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Hate Krugman? Try William Greider Instead!
"... We love you Mr. President, but you don't have it right yet. And we're going to bang on your door until you get it right." --William Greider
William Greider showed us how to criticize President Obama's economic team on Bill Moyers Friday night. There was no baggage or snide remarks that people (understandably) can't seem to let go regarding Paul Krugman and others. If TPM's blogs (Candide, I'm looking in your direction... =) ) and Newsweek's cover story is any indication, the left is having one hell of a brawl right now between Krugman & other liberal commentators/economists and the Obama Economic team led by Summers & Geithner. I like it, and I think this dissent will help President Obama be more progressive.
Greider simply says: President Obama [is] "trapped between the governing elites who decide things and the people who are governed."
The way to get POTUS unstuck, is to protest loudly and very publicly. If we reject what's "good for Wall Street" as good for America, he can use that power to begin to break up the oligarchy that has bought and pocketed our politics. Indeed, the NYTimes says their new currency is political power (since they've already got most of the actual money currency). President Obama needs us in the streets -- loud & angry, and NOW. (April 3 & 4 - National March on Wall St.)
CEO's and executives must get scared, or they'll never change.
P.S. - Bill Moyers has been on an absolute tear lately. This is really in his wheelhouse. Each of his shows for the past 4 weeks has been incredibly enlightening on the anger that we're all feeling, without being angry itself. Here are links to the other programs with a quick synopsis:
1. "Robert Johnson, former managing director of Soros Fund Management and an expert in emerging markets, believes the government's approach -- which he calls "drip intravenous capital injection" -- wastes taxpayer money and won't solve the financial crisis."
2. Parker Palmer -- "Would it be possible to re-image depression [both individual clinical depression and the Depression in our economy] as the hand of a friend trying to press you down to ground on which it's safe to stand?"
3. Mike Davis -- "We need more protests. We need more noise in the street. At the end of the day, political parties tend to legislate what social movements and social voices have already achieved in the factories or the streets or in the civil rights demonstration."
Please do Recommend this post if you liked these links -- would love to make sure more people see these Bill Moyers interviews...
William Greider showed us how to criticize President Obama's economic team on Bill Moyers Friday night. There was no baggage or snide remarks that people (understandably) can't seem to let go regarding Paul Krugman and others. If TPM's blogs (Candide, I'm looking in your direction... =) ) and Newsweek's cover story is any indication, the left is having one hell of a brawl right now between Krugman & other liberal commentators/economists and the Obama Economic team led by Summers & Geithner. I like it, and I think this dissent will help President Obama be more progressive.
Greider simply says: President Obama [is] "trapped between the governing elites who decide things and the people who are governed."
The way to get POTUS unstuck, is to protest loudly and very publicly. If we reject what's "good for Wall Street" as good for America, he can use that power to begin to break up the oligarchy that has bought and pocketed our politics. Indeed, the NYTimes says their new currency is political power (since they've already got most of the actual money currency). President Obama needs us in the streets -- loud & angry, and NOW. (April 3 & 4 - National March on Wall St.)
CEO's and executives must get scared, or they'll never change.
P.S. - Bill Moyers has been on an absolute tear lately. This is really in his wheelhouse. Each of his shows for the past 4 weeks has been incredibly enlightening on the anger that we're all feeling, without being angry itself. Here are links to the other programs with a quick synopsis:
1. "Robert Johnson, former managing director of Soros Fund Management and an expert in emerging markets, believes the government's approach -- which he calls "drip intravenous capital injection" -- wastes taxpayer money and won't solve the financial crisis."
2. Parker Palmer -- "Would it be possible to re-image depression [both individual clinical depression and the Depression in our economy] as the hand of a friend trying to press you down to ground on which it's safe to stand?"
3. Mike Davis -- "We need more protests. We need more noise in the street. At the end of the day, political parties tend to legislate what social movements and social voices have already achieved in the factories or the streets or in the civil rights demonstration."
Please do Recommend this post if you liked these links -- would love to make sure more people see these Bill Moyers interviews...
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Great minds..... hahahaha
I just posted the link to this interview in another thread. I was very impressed with Mr. Grieder.
I had this to say in the other thread and I'd like to post it here as well.
If the President had placed people in positions that all of the left approved of, would the left have then sat back quietly and said nothing waiting for change?
It seems by placing people in positions that the left didn't really approve of, people seem to be more engaged and questioning. People are actually participating in their government and actively working for change, or as Mr Greider would like to see happening, people are shaking things up. Complacency doesn't usually garner that type of reaction.
Don't know if that was cold calculation on the President's part or a lucky accident but it beats a Nation of complacent people, sitting back doing nothing, (or shopping) blindly believing we're safe and the economy is strong.
I beleive the catch phrase the President used went something like this, "You are the change you've been waiting for."
March 28, 2009 4:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
havethoughtwilltravel: Thanks for posting... Greider's something else, huh? Very clear and erudite. How he and Moyers are able to keep their composure, I'll never know.
March 28, 2009 5:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think people forget that quote he used to say on the trail. Many thought it was corny, but the meaning hit me like a brick.
I'm not sure that Obama picked certain people because he wanted to make sure we the people don't become complacent, I think he just really wanted a team of rivals around him.
March 28, 2009 6:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
Maybe both? Just when I think I have him figured out, he surprises me. (in a good way)
Yep, I love the quote, and there are times I think people are ready for the responsibility it entails. At least I hope so.
March 28, 2009 7:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yes he is. I had never heard of him before but now I'm trying to find everything I can about the man and articles he has written. If I had the money would pick up all his books. hahaha
I think dissent is good as long as it's constructive. I would like to think Krugman would pick up a few pointers. :)
March 28, 2009 6:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
I read a good portion of "Secrets of the Temple" about the Fed a few years ago. I think he used to write for Rolling Stone too.
March 28, 2009 8:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
I strongly recommend "Who Will Tell the People," on the decaying of participatory democracy in America. I first read it ten years ago, and it's one of the reasons I was energized by Obama's candidacy.
March 29, 2009 12:24 AM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks for the suggestion, I have it on hold at the library now!
March 29, 2009 3:04 AM | Reply | Permalink
By the way, if anyone really hates Krugman you might not want to pick up that copy of Newsweek.
March 28, 2009 6:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
Can't wait to read it... I used to hate him during the primary, but I love him again now. That's politics, I guess...
March 28, 2009 8:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks for the links Bronx/redsox. Moyers is one of the few remaining lights in broadcast journalism.
March 29, 2009 2:26 AM | Reply | Permalink
"CEO's and executives must get scared, or they'll never change."
Stick and carrot. Can you think of a carrot which isn't just giving them what they've been taking so far?
March 29, 2009 3:06 AM | Reply | Permalink
I think you will find Greider one of the most complex journalists who ever addressed the economic condition of the U.S. He is kind of the Sy Hersh of economics. “Secrets of the Temple” is basic reading for this topic.
Paul Krugman is an intellectual economist who only dabbles in journalism. It would be a misuse of his qualities to read his comments in the terms of art of political fights. His seeming ambiguity is the mental discipline of a thoughtful academic. Used as such he can be very helpful.
I would have no way of knowing what Obama’s strategy, if any, might be. I do not believe that our elections are in any functional sense democratic so there is no way for me to know. However he is the chief Executive and he now holds that power and I think he represents a new way of thinking about national leadership. In my unguided intuitive opinion I think he is pursuing a course where he is putting the most entrenched interests front and center in the persons of the Geithners and the Emmanuels and that lot and then watch them fail in full view. Resistance takes time, is decentralized and cannot be lead but only coordinated. It is an ugly comparision but one with which most of us are familiar. The most powerful and organized force in the world can drive a tank into the center of a capital city but if that force cannot effectively solve the problems in that city, slowly and inevitably it will be driven out by the resistance. A community organizer does not directly attack the Chamber of Commerce unless he is a masochist. Incremental victories can eventually achieve a larger win.
Or not. To me this is not so much a death struggle as it is a birthing. Something new and unseen is ahead. This is not merely another revolution that moves the current bourgeoisie up and the current elites down. One would think that having a handsome, intelligent, multi-cultural man as President would be a hint.
March 29, 2009 12:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
Larry, if you're talking about dealing with the financial sector crisis, then this bit
"I would have no way of knowing what Obama’s strategy, if any, might be."
is a bit strange. He's laid out a plan that one can agree or disagree with. There are those who think it is a good plan, and praise Obama for it. There are those who think it is a bad plan and criticize him. These are both positions I can get my head around. Then there are those who think it's a bad plan, and yet believe it actually constitutes a wonderfully complex bit of political jujitsu: its failure will weaken the servants of big finance who wield power in government and so ultimately permit some form of more radical solution down the road.
This last view I find dangerous. There are two ways in which the PPIP can fail. (i) it changes nothing about the current frozen credit markets. (ii) it constitutes a hand-over of hundreds of billions to the big banks, who then return to solvency and reinforce their political power to maintain the status quo. I find the latter more likely and worrying than the former. And there is no 'jujitsu' involved in this move. Obama himself should and will be held accountable for it. And the party that implemented it will suffer the electoral consequences.
March 29, 2009 1:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
Obey I know you are a thoughtful, serious and honest commentator here, as well as possessing a good sense of humor. Let me speak respectfully and simply in response to your observation here.
The Danger
The danger is either a.) we were “within hours” of a collapse of the world financial markets or b.) we are witnessing the greatest hoax since Piltown Man. Either way the financial security of everyone hangs in the balance. It is not Obama’s danger or the danger of some future electoral defeat. That is trivia compared to the “real” danger. Next week I will put my few, pitiful dollars in the bank although I know it is insolvent. Is this a practical act or a mere religious ritual? As Greider so effectively indicated in “Secrets of the Temple”, “Ask the priests.”
The Plan
I have sat in too many management meetings to not have developed a crystallized strategy for such events. First I listen carefully to what Mr. Big says. Next I evaluate whether I think Mr. Big meant what he said, or the opposite of what he said, or some third variant. Often as not Mr. Big has an agenda that is not readily apparent as experience has painfully taught. Only after this do I make my decision – all in, part in or check the want ads. The only certainty in all of this is that everyone else at the table places their own ambition ahead of any of Mr. Big’s interests or rhetorical flourishes.
The plan(s) like the planners come and go. Right now those who created the problem are ostensibly creating the solution. I say “Physician heal thyself.” If these men had any perspicacity they would go away and reflect on their misdeeds. But they don’t and that is what I see in these “plans” and these “planners.” Whatever is being said is not what is their meaning. That day has passed.
Prognosis
The patient is dead. There is no prognosis. There is only the future without the myths of capitalism.
Obama
I never went to Harvard but in my youth I did drive down to Palo Alto on sunny days and sit on the Stanford campus and enjoy the spa like environs. It was impossible not to feel the power that lies behind such an establishment institution. Overthrowing that power was unimaginable. Yet I returned home and continued to pursue little incremental reforms of the world in which that power reigned. I can’t help but think that Obama may have had a similar response to Harvard.
I disclaimed anything on my part other than “my unguided intuitive opinion.” In my mind we are now the deciders. We can spend the next few centuries building pyramids to our fallen Pharoahs while somewhere else on earth the future moves on, or we can let the old temples crumble and engage the future along with everyone else.
March 29, 2009 3:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
Larry, I hope you know I meant no disrespect with that response. You are as you know the majority shareholder (or sharefiller) of my bookmark files. My one and only point, poorly put, is this: the appropriate response to a plan that is ostensibly bad is to resist it. Not to let Geithner and co be discredited by the results of its implementation. It's too costly - for all the reasons you cite. And not to attribute to those ultimately responsible -i.e. Obama - a higher and finer goal achievable through its failure, though I sincerely hope he has more in mind than what he is proposing. I am simple minded: I judge people by what they say and what they do. As for my hopes and wishes as to what they ought to say and do, I try to keep them from coloring my judgment.
March 29, 2009 3:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
I’ll take your judgment over their words any day.
I understood your intent. You took my comment seriously and I just wanted to respond in kind and not just, you know, wave my freak flag.
March 29, 2009 3:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well said, Larry. Esp like the last two sentences. Only issue we have now is convincing those in those ostensibly holding power that we are now in fact the deciders. See this interview with socialist, Mike Davis for a good discussion of some of the issues on that front.
March 29, 2009 3:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
Great link Miguel. I get another chance to watch him tonite here. It is good to get a transcript sometimes.
March 29, 2009 4:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
William Greider is one of my heroes. A cool righteous dude who used to work for the Washington Post and then Rolling Stone. One of the greatest economic investigative reporters to come along. I had the privilege to meet and talk to him on a "Nation" cruise in 2004 along with the heir to his mantle, Naomi Klein.
He was bamboozled a bit by Rubin more recently. (It was an article in The Nation in 2007, I think about The Hamilton Projgect.) I guess Rubin can really smooth talk you. So he's not a god. But he is way up there in the firmament of good smart people. Read "The Soul of Capitalism: Opening Paths to a Moral Economy".
March 29, 2009 3:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks DKC/Feral Cat... If I wasn't terrified of losing my job, I'd love to take a Nation Cruise this summer. I want to get loaded on Scotch with Christopher Hitchens and have him call me an uninformed stoopid moron to my face. ;) Kidding, kidding... (But seriously, he was on Bill Maher Friday and he still drinks on set, but he lost a lot of weight and looks great. Good for him!)
Any gossip from the trip?
March 29, 2009 3:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
I signed up having never gone on any cruise before. It was in December of 2004. I thought win or lose that I wanted to hang around with a lot of liberals. We lost, so it did help. Naomi Klein showed the movie she did with her husband, Avi Lewis. It's called "The Take" about workers in Argentina taking over their abandoned factories. It's something workers here should do.
Virtually no gossip. Old lefties mostly who are very very sincere. Oh and every night they had sing a longs with Molly Ivins and Calvin Trillin. They sang Broadway show tunes. So much for Leninists singing Russian workers' songs.
March 29, 2009 4:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
Showtunes?!? :) That's exactly what we need right now...
Do you hear the people sing?
Singing a song of angry men?
It is the music of a people
Who will not be slaves again!
When the beating of your heart
Echoes the beating of the drums
There is a life about to start
When tomorrow comes!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x6-5g78Nr6Q
March 29, 2009 4:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
Good remark about Klein. I envy you that conversation.
March 29, 2009 3:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
Just listened to Krugman on StephPo... With Republicans unable to offer any solutions, and Krugman now firmly named the voice and face of the "Loyal Opposition", we liberals can now take heart that the entire discussion is taking place on the LEFT of the spectrum. That's not to say that the outcome won't be favorable to banks & the ruling elite (it will), but at least lefties can insert Easter Eggs in the bailouts.
The Center has lurched Left.
March 29, 2009 3:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
PS - I love when Krugman slams George Will's uninformed opinions to his face with facts.
March 29, 2009 3:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
Me too. George W. and Cokie are very smug and I love it when Paul tears their ideas down. But Cokie will always come back with even more condescension and say "Oh, dear little Paul, you are just an economist who knows nothing of the ways of the court."
I once wrote a piece about how Sunday morning political shows especially "This Week" reminded my of a Restoration Comedy.
Mr. Willful: "Oh, Master Paul is too too poor and too too out of the circle of the court to knoweth anything at all. Tut .Tut."
Mistress Cokie: "Oh Mr. Will you are too too droll. Poor Master Paul is indeed so shabbily dressed. The style of clothes in the county of Jersey are so far behind the fashion, it makes me giggle. Oh dear, here he comes. Why was he invited to this club?"
March 29, 2009 3:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
Ha! George Will really does think he's living in Colonial times with all the airs he puts on.
March 29, 2009 4:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
Imagine them with powdered wigs, beauty marks and fans a flipping. The Chris Matthews Show is very very fops a popping.
March 29, 2009 4:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
Restoration comedy - great. Any chance of access to your article.
For Cokey from William Congreve:
"Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned, Nor hell a fury like a woman scorned,"
March 29, 2009 4:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
That statement I would agree with. If I knew what Larry and Obey were talking about, I think I would feel worse.
March 29, 2009 3:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
Great post but it's Yankees in 2009.
March 29, 2009 3:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
ProfessorB: There we go... You're the first Yankee fan after 2 weeks to stir it up! Nice... We'll see if we don't both get beat up by Tampa Bay this year...
March 29, 2009 4:00 PM | Reply | Permalink