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TechnoratiTime to Rally for Financial Reform
To paraphrase Marat-Sade: ‘the Election came, and the election went, and unrest turned back into discontent.'
The Dems lost two Governors, one an unpopular former head honcho at Goldman Sachs (not exactly a populist crusader), and picked up one house seat in a Congressional District no one ever heard about before.
They hope that all the recovery-is-coming news will stem the tide of growing disenchantment with the centrists in Obamaland who have been swimming hard to stay in place.
As the sense of crisis seems to be abating thanks to lazy media reporting, Rahm Emamuels suggestion that a crisis is a terrible thing to waste seems itself a distant memory.
We may or may not get a health care reform but how many of us now believe it will transform much or even significantly lower costs as long as the industry is allowed to dilute proposals for both public option and single payer.
While Nancy "the Hare" Pelosi is pushing for a vote right away, Harry "the tortoise" Read says we will have to wait until next year.
So much for a sense of urgency, but at least there is some motion on that ocean.
Not so for the urgently needed financial reforms that are being blocked by our friendly financial tycoons, even as our kissing cousins across the pond move to break up their big banks.
Inaction is scary enough but even more alarm bells are being rung by Eliot Spitzer, once the "Sheriff of Wall Street" until his pecker got in the way of his assaults on the pecking order.
George Washington of Washington's Blog reports:
"Yesterday, Elliot Spitzer said that the White House's defense of the financial status quo will give Republicans powerful ammunition in the 2010 elections."
Democratic cheerleader Markos Moulitsas (the "Kos" behind Daily Kos) wrote the following about the Democratic losses in several state elections:
"Democratic turnout collapsed. This is a base problem, and this is what Democrats better take from tonight:
... If you water down reform in favor of Blue Dogs and their corporate benefactors, you will lose votes...
If you forget why you were elected - ... financial services ... reform - you will lose votes..,'
People are sick and tired of both parties' catering to the big boys. Indeed, given last night's election results and the Dems' utter failure to institute any real financial reform, trend forecaster Gerald Calente's prediction that a third party candidate will win the 2012 presidential election is sounding a little less crazy."
Writing on New Deal 2.0 Spitzer explains why he believes the right will jump on this issue perhaps even outflanking the Obamacrats:
"Few things are as potent in politics as calling for change at a moment of fundamental dissatisfaction with the status quo. Nobody should know this better than the current White House. Gauzy words describing the possibilities for change are always more comforting than defending the current dire straits. That is why - in addition to all the substantive arguments - the current White House plan for banking reform is so troubling."
Let us fast forward a couple of months. Momentary GDP pops notwithstanding, the economy next year is likely to be in pretty sad shape. Consumer spending is sagging; foreclosures are still climbing (and may surge as ARMs re-set); unemployment is likely to be hovering in the 9.5-10.0 range; federal deficits and state deficits will be soaring; and Goldman profits will still be setting new records.
Added to this toxic political brew will be a new, and perhaps counter-intuitive, but highly successful political attack from the Right: break up the banks. Imagine this: by next spring, an intellectual consensus will have emerged that the concentration in the banking sector that developed from the 1980s until the crash of ‘08 was misguided. Voices as disparate as Former Fed Chair Paul Volcker, Bank of England Governor Mervyn King, meta-investor George Soros, and the Wall Street Journal editorial page will be in agreement on this point."
Blogger Zach Carter says it is essential for progressives to get out in front and take a stand now, writing: "If we want the economy to support all people, we have to break up the big banks and start treating the creation of good jobs as an economic priority on par with Wall Street rescues.
The editors of The Nation break the political debate over banking into three camps:
"The first camp is composed of bank lobbyists, Republicans and conservative Democrats and wants to do nothing.
Camp two, endorsed by the White House and influential Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA), would impose tougher regulations on too-big-to-fail banks to keep them from getting out of control.
The third camp wants to go even further: If a bank is too-big-to-fail, it is also too-big-to-regulate. Companies that pose a danger to the economy have to be split up into smaller firms that cannot induce economic ruin."
This third camp is growing with conservatives realizing that unless they radically reform the system, it will remain volatile and unstable. Isn't it time for those of us who still cling to the hope that real change is needed to start focusing on this issue and realize that the power of big money is standing in the way of what we want and need.
Can't we become at least try to become champions of those confronting higher fees imposed by banksters and endless foreclosures leaving millions without homes or hope. Extraction demands reaction. Plunder demands protests and pitchforks!
Can't we remember that catchy phrase so many of us once echoed in the glow of an earlier time just a year ago?
Yes We Can!
23 Comments so far
Show AllTerm limits are the best and quickest and most rational way to effective and progressive leadership. No one should be able to become a lifer in anyone position.
We need to get term limit's on all seats, every single seat. No one should be able to serve more than 3 or 4 terms, maximum.
If they can't be effective or get the job done in 12 to 18 years they need to go. They're not worth holding onto and they need to move on and up or get out.
I'm so confused. Again.
Frankly, the banksters OWN 'our' government. That's not me, that's a senior Senator speaking truth.
So how, exactly, do 'we' break up the banks, when said banks OWN the only entity with a chance of breaking up said banks?
The R-nuts are only doing theater, like when they 'promise' to outlaw abortion and don't, in spite of controlling all government levers for 8 years.
They have absolutely no intention of going after their OWNERS. Especially now, when they got it down to that magic number 5 - 5 big banks to control the world.
What they'll pass is some law that makes it impossible for any OTHER bank to become 'to big to fail.' IOW, they will make competition w/the Big 5 illegal, and call it Reform for the People and Growth and Babies and Small Businesses.
Just watch...
True financial reform will have to go past money in general. We can all keep saying that "consumer spending drives the economy", worry about those stock market numbers and unemployment numbers, and keep waiting for our houses to go right back up in inflated values so that we can desperately play the sell sell sell game but it's time to stop and think about this. Are you really happy allowing money to control your life or are you just running scared thinking that if you can't make this amount of money or if something you desperately want to sell doesn't work out, then your doomed? It doesn't matter if you are conservative, liberal, progressive, libertarian, or whatever. It is becoming clear that people from across the political spectrum are beginning to realize that the financial system all along is nothing more than a mere illusion of "prosperity". If you really want financial security and happiness, you must prepare yourselves to be nonconformist in a harmless sense. That means
- not being afraid to say no to gambling your hard earned money away in the stock market.
- trying to fight for local markets and growth even if it means confronting the political bullies.
- understanding finance in non-political terms.
- withstanding peer/societal pressure to spend
- understanding the pros and cons of both socialism and capitalism and trying to take the best of both worlds
On my last point, I never give up saying that regulated capitalism would have forbidden Big Banks from getting bailed out unlike unfettered/disaster capitalism which unfairly takes our tax dollars and bails out the financial perpetrators with the most money. I do not see how unfettered/disaster capitalism can even be called capitalism at all.
P.S.: About that NJ election, I'm willing to bet that the voters who voted against Corzine were screaming from their hearts "LET GOLDMAN SACHS FAIL !" I don't see Barry waking up to that public cry for such simple yet effective reform that sure beats bailing out financial abusers.
Jennifer: "About that NJ election, I'm willing to bet that the voters who voted against Corzine were screaming from their hearts "LET GOLDMAN SACHS FAIL !"
This morning, I wrote something very similar to a friend of mine who lives in Virginia. In addition to campaigning for Corzine, Obama campaigned in Virginia for Deeds -- from what I understand, Deeds is a center-right Dem.
Here in NYC, Mayor Bloomberg almost lost the race -- despite his billions and billions of dollars. In true Bloomberg fashion, though, he is declaring a big victory: one point, or five, he still won -- sort of like a baseball game, according to Bloomberg. BTW, NO elite Dems came into the city to campaign for Bill Thompson, the Democrat who ran against Bloomberg.
Jennifer: I agree with the points you made, and it is so true that we have to take the time to educate ourselves, beyond politics, about economics and finance. In school, I didn't ever have to take any econ courses, although I took courses that ran along those lines. My real education began when I started reading on my own -- one of the most important books I read, and by now, there have been many, is Bill Greider's "Secrets of the Temple." I still think that the historical context that he lays out in the book is crucial to understanding how the system works and why. In fact, the book was a page-turner for me. No doubt, many readers and writers on this site have already read the book, but I thought I would mention it anyway.
I heard all about the VA and NJ races from quite a few posters as well as on the radio news. I don't know the politics of either state very well. From what I am hearing, despite Deeds running as another lame centrist, conservatives chose the other guy and the liberals stayed home. maxpayne mentioned some things about Deeds on this site and why he predicted Deeds would lose big. If Deeds is for mountain top removal, no public option or single payer, and giving lame ideas on improving transportation problems, I can only guess that Deeds did more turning off the voters. I think maxpayne and VAGreen can give in on the details.
On your reply about education and economics, I took two introductory courses in accounting in undergrad as electives and one finance course in grad as per requirement. A lot of it was hurried learning and I still have more to learn by slowly looking back at my notes and text closely and comparing those concepts to what the articles on this site, Alternet, and Truthdig. There's also Jake Newton here on CD who is good at finance and accounting and willing to help on getting through otherwise crooked logic and help make some sense out of it. I know some here misunderstand him but he doesn't take any positions but just goes on the facts and logic unbiased.
P.S.: Actually, I need to read that book you mentioned so big thanks for mentioning it. :)
Wonderful thoughts, Jennifer
Even for DEMs, they haven't done jack ass!
Financial Reform? I'll dis-invest all my US assets until then.
One thing that progressives of eras past (especially during the Robber Baron era) recognized was that the big bankers were the enemy, who if left unregulated, would lead everyone else into ruin. That lesson has been lost, and unless it relearned post haste, then are we prepared to live with the decline of the US $ into a second class currency?
This article gets to the heart of the problem. The lack of any movement by this President, this Congress to re-regulate, return protections of the law and oversight to our financial system.
I believe anyone that thinks the defeat of the two Dem. Gov's was a fault of the Dem turnout..." "Democratic turnout collapsed. This is a base problem, and this is what Democrats better take from tonight:" they are fools that refuse to read the numbers.
Let the whole base turn out...they still lose. The Independents have been lost, the Seniors have been lost by these fools we put in charge.
Kos is one of the folks that will tell you that those t-baggers are a small group, just Nazi's, un-American and hate-mangers financed by the RNP and don't represent the American peoples feelings.
Horse Dung. With any attention to reality at all you can see that those folks are a large group and growing by leaps and bounds. They are really angry. And the anger is spreading and growing. And they are not just a bunch of Republicans.....any fool can see that plainly now. They just kicked the RNP's ass in case no one noticed. And they are preparing to kick the Dem's ass big time.
I'm saying plainly right now and will repeat it, things have changed and there better be some changing in thinking or it will be back to the hinterlands.
"Horse Dung. With any attention to reality at all you can see that those folks are a large group and growing by leaps and bounds. They are really angry. And the anger is spreading and growing. And they are not just a bunch of Republicans.....any fool can see that plainly now. They just kicked the RNP's ass in case no one noticed. And they are preparing to kick the Dem's ass big time."
As long as the Tea Baggers (who really should have vetted the name more thoroughly before going with it) continue to have their own media outlet, Fox Noise, and have their "rallies" organized and paid for by Astro-turf lobbying firms hired by corporate interests: they will be nothing more than a deluded graying over-weight bunch of wanna-be American Sturmabteilung who are spectacularly unfit (in more ways than one) for the role. The longer they let Rupert Murdoch's minions & allies (prime sleazebag Dick Armey amongst them) lead them by the nose, the more a cult they become.
As for RNP, they are merely pandering to them at this particular moment, and will ditch them the first chance they get. As for "...preparing to kick the Dem's ass big time," perhaps in swing states where their numbers can possibly tell, but not in urban, educated, non-white, and young settings, which is where the USA is headed demographically. The Tea Baggers are a complete anathema to that demographic profile...and have done nothing but antagonized that rapidly expanding portion of the population. What the mostly elderly tea baggers forget is that it is the young who fight the wars...and most of the young of America are not about to take an order for fries from this bunch, let alone marching orders.
This is not just the "Tea-Baggers". Eighty percent of the people in this country opposed the financial bailout loud and clear. They were ignored, etc, etc etc. GM, one of the most poorly managed companies ever, was not allowed to fail. Now Wall St parties while Main St burns.
It is a serious error to dismiss this as fringe. The legislation the Democrats are trying to pass is mostly vile. It doesn't matter what your intentions are if you don't know how to establish systems and you're owned by the people you're supposed to control.
All that is needed is the right demagogue.
If the Dems didn't change after the 1994 elections, its not likely they will change after the 2009 elections.
You are probably right. These folk seem unable to deal with or recognize reality.
It is fascinating, and disturbing, to watch a political-economic system fall apart. US manufacturing is gone and is not coming back in the near term. Resistance is growing in the rest of the world against the continued use of the dollar as the de facto world currency. The end is coming for the current political-economic setup of the US and it won't be pretty. The various parties are already positioning themselves to be in the best position to scavenge. My money is on the bankster vultures, who are quite adept at it, and who probably won't rest until the US carcass is completely picked clean.
I don't believe its falling apart at all. US manufacturing is coming back because tax and trade policies will be changed...if not by Obama and it certainly looks as if he and this Comngress have no interest in the economy, then by their replacements.
The dollar is not going to be replaced as the world currency. I'd say what is ending is the fantasy of a Global Economy, a Golbal community and the realization that the rest of the nations of the world are practicing nationalistic trade and tax policies while we are being raped by the trans-globals.
Most of our real economy is small business, not the big boys.....but you are right, we will have to deal with them...as this article suggests...too big to fail....break them up. "Too big" is not much different than a monopoly.
I'll still bet on us. People don't reaslize how big we are compared to the reast of the world.
You sound so hopeful, I actually felt a little better about this mess. You're right about small business but I fear people are waking up too late. Smashing small businesses and small farms has been one of their top goals for at least a few decades and they've been reasonably successful. For example, if marijuana were legalized, would local/homegrown production be allowed or would Monsanto be running it?
"Small Is Beautiful" by EF Schumacher was written in 1974. We need to reread him now and take action to reduce the size of the banks because without the funding they provide, the trans-nationals would have a much harder time getting the amount of money they need.
I hope you're right about the future but I fear the globalization folks won't go down without a very nasty fight that, one way or another, will destroy us all.
Cassandra, actually there might be a way to remedy the fight you mentioned in the last sentence.
The article on getting localization to redefine the global economy might be the cure.
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/11/05-9
If we can start locally and rebuild differently, then the good global economy folks with hearts for working class people all over the world can crush the pro near-slavery criminals currently controlling the meaning of the global economy.
I absolutely agree that starting locally is the answer. I just fear that it will not be allowed. They are setting up more and more entry barriers to businesses all the time. Like Creekstone Farms, the meatpacker in Kansas City who is not allowed to test his meat for mad cow and the NAIS (National Animal Identification System) and all the others I'm sure you know about. The FDA constantly sets up roadblocks for small supplement companies to put them out of business. In the above comment I alluded to legalization of marijuana, which would be a bonanza for small scale entrepreneurs--yes, I saw the article at AlterNet but I also know that tobacco companies have plans in place to move into this market when able, and the gov't might still want to control supply--for purity, don't ya know.
In reading about agriculture in Detroit, the newest entrant is a businessman with 70 acres and he doesn't want to waste his time converting to organics so he wants to use chemical agriculture in the city. Unless the legal structure supports the entrepreneur, rather than "business", I don't know how we get there.
Breaking up the banks would also help small business because big banks don't like making small loans. We have been foolish and given our gov't too much power, and power does get given up easily.
We could take some of the Libertarian platform and use it towards going green. The same government that subsidies the oil companies offers nothing for solar industries. Why should government meddle with business affairs by subsidizing one industry over another. Neither of them should be subsidized. Let the markets decide if solar or oil is the winner.
Government should get out of the way so that entrepreneurs specializing in organics rather than the chemicals can prosper and save the environment. Banks would be better off failing by themselves so that smaller banks can rise and help small businesses.
You and JB offer great ideas but I believe government must first get out of the way if anything is to work.
Lex Thomas: I absolutely agree with you about subsidies and have, in the past, made those same comments here. Of course, environmental costs have to somehow be factored in and we need a btu tax rather than this Goldman Sachs concoction of cap and trade. Renewables could be exempt from the tax for 5 years to balance out the lack of previous subsidies.
I would prefer to get rid of the corporate income tax and replace it with a flat tax on gross revenues. That would eliminate all kinds of tax subsidies and tax lobbyists. It would also force businesses to make decisions based on business plans rather than tax scams. By exempting the first $50-100 million, small business would basically be federal tax exempt.
Part of the problem has been so many institutional progressives continually apologizing, excusing, justifying, rationalizing, spinning for Obama, tamping down & revising expectations, ramping up superficial appearances and minor differences, advocating for more time while ignoring what has already transpired in time passed, resorting to lesser-than defenses--and then demanding that Progressives, who Obama has repudiated, should turn up the heat.
Moulitsas represents the game change.
If your congressman (woman) is a Democrat contact him (her) soon and remind him (her) that Democrats who support single-payer health care and support meaningful re-regulation of the financial industry will win in 2010 while those who support Obama's health care deformed and Obama's self-regulating financial industry will see much of their base sit out the election just like 1994 (or worse), and their Republican opponents will have great leverage in reminding voters of the TARP giveaways and health care "reform" that criminalizes the uninsured and taxes those of us making less than $250,000 per year.
Ditto if one of your Senators is a Democrat and is up for re-election in 2010.