Twitter
StumbleUpon
Facebook
Delicious
Digg
Newsvine
Google
Yahoo
TechnoratiDon’t Bail on Wall Street Outrage
PRESIDENT OBAMA is far too absent of outrage over Wall Street's continued abuses. As a candidate, he railed against its "greed and irresponsibility.'' He had more to say in his first month in the White House, after finding out that Wall Street firms were still paying $18.4 billion in bonuses despite bringing America to its financial knees and dropping to their own knees for an unprecedented $700 billion taxpayer bailout.
"That is the height of irresponsibility. It is shameful,'' Obama said. Calling on Wall Street to share in the recovery out of the "big hole'' of the economic crisis, Obama said, "There will be time for them to make profits, and there will be time for them to get bonuses - now is not that time.''
So now is the time? Just a year after the bailout, the Wall Street Journal last week reported that the nation's top 23 banks and investment firms plan to give out a record $140 billion in bonuses. The Dow may be back up over the 10,000 mark, but unemployment is still going up, too, to nearly 10 percent, more than double what it was at the beginning of this decade. Black unemployment is 15.4 percent. States, including Massachusetts, are still announcing massive job and funding cuts. Workers are told to be patient, that jobs might not come back in a few months or even a few years, but they will come back.
But the toga party is already back on Wall Street. All that Obama has done so far is send out his charges to bleat some mild humbugs on the talk shows. Chief of staff Rahm Emanuel said, "The American people have a right to be frustrated and angry. . . . Wall Street is back doing what Wall Street did. They have a responsibility to part of the solution.''
Adviser David Axelrod did call the bonuses "offensive.'' He said it was also offensive that ordinary Americans were not yet seeing the kind of lending that helps them. But then he qualified everything by saying the administration has "limited sway other than moral suasion.''
It is time for that moral suasion. One possible reason the administration has not been as assertive as it should be is that in conventional Washington politics, it is biting the hand that fed them. In the 2008 elections, JPMorganChase, Citigroup, and Bank of America gave the majority of their $10 million in campaign contributions to the Democrats. Another reason is that the administration still wants banks to increase lending as well as accept consumer protections.
But these reasons are not enough when Bank of America is about to pay out $30 billion in bonuses, followed by JPMorganChase at $29.5 billion, Citigroup and Goldman Sachs at $22 billion each, and Morgan Stanley at $16.4 billion.
They are behaving as if last year never happened at all, candidly crying to the Journal that if they didn't pay billions in bonuses, oh my, their employees would flee. Goldman Sachs spokesman Lucas van Praag told the Journal, "The easiest way to destroy the firm would be if we didn't pay our people. . . . Destroying a profitable enterprise would not be in anybody's interest.''
That sounds like professional spoiled brats, especially when there are still too many once-profitable mom-and-pop enterprises going down the tubes and too many nonprofit enterprises like public schools, police, fire, and public works construction being slashed to the bone. He should demand that the bonuses be slashed, say by half, with the other half going to long-established charities. Can you imagine what $70 billion would do for the United Way or the Boys and Girls Clubs?
Back in January, Obama said, "We're going to be having conversations as this process moves forward directly with these folks on Wall Street to underscore that they have to start acting in a more responsible fashion if we are to, together, get this economy rolling again.'' All that has happened thus far is that Wall Street is rolling again, a steamroller once again flattening the American people.
43 Comments so far
Show Allapparently =- the Obama administration is feeling SOME heat...let's see if they truly follow up on this:
"WHITE HOUSE TO ORDER BIG CUTS IN EXECUTIVE PAY" for those that got bailouts.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/22/business/22pay.html?ref=global-home
but that should just be the START.
0 won't take on Wall Street: they employ him.
We need to cease to cooperate with them ourselves.
it is imperative that we get on the same page...
URGENT: google control fraud theory
click on googles "encyclopedia of
white collar crime; you buy it for 32.50
through alibris ($75 book, 2006) by jurg gerber
and eric jensen. on the google preview you
will see all you need to know. It makes sept
2001 into an relatively insignificant detail.
I did a review for google. peace and justice
Thanks.
be careful what you wish for you just may get it although
it may in fact not be just. an ass for every seat and a
seat for every ass. this is whats happening in the us
today. we need to get our asses into the right seat!
Chris Hedges had an article yesterday that generated huge response...the crux of that article was that nothing short of a total revamp of the economic structure of our industrialized world would save us...a notion with which I tend to agree...the ownership of land and property, in particular, must be throttled, suffocated...
the flip side of that is that we are running out of both time and need to fix many of our systems...in fact, we are approaching the point where devoting thought and energy to fixing them is counterproductive, as many of them will become irrelevant under a new structure, anyway, and we need to devote time and attention to developing minimal, sustainable, local lives...
to be specific, trying to 'fix' wall street is idiotic, at this point...virtually all of the underlying activities that support wall street, and the myriad of corporations therein, are fundamentally destructive to the living world, so must be terminated, and quickly...
we don't need to fix, we need to abandon...this is true with most of our systems...
Global Start Date: September 22, 2012...
HO hum. Democrat or Republican--they are blood sucking leeches, or maybe because they are harder to kill--vampires. Of course they are in bed with their sponsors. The solution-- DO NOT VOTE FOR A DEMOCRAT OR A REPUBLICAN. Stay home, vote Green, vote Libertarian if you have to-- just do not give the two branches of the corporate party and the assholes who represent them your vote.
The thing is, Republicans all vote. Not voting or voting for a third party means Repugs will win. Could you stand eight more years of Repug rule? I couldn't. Better to work for progressive Dems and campaign to vote out all conservative Dems.
What makes you think we do not?
Seriously, this is not a rhetorical question and does not reflect any fantasy that the Democrats are really registered Republicans. By what policy positions does one know one has a Democrat rather than a Republican?
Now that the electorate has massively voted Democrats into office in two elections running, why do those Democrats almost uniformly support the Republican policies their constituencies voted against?
I am all for supporting progressive Democrats when and where such creatures exist. I'd vote for Kucinich in a snap if I had that option. I am also willing to compromise where an opportunity to gain by compromise exists. Not everyone agrees with me; I'm used to that.
Why should I not see current Democratic policies as a massive betrayal of Democratic voters?--and not only progressive Democratic voters, but moderate and centrist Democrats? Not only 0bama, but Pelosi and Baucus and Fiendstein and the rest of these ghouls glutted off their death industry comrades?
Hey, I'd take moderation to avoid Republican policies, but moderation has not resulted and has not increased by the two recent heavily Democratic (not necessarily democratic) elections.
I don't imagine you take the current state of affairs to qualify as a compromise, and I don't pretend you imagine these small things. But tactically, unless you're in a district with a Kucinich or similar, I don't even see what "progressive Democrat" means.
I'd say our first step is to get the money out of the process. We work for local referenda banning the use of private and corporate funds to run campaigns, and legislating equal time in media for all candidates.
If some of our Democrats harbour a progressive spark somewhere within, taking them off the Ghoulco payroll might free them to nourish that.
Repeating this kind of bullshit will keep democrats & republicans in power and that will help nobody except a few rich cocksuckers.
So please stop being a democrat-fanboy because it doesn't help you one bit.
Voting for a third party does not necessarily mean it will put the Republican's back in charge.
Most know the Right has completely lost it. Frankly, I'm saddened for the Right, they have nothing, they're bankrupt.
The USA no longer has two party's. Many of us feel that "we" the people have lost our voice. Dem's are not confident with our legislatures. They're in the pockets of the lobbyists and while in a better place than the GOP, they're useless. Look at the way things are progressing. The War, the Treasury/the Federal Reserve, Jobs, Energy, our toxic environment, education, trade policy, that stimulus package dumped billions into the hands of criminals.
Right now many are scrambling looking around to write some stupid bill that makes them look like they deserve to be re-elected.Many have been in office for 20 or more years and they've proven to be be primarily useless, over paid, numb sculls. In Michigan our Congress and Senator's are too big of cowards to even sit down when they're around and face us. They'll see one or two people at a time, that's it. No Town Halls, too scary. One has to present their question's BEFORE you meet with them. They're old and they have old ideas. They only know how to color in the lines and fly off other's coat tails.
2010. I imagine as much as 30-40% of the incumbents will be voted out. I bet we see a half dozen Independent's, and one or two from the Green Party get in.
I wouldn't discount the Repugs, sadly.
2010 and 2012 stand to be big Green years just as 2008 went badly for Nader and McKinney because so many imagined that they had put Bush within stealing distance of the 2000 and 2004 by voting their conscience and best interest.
But pundits and wonks count parties out all the time, and at most they just change name.
Some will want to believe that making their bosses rich makes them well off, and those people will tend to vote Republican, as they have. Sadly, the Dems have found that they can play progressive to garner a constituency, then govern as Republicans to garner funds for election.
Sadly, that means it is worth risking Republican rule to unseat them.
Those with truly progressive Dems can vote Dem, those without can vote 3rd party, but progress likely demands electoral change, to get the $$$ out of the campaign process and to guarantee equal media time for all candidates.
Either Nader or McKinney would have won solidly against 0bama or McCain or Clinton in any election based on issues.
"Dem's are not confident with our legislatures. They're in the pockets of the lobbyists and while in a better place than the GOP, they're useless."
Are you including Kucinich, Feingold, Lee, Grayson, Woolsey and other progressive Dems in this blanket condemnation?
Well said.
If there was some way to keep the gatekeeper repub/democrats from controlling, as they do now, who gets on the ballot as well as having run-off elections, we would have some real choices. But that would be democracy. We don't live in a democracy.
Right.
Next:
1. Vote with $$: don't buy from anyone who lobbies or your $$ will come back to bite you.
2. Support local electoral reform referenda. Our "representatives" will not vote this in, but the public will.
Exactly, we have the word's most expensive public relations event that is called "democracy" in doublespeak.
OBAMA = UNCLE TOM = house negro.
and i didn't invent that. Malcolm X said it .
Seems a bit harsh, given 0's age when X was alive. What am I missing?
Mumia Abu Jamal said this months ago, specifically about Obama.
"There will be time for them to make profits, and there will be time for them to get bonuses - now is not that time.''
=======
What Obama really meant is:
"NOW" pertained to the few seconds he was talking months ago;
as soon as that was over -- it "IS TIME TO MAKE THE BIG PROFITS SOME MORE, my friends in the banking industry".
and the real story obama didn't say was:
"NEVER is the time for the people to BAIL OUT the banks and there will NEVER be a time they won't be doing that, again and again and again..we just need time to FIX it RIGHT"
There is no essential difference between the major political parties, except in name. They are all fat hogs feeding from the same trough of corporate largess.
Bill Clinton is a liberal Republican in Democrats clothing.
Robert Rubin is a liberal Republican in Democrats clothing.
Larry Summers is a liberal Republican in Democrats clothing.
Timothy Geithner is a liberal Republican in Democrats clothing.
Ben Bernanke? Who knows what he is????
Barack Obama is a liberal Republican in Democrats clothing and a blatant elitist as well.
Rahm Emanuel, David Axelrod? All part of the same club that is hell bent on destroying this country and every decent person in it.
I say, "Let's have an encore of the French Revolution!"
The Bankers are the real enemy of all the American people. We need to publicly hang a couple of dozen bankers in Times Square and put it on television so everyone can watch them kicking their dangling legs and pissing and shitting in their pants as the die. The banks need to loose their heads (literally).
Not only should they be hanged but their biggest customers doing business with them need to be divested as well. Furthermore, preventative measures need to be put in place to keep the bankers at bay. We'll need public cooperation from Main Street but currently it's like trying to herd cats.
DEMOCRACY ---- ILLUSION
Now we all know that government is a capitalist Republic, for those
born with the best braįns are given the unregulated freedom to compete for
excessive wealth. Republicans all brag about it and our Founding Fathers
being rich slave owners made it quite clear in the Federalist Papers, that
democratic equality was detestable.
So why all this hypocrisy about democracy from the Democrats?
Well it started in 1828 when our one party government decided to create
the illusion of democracy by calling half the politicians Democrats. The
Republicans then as a smoke screen changed their name to the Whig Party,
but later switched back to the Republican Party.
So what say we form the Social Democracy Party, and drive all those
paid actor capitalist politicians square out of government?
"...for those born with the best braįns"?
Selfish self-entitlement, immoral greed and the conscience of a sociopath does not measure intelligence.
Wow, $10 Million to the Democrats....I guess the politicians got their bonuses as well..
If the banks are being irresponsible, then their shareholders should bring them to heel, or sell their stocks.
Government has a place in regulating business, but I dont think that would include limiting someones pay packet. There are other regulatory means to ensure that another meltdown does not happen.
How about starting by limiting political campaign contributions?
"The only means of strengthening one's intellect is to make up one's mind about nothing, to let the mind be a thoroughfare for all thoughts." - John Keats
Mujeriego, John Mitchell is right on again. The shareholders you refer to are US taxpayers. By overwhelmming majority, we would bring these predatory eels hard "to heel" and would sell our stocks in a heartbeat. We cannot, however, because we have lost our democracy.
And there you are correct. Naked public bribery, under the euphemism "campaign contributions", has now effectively captured our government. But to defend outrageous bonuses for racketeering banksters, whose damage will take decades to heal if ever, is to fall victim to the utterly discredited myth of free-market, supply-side, voodoo reaganomics.
"Government has a place in regulating business, but I dont think that would include limiting someones pay packet."
It's the government that gave them the pay packet, using taxpayers' money, so they certainly have the right to control it.
Absolutely correct.
I thought they had already paid back the bailout monies?
Personally though, If I had stock in those companies, I would be screaming at the next shareholder meeting, and selling off my stocks in those banks if they didn't mend their freespending ways
I am sure there are other, just as (in)competent bankers who would do just as bad a job for less than a million a year.
"The only means of strengthening one's intellect is to make up one's mind about nothing, to let the mind be a thoroughfare for all thoughts." - John Keats
"I thought they had already paid back the bailout monies?"
Goldman Sachs did, but they were given huge sums of taxpayer money and low-interest loans to gamble with. As a result, the average Goldman Sachs employee stands to get about $600,000 in bonuses taken from the winnings. When you run the casino and bet with other people's money, it's not hard to win.
Some details on the Goldman Sachs bonuses can be found at http://money.cnn.com/2009/10/15/news/companies/goldman_taxpayer_gains.fortune/?postversion=2009101610.
From the article, with thoughts not expressed in caps:
Goldman Sachs spokesman Lucas van Praag told the Journal, "The easiest way to destroy OUR CRIMINAL GANG would be if we didn't pay our people. . . . Destroying a profitable enterprise would not be in anybody's interest, EXCEPT MAYBE THE INTEREST OF THE LITTLE PEOPLE, AND ONLY A COMPLETE LOSER WOULD CARE ABOUT THEM.''
During the 2008 campaign Obama criticized Dubya for lack of transparency and criticized Billy Tauzin for pushing legislation that prevents Medicare from negotaiting drug prices.
Obama gets elected and in secret, cuts the same crooked drug deal with Tauzin as part of Obamacare (his "health care reform") and refuses to provide the White House visitors log until he is sued, thereby proving that he is no more transparent than Dubya.
Hows that hope an change workin for ya?
Obama's a smooth devil, isn't he? I certainly never believed in the "hope and change," but I did believe Obama would be less likely to start WWIII (by either nuking Iran or continuing to increase tensions with Russia) and so far that seems to be the case. I have long been pretty sure that the US is doomed regardless, and particularly the non-elites of the US, and so probably the best we can do here is try to minimize the chance that the US dooms the rest of the world either through war or imperialism. And I am glad to see that Obama appears to be less nuke-happy than Bush or McCain and just as incompetent in imperialism. However, I am little surprised that he is every bit as captured by the pharmaceutical, insurance, and banking lobbies.
I'm wondering if you know that Obama's pentagon put in for a rush delivery of the 30,000 pound conventional bomb that Bush began funding. Not sure if you understand that indicates extreme aggression against a peaceful nation, Iran. Not sure how McCain would be worse, but I suppose you never know for sure. I find it interesting that the majority of the banks knew to give Obama money and not McCain. Obama has done more to kill the antiwar movement than any President in history, I'll give him that.
Yes, I was aware of that. But I believe Obama refused to continue the pursuit of a new generation of nuclear weapons as Bush had, and as McCain almost certainly would have. Obama is no peacenik, just a slightly better alternative to the deranged, bloodthirsty, and unstable McCain. So the chances of the US losing its power and status without insanely striking out as it sinks into the abyss, without flailing away in a desperate attempt to hold onto power as dying giants are wont to do, do appear to be slightly better with Obama, though his evolving policies towards Pakistan may change all that. In the meantime, the left can try to add more heat to bring the pot to a boil (which I believe is one of the functions of a website like CD) across the USA so that substantive change becomes possible, one way or another. Certainly Obama is doing plenty to provide the fuel (quite inadvertently of course) by enabling the predatory class to so blatantly, shamelessly, and obscenely reach new heights of predation.
"Obama is no peacenik, just a slightly better alternative to the deranged, bloodthirsty, and unstable McCain. So the chances of the US losing its power and status without insanely striking out as it sinks into the abyss, without flailing away in a desperate attempt to hold onto power as dying giants are wont to do, do appear to be slightly better with Obama, though his evolving policies towards Pakistan may change all that."
And for this he gets the Nobel Peace Prize?
The award of that prize to him was bizarre. It seems the Norwegians were trying to trick him into being a little less of a Yankee warmonger, but I believe they were being too clever by half. The MIC fiends will likely use it to put even more pressure on him to prove he is not some sort of weak, sane, responsible, risk-averse wimp, but instead is a reckless warrior, brimming over with aggression, who is determined to ruthlessly demonstrate that he deserves his exalted position as the leader of the warmongers.
"It is time for that moral suasion."
I think it's pretty obvious that if you have to rely on moral suasion, you're lost.
Actually, the administration has plenty of tools available to force changes. It doesn't use them because it doesn't want anything to change.
Exactly.
The disingenuous David Axelrod said that the administration has "limited sway other than moral suasion" with the banks.
In fact, Obama can do whatever he want with the banks and wall street firms:
"On September 10th, President Obama reinstituted the national State of Emergency first declared by George W. Bush on September 14, 2001 ... As Dr. Harold C. Relyea, a specialist in national government ... has written, 'when the President formally declares a national emergency, he may seize property, organize and control the means of production, seize commodities, ... regulate the operation of private enterprise ...'"
(from http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/10/16-2)
Exactly right, John. They have had that authority from day one---could have (and still can) nationalize these hedgehog casinos outright; the moral suasion talk is pure, unadulterated bullshit, faux outrage for public consumption. This is why so many Obama supporters are currently paralyzed by PTSD, stuck in catatonic mute disbelief wondering, as Michael Moore suggests, if in "faking right", he has some brilliant strategic ballplayer's move to come. Anyone believe that?
And have you seen Moore's letter apologizing to Obama and telling everyone to get off his case. Another one bites the dust...