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TechnoratiIt's Not a 'Free Market' System When Taxpayers Are Financing the Profits
Thanks to both the focus on health care and the storm over President Obama's comments on Henry Louis Gates, few bothered to note a deeply troubling moment during last month's White House press conference in which the president displayed genuine stupidity, willful ignorance, intelligence-insulting dishonesty - or some combination of all three (I bring this up now, because it's the very same argument we're going to hear from supporters of Ben Bernanke in his renomination process). Referring to the recent news that banks like Goldman Sachs reported big profits, he said:
"What you're seeing is that banks are starting to make profits again. Some of them have paid back the TARP money that they received, the bank bailout money that they received. And we expect more of them to pay this back. That's a good thing...And we also think it's a good thing that they're profitable again, because if they're profitable that means that they have reserves in place and they can lend. And this is America, so if you're profitable in the free market system then you benefit." (emphasis added)
Yeah, sure - economically speaking, it's a great thing when a business makes a product or delivers a service and is able to make a profit from that endeavor in a free, unsubsidized market. However, that's not what's going on in the financial industry...at all.
As Matt Taibbi noted a full week before Obama's press conference, "this is not free-market earnings but an almost pure state subsidy." In a TrueSlant article that followed his original Rolling Stone gem, he breaks down all the subsidies and handouts the financial industry engineered for itself outside of just the TARP bailout. He concludes:
One of the most hilarious lies that has been spread about Goldman of late is that, since it repaid its TARP money, it's now free and clear of any obligation to the government - as if that was the only handout Goldman got in the last year. Goldman last year made your average AFDC mom on food stamps look like an entrepreneur...
Taken altogether, what all of this means is that Goldman's profit announcement is a giant "fuck you" to the rest of the country. It is a statement of supreme privilege, an announcement that it feels no shame in taking subsidies and funneling them directly into their pockets, and moreover feels no fear of any public response. It knows that it's untouchable and it's not going to change its behavior for anyone. And it doesn't matter who knows it.
So in light of the evidence Taibbi lays out - evidence that has been reported in the business press for the last many months - it's clear President Obama's claim that the big banks are back to being "profitable in the free market system" is stupid, willfully ignorant, or dishonest, because they're quite obviously operating inside the opposite of a "free market system." Their profits are a direct taxpayer subsidy.
Is that a "good thing?" Well, I guess it's a "good thing" that after all the subsidies, the banks didn't report more losses. However, I'd prefer the phrase "the absolute least that should have happened" to "good thing." Why? Because the idea that they did something right or smart or brilliant or moral or newly responsible by generating their recent profits is absurd.
Had they been given so much taxpayer cash and not reported a profit - that would have been an embarrassment. Put another way, there was almost no possible way for the banks to report anything other than profits when they were the recipients of so much taxpayer cash. The president praising them for being "profitable in a free market system" is like him signing legislation transferring $1 million from the U.S. Treasury into my bank account, and then a month later, sending me a letter of commendation for having mustered the brilliance and hard work to earn $1 million.
OK, fine, you get that this isn't a free market. But you're still wondering about motive. Why would Obama go on national television and tell the American public that big bank profits are a "good thing" like any other endeavor that is "profitable in the free market system?" What motive might he have? I'd guess defending Wall Street and the ongoing subsidies/bailouts.
Remember, Obama is the guy who raised more campaign cash from Wall Street than any other candidate in American history - and he was the guy who played a pivotal role in passing the bailouts in the first place. And while, sure, it's seems like a positive that Obama wants financial "reform," we don't really know what "reform" means. It could mean nothing - or, based on administration proposals to actually put more power into the very secretive agency that allowed the mess to happen, it could mean an even worse regulatory system.
So it's entirely possible - if not probable - that Obama is just doing his part to tamp down popular anger at financial firms and the bailouts so as to help prevent any kind of serious regulatory reform and/or political backlash against Wall Street. I mean, the guy is a smart guy - he of all people knows that the banks are not earnestly generating profit in a "free market." The fact that he can't even bring himself to acknowledge that and provide some straight-talk to the American people about such an obvious reality suggests an ulterior motive.
34 Comments so far
Show AllSo, now it's time for the next question: What is BHO going to do to the White majority when there is no more money left to give to the top 1/4 of 1%? What goes after that? Kill SSI by giving it to Wall Street? Forcing them to give their paychecks directly to Goldman as they are about to force them to give great big chunks of their pay to the HMOs so that billionairefilth animals can live in palatial Wealth, Power and that singular condition of private law called Privilege?
Inquiring minds. This Overseer is not done yet, no, no, he's not finished...not yet. You see goals are important: 52% of former homeowners upside down.....by 2010 or 2011. Remember, Larry Summers is baked in the cake and his model is '93 in Russia when he and his neolib hirsuit companions did the steel toe flamenco to push that country into oblivion...and the hands of Kleptocracy. No health care. No pensions. No savings. No job security. No unions. Nada. Permanent debt. Education in the toilet. How's that life expectancy for males in Russia coming along? Still dropping? Preview of coming attractions.... and don't say "It can't happen here." That line was murdered more than 50 years ago by HUAC, Black Lists, COINTELPRO, and J Edgar, and was a lie from the day it was born.
We did genocide here. We did slavery here and built the first fortunes of our oligarchs with that slavery. We falsely imprisoned, silenced, or murdered every leader and every mass movement for economic or social justice in this country - and now, all Americans are the slaves on corporate slave plantations where they have no rights of any kind that any richfilth animal need ever consider...nothing builds wealth faster or more simply than slave labor...that's why Master has plantations, and the males have gender slaves (the little woman who brings home that check for daddy to spend)...the rest is just the beard. Feral Bestiality.
Rest in Peace.
I love all this comment from people who have absolutely passed out and thrown up if they had been handed this situation. Plus I must state in no uncertain terms how lucky we are to live in a country where people own their own companies. George W. Bush did everything he could to stop all scientific study in this country. He put an idiot in charge of the EPA and told him to try his best to ruin the environment. He stopped stem cell research. He let loose the biggest army of anti scientists that he could and we will be years and years getting them out of the way of scientific study. Thanks to him there are school systems that don't teach science anymore. But you know what? The United States still made more advances in science than any other country because we own our own companies and they kept science alive. Now, if the President is trying to make us appreciate some of what he did to keep that alive, things that he was given by Bush with no good (or I thought possible) way to fix then let him have at it. You should be glad that you are not worshiping a God who dictates that you believe that there is no such thing as science.... all was created straight by God... including my I Phone. That is what Bush wanted for all of us. He robbed the banks. You think all that just happened? It was a great transfer of wealth to aid in a Christian Right takeover. You might want to read Jeff Sharlet's "C Street" or Chris Rodda's "Liars for Jesus" in which she has to fight line for line the rewriting of American History to leave out people like Thurgood Marshall. In your spare time read Conservatives without Conscience by John Dean and visit Michael Weinstein's website militaryreligiousfreedom.org Then you will know that about two more years of any republican ALL of this would be gone, and your children if you have any, would be dumbed down beyond recognition. You know, I don't recall anyone saying one good thing about this President although the KKK comes to every meeting he is at, he gets it full force from both the left and right every day and if I were him I wouldn't be fighting like a dog for us. One of his friends noted that he already looks 10 years older.
An Overseer's life on such a large plantation is never easy. Degrading and debasing the plebs into compliant submission is very taxing...might actually generate a desire to believe in a place like Hell. He'd have a LOT of notable company. Compared to the Hell on Earth he and his predecessors have worked so hard to create, their suffering would be laughable, a hangnail in a holocaust.
Everything moves on an arc, a trajectory. The economic, social, political, and military. Their tropisms are not nastic movements. The slavery model drives the economic sphere (it is the baseline of all calculations); (white) male supremacy and gender slavery dominate the social (intimately connected to the slavery model of wealth accumulation); "Winner Takes All" is the rule in the political arena - getting and holding Power is the game, not policy, beliefs, or campaign promises (those are just means to an end); "Our" military realm has one driver, "You can have anything you can take and hold."
Wasn't always as feral and bestial as it is now. When we start sodomizing 14 year old boys in front of their mothers to degrade and debase 'them', we're as far gone as any of the animals we have hung for their "Crimes against humanity". Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. Torturers. Rapists. Murderers. Guilty. AS AN ENTIRE PEOPLE. Just like we said to the "good Germans", "Why didn't you stop it?" and they say, "I didn't want to get into trouble with the Authorities. I'd lose my job and without that I have no home and are you going to come and pay my rent and make sure my children get at least a little health care and some education - are you going to do that when I am in prison for years and tortured by monsters for years? Are you going to do that?
We have already answered that question many times many times. We even have a name for it, "Kitty Genovese Syndrome". They went to the wall and America did nothing. That's how the economic, social, political, and military trajectories of the Roosevelt Legacy were murdered. Viet Nam did it. Sucked every available dime out of the economy to perpetuate a war for 10 years after it was known to be the Abysmal Swamp. BUT like all war it transferred the wealth out of Social Programs that were about to end poverty in this country forever and into the hands of richfilth animals who consolidated their power for the long push back to the 12th century.
Sounds brutal, provincial, tribal, and puerile but that's why we call it arrested infantile development. A lot closer to the Pashtuns than most might suspect...
Charming bubalas from a distance, a great distance, like Andromeda.
Peace.
Obama is simply to young and to inexperienced, and a product of the Chicago school of politics.
We are in a major depression that was brought on by the bought and paid Clintons,a la Walmart. The outsourcing of our industrial base to China has simply killed our economy.
The stimulus is a desperate diversionary tactic to keep
the wolf away from the door.
"The president praising them for being "profitable in a free market system" is like him signing legislation transferring $1 million from the U.S. Treasury into my bank account, and then a month later, sending me a letter of commendation for having mustered the brilliance and hard work to earn $1 million."
Laugh out loud, and how true.
Obama is disturbing regardless of exactly what the percentage breakdown is between his ignorance and his subservience to the rich.
It is heartening to read the string of responses to this article. Clearly the public hasn't gone to sleep, in spite of appearances. Maybe a third party under Kucinich would look good to people on the edge of revolution. He speaks good sense whenever he gets a chance to be heard.
The reluctance of Obama supporters to take him to task before the election, for his declared intentions on the Afghan war, for fear of detracting the tiniest bit from his chances, was clear forewarning of the supine way they have taken the string of egregious betrayals since he took office. I didn't vote for him in 2008 & I can hardly imagine voting for him in 2012 unless my vote was critical in saving my state from, say, Palin!
By all means let's have a truly progressive party, socialist, if need be for 2010 & 2012.
Meantime, get out on the streets for peace & single-payer, now!
$ $ $...........WHAT WOULD YOU RATHER HAVE -- WAR OR HEALTH CARE?......$ $ $
Great thoughts!
With the Interactive Voter Choice System (see www.reinventingdemocracy.us), voters will be able to set the nation's policy agenda and elect representatives who will enact their priorities into law.
What a Lame and understated article about something smacking ordinary Americans in the face. Wonder when they had enough of turning the other cheek. Wonder when ‘analysts’ like Sirota quit their conciliatory mollifying stile.
Wake up: “Collateral Damage” by E. P Heidner, part I and II.
>>> www.scribd.com/people/documents/2169400-ep-heidner <<<
Stephen22
This is also known as cooking the books, something all of the Wall Street financial players are intimately familiar with.
Right! Under a current accounting rule, banks are able to hide their debt and stash it in “QSPE (Qualified Special Purpose Entities),” which they can use for asset-backed securities and other unwanted assets.
However, a new accounting rule mandated by the FASB (Financial Accounting Standards Board) eliminates QSPE.
Currently, Citibank has 822 billion of QSPE, JPMorgan Chase has 640 billion of QSPE, Bank of America has 81 billion of QSPE, and Wells Fargo has 39 billion. I'm sure
Gold in Sacks uses QSPE for now too...
All these above banks sent letters to the FASB saying they were against the new law.
The new rule is scheduled to go into effect late fall...
You know they're all trying their best to make sure this new rule doesn't pass for obvious reasons.
The article on QSPE:
http://www.thestreet.com/story/10508768/1/banks-brace-for-accounting-change.html
It's the same old neocon doublespeak, and Obama has been a neocon all along. I can't imagine why David Sirota would be surprised at Obama's doublespeak, or think it novel in any way.
When arguing with the partisan so called conservatives, I always have to remind them of corporate welfare, not just bailouts, but subsidies too. We haven't been in a free market environment for a really long time now. In fact, the TARP money was used by Bank of America to shut down jobs here in the US while opening up some 15 thousand, or was it 35 thousand, jobs in India. That's only one example. Corporate welfare is being used for global expansion by the multinationals. The taxpayer is footing the bill. Bank lending isn't the only factor in our economy, and any in depth research will show that bank lending has not increased in proportion to the amounts given out in government bailout money.
I guess Obama had to say something soothing, since people are beginning to talk about how the FDIC is going broke while banks continue to go under.
Its hard for me to believe those we elect and their 'appointees' making these fraudulent claims that the 'ressession' is coming to an end sooner than those 'experts' even thought because the american taxpayer is paying for maintaining the INVESTOR'S profits for which they don't have to work for at all and the free market is now defined as all that free money the taxpayer MUST pay those corporate high rollers which also is NOT hard to believe 'IN YOUR FACE GRAND LARCENY'!
The 'ressession' will end when america starts creating real jobs that maintain wages that provide for familie's necessities and care and the taxpayer is NOT liable for maintaining the 'viable investor corporations'.
Just as Ralph Nader asserted back in 2000, the Republicans and Democrats are corporate-owned parties.
And as Bill Maher pointed out recently, the Democrats are the new Republicans.
Regardless of which party controls Congress and the White House, the American people get shafted by influence peddling lawmakers, thanks to the legalized bribery permitted by U.S. campaign finance laws.
The emerging progressive majority of American voters, which has been irrefutably documented, can easily take control of Congress and the White House in 2012 if progressive activists just get their act together and form a third party. Howard Dean can and probably will take the lead with his Democracy for America, which has on-the-ground organizing units in every Congressional district.
Backward looking political cowards who are afraid of their shadows love to point out that third parties have always failed in the past. But that's because they did not have an electoral base like that of the emerging progressive majority.
Nor did they have the provocations like those that David Sirota identifies above. Obama, Summers, Geithner and Bernanke have put $24 trillion of public money on the line to bail out private banks for the foresseable future.
As an encore, Obama and his plutocats in the executive branch are now joining forces with the influence peddling Democrats in Congress to force 50 million uninsured Americans to buy private insurance to enable private insurers who have increased their profits nearly 450% in the past 8 years to double and triple that number.
For those who think they can work within the two party system that elected Obama and the traitorous Blue Dog Democrats to Congress to elect progressives, more power to you.
But I am increasingly convinced that the only hope is to create a third party to provide a home for the emerging progressive majority, as well as a winning progressive platform that will enable the party and its candidates to wrest control of government from the plutocracy that Obama and his fellow-travelers in Congress have put securely in control of our government.
I agree with a good bit of what you wrote (or at least, am sympathetic to it).
However:
"...Just as Ralph Nader asserted back in 2000, the Republicans and Democrats are corporate-owned parties..."
- Nader was hardly the first person to recognize this, & it's been recognized by serious observers for many, many decades (ie, not just since 2000).
"...The emerging progressive majority of American voters...can easily take control ... in 2012 if progressive activists just get their act together and form a third party. Howard Dean can and probably will take the lead ..."
- No, they can't "easily take control." What will happen, rather, is what always happens: as 2012 approaches, traditional Democratic voters will freak out about whatever new Republican bogey-man emerges (Palin, Romney, Huckabee, or the like), and they will once again vote for Obama. They will screech hysterically to their friends, "You can't throw your vote away! Remember what happened in 2000 when 'purists' voted for Nader, and caused Bush to win!" // These arguments will become deafening. This will add to the generally pathetic level of American political consciousness, & the net result will be, as usual, that no third party will get more than 2-3% of the vote. (Don't forget: they won't even let 3rd parties participate in debates. The media won't cover them -- except to ridicule them.)
Also, Howard Dean is an extremely mediocre standard-issue American bourgeois politician. He's not even a real liberal, let alone a radical (which is what the times demand). He's essentially no different from Obama or Gore, & would cave to all the same pressures in the same exact ways.
"...But I am increasingly convinced that the only hope is to create a third party to provide a home for the emerging progressive majority..."
- Yes, I agree with that. But that's far easier said than done. The main difficulties are that 1) there is no agreement* among the left-leaning dissatisfied types about exactly what's needed; & 2) there aren't enough dissatisfied left-leaners to outweigh the dummies & cowards who keep voting for Democrats.
* Note: What I mean here is that SOME potential 3rd party voters will think, "Oh, Howard Dean is a breath of fresh air." Others will insist that 3rd party voters must unify behind a Green. And still others (who happen to be correct about this crucial point) recognize that capitalism itself is the problem, so they won't vote for anyone but a socialist. And even among them, there are different socialist parties! // So it would very difficult to achieve unity, even among left-leaning potential 3rd party voters.
I acknowledge the realities you cite but think they can be overcome given the overwhelming numbers of the emerging progressive majority.
I also think that the Interactive Voter Choice System, an Internet invention of mine, makes a winning third party possible because it contains a consensus building mechanism for setting policy agendas and building winning voting blocs around them. You can read about it at www.reinventingdemocracy.us.
BTW, I am not recommending Howard Dean as a presidential candidate but rather as the political and organizational catalyst for building a third party.
RichM you describe the characteristic difficulties of the US left in finding a common platform or candidate. It is part of the structure of our electoral system, a smart and well financed corporatism, a very confused popular consciousness, deliberate infiltration, disinformation and destruction of the left etc.
So what could serve as a unifying principle for progressive electoral politics? What is something authentic that could rally a measurable percentage of the electorate? How can we help left candiates do well and not to look pathetic and insignificant? What is the difference between building unity and having no principles?
These are difficult questions. I am not even sure I have the right questions. I have no answers, but believe we must make a realistic assessment of our strengths, past errors and our possibilites, keep discussing, organizing on a variety of big and small things, thinking and trying. Perhaps answers will emerge from such efforts. If we cannot solve these questions, then we are wasting time.
Joe
"...what could serve as a unifying principle?..."
- It has to be a specific program. But the program can't stand by itself; it must be accompanied by an entire way of looking at the world -- a quantum jump in the population's political consciousness.
Here's a sample program that might sound appealing to many CD commenters:
1) Immediate end to the "War on Terror," & withdrawal from Iraq and Af/Pak.
2) Downsize the military. That means large cuts in Pentagon spending, & dismantling the overseas empire.
3) Single-payer health insurance, & other measures to strengthen the social safety net
4) Serious mobilization on climate. This includes tough standards on emissions, developing mass transit, developing alternative energy sources, etc.
5) Nationalize the giant banks, & operate them like public utilities -- like the Post Office or public libraries. Prosecute leading banksters involved in mortgage scams & CDO's for fraud, stripping them of all their assets, and jailing them for life.
OK - that's just a sample, tossed out there for the sake of definiteness. Of course many other things could be added -- it's not supposed to be a complete list.
First let me say the obvious: you'd have to have a real revolution before at least 4 of those 5 things could be done (the only one that could possibly be accomplished without violence is #3). There would literally be tanks in the streets before they'd let anyone touch "Defense Spending" or the banks.
Yet if those serious kinds of things are NOT done, nothing is going to change. People who blather cliches like "We must work within the Democratic Party, one small step at a time" are just kidding themselves. Working within the DP is just another way of saying, "We accept corporate domination of society (as long as the President speaks nicely)." [Working within the RP means, "We accept corp. domination, even if the Prez is a brute."]
Anyway, you have to have an explicit program. But for people to truly support that program, they'd have to understand a lot more than they currently do. For example, take Point #1, about ending the wars. Lots of CD readers want to end the wars. But even many of these people (who are more aware than average Americans) do not understand that militarism is ultimately the result of capitalism. Capitalism always develops so that the most powerful countries try to control as much of the world as they can. (There's no such thing as the top dog voluntarily passing up the chance to expand their control over resources, markets & cheap labor. So long as the game is about increasing profits, there is going to be imperialism, because it's extremely profitable.)
Liberals who realize war is wrong imagine that if you can just get a "nice man" in the White House, the wars will stop. That isn't the case. To get the wars to stop, you'd need to shut down the whole institutional framework connecting the military, the Congress, and the war industries. They'd kill you before they'd let you do that. // So again, people who are anti-war yet vote for "nice Democrats" (like Obama was supposed to be) are just kidding themselves. It's not valid to be anti-war, yet to vote for Democrats.
To return to your question, you need a specific program. But the program needs advanced political consciousness to back it up. Liberalism cannot support a fundamental overhaul of how society works. It can't be truly anti-war because it's not opposed to capitalism. Similarly, it can't support the rest of a radical program, either. It can't be serious about climate change, because it isn't willing to be tough with oil companies. It can't be serious about financial reform, because it isn't willing to be tough with banks.
"Liberals who realize war is wrong imagine that if you can just get a "nice man" in the White House, the wars will stop."
Unfortunately, there is no reason to think this won't happen again, as I am sure you are aware and as I think you stated. The avalanche for Obama was excruciating to see because it revealed the shallowness of what is termed progressivism as well as an astonishing susceptibility to blatant marketing, including such as the old blather about the American Dream, etc.
Seeing what is happening in terms of wealth distribution, plutocratic consolidation, MIC expansion...it probably would have been better if McCain had won. There is no reason to think he would have been worse in these areas and he might have been a little better. Obama (of course doing nothing to abate the illegal, oppressive "laws" on the books that set up the country to be a solid police state) is putting us on the fast track to fascism...very fast, in my opinion. He is a complete toady to the plutocrats, the last thing we needed at this crucial time in history.
Because some of the things that you list are necessary but can't be accomplished without a "revolution", we have to start thinking revolution. Not a stupid revolution where we would be crushed, but one that involves conforming radical thought to populist energies...a natural conjunction, but it will involve a lot of work in communities, workplaces, and so on. We have to get out there and work hard and not get lost in presidential politics. (That's tough part because presidential politics is a trap, just as it is meant to be.)
Not that running a presidential candidate is useless. We can't leave the field solely to the plutocrats. But our party has to be broader and more involved than a typical political party. There has to be a groundswell (which would help the presidential candidate, too.)
As CD readers are aware, we are in a hell of a mess (to understate it.). We don't have to pathetically follow the storyline to its dismal conclusion. (That's what the whole Obama thing is about.) We have to make up a new one. The question is: What will it take to get the story going in another direction? Whatever it takes, we have to do it.
"So what could serve as a unifying principle for progressive electoral politics?'
Joe,
I believe this is the answer:
A platform that promises to increase the social security amount, provide medicare from the cradle to the grave and fund these measures by closing ALL overseas Amercan bases and returning ALL the troops from EVERY country in the world.
Anyone crunching the numbers would realize that this would strengthen the dollar and eliminate our deficits in less than a decade. The rich would still be free to have their gold plated private medical plans, of course.
Rather than a single party, we should have a multi-third party convention where they all agree to vote for whoever candidate is selected by the delegates. The delegates would get their members selected through internet primaries. The candidates at all levels would run as independents with multi-party endorsements.
The way the corporate party attacks this also incudes a faux populist third party candidate who gets and "amazing" amount of free publicity to divide our group in adition to the Republican monster boogey man candidate.
At any rate, the other issues of vital importance like jobs and financial regulation can be dealt with through congressional majorities. I know. It looks hopeless. Maybe it is.
AGG--If all the "third parties" could come together on consensus issues and nominate a single candidate to run as an Independent, as you suggest, I think it's not so hopeless electorally. The problem is reaching a consensus among Greens, Progressives, libertarians, etc. People tend to cling to "their" issues.
Yeah, sure - economically speaking, it's a great thing when a business makes a product or delivers a service and is able to make a profit from that endeavor in a free, unsubsidized market. However, that's not what's going on in the financial industry...at all.
http://www.aaffordableinsulators.com/radiant.html
Mr. Sirota,
Mens Rea is part and parcel of President Obama's administration. We are painfully aware of this at CommonDreams. However, it's good of you to keep spreading the fact that malice and forethought are involved with these crooks and killers.
The next time someone asks what Sen. Durbin meant when he revealed : "Frankly, they (the banksters) own the place (our government)", you answer:
"Obama is the guy who raised more campaign cash from Wall Street than any other candidate in American history."
Now, come on fellow libs and progs, you can't deny the plain fact that BO was hired by the 'owners' of 'the place' anymore.
And the 'owners' didn't hire BO to change the system that continues to pour obscene, unearned 'profits' into their few but fattened pockets. He was hired to keep the gold flowing up.
Hence, we should be focused on one thing and one thing only: wresting 'ownership' away from the banksters (and their Big Whatever partners). Period. No matter what you do to the rest of the house, if the foundation is f@#ked, you're wasting your time.
Nothing will change - not the failed economic system, failed health care system, failed environmental protection system, failed education system, failed military system - until the profiteers who own the place are replaced by true, honest civil servants.
"...The president praising [banks] for being 'profitable in a free market system' is like him signing legislation transferring $1 million from the U.S. Treasury into my bank account, and then a month later, sending me a letter of commendation for having mustered the brilliance and hard work to earn $1 million..."
- Though basically accurate, one could quibble about the details of this analogy. It's more like getting $1 million, and using it to earn interest and/or speculative profits in the markets.
It's also like using part of that money to bribe the FASB (Financial Accounting Standards Board) & key congressmen, to get accounting rule changes, so that your "profit statements" simply hide all your losses, making your profits appear greater than they really are.
Notice for example that last fall, there was tremendous concern about the "toxic securities" on the banks' books. But the focus on this issue has "magically" disappeared. The toxic junk is still on the banks' books, but there's been a sort of tacit agreement to simply stop talking about it. When the banks announced their "profits," no one said anything about the huge losses they still have on these junk securities. They simply found a way of preparing the financial profit statements, that didn't count the losses.
This is also known as cooking the books, something all of the Wall Street financial players are intimately familiar with.
Ephraim,
You're right; Wall Street might be familair with cooking the books but the sheeple don't have a clue becuase they listen to the propaganda from the mass media and don't follow the bills that are being passed on Capitol Hill.
The main reason why we haven't had a revolution in this country - yet!
Just as " there is no free lunch ", there has never been, is not, nor will there EVER be, a "free market."
To accept the idea of a free market you are saying that all people are equal in all aspects of their lives, that we all have equal access to all the material resources of this planet, that we all have equal access to capital, that we all have equal access to justice, and that no one will be taken advantage of by anyone else. This idea is a fraudulent tool of the avaricious. It should be denounced every time it is presented.
Nothing traded in this world's markets came into being without costs. I know that people who use the term "free market" are generally referring to a removal of government intervention and we all know that, even this limited interpretation, is a lie. The same people who promote this deceit believe that slaughter and destruction, especially with the use of a government supplied military, are justified means of economic gain for a minority.
The belief in free markets is central to a religion of fraud.
"The belief in free markets is central to a religion of fraud."
Of course. The con is integral to capitalism. The proper term for capitalism is monopolism. Destroy the competition by hook or by crook until you have a cornered market (monopoly) so that you can coerce buyers to consume your product. Capitalism is the exact inverse of a free market. And that's why they harp on the "free market" bullshit. This cognitive dissonance is cheap propaganda. Any fool can see that the last thing any "capitalist" wants is a level playing field. What they call a free market is code for a forced market.
It's not mysterious what Obama's motives are for spreading his "free market" propaganda. Sirota already identified the reason. He's just protecting Wall Street, his primary contributors and constituents. He's also always prattling idiotically about the American Dream, and that always includes the necessity of a mythic free market. He's never been anything but a purveyor of this bullshit, which is why he can't entertain for a moment true healthcare reform. We'll only be treated to the worst of what the phony free market has to offer, where it runs away with all the money, we get worse care every year, and Obama crows about the glories of our miraculous free market. All that matters is that Wall Street feels good about itself.
When the bankers were acting outrageously arrogant and entitled over their bailouts, Obama warned them "I'm the only thing standing between you and the pitchforks". He did his job well, and amply rewarded them for all their campaign contributions. How could I have been so blind??
Right now, I'm trying to calculate just how much worse would McCain have been? Some, but not a whole lot. Palin is another story, and certainly calls into question McCain's judgment. Not that Obama's judgment isn't looking questionable.
Isn't it amazing that they all say the same things to the voters, and then all do the opposite when in office? Of course, any politician who actually did what he promised wouldn't make old bones.
When the people fear their government there is tyranny,
when the government fears the people there is liberty.
~ Thomas Jefferson
That Jefferson "quote" is spurious. There is no record at all of anything even resembling that among his writings. It's a nice sentiment, but you shouldn't try to sanctify it by attaching Jefferson to it.
As for McCain-Palin, do you remember when Mondale chose Geraldine Ferraro as his VP candidate? It was the same thing then: the fix was in, Reagan was going to be the president ---everything in McNews was about Reagan--- and so Mondale's choice didn't matter any more than he did. The same was true in 2008 - the fix was in, Obama was going to be president, and so McCain's choice didn't matter any more than McCain did. Notice that Mondale and Ferraro both fell off the political stage. It will turn out that 2008 was the high-water mark for McCain and Palin, too.
Mairead, that is the second time you've called the Jefferson quote spurious. I did some research and found several references to his having said that. It also matches his philosophy about the relationship of government and the people. I'll go with that.
When the people fear their government there is tyranny,
when the government fears the people there is liberty.
~ Thomas Jefferson
Chomsky talk in mp3 format "Free Market Fantasies"
http://www.radio4all.net/index.php/program/372
"And this is America, so if you're profitable in the free market system then you benefit."
The imperial cowboy taught merika to talk dumb - and it pays - obviously. Such a statement coming from a third grader will earn a "C" grade. Coming from a Washing-town econ-chimp, it inspires rivers of petro-mammon flows and may earn a "nobel prize in economics".
If you shut off the tax payer dollar supply of ALL Corporations in the US the US economy would shut down. Hundreds if not thousands of Corporations, from Boeing to Wellpoint, from Halliburtun to Dyncorp, from Diebold to GM would cease to exist.
The "Free marketers" will never accept this truth.