Bravo! You bring up some interesting points, particularly the repeal of Glass-Steagall, which I have been posting about for the last two months on this site, as the root cause of the mortgage crisis. Renowned economist - Robert Kuttner"s testimony before congress is worth reading:
http://www.house.gov/apps/list/hearing/financialsvcs_dem/testimony_-_kuttner.pdf
This particular issue has been notably absent from the MSM as they prefer to cover irrelevancies like the sniping between the two campaigns. The repeal of Glass-Steagall has been gaining ground in the news recently, which is an encouraging sign:
http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ned=us&q=glass+steagall&btnG=Search+News
I hope Clinton apologists examine the issues and problems facing us more objectively rather than nostalgically. Bill Clinton did not create the economic tech boom of the 90's. Clinton's consistent policies of deregulation have given us corporate media (Telecommunications Act of 1996), and led to gross financial abuse on Wall Street (Repeal of Glass-Steagall in 1999 with the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act), corporate bailouts, and he left the door open for abuse by the criminal Bush administration.
Those who wish to support the Democratic Party in a meaningful way, must understand that the DLC has hijacked the Democratic Party and moved it to the right to advance the corporatist agenda. Bill and Hillary Clinton are both DLC leaders: http://www.mydd.com/story/2006/5/27/55951/1586
What are man's truths ultimately? Merely his irrefutable errors.
A Vote for Hillary Is a Vote for the Death of the Dollar
Buzz this article up.
I remember sitting in an anteroom at Queens College back in 2000. I was there, along with Senator Schumer, to introduce Hillary Clinton, who was running for her first term as senator from New York. Before I went out to make my introduction, a very young woman who was a Clinton staffer looked at me and said, "What do you think of Hillary?" As I was already there to participate in the campaign, I was puzzled. "Do you mean personally?" I asked. "No," she said. "For president!" Although Rick Lazio had no real chance of defeating Mrs. Clinton, her name wasn't yet on a door in the Russell Building, and 'Hillary for President' was starting to roll.
Two years earlier, I had asked a prominent Democratic political consultant about the 1998 Senate race, with the Democratic primary between Schumer, Mark Green and Geraldine Ferraro. All three were vying to finally dispose of the hated Alfonse D'Amato. My consultant friend explained how Ferraro would be tough and would likely stay in the race for some time. "Ferraro had gathered all of her supporters in New York back in 84, when she was the vice presidential nominee. It was a very significant and emotional event for many of these women. Gerry asked that if she ever needed their support again, could she count on them. All the women pledged to be there for Gerry, no matter what. This was a group of powerful, female New York Democrats. They either had a lot of money themselves, or their husbands did. You could tell that they were less concerned with actually winning the race. They just wanted a woman nominee. One of them told me that "We'll never win a race without becoming the nominee. It all begins here. It may take time, but we're building toward something." There are wealthy, politically connected, educated women who want a woman candidate, whether she has a chance in the general election or not. They're building toward something.
Of course, one thing a Clinton candidacy should be building toward is how to deal with the looming disaster in the financial markets that we now face. My friend Max Keiser, who reports for both BBC and Al Jazeera on global financial issues, has a valuable take on what a Clinton versus Obama economic plan might look like. Keiser e-mailed me this brief anaysis:
Looking at it purely from economic angle;
Obama has Paul Volcker as economic adviser -- he mopped up the stagflation of the '70s with 'tough love' of higher interest rates.Hillary has Robert Rubin -- who demolished the last vestiges of Glass-Steagel which opened up the flood gates of securitizing loans and the current subprime (and now prime) credit crisis.
The current plan by Rubin's Goldman Sachs buddies Hank Paulson, (and Ben Bernanke), and their UK counterparts -- is to simply repackage all this bad debt and resell it again.. (making banks another fee); and hope that the problem will go away...
I do not believe this plan will work -- because in order for it to work -- long term interest rates have to go down -- which they are not likely to do now that China and India are no longer a source of cheap labor they once were... (the productivity miracle Alan Greenspan was always talking about amounted to outsourcing labor to China and now that game is up as wages in China go up and so-called productivity gains have faded).
The absolute necessity now is to stop bailing out banks, stop flooding the economy with more cheap money (money supply in US is running at an historic high of 16%), and stop raising the debt ceiling.
The buck (as in US dollar) has to stop being devalued by Paulson, Bernanke, etc. and their money printing banking friends or prices for food and gas will just continue zooming higher....
A hard, and probably a brutally hard recession has to be allowed to happen right now and the US needs to take its medicine for Greenspan's sins..
Putting off the day of reckoning with more re-packaging of debts as is the current 'master plan' of Paulson and Co. is only going to jeopardize the US dollar and possibly kill the US dollar off completely. (massive devaluation).
In other words: if Obama will force America to swallow a Paul Volcker anti-inflation economic pill than there really is no choice.
Voting for Hillary is voting for certain US dollar death.
(unless you own gold, and you are rooting for a dollar death, then vote for Hillary).
I will be back with more of Keiser's insights (he should be posting here) and Obama versus Hillary comparisons later.
Here are some links to read more about the financial implications of Clinton versus Obama, all provided by Max Keiser.
16% money supply growth info. (Video)
Repeal of Glass-Steagall and current credit crisis
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Additonally, anyone wanting to know more about the DLC should read the following articles:
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/11034127/the_low_post_why_the_democrats_are_still_doomed
Senator Clinton and the DLC's real plan for the Iraq war:
http://www.dlc.org/ndol_ci.cfm?kaid=450004&subid=900021&contentid=254187
Felix Rohatyn is a longtime Clinton ally and DLC backer:
http://www.ndol.org/ndol_ci.cfm?kaid=106&subid=122&contentid=250091
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C01EFDE1239F930A25751C0A960958260
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felix_Rohatyn
The real scoop on Felix Rohatyn, and his financial holocaust:
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0301/S00080.htm
WOW, Ol Alex has a degree in economics????? And I guess the posters here do also. UNfortunately, they don't have much of a clue. Hold the banks/lenders accountable. Hold the borrowers accountable too. If there was fraud, prosecute those who are guilty.
Um, you don't need a degree in econ. to know that we can't just keep borrowing trillions and printing unbacked money and not face any consequences. OK, go back to watching "Idol" now, genius.
Thank you, Alex. Always enjoy reading your point of view.
I happen to agree with you on several levels. Its nice to know intelligent, reasonable people such as yourself are involved and trying to make a difference.
America has ony ONE choice.
Obama 08
*I* would like to wish Mr. Baldwin a very Happy 50th Birthday!!! With apologies to Dorothy Fields...
"Now that it's your birthday, I don't know what to do.
Can't give you a hybrid or a penthouse with a view.
Can't even buy a little present - I'm much too broke, I find. (with this economy?)
But there is one way, I can save the day, and I sure hope you won't mind, that....
I can't give you anything but Obama in '08, baby!
Obama as President would be just great, baby!
Dream awhile, scheme awhile, get out and VOTE!
Blog at HuffPost, (you're the most) and we'll all be cheering for Obama!"
OK, I'm not Cole Porter! Seriously, Happy Birthday and may this year be a happy and peaceful one!
Let's not get ahead of ourselves. The blame for the devaluation of the dollar lies squarely with the CURRENT ADMIONISTRATION, the ones who decided to run a multi-trillion dollar war using this country's credit card, not a Democratic Candidate for office. so STFU.
Your Blog is always enlightening, but this time your headline is misleading. Assuming that your beliefs coincide with that of Max Keiser, how can you think the dollar will survive to November, Mr. Keiser does not. Given the question he would advise to convert the US$ now into Euro$ put your holdings into foreign banks, pick a place in the south of France and ride it out. The US$ is being held up by confidance and faith, there is no gold, silver, or GNP to back it up, even now foreign banks are considering replacing it with the Euro as the worlds currency.Foreign banks have extended credit in the trillions on nothing but faith that the US will honor their debt. The Fed. Reserve refuses to disclose how much paper they have put out there, it is now monoply money, and no country will accept US$ for it's debt. To propose that Mr Obama will be able to fix this, end the war, solve the enery crisis, the enviromental problems and put health care in place, you must also believe he sits on the right hand of God himself, that's what everyone expects from him, with all the media hype he is viewed as a savoir and you know what happened to the last one. On a personal note allow me to wish you all the good things in the world for Apr 3 2008 and beyond, can't think of anyone more deserving, please accept my very best wishes.
Alex if we followed what you suggest we would be STUCK WITH THE FEDERAL RESERVE SYSTEM.
The USA would continue paying 3% to 8% interest to private banks on the National Debt.
The USA is a SOVERIGEN NATION!!!!!!!!
The USA can print it's own money!!!!!
JFK wrote and EXECUTIVE ORDER that created the SILVER CERTIFICATE.
A U.S. DOLLAR BACKED BY SILVER.
We could then pay off the Federal Reserve with "REAL" U.S. DOLLARS and present the world with a currency with real value. Social Security is saved. Medicare is saved and we regain control of our ecomony.
Of course the banking laws would have to be rolled back to BEFORE REGEAN/ THE BUSH YEARS.
If not even a currency with true value would not survive with these theives of today.
A positive way to perceive the debt is that the majority of it was borrowed in $1.50 dollars. It will now be repaid in $1.00 dollars.
That's the advantage of being the world's currency. There is no conversion working against you so the debt in finite dollar terms has not changed. The size of the debt has in effect been shrunk ... still enormous, but shrunk significantly nonetheless. Now America just needs to seriously cut spending.
The problem arises when those nations the US borrowed from (asia, mid-east) start to get testy about being repaid in diminished dollars, so they start to dump US assets, like US bonds - onto the market before the dollar falls further.
As bond prices fall, long term interest rates rise and this pressures millions more US homes into negative equity and foreclosure; which has the knock on effect of destabilizing the bank's balance sheets again; requiring more Fed bailouts which in turn stokes money printing i.e. inflation; which then has the effect of further diminishing the value of the dollar and the whole thing repeats on itself in a vicious cycle.
Simply allowing the dollar to fall is probably not going to work - the uptick in exports due to a lower dollar won't counter the negative impact of the aforementioned vicious cycle.
For 60 years, the US had an incredible advantage of printing and doing commerce with the U.S. dollar, the world's reserve currency but, that advantage has been squandered; the military spending; and I just saw an '07 military budget of 1.7 trillion is mostly to blame for draining America's coffers and turning the US into the world's biggest debtor nation with very little ability to pay those debts back short of selling off large pieces of America's infrastructure.
"Warren Buffett, describes America as "rich spending junkies" who could turn into a nation of "sharecroppers".
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2005/mar/07/usnews.internationalnews
Excellent post Alec. Please keep writing blogs. We need to know about these insider deals, which unfortunately, are often contained by Hillary supporters. Your account of the question from the Hillary staffer "What do you think of Hillary?" "For president!" back in 2000 was classic. We've absolutely had enough of these back room politicians manipulating us.
Excellent post, Alex??!!
Obama is in no way ready to handle the economic crisis!!
Hillary was Vice President for 8 years----a time of prosperity for all.
I hate to say it, Alex, but I think you're a tad sexist.
Hillary was vice president for 8 years? Gee, I know she lies her ass off about her "35 years experience" but I don't think even she has gone that far.
well use your logic you must be a racist?
There is nothing in the posting by Shark that is racist, but it is typical for Obama supporters to make such statements.
You sure make many conclusory statements without providing any evidence to support them. Obama isn't ready, Hillary was Vice President and Alec Baldwin is sexist -- proof, please!!!
Any criticism of her appears to be sexist. Using that poor kid as a human shield in Tuzla? Sexist!!
How about this: Robert Rubin is one of the big guns to blame for the subprime mortgage crisis. It's deregulation that started in the Clinton administration coming home to roost.
zomgwtfbbq, I must be sexist!!
Did Alex move to Canada yet?
How's his daughter doing? (That little piece of...).
Why are you bringing that up when it's irrelevant? It makes it seem as though you don't have the ability to respond because you know he is right so instead you try to change the topic so people will talk about that instead.
His former wife is a vindictive narcissist who exposed her daughter to public humuliation because she thinks about only herself and how she might get sympathy for it instead of doing what is best for her child.
And you only make him seem smarter than you with your insults.
Why don't you find another sandbox to play in? Or should I say litter box?
Rach... They wouldn't print my response to Flacon, but they removed his mess as well! LOL!
One of them told me that "We'll never win a race without becoming the nominee. It all begins here. It may take time, but we're building toward something."
Granted, I could be reading this statement incorrectly but the contest for the first female Presidential candidate began way before 2000, and it wasn"t in Queens, it was in Brooklyn, NY. The women who stood in emboldened solidarity that day in 2000 have forgotten the significance of the woman who ran for President under Republican leadership in 1972 " her name was Shirley Chishlom. Congresswoman Chisholm became the first woman and the first African-American to seek the nomination of the Democratic Party. She knew she had no chance to get elected; she ran "to give a voice to the people the major candidates were ignoring."
Nicholas Von Hoffman"s "Economic Chaos, Political Consequences" delivers this truth; neither candidate is capable of saving us from the sinking USS Titanic economy. http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080331/howl
USD = R.I.P.
I thought it was "A vote for Kerry is a vote against the bible."
Alex, please stop writing. You're painful to read.
Of course it hurts if you don't understand what Alec is talking about. Lower interest rates + printing money like it's going out of style = in the long term, killing the value of the dollar + running up the cost of food, etc.
Hillary's folks are the architects of the subprime crisis.
Obama has 'tough love' Paul Volcker.
Vote Obama!
I'd actually look to the long-term debt situation at all levels of American society instead of machinations of the Fed. Banking deregulation, combined iwth easy money plicies by the Fed don't help, but the real culprit is that we all spend WAY more than we make. I don't like thrid-world austerity plans and I don't think we need "tough-love". What we need is to get our collective priorities straight.
That beside the point, my problem with "tough-love" is that it's always regressive. The wealthy classes benefit from the stabilization and poor and middle-class Americans always take it..., ahem on the chin... via job losses and lower resulting wages and salaries.
This was far from painful. Useful and informative. Thanks!
Krisellyn:
Respectfully, I think it is strange that someone would post a comment like this without explaining why you find this piece "painful to read". Anybody can say that, but I would really like to know why you think that.
I disagree. Thanks Alex, for this VERY interesting and important article.
Now it's her fault the dollar is weak. he's a load!
I really don't see how you can read this piece and conclude that he's blaming HIllary for the current state of the economy, he's addressing how she would deal with it, from here on out.
small correction...he's addressing how she "MIGHT" deal with it vs. how Obama "MIGHT" deal with it...but your point is taken. He's not faulting anything that Hillary did yet. Certainly, though, the article wasn't meant to be complementary to her.
err, above
3) I'm not clear exactly how OBAMA will induce high interest rates. Volcker was able to do so as Chairman of the Federal Reserve, but Bernanke is Chairman until 2010 and he hardly seems likely to comply with a President Obama in such a plan. In order for Obama to get the austerity plan he apparently desires, he'd have to appoint a new Fed Chairman early on in his first year as President. That would take a lot of cajones and I personally see another Bernanke term regardless of who becomes President. In any case, there's no guarantee that any new Fed Chairman will do the President's bidding.
If such a plan exists, I'd love to see Obama address it. I doubt Obama is that Machiavellian. In your search for praise, Alec, you've painted the man a menace and a monster...
So I guess until 2010 Bernanke will be running America? Our president has NO POWER? Who owns America? The Fed?
Yes ... The Fed ... Backed by China!
Not exactly...but the Fed will control the supply of money. I, personally, do not believe that these high-handed austerity programs (forced depressions/recessions) are the best way to right the ship. They've proven to be effective in many cases, but at very high cost to low and middle-income citizens. They've been a real boon to the richest citizens in those economies.
Posted April 1, 2008 | 03:40 PM (EST)