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Adam Eran
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Adam commented on the article |Look, let's cut to the chase, shall we? The "media" is an oligarchy that needs trust busting. Where's Obama on that? It should be job one. So far, the silence is deafening.
Job two is to ensuring there's a public, non-profit health insurance option -- at least -- with which private insurors have to compete. Where's Obama on that? Again, crickets.
I'll admit Obama is riding a wave of approval now, but if he continues to ignore these things, and do his other kowtows to the oligarchs like stiffing the unions on card check, grinding workers at domestic auto makers, and gifting trillions to Wall St, well, he's not going to last through a second term. Heck, he'll get a Republican congress in the mid-terms, and that's quite an accomplishment.
There's far too much "more of the same" from this administration. Reaganomics, globalization and union busting have got us where we are. Paul Krugman says that the initial attempts at single-payer healthcare were quashed because the Dixiecrats were afraid it would integrate Southern hospitals. You'd think Obama of all people would break from that tradition, but if he continues to follow these other policies, he's not promoting "Change you can believe in"... it's "the more things change, the more they stay the same." -
Adam commented on the article |
This is all very lovely, and changing lightbulbs and going vegan can make an impact, but where's the call for public policy?
For example, why does government-owned FNMA still underwrite home loans for sprawl?
The alternative is pedestrian- and transit-friendly, mixed use. Why aren't we changing the way we build cities? The feds could do this in a heartbeat. Transit will never work if no one can walk to the stops.
Most significant: Why do we all of a sudden have trillions to bail out banks that pay multi-million-dollar bonuses, but have only chump change for climate-related infrastructure?
Don't kid yourselves, changing a lightbulb is not the point of having government. Public policy is. -
Adam commented on the article |For a little perspective, the auto companies are trying to negotiate give-backs with their workers that have already exceeded the size of any federal bailout. Meanwhile labor is about $500 per car. There is no significant disparity between U.S. and foreign auto makers here (the big disparity appears because of healthcare and retirement costs for legacy workers -- and the Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation -- i.e. the taxpayers -- will pick up the tab if a bankruptcy defaults on pension obligations.).
Thom Hartmann calculates the "bailout" (actually some federal loans) at $3,000 per job. Alabama's Senator Shelby was horrified at the prospect of doing this. What Shelby didn't mention was that Alabama gave Mercedes, a foreign car maker, $250,000 per job to build a plant in Alabama. That was a gift, not a loan.
The whole thing stinks of union busting -- especially in light of Obama's retreat from supporting union card check.
Meanwhile, the Obama / Geithner / Summers / Rubin bank bailout needlessly complicates what the FDIC does routinely: closing banks. The bailout proposal is far worse than the Reagan / Bush era S&L bailout which was, at the time, the worst public financial scandal in U.S. history -- orders of magnitude bigger than Teapot Dome. It was the worst because Reagan wanted to have the banks "grow" their way out of trouble, and the bailouts and changed accounting standards ensued based on that particular bit of denial.
Politicians are notorious for betraying their main constituencies. FDR was a "traitor" to his class, and LBJ was the "peace" president who escalated Vietnam, and was from a very racist south, but managed to pass lots of civil rights legislation.
Anyway, Obama is in danger of betraying his constituencies -- the progressive left and the working poor. It'd be a shame if he became the "anti-FDR" because he left the oligarchs in power. That's the danger with the current bailout proposal. -
Adam commented on the article |BTW, notice that on all of "Change.org" there is no separate topic for this bailout, even though it far exceeds the S&L travesty. At the time, the S&L Bailout was the largest political and financial scandal in U.S. history -- another tribute to "Reaganomics" -- exceeding by orders of magnitude scandals like Teapot Dome or Credit Mobilier.
One historian's take on the S&L bailout:
"The S&L story is desperately important not for the reasons usually given but because its development, maturity and crisis raise profound questions about American society. In the light of this bonfire, we must ask whether our great professions are still capable of self-regulation, of giving honest service, and of accepting fiduciary duties in an age when all costs and benefits are reduced to monetary measurements and all conduct that is not specifically prohibited has become permissible. Watching the obedient dance of our officials and politicians when their patrons pipe a tune, unrebuked by a public that attends this show as it might any other, we must ask whether this generation of Americans remains capable of self- government." --from Martin Mayer's THE GREATEST-EVER BANK ROBBERY The Collapse of the Savings and Loan Industry -
Adam commented on the article |
The bank bailout is separate from the stimulus (a mistake to introduce them simultaneously) and needs to be a corrective to the kind of financial misbehavior that got us in this current trouble. See the following for details:
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/02132009/watch.html
http://counterpunch.org/hudson02122009.html
http://www.democracynow.org/2009/2/13/robert_kuttner_and_michael_hudson_on
The bottom line: Unless we get this one right, then a new Obama will be creating a new oligarchy. The happy talk about "change you can believe in" will be supplanted by stern reminders that we need to pay our debts... you know, just like the folks in Argentina and Indonesia, etc.
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