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Oh. My. God. Obama Clueless
I'm with Simon Johnson here: how is it possible, at this late date, for Obama to be this clueless?
The lead story on Bloomberg right now contains excerpts from an interview with Business Week which tells us:
President Barack Obama said he doesn't "begrudge" the $17 million bonus awarded to JPMorgan Chase & Co. Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon or the $9 million issued to Goldman Sachs Group Inc. CEO Lloyd Blankfein, noting that some athletes take home more pay.
The president, speaking in an interview, said in response to a question that while $17 million is "an extraordinary amount of money" for Main Street, "there are some baseball players who are making more than that and don't get to the World Series either, so I'm shocked by that as well."
"I know both those guys; they are very savvy businessmen," Obama said in the interview yesterday in the Oval Office with Bloomberg BusinessWeek, which will appear on newsstands Friday. "I, like most of the American people, don't begrudge people success or wealth. That is part of the free- market system."
Obama sought to combat perceptions that his administration is anti-business and trumpeted the influence corporate leaders have had on his economic policies. He plans to reiterate that message when he speaks to the Business Roundtable, which represents the heads of many of the biggest U.S. companies, on Feb. 24 in Washington.
Oh. My. God.
First of all, to my knowledge, irresponsible behavior by baseball players hasn't brought the world economy to the brink of collapse and cost millions of innocent Americans their jobs and/or houses.
And more specifically, not only has the financial industry has been bailed out with taxpayer commitments; it continues to rely on a taxpayer backstop for its stability. Don't take it from me, take it from the rating agencies:
The planned overhaul of US financial rules prompted Standard & Poor's to warn on Tuesday it might downgrade the credit ratings of Citigroup and Bank of America on concerns that the shake-up would make it less likely that the banks would be bailed out by US taxpayers if they ran into trouble again.
The point is that these bank executives are not free agents who are earning big bucks in fair competition; they run companies that are essentially wards of the state. There's good reason to feel outraged at the growing appearance that we're running a system of lemon socialism, in which losses are public but gains are private. And at the very least, you would think that Obama would understand the importance of acknowledging public anger over what's happening.
But no. If the Bloomberg story is to be believed, Obama thinks his key to electoral success is to trumpet "the influence corporate leaders have had on his economic policies."
We're doomed.
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228 Comments so far
Show AllAnd SCOTUS will make it illegal to tax corporations and the rich "unfairly."
Bah.
Gary
"My own mother always taught me that fairness was a family value - I think equal pay is about fairness for everyone."
-- Mike Honda
So when this country truly becomes a third world country with a small ruling class, a scant middle class and massive poverty, will the policies of a Hugo Chavez "taking away the freedoms" of the oligarchy look so bad?
If only Chavez would respect freedom of speech and the press -- no matter how unfavorable some are toward him -- and if his ego wasn't so large, he truly be a great man. But his flaws weigh heavy on his successes.
Gary
"Being idealistic really helps you overcome some of the many obstacles put in your path."
-- Andy Hertzfeld
The right-wing extremist media outlet RCTV, that Chavez is shutting down, if it were in the USA, would have long been shut down and their reporters would have been tried on charges of terrorism, and some possibly executed. RCTV was directly involved in the 2002 coup d'etat.
Venezuela has a far greater diversity of views in it's media than the US has ever had. Even with RCTV gone, there are still plenty of places to hear right wing views. In fact, hostile, slanderous right wing media outlets are still quite abundant. It is the actions of Chavez against the corporate-dominated right-wing media that assure at least some diversity will continue.
Absolute, unregulated "freedom of speech" is just like absolute, unregulated "free markets". Both ultimately lead to monopoly power - in the case of speech - monopoly power over ideas by the wealthy.
The "freedom of speech" everyone talks about in Venezuela and in the US is the freedom of billionaires to buy a newspaper or a radio station. Let them say anything they want, but when it comes to the "right" to broadcast, why should billionaires be privileged over a co-op of workers or neighbors? Venezuela is creating community media, so naturally the whole capitalist world is screaming. Let them scream. In another 50 years, maybe we might have a real people's media
Thanks, pjd and Laurence, for putting into perspective Chavez's supposed curtailment of "freedom of speech." One thing that strikes everyone who goes to that country is just how anti-Chavez basically all the private mass media is. That's what I call tolerance, and confidence in the support of the populace. Chavez should serve as a model for anyone interested in seeing what real democracy looks like.
that, pjd412, is the goddam double truth!
Straight talk, Mr. Krugman.
That's how one (deserved) Nobel laureate should talk to his fellow (undeserved) Nobel laureate.
Not that I trust the undeserved Nobel laureate - and not to be confused with Noble, which Obama clearly is not - to listen.
By now it's clear that there's no 'plan' or 'deeper strategy' to hope for with Obama - he really is a preppy, clueless guy with a white smile and a bleached-out soul.
I don't think we're 'doomed' - that's still hyperbole (and people are still good at being people) - but I do think we're fucked. Royally - no, hold that (who's this 'Roy' guy anyway?): Presidentially screwed and fooled again.
Smarter: "By now it's clear that there's no 'plan' or 'deeper strategy' to hope for with Obama - he really is a preppy, clueless guy with a white smile and a bleached-out soul."
Yahoo!!! Perfect!!!
... but where is that going to leave us? Three more years.
Remembrance of GW, and he's beginning to sound more intelligent than Obama, and at least he could decide even though his decisions were wretched.
Between a rock and a hard place. Everything I've read this morning and afternoon on other sites truly suggests we are going down, down, down ... Recovery? That, more and more, I think is just a pipe dream.
What a bunch of truly crazy souls running things.
Well, as Scarlet used to say, "Fiddle dee dee. Tomorrow IS another day." ... hopefully.
/cm
The nice thing about W was that he wasn't as skillful a liar as Obama. When you voted for him you knew exactly what you were going to get. Not so with the Mendacity of Hope.
Naw. W was (and is) a better liar.
He just wasn't trying to lie to YOU or ME.
He was lying to "the right-wingers".
And he was so good at it, most of them still love him.
Obama is so bad at lying to the "left-wingers" that he has lost a good percentage of them in just one year -and "left-wingers" don't traditionally have the gumption that the "right-wingers" do.
BushII and Obama are equally bad at lying to the "non-aligned" folks. But in the transition from Bush to Obama, those folks have gone from "middle-class" lifestyles where "terrorism" is one's biggest "fear" to losing their shirts and keeping a roof over one's head is something to be genuinely afraid of.
If there's anyone left who doesn't get that the whole "W the dope" act was just that, an act, well, they're just as stupid as they thought he was (the smirk was a TELL, people! That's how you knew he KNEW what he sounded like).
-matti.
Palin gets the "W is a dope" thing.
matti, you're right that quite a few right-wingers became very disgusted with Bush. But Bush did ultimately give them Roberts and Alito-gifts that keep on giving, and giving.
Scrambled history: We voted for Obama as FDR and wound up with Herbert Hoover. Three more years of vacillation and empty rhetoric might end up with a GOP reactionary in the WH.
Obama word association: ligthtweight, feckless, indifferent, impotent, Panglossian,
"Published on Wednesday, February 10, 2010 by the New York Times"
Then why can't I find it in the New York Times?
Go here.
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/10/clueless/
As I said below, he wrote this on his blog, and we'll have to wait to see if any of his sentiments appear in print. Personally, I doubt the content will match.
Important point, and thanks for making it!
· Yr Obd't Servant
Give me a break, is Obama clueless?
Obama told you, during the campaign, "I am a free-market kindda' guy"
Obama disowned his pastor, Rev Wright, someone who really does care about what ordinary Americans are going through.
It is not Obama that is clueless, why would anyone who knows all this still go along with the status quo Democrats?
"a free-market kindda' guy" - That's clueless to me.
"disowned his pastor, Rev Wright, someone who really does care about what ordinary Americans are going through." - That's clueless to me.
Plus so many other give-ins, give-outs and give-aways over the year. - That's clueless to me. Clueless as to what a great, or even good president would do.
Just because he doesn't do something, doesn't make him "clueless" as to how to do it or why.
He just doesn't CARE to be a "great president".
Why bother when he can be really stinking rich and millions of people will still affect love for him because they are terrified to admit that they dislike a "black" person.
-matti.
It looks like they are all CIA connected corporate stooges...
At least Oswald was just a patsy.
The round table, AIG you name it.
AIG was set up by the CIA after the war using insurance as a cover like the OSS to spy on the Nazis....it worked so well they did not stop there.
Allen Dulles the CIA Wall Street lawyer hired thousands of Nazi Intel agents to do the cointel dirty jobs all over the world.
At least Ike said it like it is.
On July 17th 2009 Obama said. "I have always been a strong believer in the power of the free market. I believe that our role is not to disparage wealth, but to expand its reach; not to stifle the market, but to strengthen its ability to unleash the creativity and innovation that still make this nation the envy of the world."
Another quote from the master of hopenosis:
"I am a pro-growth, free market guy. I love the market. I think it is the best invention to allocate resources and produce enormous prosperity for America or the world that’s ever been designed.”
–Barack Obama
And another:
"I think that there's always been a spectrum of opinion about how unfettered the free market is. And along that spectrum, I think there have been some who believe in very fierce regulation and are very suspicious of globalization, and there are others who think that it's always -- that the market is always king. And I think what we've learned here, but if anybody had been studying history they would have understood earlier, is that the market is the most effective mechanism for creating wealth and distributing resources to produce goods and services that history has ever known, but that it goes off the rail sometimes; that if it's completely unregulated, that if there are no thoughtful frameworks to channel the creative energy of the market, that it can end up in a very bad place."
BARACK OBAMA, press conference, Apr. 2, 2009
Krugman is the one who is clueless. Kruggy is just another liberal political hack who generally praises the workings of Empire and is now singing the blues about his guy Obama-Man who has always been singing the sickening and blood soaked hymn of THE MARKET of The Market.
No Paul K you are the one who did not do his homework. No wonder all these Ivy League pustules grow up to plunder without a conscience.
I heard these quotes in the videos on this site. If I close my eyes I can hear Ronald Reagan loud and clear.
I mostly agree with your comments,but your cheap shot about 'Ivy League pustules' would probably get you a fist down your throat from some of my classmates, who spent the Freedom Summer in the deep South,and who have been lifelong organizers and activists.And,no,my friend, we have not spent our time plundering without conscience.Yale and the other Ivies are over-rated institutions, but for reasons I doubt you can imagine.
Nah I'm right on target.
How I know is that I experience it first-hand every single day.
Ivy-Leaguers represent the pinnacle of cultural imperialism which is to say they are the dregs of the barrels of US Exceptionalism.
Pointing out the exceptions only proves the rule.
And let's not kid ourselves the list of Ivy League "activists" who were absorbed (only because they believed in it all along) into the liberal doctrine is quite lengthy.
It wouldn't solve all the world's problems by any measure but abolishing the Ivy League entirely would be a good first step.
That's awesome!
So the Ivy Leaguers are NOT bad.
And they'll prove it to ya by shoving "a fist down your throat"!
Ha!
Really absorbed the whole "non-violence" philosophy well, huh?
But my favorite part is the seemingly unconscious elitism of the last sentence!
Sure they may not KNOW the "real" reasons, but they can't "imagine" them?
Why not, because of their tiny, plebian brains?
Ha, HA!
You're great. I love you, If you're paid to be here, your boss owes you a bonus for sure!
-matti.
We can argue forever that Obama is clueless, or that he knows exactly what he's doing, but the fact remains he's firmly on the side of Wall Street and has never shown any genuine concern for Main St. or the travails of ordinary lives. He'll give lip service to it occasionally but he invariably comes down on the side of the super-rich with every last policy decision he makes. Even including his commitment to upgrade the already obscene nuclear weapons stockpile, yet another move to placate Senate Republicans, which he can always be counted on to do.
There is absolutely no evidence anywhere that this prick cares any more about so-called progressive values than Bush ever did. It is simply uncanny that there are still "liberal" pundits at large defending him, as if the daily beating he takes from Republicans is reason enough to support his policies which are identical to theirs. Every time he caves to their demands or expectations, they call him a socialist or "soft on terror", and he returns the favor by imitating the worst of them better than before. How can anyone even still pretend that he's "politically savvy" or praise his remarkable intelligence? The guy has done everything possible to insure defeats across the board for Dems and his own defeat in 2012. That makes him bright? Possibly, if you assume he's been placed where he is by the Republicans themselves, who are simply using him for 4 years so they regain total power.
"I know both those guys; they are very savvy businessmen," Obama said.
Translation: "I know both those guys; and when they say they're going to pump millions into the GOP unless I make nice, they mean it," Obama said.
It's important to get the straight scoop from our politicians...
Bloomberg excerpt sez: "The planned overhaul of US financial rules prompted Standard & Poor's to warn on Tuesday it might downgrade the credit ratings of Citigroup and Bank of America on concerns that the shake-up would make it less likely that the banks would be bailed out by US taxpayers if they ran into trouble again."
***
So ...
The top-shelf, AAA ratings for these entities apply only if the U.S. Taxpayer is standing by with wallet open?
Yeah, this "free (sic) market" seems like a pretty solid economic model.
We're doomed.
How many hundreds of thousands of times since 1945 have liberals been demonized here in the United States?
What is the ultimate goal in what we see taking place daily?
It's unthinkable.
No Dr. Krugman, Obama is not clueless. He is doing exactly what his puppet masters tell him to do. How about writing a piece on the shadow government and banks?
Also, perhaps it is time to start beating the impeachment drum, no?
Good. Now I don't have to say it.
the impeachment drum? is that the one that gets Pelosi and Conyers to start a conga line off the table and into committee?
I joined a site called United Professionals a little while back. It was started by Barbara Ehrenreich and it's been slow to pick up steam, but they sent me a link to this "back-and-forth" on an article entitled thus:
Have U.S. Workers Priced Themselves Out of the Job Market?
http://www.unitedprofessionals.org/2010/02/09/have-u-s-workers-priced-themselves-out-of-the-job-market-join-the-discussion/
Although as a legal transcriptionist I don't always consider myself a professional, in that I don't have a bag of degrees, this is a topic that affects me and everyone else in this country -- excepting CEOs and professional speakers like ex-Presidents.
Thought it was appropriate considering all this talk of love of globalization and the free market by Obama.
Great dialogue and interesting site.
Everyone should check out this "progressive?" think tank (Economic Policy Institute): http://www.epi.org/ Some good ideas and data there.
Gary
"A man does what he must -- in spite of personal consequences, in spite of obstacles and dangers and pressures -- and that is the basis of all human morality."
-- Winston Churchill
So is Krugman changing his tune now. First he was an apologist for the bailouts and a supporter of lemon socialism, now he is speaking out against it. Wouldn't be the first time it took him a while to catch up. He was behind on the dotcom and real estate bubbles, but eventually he does get a clue. Maybe this is a sign that he's waking up.
Good hands, tin ear.
Get this bump out. Impeach him. Get rid of him. Obama's an Uncle Tom. A one-termer farce.
Is the Dow spiking up with this news???
THIS is a surprise to Paul Krugman? NOW we're "doomed?" Give me a break....
Obama on CNBC in 2008: "Look. I am a pro-growth, free-market guy. I love the market."
Indeed he does. Lest Krugman's forgotten, Obama received a thorough indoctrination into the fraudulent and farcical "free-market" doctrine when he spent a decade teaching law at the University of Chicago, home to the infamous Friedmanite economic cult, commonly referred to as the 'Chicago Boys,' who, with the assistance of CIA 'intervention', unabashedly unleashed this criminal, neoliberal assault onto a mostly unsuspecting world (see Argentina, circa 1973). The results in Latin America were so 'successful,' that these same neoliberal policies have become economic gospel here in the United States for every presidential administration beginning with Reagan.
One would think our current economic situation and emerging police-state would finally serve as an indictment of the "free-market" doctrine, exposing it for the fraud that it is: a scam to ensure the aristocratic elite become obscenely wealthy through the transfer of public wealth into private coffers and by eliminating all public/social programs--except, of course, the military, for reasons that should be obvious. Perhaps Mr. Krugman should pick up a copy of The Shock Doctrine to refresh his memory. Clearly, if this latest comment by the completely superficial Obama took him by surprise, he's not very adept at connecting the dots. Thanks to 30-plus years of these "free-market" guys, we've been "doomed" for a very long time. This is nothing new.
Sioux Rose
GIOVANNA: Most-excellent post, as usual.
I just had the opportunity to be a guest on a radio show out of Chicago, and there were breaks for commercials. One ad explained that the greatest percentage of persons consult medical persons on account of stress, and how the stress factor undermines health. One could say that as an adjunct to the typical applications of "Disaster Capitalism," we might add the numbers of all those millions stressed by a roller coaster economy/stock market, added to the descent of home prices, on top of job uncertainties. Yes. With all this stress running so high, the medical insurance firms and some of the medical world will invariably be cashing in on the revenue stream thus generated. Heckuva job, Brownie. The time has come to examine the notion of prosperity itself. I remember what a revelation it was for me to read about the concept of "Natural Capitalism," and all the things nature provides that are never tallied up on any balance sheets. How many realize that disasters and what it costs to clean them up count as profit on the national ledger? This style of economics reminds me of Scrooge before he encountered the ghosts of revelation.
What Sioux Rose said, Giovanna.
· Yr Obd't Servant
From the article:
"I know both those guys; they are very savvy businessmen,"
Hmm, if I understand correctly these guys bet the farm on the premise that real estate prices can NEVER go down. That does not seem to be too "savvy" to me..
Excellent insight. If they're so freakin' savvy then why are we on the brink of a depression?
Brink?
Gary
"The ancients understood the regulation of power better than the regulation of liberty."
-- Edward Dahlberg
Well I appreciate Mr. Krugman's honest view, but at the same time this shouldn't be surprise to him. If I'm correct, he was okay with Githner's appointment.
Also, I was wondering when said "We are doomed", who constitutes "WE", entire US population, bottom 70%, bottom 90%, bottom 95% ? I doubt it would be Top 1-5%.
The signs are not good, everywhere you listen, read from those who wants to tell things as it is.
George Carlin was so right when he said...
"Bullshit is the glue that keeps us together as a nation, Both Obama and McCain are full of it, one of them will be elected and nothing will really change!"
whatever happened to "mixed economy"? I'm clueless.
Yup, Obama's clueless and we're doomed. He's throwing money at them, they'll just take it and do nothing, and then ask for more.
Thanks Paul, but we were doomed after the Citizens United decision. Obama is a wet noodle, a failure and a disgrace indeed, but any move he might ever decide to make that runs contrary to corporate preferences is now assured to be met with unlimited donations to a handpicked opponent come election time. The Supreme 5 ended democracy in this country a few weeks back. We're chickens without heads, walking around like we still have something to do. Obama COULD take the three years which remain to him and fight a desperate battle to restore democracy; I'm not holding my breath.