that completely outweighs their investment. My daughter wants me to buy (short sell) her condo that got caught in the financial tide change, but I don't like getting involved with buildings that have loose rules around maintenance charges.
Years ago my sister bought a one-bedroom apartment (great location) in NYC where her maintenance became higher than her mortgage payment! I once owned a timeshare in Key West where each year it went up over $50 so that having "owned" the unit less than 10 years, the maintenance was $500 which was more than what I would pay to rent a studio apartment for a week. In other words, the entire worth had been subsumed by the management decision to just continually jack up the "maintenance" fee. Enron set the model that every crook would have his day, and this ilk of person seems to be making up rules as they go. They look for every way to stick it to the innocent consumer/worker so they can extract profit at every turn. Still think Mammon and Mars are not calling the shots in this land of the broke, not free?
METAL: You "WOW" me with your understanding of the esoteric nature of economics. Thank you for the wise post.
Cicero: "Freedom is participation in power."
It is confusing at best and sophistry at worst to state as a fact that "investment more efficiently produces wealth than manufacturing because encumbering less external costs," and then declare in the next sentence that, "Of course it's all mythical." The BIG difference between deregulated financialization and manufacturing in terms of wealth formation is that many if not most manufacturing products continue to deliver value and contribute directly or indirectly to wealth formation in economies of scale for varying periods of time after they are manufactured and sold into the economy (domestic and global). In other words, they continue helping to form real wealth based on trade of goods that are of real and useful value in and of themselves and (many of them) for use as part of other similarly productive economic activities. Deregulated financialization merely fraudulently multiplies empty paper value through the stratosphere until no bank or insurance company can guarantee it and we see ongoing debacles like the present one. Given the choice of the two, I prefer the additional 'encumbering external costs' of a REAL manufacturing-based economy--albeit these daze it needs to become a REAL GREEN manufacturing-based economy in a hurry.
You are confusing economic and tangible ("real") value. Economic value is exchange, simpliciter. Increase exchange--velocity of money--increase value. Wholly abstract, exchange is unentropic, constituting economic growth. Exchange is not only a perpetual motion machine, it is a perpetual acceleration machine. This is why financial "bubbles" occur. It is also why economists have difficulty predicting recessions: they make no economic sense accepting exchange value. Additionally, assuming equal exchange value, encumbering little external cost--one computer, one finance MBA--financial exchange can achieve far greater velocity than manufacturing exchange. Financial transactions are promissory exchanges, however, and promises are abstractions. Abstract, they have no tangible value--use. It is with this you find umbrage. To be noted as well, unencumbered by the conservation of energy, promises can be broken, explaining the ease with which currently many trillions of dollars have "disappeared."
Cicero: "Freedom is participation in power."
No, I'm not: You're just argle-bargling to sound academically erudite.
Deregulated speculatory investing by the "investor class" transfers wealth into the hands of the upper third income bracket (the vast majority of that wealth in the hands of the richest 1%) while a REAL industrial manufacturing-based economy distributes wealth more equitably among ALL economic classes. A strong industrial middle-class creates two sets of economies of scale: The one I previously mentioned above and, because of the middle-class income they earn, they are capable of supporting more diverse and productive local and regional economies--especially small and medium-sized businesses.
Watch the negative economic ripple effects across small town America that will now unfold with the closure of well over a thousand GM and Chrysler dealerships, let alone the new rounds of layoffs of auto workers. That affects sales personnel, accountants, mechanics, parts & auto paint suppliers, local and regional banks, etc. In many small towns the local car dealership is the biggest economic engine going aside from agribusiness (if any). Lost incomes equal less spending equal more small and medium business closures equal less tax revenue. This is a Depressionary spiral and only substantial efforts to create new middle-class jobs (the more stable and long-lasting the better) can effectively counteract it.
Yes, there are all sorts of additional costs spread across a manufacturing-based economy and wealth generation and accumulation is slower than "financialized" high-speed abstract investor transactions in deregulated derivatives, but REAL manufacturing based middle-class wealth and its economies of scale produce a more stable and equitable economy and a big middle-class electorate economically capable of exerting enough political clout in Washington D.C. politics to shape policies in the broader collective interest.
Some economists have more difficulty predicting recessions than others. The housing bubble triggered by deregulation and years of artificially low interest rates was predicted by many. This isn't the first time in American history we've had cycles of deregulation followed by over-concentration of wealth at the top followed by crashes. It's just that the upper-class likes this predation cycle so most average Americans aren't allowed to learn or understand these historic cycles.
We have no disagreement. My concern is to show how contemporary economic thought leads to Summers, Geithner, Obama economic policy. Absent consumptive goods, argued by you is such policy serves no social purpose. You are correct, economists having disassociated value and consumption. It is the current state of the "discipline" of economics which is at fault.
Barack Obama is holding the bag for what happens next.
Borax (Green Shoots) Obysmal must, or necessity, believe the lies the uberbankers, including Geithner and Summers, tell him and us. Perhaps he should listen instead to Peter Schiff who was on The Daily Show a few nights ago, hawking his new book. Schiff predicted the current financial crisis. Video clips were shown of him being mocked and ridiculed for this by MSM types like Neil Pendejo. Schiff dumped on Obama unmercifully and said he is now making things much worse, not better. Scum like Dimon and Blankfein are no more to be believed than Jack Abramoff and Randy Cunningham, who are their soul mates. One of the largest loads of shit in history is still flying through the air, heading straight for the fan.
Cicero: "Freedom is participation in power."
Intelligent and honest critics of the economic situation (who don't cower in fear of a backlash against every utterance they make) have been largely eliminated from MSM broadcast news. The exceedingly few who are allowed on are short-shrifted into sound-bites or buried under the blurts of right-wing pundits. Nouriel Roubini is now persona non grata. Ralph Nader, who warned Congress in 2001 about the Fannie Mae/Freddy Mac housing bubble, is nowhere to be seen. Paul "Careful" Krugman, Dean Baker and Joseph Stiglitz are in print but seldom on the air. Krugman was getting some air time for a while, because he's careful not to offend too many of the right targets, but he's been faded out for several weeks now.
Charlie Rose had a circle of college professors and an economics writer on last night followed by a segment featuring economics law expert and Federal Appeals Court Judge Richard Posner. The only thing the guests in both segments were honest about was the urgent need for Team Obama to increase revenues. The profs and the writer mentioned both spending cuts and tax increases on the rich to increase revenues. Several of them condemned Congress for stupidly eating away at what small but significant revenue builders Obama had tried to secure in his carbon cap & trade scheme (environmentally ineffective in other countries) and in his equally half-assed health care agenda.
Posner never mentioned tax cuts on the rich. He briefly (and surprisingly, to me) touched on the need to export (manufacture) more U.S. goods than to import them. But he wants a year long "moratorium on regulation" of the banking industry, which he described as "risky by nature"--apparently never having heard of the Glass-Steagall Act that successfully separated the more speculative investment banks from the retail banks in which average American citizens put their checking and savings accounts for over 70 years. Obama hasn't even moved to regulate credit default swaps--part of the crooked hope by the big banks, GOP and DLC that the financial sector will concoct some new fraudulent bubble in a hurry to masquerade the ongoing decline of the real economy (just as I believe was done starting in 1999 last time). In neither segment were real reform and spending cuts in the obscenely bloated and mismanaged Pentagon budget ever mentioned. Guests in both segments ignored looming rampant inflation on top of simultaneous plunging of the dollar. The Princeton prof pretended the falling dollar would be of little impact. Right. If you are near the end of your career as a tenured professor at Princeton with full benefits and pension it won't. If you're making $10/hr or less with no benefits and food, gasoline, clothing, health care and energy prices soar--welcome to Obamaville Tent City, USA.
Sioux Rose
METAL: In other words, only those who buy into the mantra of deregulation are allowed air time. Still morally drunk on Reagan's "trickle down" B.S. they promote the model that Naomi Klein painstakingly revealed in her important book, "The Shock Doctrine." It's always the same disgusting callous policy. When a nation is on its fiscal knees or brought there (this time by everyone wanting IN, like potential addicts exposed to a new drug craze, on the "derivative market") then the World Bank and its traders (traitors!) make the deals that demand that services be cut TO THE PEOPLE while every imaginable form of deregulation opens that nation's resources to the vulture caste, a/k/a bankers & international corporatists. It is a recipe for disaster that has spread across the globe. Of course Latin America having experienced the first bites of this beast developed its own internal immunity, and now its nations are learning to develop their own financial assets without any help from "big brother." A wise choice!
If you look at the apologists for the trickle down theory, they are all staying on message.
They are claiming the Collapse caused BECAUSE of regulations and Government interventions . They then conclude that even LESS oversight needed.
IE the Collapse caused because regulations FORCED banks to lend money to people who could not afford them.
Or the Collapse caused by the Feds lowering interest rates thus FORCING investors to put minvestment dollars into more speculative vehicles.
Sioux Rose
GW NORTH: Very good observation. Kind of like never admitting culpability for the Iraqi debacle, just staying on message that one specific surge or another was "working." Lies, lies, subterfuge, secrecy, dangerous quid pro quo, followed by lies, lies, and more. Where is decency????
Sioux Rose
Even if regulations were not put into place, what about that time bomb in the form of those "derivative products," the substance of which is non-existent?
Good comments, everyone.
I just want to once again go on record (and I only do this if I feel fairly certain) that the astrological pattern looks VERY rough for the economy. The first sign of this shows up around mid-September (although it's possible that its indication is that of a weather event that costs plenty); the next MAJOR event comes at the end of October and into November and this one has a worldwide influence.
Our economy was held up recently through equivalent artificial respiration, but the stroke victim is not going to recover his prior capacities. All this "positive" talk is very much like the same nonsense applied to this surge or that surge in Iraq. The bottom line is a broken nation with over 2 million displaced citizens, added to a likely million DEAD. THAT is not progress unless the definition is drawn from the sociopath's dictionary. Ditto: as per our economy.
here are some numbers:
income of the federal government in 1 year: 1.3 trillion
cost of the bail out to date: 13 trillion, and counting, as mr greider states the banks will likely be back for more
2009 military costs - not counting black budgets: 800 billion
2009 bail out: 560 billion
the bail out and the military consume the entire income of 2009
EVERYTHING else the government spends this year will be from either selling debt through t bills or just printing money
califormia has floated theidea of disbandiong all of their welfare programs - no money
bernanke on the hill insisting social spending be gutted
michel chussodovsky of global research gave an extended interview of npr last month that talked only about the coming austerity measures to be imposed as the year wears on
40 states face bankruptcy
we see economic suicides everywhere
soldiers from the imperial wars committing suicides in record numbers
continuing economic degradation
infrastructure continuing to degrade
schools - forget it
sioux rose - you talked about the "unfunded liabilities" (read toxic debt) from derivatives alone - in excess of 500 trillion
the 500 trillion is almost 35 times the size of the bailout to date
anyone who thinks the downturn is over if kidding themselves
its also foolish to think that our downturn has any relativity to the banks
they are having their best year ever - dumping off their crap and awarding those big bonusses
party on garth
party on wayne
Sioux Rose
MA G: We're all in OZ now! I ask myself whether to cash out what stocks I still own and then do what? Money itself cannot maintain its previous value basis due to everything you related (those numbers!);so what will dollars mean in a bank or credit union? In answer to that question, I booked a session with that trance medium I have not spoken to since 2004. It's pretty expensive, but I promise those in the forum that what I do learn from this source, I will share.
At the time of my last reading, summer 2004 I asked if the elections would be fair and the medium just LAUGHED in response. It was that obvious on higher planes! I intend to ask about the safety of remaining in this nation, and what guidance could be given towards the preservation of those assets the individual (the decent individual!) owns. My birthday is in August and presuming the individual can channel, that's when I will get the info to relate here. It just seems that we are all in a weightless room, that all the parameters are gone, and we are just floating. NOTHING is solid, meanings have been wrenched away from those items they were once tethered to (or associated with). I can see why so many turn to old beliefs that give a (false) sense of certainty if "you just follow these rules."
I bought Wayne's World for $2 at the local flea market. Is it worth watching to lighten my own heavy gravity?
Money and things of "paper" stocks , bonds, bank balances will all lose value.
You might be best served by converting such into tangible THINGS that will be in demand during a crisis and hold their value.
Gold might be an option but if it really gets bad Gold is not all that USEFUL. What do you use on a daily basis that would be hard to do without?
Oh and a correction on things of paper losing value.
Toilet paper goes up in price and dramaticaly so in an economic crisis.
A single ply sheet of toilet paper in Zimbabwe was 417 dollars. If you want a roll it 147,000 dollars. This was 2006 numbers so it far more then that today.
sioux rose: i would offer my advice on your investments but i am too afraid you might take it
peter shiff says the dow is overmortgaged and is overvalued
he is investing offshore
f william engdahl says:
"By contrast, of the emerging dynamic high-growth countries, only India has significant public debt, a legacy of the British colonial era, of 58% GDP. Brazil, despite a severe debt crisis in the 1980’s, today has a public debt to GDP level of a very manageable 45%, while Indonesia, one of the fast-growing newly emerging economies, has 34%. South Korea with a high domestic savings culture has a mere 28% debt ratio and China a mere 18% debt to GDP level. Russia, which used the recent boom in oil and gas revenues to pay down its foreign and IMF debts, while the country has severe demographic problems, has a public debt to GDP as of 2008 data of 6%. It has also slowly rebuilt foreign exchange reserves after the crisis last year to a level of $404 billion this month, making its reserves the third largest in the world."
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=13926
good luck with whatever you do
One thing to be wary of. In a very severe downturn teh Government of the USA might well seize all holdings in foreign companies. They have done so before. They can also pass emergency measures to seize gold and silver. They can declare Germany, Or Russia or Japan an "enemy" and make it illgeal to invest in their firms.
During the depression they made it illegal to own Gold and actually went into peoples safe deposit to take away the gold.
Finally . When making such seizures of stocks and or gold, the large investors tended to be immune. They went after the little guys.
Another thing you might wish to invest in. Your neighbors and friends. That probably the most important of all.
Sioux Rose
GW: I'm glad I have porcelain rather than gold crowns given what's going on and history's precedent. You are right about neighbors.
Sioux Rose
MA G: If your advice conforms to that which comes through my "discarnate" medium source, I'll hire YOU next time. I wonder if my family's stock broker speaks Russian? Thanks for the tips. I will take them to heart, or should I say, the bank?
Sioux Rose
GW NORTH: That's why I bought a sailboat and some property. The toilet paper "gold" standard sounds like a winner, although where I live there are lots of trees and weren't leaves once used by natives? If I didn't understand the law of karma, I'd stock up on guns and munitions but that just is NOT my style. I am considering stocking up on coffee as it would seem items that must be imported (all the fuel involved) would probably add on to their retail costs. I have a lot of clothing and I hope I can trade some items for vegetables if I don't become a better gardener. I am working on that now.
I don't NEED anything other than food. It does get cold where I live in winter. I can handle heat okay. I have enough books to keep me busy. I just wonder how bad it's going to get when the nation's people realize the circus came to town and left with all our funds, and the tent has been emptied while we watched the big show(s).
History might refer to this era as "Bankers do Barnum!"
Re Pitch Fork June 11th, 2009 9:47 am
Agreed that this article, by the formerly astute Greider, has a peculiar slant.
It seems to start from the premise that O'Bummer and the banksters are on opposite sides, when it should be obvious that quid is being given for quo.
It then goes on to speculate about the political cost to the administration, as if any of us should care.
The reader has to wait until the last sentence to learn "what is to be done"---dump Geithner, Summers et al---which has long been commonly known at Common Dreams.
Does writing for The Nation have this effect on everybody?
I'm afraid that the slant is your own.
Greider's point is that Obama is a victim of his own political calculations, fearful of appearing to be too anti-market.
I see nothing in the article that suggests that Obama and Wall Street may or should be seen as adversaries.
Greider is as astute as ever.
q
Re quickstepper June 11th, 2009 12:53 pm
From the article:
"The Obama officials have not yet found the nerve to go against the bankers' desires."
I stand by my assessment.
Gee, I guess that no one ever taught you the meaning of the word 'not.'
I guess that you also missed this sentence: "The essential bet Obama made as president was to insist on a 'voluntary' approach to rescuing the financial system, picking up the main policies launched by his predecessor." The banks never had a better friend than W.
Your assessment is incorrect. Just look who Obama appointed to deal with the bankers: other bankers.
q
In addition to that remark, which, as you say, falsely paints the Obama admin as the banksters' adversary, Greider also made this statement:
"The leading bankers worked out a rare deal for themselves that essentially says to the government in Washington 'heads we win, tails you lose.' "
That too conjures up the phony image of the bankers playing "against" the government, when actually, the government is simply the bankers' entirely willing marionette.
Obama isn't the big loser. We are. We, the American people lost when the bankers installed Obama through media monopoly and propaganda. His administration serves the bankers. It's not a case of not having the nerve to confront them. Obama happily sold us out to pay back his campaign contributers. It's not democracy. It's fascism.
Pitch Fork could not have said it more succinctly.
The banking and insurance industries are no more regulated today than they were when they committed the crimes that undermined the global economy.
On June 17 Obama is scheduled to tell us what regulation will be forthcoming. Based on Obama's economic policy to date, I will be surprised if there is any meaningful regulation.
Until ALL schemes undertaken and all "products" sold by banks and insurance companies are fully regulated, US and global economies will continue to be manipulated at ever greater cost to the taxpayers and the working class, and the banking and insurance industries will continue (as Dick Durbin told us) to own the US Government (including Obama).
Keep in mind, even if everything is regulated (big if), the devil is in the details (and regulators). We will still need lots of very smart citizens paying attention to lots of mumbo jumbo, and lots of regular folks crying foul when things first begin to smell.