Photo: Courtesy Truthdig.com
"He has blundered into a deepening quagmire in Afghanistan,
has continued the Bush policy of buying
off Wall Street hustlers instead of confronting them and is now on the cusp of
bargaining away the so-called
public option, the reform component of his health care program."
Robert Scheer,
Obama's
Presidency Isn't Too Big to Fail
The New Democrat is the Old Republican. Just as the Old
Republicans devolve into some sort of deranged regional Confederate Party full of
Michael Douglas' "Falling Down" character, taking the perceived
demise of the white male in society as some sort of personal attack on their
world.
The religious fanatics populating the Old Republicans are an angry
unintelligible mass of screamers without logic. Raised by not sparing the rod,
these beaten little Christers are now lashing out in the anger as the adults of
abused children. The abused become the abusers in Max Blumenthal's well
researched analysis of the angry white mobs of the Christian right... the New
Confederate Party.
The New Democrat is really the old Rubin-McAuliffe corporate
Democrat. McAuliffe whose guiding political philosophy is "Hey pal, payola
for me not the other guy's party..." witnessed for the first time in 2006
Democrats receiving more campaign bribes from corporations than the Republicans
by 60% to 40% advantage. Pelosi and Reid behaved like it. Not able to find the
votes to stop anything or for any traditional Democrats populace position promised
in the elections. From 2006 to 2008, Reid and Pelosi's marching orders came
from their corporate owners whose bidding was carefully followed with excuses
to the public.
]]>
So why would Wall Street and corporate power hand $600
million for a presidential campaign to an obscure first term center from Illinois with political speeches like these?
"This is a verdict on the failed policies of the last eight years that said that we
should strip away consumer
protections, let the market run wild, and prosperity would rain down.""You've
got to have somebody in Washington who is thinking about the middle class and
not just those who can afford to hire
lobbyists."
"It's
not enough just to help those at the top. Prosperity is not just going to
trickle down."
"The
problem
we have is that Washington
has become a place where good ideas go to die. They go to die because
the lobbyists and special interests have a strangle-hold on the agenda
in Washington."
Mr. Change, Presidential Debate, University
of Texas, Austin, February 21, 2008.
"We'll make it clear to the special interests that their
days of setting the agenda in Washington are over, because the American
people are not the problem in this 21st century--they are the answer."
Mr. Change, Speech
in Flint, MI, in "Change We Can Believe In," p.258-9 Jun 15, 2008.
Robert Scheer, the west coast Seymour Hirsch, hits the nail
on the head finding the fatal flaw in the snow blower named Obama. Brand Obama
is fading fast, about to be found out by the gullible American public as
nothing more than the empty calories of a political slurpee in a wasteful
plastic convenience store cup. Scheer is not alone in detailing the constant contradiction
in the campaign rhetoric of Mr. Change versus the actions of the now elected
Mr. Slick.
Regulation?
"Let's, first of all, understand that the biggest problem in this whole process was the deregulation of the financial system. Sen. McCain, as recently as March, bragged about the fact that
he is a deregulator. On the other hand, two years ago, I said that we've got a
sub-prime lending crisis that has to be
dealt with."
Mr. Change, Presidential Debate, Belmont University, Nashville, Tennessee,
October 7, 2008.
According to Business Week's Chad Terhune and Robert Berner, the new Mr. Slick "save the economy policy" is reinflating the housing bubble using the FHA to spread new sub prime loans:
FHA-Backed Loans: The New Subprime
"Washington,
meanwhile, has vastly expanded the availability of such taxpayer-backed loans
as part of the emergency campaign to
rescue the country's swooning economy."
"Their
new strategy: taking advantage of a long-standing federal program designed to encourage homeownership by insuring
mortgages for buyers of modest means."
"You
read that correctly. Some of the same people who propelled us toward the housing market calamity are now seeking to profit by
exploiting billions in federally insured mortgages."
Regulation?? The Birth of Mr. Slick
"A year ago, I went to Wall Street and said we've got
to reregulate, and nothing happened."
Mr. Change, Presidential Debate, University of Texas, Austin, February 21, 2008.
Photo: Courtesy Phil Stock World
"Our economy is badly weakened, a consequence of greed and
irresponsibility on the part of some but also our collective failure to make
hard choices and prepare the nation for a new age.""The
state of our economy calls for action: bold and swift."
"But this crisis has reminded us that without a watchful eye,
the market can spin out of control. The nation cannot prosper long when it
favors only the prosperous."
"To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of
dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history..."
Transcript: Barack Obama's Inaugural Address, January 20, 2009.
Allow me to retort, Mr. President.
8 months ago you were
sworn in with the high rhetoric of change and reigning in Wall Street's
greed that had brought down the economy. Yet your solution was to send
the compromised regulator Tim Geithner to Wall Street to bring back a
plan. Take the Federal Reserve whose shareholders, Chase, Citi, JP
Morgan, Goldman Sachs are the very players who caused the destruction
through fraud and criminality, have the Fed as the new super regulator.
The problem is the Fed had the power to stem the fraud and corruption
and completely failed to do so. After all, look at who owns the Fed...
In
response to Obama's speech on Wall Street, September 15, 2009.
Professor of Economics, Columbia University, Joseph Stiglitz in the UK
Guardian:
For all Obama's talk of overhaul, the US has failed to wind in Wall Street
"Last night Barack Obama defended his administration's
response to the financial crisis, but the reality
is that a year on from Lehmans' collapse, it has failed to take adequate steps
to restrict institutions' size, their risk-taking, and their interconnectedness. Indeed, it has allowed the big banks to become even bigger - just as it
has failed to stem the flow of profligate executive bonuses. Obama's call on Wall Street yesterday to support "the most ambitious overhaul of the financial
system since the Great Depression" is welcome - but the devil, as ever,
will be in the detail."
"But the Obama administration has created a new concept: institutions too big to be resolved, too big for capital
markets to provide the necessary discipline. The perverse incentives for excessive risk-taking at taxpayers' expense are even worse with the too-big-to-be-resolved banks than they are at the too-big-to-fail institutions. We have
signed a blank cheque on the public purse. We have not circumscribed their gambling - indeed, they have access to funds from the Fed at close to zero
interest rates, and it appears that "trading profits" have (besides "accounting" changes) become the major source of returns."
"I fear
that our collective response has been mistaken and inadequate - that we may
just have made matters worse. The financial sector would like
us to believe that if only the Federal Reserve and the Treasury had leapt to the rescue of Lehman all would have been fine. Sheer nonsense. Lehmans was not a cause but a consequence: a consequence of flawed lending practices, and of inadequate oversight by regulators.
Professor William Black, Associate Professor, Economics and
Law, University of Missouri, Kansas City was a deputy director at the
former Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corp. during the Reagan
deregulation fueled savings and loan crises of the
1980s.
Professor Black HAS credibility because he is the man with THE
record in the last banking
scandal. In spite of repeated resistance and interference from the
Reagan and Bush Sr. administrations, Black help round up Keating,
corrupt Senators and brought
criminal charges and 1,000 felony convictions for S&L insiders with
about
700 doing jail time.
From Bill Moyers April 2009 interview with Professor Black, Bill Moyers Journal, PBS
Moyers' Introduction:
"William
K. Black, author of THE BEST WAY TO ROB A BANK IS TO OWN ONE, teaches economics and law at the University of Missouri
-- Kansas City (UMKC). He was the Executive Director
of the Institute for Fraud Prevention from 2005-2007. He has taught previously
at the LBJ School of Public Affairs
at the University of Texas at Austin and at
Santa Clara University, where he was also the distinguished
scholar in residence for insurance law..."
"Black was litigation director of the Federal Home Loan Bank Board, deputy director of the FSLIC...and senior deputy chief counsel, Office of Thrift Supervision.
He was deputy director of the National Commission on Financial Institution Reform, Recovery and Enforcement."
"Black developed the concept of "control fraud" -- frauds in which the CEO or head of state uses the entity as a "weapon." Control frauds cause greater financial losses than all other forms of property crime combined...and served as an expert for OFHEO in its enforcement action against Fannie Mae's former senior management."
The Interview:
WILLIAM K. BLACK: Geithner is charging, is covering
up. Just like Paulson did before him. Geithner
is publicly saying that it's going to take $2 trillion -- a trillion is a
thousand billion -- $2 trillion
taxpayer dollars to deal with this problem. But they're allowing all the banks
to report that they're not only
solvent, but fully capitalized. Both statements can't be true. It can't be that they need $2 trillion, because
they have masses losses, and that they're fine.
WILLIAM K. BLACK: These are all people who have failed. Paulson failed, Geithner failed. They were all promoted because they failed, not because...
BILL MOYERS: What do you mean?
WILLIAM K. BLACK: Well, Geithner has, was one of our nation's top regulators, during the entire subprime scandal, that I just described. He took absolutely no effective action. He gave no warning. He did nothing in response to
the FBI warning that there was an epidemic of fraud. All this pig in the poke stuff happened under him. So, in his
phrase about legacy assets. Well he's
a failed legacy regulator.
BILL MOYERS: But he
denies that he was a regulator. Let me show you some of his testimony before Congress. Take a look at this.
TIMOTHY GEITHNER: I've never
been a regulator, for better or worse. And I think you're right to say that we have to be very skeptical that
regulation can solve all of these problems. We have parts of our system that are overwhelmed by regulation.
Overwhelmed by regulation! It
wasn't the absence of regulation that was the problem, it was despite the presence of regulation
you've got huge risks that build up.
WILLIAM K. BLACK: Well,
he may be right that he never regulated, but his job was to regulate. That was his mission
statement.
...WILLIAM
K. BLACK: I think, first,
the policies are substantively bad.
Second, I think they completely lack integrity. Third, they violate the rule of law. This is being done just like
Secretary Paulson did it. In violation of the law. We adopted a law after the Savings and Loan crisis, called the
Prompt Corrective Action Law. And it requires
them to close these institutions. And they're refusing to obey the law.
BILL
MOYERS: In other words, they could have closed these banks without
nationalizing them?
WILLIAM K. BLACK: Well,
you do a receivership. No one -- Ronald Reagan did receiverships.Nobody called it nationalization.
BILL MOYERS: And that's a
law?
WILLIAM K. BLACK: That's
the law.
BILL MOYERS: So, Paulson
could have done this? Geithner could do this?
WILLIAM K. BLACK: Not
could. Was mandated--
BILL MOYERS: By the law.
WILLIAM K. BLACK: By the
law.
BILL MOYERS: This law,
you're talking about.
WILLIAM K. BLACK: Yes.
BILL MOYERS: What the
reason they give for not doing it?
WILLIAM K. BLACK: They
ignore it. And nobody calls them on it.
As Barron's astutely points out in an April 2009 interview, The Lessons of the S&L Crisis:
"We have failed bankers giving advice to failed
regulators on how to deal with failed assets. How can it result in anything but failure?"
"If they
are going to get any truthful investigation, the Democrats picked the wrong
financial team. Tim Geithner,
the current Secretary of the Treasury,
and Larry Summers, chairman of the National
Economic Council, were important architects of the problems. Geithner
especially represents a failed
regulator, having presided over the bailouts of major New York banks."
"Geithner
has appropriated the language of his critics and of the forthright to support dishonesty. That is what's so appalling --
numbering himself among those who convey tough medicine
when he is really pandering to the interests of a select group of banks who are
on a first-name basis with Washington
politicians."
As astute financial blogger Jesse from Jesses Café American
notes:
Stock Market Rally: Shenanigans Abound
"Obama and his team have NO credibility for reform on
Wall Street after their handling of Goldman
Sachs and the AIG payouts."
"Inflation
is good for financial assets, and we think another bubble is in the cards, at
least for now given Obama's
unwillingness to reform, unless some exogenous event or actor intervenes."
Is Jesse alone? Analyst Larry Doyle from "Sense on
Cents" Whatever Happened to Financial Reform
"Today President Obama will make a campaign stop on
Wall Street to promote his calls for financial
regulatory reform. We will receive the standard platitudes. Obama will likely
recruit a few high profile Wall Street
executives to support his initiatives or lack thereof. The fact is, Wall Street has been working diligently to make
sure that ultimately "business as usual" carries the day."
Kevin Depew at Minnyanville, Five Things: The Myths of the Crisis
"Think about it this way. The word credit comes from
the Latin "credere," which means, literally, "to
believe, or to trust." That is really all you need to know about the
modern financial system. When the
credere is gone, the whole thing unravels, and it works both ways, from lender to borrower, and from borrower
to lender. This is why monetary and fiscal policies aren't working."
"Well,
unfortunately, we're rapidly moving right back to the same place we were before
the real issues facing us in The
Crisis became apparent. In other words, all that has happened is that the doctor (the government) has been
successful in treating the symptoms of the disease (failed institutions and widespread
insolvency), but in doing so the disease itself (too much debt) has actually worsened."
Wall Street Reform-
Mr. Slick gets an "F"
Cartoon: By Mike Keefe, The Denver Post
"We are at a defining moment in our history, going
through the worst financial crisis since the great
depression..."
Mr. Change, Presidential Debate, University of Mississippi,
September 26, 2008.
Oh really? You could not tell by the Obama lack of action,
the sin of omission.
So how does an eloquent speech delivering academically
accomplished graduate from Harvard Law mislead those who voted for him on the
true intent of his policies?
Like Reid and Pelois who have been in control of Congress
since 2006 but yet just can't seem to find the votes on any of those supposed
positions of the Democratic Party...
Mr. Change simply fails at all those promises of Wall Street
reform, ending imperial wars for profit at tax payer expense and now the most
stark failure to put forward any measure of health care reform. The New
Democrats know who their corporate masters are and now do the bidding of Wall
Street and corporate power by selling out the American public at every turn.
Mr. Change ran a campaign of implication. He IMPLIED to
progressive voters that he was all about "fairness" and Wall Street
reform. He campaigned repeatedly on the excess of greed and reform to help main
street. He parsed his words, made vague implications.
Once elected he claimed we all just did not hear what he
said...
Mr. Change ran a campaign calling for the end to unjust wars
that the American public was lied into by the installed Junta regime of Bush
the Dunce. Mr. Change campaigned long and loud about how he had voted against
Congressional approval for the Iraq
war, while his opponent from Clinton
time had been a war monger.
Once elected he claimed we all just did not hear what he
said...
Mr. Change campaigned on Health care for all. Mr. Change
campaigned on reform of the current rip off system that enriches health
insurance corporations while denying treatment to those with insurance and
dumping any one with an anything as pre existing condition from the roles after
taking their premiums year after year in a criminal cabal of rip off. Mr.
Change even campaigned for universal single payer.
Once elected he claimed we all just did not hear what he
said...
Now progressives may start to be getting the picture. Mr.
Change is in fact Mr. Corporate, Mr. Tool of Wall Street.
Mr. Change is careful. He is a word parser and clever dealer
in logic and implication when speaking. He continually tells those who voted
for him that it is their fault they implied what was not there. The biggest and
most useful weapon of Mr. Change for his Wall Street and Corporate masters
against the American people is his sin of omission.
It is more important what Mr. Change DOES not do rather than
continuing to buy the kool-aid and listen to those eloquent speeches of high
rhetoric. He talks major reform but some how never acts or accomplishes. This
is the pattern. Talk the big game but never do anything.
This has been the Pelosi/Reid MO since being given a
majority in 2006. Mr. Change has embraced this style of inaction as cover for
the looting of the American public by Wall Street, continuing foreign wars for
corporate profit that bleed the American tax payer and kill the sons and
daughters of the less advantaged.
Now what may be the final straw to the American public...
Health Care Reform that wasn't. It won't kick in until 2013 once Mr. Change is
safely reelected. Then the big screw turns. Simply look at the Willard
"the Rat" Romney Massachusetts
plan of forced public purchase of private policies with no reform of the
corrupt health insurance industry. Premiums are going up at 10% a year
including a 9% increase this year.
Even with the careful timing of the "big health care
screw," progressives and independents must be starting to catch on. Mr.
Change is in fact Mr. Slick, a flim flam man, a con artist a bull shitter. Of
the big three campaign themes of Mr. Slick, the economy, Wall Street reform,
ending unjust wars and health care "reform," the first big failure of Mr. Slick is lack of Wall Street reform.
Mr.
Slick allowed his minions to use Fed monetary policy to flood the
investment banks with capital. Being the greedy worms they are, Wall
Street banks leveraged the cash like crazy and went on an equity market
pumping binge. Summers et al do know one thing... higher stock prices
mean higher consumer confidence. As Summers and the boys love to trot
out these two pointless statistics along with a host of BLS manipulated
economic statisitics unemployment (way too low), GDP (way too high),
CPI (way too low)...
Is there a pattern here? Can you believe any
statistic or green shoot report out of this government or corporate
owned news media?
The Great Transformation: Mr. Change to Mr. Slick
Photo: Courtesy Jesse's Cafe Americain
"The Obama Economics and Regulatory Team, in conjunction with the
Federal Reserve, have accomplished no serious reform of the fiancial
system. They have enabled the type of market inefficiency, soft fraud
and price manipulation that is undermining global confidence in the
integrity of US markets and financial products. And they have advanced
a proposal to consolidate a huge amount of regulatory power under the
Federal Reserve, a private banking agency that was at the root of our
unfolding financial crisis.
The time has passed when Obama could
have pointed to the past mistakes of his predecessors as the fault for
our problems. Thanks to Tim Geithner, Barney Frank, and Larry Summers
he now owns the financial crisis, and the coverups, policy errors,
scandals, conflicts of interest and bailouts that have occurred since
he has taken office. His reappointment of Ben Bernanke as Federal
Reserve chairman most surely tied a bow on his ownership package for
the crisis, which is in danger of becoming his 'financial New Orleans.'
Wall
Street insiders and their enablers pig out on public money while the
nation suffers. This is not change, this is business as usual."
Jesse: August 9, 2009, US Equity Markets Look Dangerously Wobbly As Insiders Sell In Record Numbers
Mr. Slick owes somebody something. The somebody is the
masters of Wall Street. The something is the $600 million to run a Madison
Avenue slick campaign to sell the people on the latest brand illusion.
Once
upon a time Reagan and the conservative Republicans looked Madison Avenue slick
thanks to the backing of Wall Street worm and CIA criminal Bill Casey and Alfred
Bloomingdale. Reagan and his cronies looked smart, competent, man with
the plan. In contrast, Mondale, Tip O'Neil and Michael Dukakis could not come
up with a plan to tie their own shoes on time.
So what has changed? Now it is Democrats who appear Madison
Avenue slick, smart, competent, men and women with the plan. By contrast
Boehner (pronounced Bone-er) and Cantor can't even stand in front of the press
with a budget plan that has any numbers inside... just a cartoon cover, a National
Chairman so policy dumb and contradiction challenged that he makes less sense
than the guests on Jerry Springer...
These are the same Republicans that looked so smart just two
decades ago and Democrats that looked so dumb. It is the same people...people.
So what changed? Nothing. Just the big money propaganda switched sides to buy
the other brand and sell it to you as something new Madison Avenue style. It is
working as the new brand of Kool-Aid, the super popular brand even in the face of over
whelming evidence that the new Kool-Aid is just some cheap powder in a bag that
is not to our benefit, just the benefit of elite wealth who own this government
and the country.
It is in fact the same old soak the working class and
screw us until we melt policy.
Mr. Slick says that is change you and I can believe in.
Here is change I can believe in:
Photo: "We the Jury" Courtesy of Portfolio.com
If you got this far, thanks for reading.
Care
to comment? Refute my facts with facts. Save invalid argument, fallacy
of logic and shrill dogma for the Daily Kos where such fundamentalism is celebrated...
]]>
Courtesy Houston Chronicle
