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Obama Turns Gray (Davis)
Tim Geithner's roll-out-plan-to-rescue-America's-banks has been postponed again, at this writing until Tuesday. The frequent postponements subtract from the already-diminished ethical stature Geithner brings to his office. Then again, given the Obama administration's compromising instincts, even a prompt, untainted Treasury Secretary isn't likely to restore confidence.
Reportedly Geithner will soon tell us that the government plans to offer incentives for private investors to bolster good banks. When Geithner announces this, taxpayers will see subsidies streaming from their own pockets to the Masters of the Universe, who are already gaming a new system.
When Geithner says that the fortified good banks will be required to increase their lending, loan-seekers will sigh, "Bullshit."
When Geithner explains how the Treasury will "ring fence" bad assets, Americans will realize their own economic futures have been locked inside a toxic dump.
As for phrases like "tough new strictures," "increased transparency," "reasonable executive compensation" and "the right kind of government guarantees," Geithner should just save his breath.
The fundamental problem seems to be that our new president is a lawyer lightly versed in economics. His understanding of our financial crisis is not in the same league with his many other gifts. To help himself out, he's hired the very people who created the crisis. Their impulse is to create ever more complex financial fixes. And to police these fixes and their shifting capital requirements, they've hired in from the private sector (from PriceWaterhouseCoopers, Ernst & Young) the same auditors trained to look the other way.
Does this make you brim with confidence?
Obama's initial missteps are politically and morally shocking. Like Bush, his first instinct has been to protect the status quo. He wants to save the banks. Why? If there is profit to be made, new banks will spring up in their stead. There is no sound reason -- nothing the experts know that you don't -- to transfer private debt into public debt, where it will eventually result in decreased services, increased taxes and crippling inflation.
Is Obama rationalizing that his efforts are stabilizing? Citizens are already de-stabilized by Obama's perpetuation of Bush's ruling class rules: heads they win, tails you lose. Common sense and fair play dictate that financial shortfalls must wipe out bank equity and bond holders before anyone else. This should be non-negotiable. Why is Obama stooping to negotiate?
And what about the $78 billion that citizens overpaid in the first TARP Bailout? Who in the Treasury Department is being held accountable for this enormous loss? Hank Paulson didn't act alone.
By not punishing anyone -- excessive risk-takers, complicit bureaucrats, bait-and-switch bi-partisans -- Obama looks weak. When he comes before the public speaking with fake fury, we fear that he's been shaken and compromised in private first. Even if Obama's popularity isn't diminishing, his reputation is.
So soon after so many citizens were thrilled to have elected a black president, it's terrifying to contemplate that we may have elected a Gray Davis. You may remember that Davis was the California governor who was recalled from office because he reacted slowly and timidly to the electricity crisis that Enron intentionally created. "Fat Boy", "Big Tuna", "Donkey Punch", "Ping Pong", "Russian Roulette", "Sidewinder", "Spread Play", "Death Star", "Forney Perpetual Loop", "Ricochet", "Black Widow", "Big Foot", "Red Congo", and "Get Shorty" were some of the names Enron gave to the swindles it concocted. If you don't think that similar swindles under the guise of national financial recovery are being hatched on Wall Street today, I have a bank I'd like to sell you.
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These money-boys have a death grip on the throat of America and they are not going to let go until they get every last trillion Lady Liberty can cough up before subsiding into New York harbour next to the gaping hole still unfilled - Bloomberg's "Freedom Hole?" - at Ground Zero.
They are strangling our country to death while the Republicans dance on the grave, gleefully exulting in a wanton recklessness that ignores the hemorraghing society they undermine with every utterance.
Clinton always said that when someone comes after you with a hatchet, grab a chainsaw and cut off their arm ... instead the Dems offer up their heads in hopes of placating the Republican cult of nihilism.
If Obama doesn't put these bad boys in their place, it will be time for the people to take direct action and speak with their wallets -
BOYCOTT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Precisely. The best way I can think of to boycott as an American citizen is to not give them my money so they cannot continue to misuse it. The only card we will have left to play is a mass tax protest.
The Turkeynecks and Boners are EXACTLY who the American People don't want dictating the direction of our country anymore, yet Obama is giving them "a seat at the table."
Evil can only thrive when good men let it.
They don't play nice, why should Obama play nice with them??????
Jeffrey Klein wrote: "Obama's initial missteps are politically and morally shocking. Like Bush, his first instinct has been to protect the status quo..."
At the point that purists begin quipping about the "morally shocking" behavior of so-called "missteps" of a 3 week old Presidential Administration in the absence of a political scandal or moral failures, I stop listening or reading. And how in the H@ll can any rational person compare Barack Obama to George W. Bush? So far, the only people who have made such comparisons are Bush apologists.
OK - I hear you but -- This nation is faced with quite a crisis. Obama inherited it but if he doesn't make the right moves now -- a lot of people will be hurt.
One doesn't have to be a "purist" to understand that without REFORM -- systemic reform of the status quo - this nation will not be taken off auto-pilot for disaster.
Currently we have 3 generations of people who have NOT seen hard times in our nation. The assumption is that "it will all work out". The only way that this well meaning platitude becomes realized is if we really change the that way we do business in Washington and New York.
So while I understand your reaction to Klein's statement-- We need to encourage Obama to go further than he is currently reaching. He HAS to -- for all of us.
I want him to rip them a new one. I live in Florida when Arnold was elected and I knew that was a huge mistake then and it is now. Gray Davis is looking real good to Californians, now. I don't think Obama is like Gray, I've seen him get pissed lately and the more they tick him off, the more trouble they buying for themselves. It's kinda like Blago, he was going to go anyway, but when he appointed Burris, that was the cause of his quick removal. The rethugs are going down. Just keep pissing him off.
By the way, I know of no investigative reporters these days, Let's not be confused.
Beg to differ Sy Hersh.
Greg Palast also.
The analogy between a black president and Gray Davis is? Or did you just want to remind us that President Obama is black? Wouldn't that have worked better if we had just said Barack Obama and Gray Davis?
It is WE the people who have not yet wrapped our minds around the fact that THIS IS OUR COUNTRY...and OUR GOVERNMENT serves US!
It is WE THE PEOPLE who are not being assertive enough ! IT IS OUR COLLECTIVE $$ that these Corporations are REQUESTING....the LENDING Instituions and other Corporations are requesting a LOAN from WE the collective PEOPLE.
OUR Government is the only ORGAN representing US that can facillitate LENDING "OUR" collective $$ to them.
WE the People have THE COLLECTIVE CAPITAL they need, via OUR TAX $$...they have diddley squat.
WE must INSTRUCT "OUR" Government how WE want this business transaction to go down.
Agreed.
President Obama seems to be out of his league. His desperation and fear-mongering are inducing a lack of confidence in the American people. His “doom and gloom” comments are anything but presidential.
He has stumbled badly coming out of the starting gate. This does not bode well for the remainder of his time in office.
BS!! your just use to being lied to. I'd rather President Obama tell me the truth then sugar coat whats goingon in America. He has done alot more in two weeks then Our past admin would have done in 2 years.
Sorry, beachrunner, but your comment made me cry with laughter. What hypocrisy. Obama would have to go a very long way to match Bush for the politics of fear-mongering. He's nowhere close to being a match to that master.
I remain confident that President Obama is just counting on us to howl and scream to show our congressional leaders what we expect. We may have voted him in as president, but we did not vote him as dictator. We must have his back!
Excuse me, but is this some right wing blog? Don't you folks have any patience? Give our new President some time please.
I'm sorry Mitsie, but we would just be giving his 'advisors' who did in fact help create this mess, more time to convince the president to do the wrong things. More time to entrench themselves. Now more than ever is the time to remind them that we are the many, and they are the few. Our needs outweigh theirs under even this half-assed democracy. You know why they're scrambling to try and sell this now? Because they assumed nobody was paying enough attention, and would give them the breathing room necessary to perpetuate their fraud. Now that it has become clear that not only are we paying attention, we're enraged by what we see happening, they're desperate to keep us from forcing them to do what would fix these problems.
For instance, why the hell isn't the Sherman Anti-Trust Act being brought into play? I'm sorry, but if a company is so big, that the economy 'can't afford to have them fail' then they're too big. Period.
They should be broken up into a number of smaller COMPETING companies. What we have now are the few existing giants colluding to form cartels and monopolies. Not only is such behavior obscene to an extreme, under the Anti-Trust laws, it's criminal. While I understand why Mitsie would feel that way, it's a strike while the iron is hot kind of situation here. Time is a luxury we can no longer afford.
A pet peeve of mine, President Obama should be called that and not Obama. Would you have called President Bush, Bush when he was in office, I think not.
You should call him President Obama, or the Obama Administration, not Obama and it's rude and disrespectful not to call him President. I am sick and tired of the media thinking they don't need to show him respect and not allowing him to do his job. For God sakes man, he has only been in job three weeks.
I am still transitioning into President Obama. I think that some of us, not journalists who should know better, got so used to thinking of him that way. I have had to backspace more than a few times on this issue!
Face it, regardless of party affiliation, Washington is owned and operated by Wall Street and the military industrial complex.
We can "hope" for "change" all we want, but "reality" and "the facts" rule the day.
I agree with you as far a party affiliation Washington is owned by big corporations, I think most politicians are sitting up there with their hands out waiting to be bought by the highest bidder and because of this I know it will be hard to get alot of things done in D.C. without playing the politic game. President Obama knows this and as much as I hate it he needs all or as many republicans, democrat and independents help to get things done and usually the one with the most power up there are the ones who are going to have dirt on them. those are the ones who know how to play the game and get thing done and right now we need things getting DONE.
Mr. Klein,
I don't mean to offend you but, I don't see the point of this patronizing punditry. There's no investigative journalism in this post, just your opining and complaining. Maybe, your time could be better spent exposing those "similar swindles" you mention in your article.
Amen Brother, amen.
We all have to live together...
I agree in general with this assessment.
w/ that said I have much more confidence in the President and his team them some of you. our issues are extremely complex -- created over many years -- and thus won't be solved next week. yes, the Republicans are complicit but so was B Frank, (with good intentions) It's now up to us to fix it and that will take courage and patience - something the wack jobs on both sides don't seem to have...
Obama is a quick learner and I think he'll spring back with an offensive that will push the GOP obstructionists into the Atlantic.
This is American politics at it's worst, BUT the financial crisis was 30 years in the making and as written above isn't going to be corrected in a week or a month of a new administration.
What I want is for everyone to contact their senator and in clear, concise language tell him/her that their relection bid will be fruitless UNLESS they join in a bi-partisan effect to fix this country.
Congress allowed jobs to be sent overseas, job training programs for jobs that don't exists, on going reduction of employee benefits while CEO salaries escalated beyond imaging.
Enough is enough. Jamm their phone lines and inbox. Let Congress know we're fed up and not going to take it anymore.
One of the most interesting results of this article are the comments it has gathered.
The punditry here is vague, yet it does convey that a power struggle is occurring within and without the Democratic Party. Something that the GOP still has is the ability to follow the scent of weakness. Pelosi and Reid, in my view, have not and probably will not gain the confidence of the American people. Obama's administration relies heavily on Clinton re-treads necessitating his having to watch his back from within until he can sort out hints of loyalty.
It is not in vogue to use cliche, yet cliches evolve from observations of some certainty.
Everyone needs to be on the same page. There it is.
Is this what Obama is trying to do? And the most important retort is - does he understand the cost of doing so? It will appear as weakness at first. The punditry must wait for the end result.
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