When will the president give Lawrence Summers his pink slip? He can thank him for his years of service and use the excuse that his top economic adviser wants to spend more time with his family. I don't care how he sugarcoats it. But Summers deserves the same fate as the millions of workers laid off because of the banking debacle he helped cause, the dire consequences of which he has done precious little to mitigate.
It was Summers who, as treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, pushed through the Commodity Futures Modernization Act, which opened the floodgates to the toxic mortgage-backed derivatives that still haunt the economy. The Federal Reserve now holds $2 trillion in junk securities it took off the books of banks. But the financiers who packed those devilish derivatives still hold a huge amount, and the houses they unload every time the housing market shows faint signs of stabilizing keep the economy in the doldrums.
The bane of our economic security now and well into the future is those collections of mortgages--the nest eggs and castles of 14 million families--now underwater or already foreclosed. Newfangled derivatives that were exempted from any regulation, and removed from the purview of any regulatory agency, by the law that Summers got President Bill Clinton to sign off on. Summers claimed that the suggestion of the prescient Brooksley Born, who headed the futures regulatory agency, to rein in those scams would have killed the golden goose of a derivatives market which, thanks to Summers, was allowed to run wild. He offered the following reasoning in congressional testimony supporting a ban on derivatives regulation:
"First, the parties to these kinds of contracts are largely sophisticated financial institutions that would appear to be eminently capable of protecting themselves from fraud and counterparty insolvencies. ... Second, given the nature of the underlying assets involved--namely supplies of financial exchange and other financial instruments--there would seem to be little scope for market manipulation. ..."
Tell that to the victims of the AIG crash, including us taxpayers, who funneled $180 billion in the government bailout of that sophisticated financial institution to equally sharp counterparties like Goldman Sachs, which got a cool $12 billion from the deal. Ask Summer's protégé and now Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner why he bailed out those market manipulators when he was head of the New York Fed working with the Bush administration.
Summers got his cut from those grateful bankers, receiving $8 million in consulting and speaking fees from major Wall Street firms while he was a top adviser to the Obama election campaign. For just one speaking appearance, Goldman Sachs paid him $135,000.
During his tenure as President Barack Obama's top economic adviser, Summers has continued the Bush policy of throwing money at Wall Street without getting anything in return by way of a moratorium on mortgage foreclosures. Or increased power through the bankruptcy courts to force the banks to readjust the mortgages of folks swindled by the collateralized-debt-obligation and credit-default-swap con artists.
Now, Summers opposes Obama's selection of Elizabeth Warren, who in the mold of Brooksley Born has earned a strong reputation as a consumer advocate, to head a new consumer agency. The man has no shame and has uttered not a word of contrition over his sorry record.
Even Bill Clinton, who signed off on the radical deregulation enabling this financial meltdown, expressed remorse in one surprisingly honest moment. In an interview on ABC's "This Week" last April, Clinton was asked by Jake Tapper if he had received bad advice from Summers and his predecessor, Robert Rubin, on regulating financial derivatives, and he replied: "On derivatives, yeah I think they were wrong, and I think I was wrong to take [their advice], because the argument on derivatives was that these things are expensive and sophisticated and only a handful of investors will buy them and they don't need any extra protection and any extra transparency."
Exactly the argument Summers had made in his congressional testimony. But then Clinton backtracked shamefully and had an aide contact ABC to say that Summers, Rubin and Alan Greenspan, who also pushed the radical deregulation, were fine fellows and that, although derivatives regulation had been needed, the Republicans would have stopped it.
One can expect similar obfuscation from Obama in the future concerning bad advice from Summers, but he can't claim he wasn't forewarned about that advice. Why not help the president do some damage control while he still is in office? Demand that Summers and Geithner be fired the next time you receive an appeal from the Obama fundraising machine asking for yet another contribution to the movement for change.
This is the best advice I've seen in months. The entire article is right on the mark.
If Chief of the Council of Economic Advisers Romer was silenced by Summers, what makes you think that Warren, with her less lofty title, will fare much better?
Greenspan Hint: The Federal Reserve System Fraud is in fact much worse than what Ron Paul envisioned:
http://seekingalpha.com/instablog/429369-shalom-hamou/94006-is-the-fomc-playing-the-stock-market
_____________________________
Romer was sidelined by Summers, and her position had more authority and implied access than the one Warren has been given.
The man does seem to have a problem with women, to go with all the rest...lest we forget his stormy days at Harvard...
I asked the candidate where he stood on Obama’s timidness and I got the right answer. Obama is a failure for inviting those Republicans in where they could do the most damage.
Boot Summers and Geithner!!
Republicans plan to make Bush tax cuts permanent; Democrats are deeply divided on the issue, however both parties, after giving trillions to the banker-speculators, agree that austerity budget cuts are essential to the public's governance.
It is as if the United States were a third world country, subjected to an anti-nation-state destabilization through chaos operation. Political leadership proposes expanding Perpetual War, permanent chaos, permanent poverty policy.
Crisis economy formation measures must be implemented now or this great nation is doomed. 5 trillion dollars must be invested in the necessary facilities that enhance the population's physical economy, activating actual economic recovery.
The President thinks that fusion energy is a fancy technology, not needed now.
The United States must stabilize itself: The President and the entire cabinet must resign, put the Fed into bankruptcy protection, recover the bailout trillions, reinstate Glass-Steagall in US banking, Expand Social Security and Medicare, Expand NASA space programs, Start the Nuclear Fueled Energy Economy, Construct the interstate maglev rail system. Construct the water distribution system proposed in the NAWAPA plan.
The United States must dedicate itself to the redevelopment of the North American continent to counterattack market forces.
Much easier to rule--though it seems counter intuitive--in a nation torn to pieces, when the goal is the accumulation of wealth and dictatorial powers for the 2%.
You get this type of laughable, insane, alternate, racist universe type of stuff (as discussed in this opinion article):
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/15/opinion/15dowd.html?hp
It uses hysterical madness to make people think there is anything remotely "left" about this administration.
Meanwhile, all along, the plutocracy has passed the Republican agenda to the Democrats to pass off as "progressive" - since the Republicans have been losing ground and taken over by the fringe.
Grab your popcorn.
You head it here first!!
Summers, emmanuel and the countless exGoldman Sachs employees in the administration.
Nixon took us off the Bretton Woods system in 1971 turned many lower class blue collar whites against their black counterparts in unions.
Reagan and Clinton drove the final nails into the coffin of unionized private labor. Jobs in the public sector cannot be outsourced as can private labor. The attack is now focusing on teachers and public sector employees.
Obama is standing there with the nail gun in his hands just to make sure that organized labor in the private sector continues to lose out in the "globalization scheme." Rahm Emanuel told the United Autoworkers Union to "F--- off" during the restructuring of the auto industry so that wages in Michigam would, in the future, equal but not exceed wages in Mississippi.
The Democratic Party has sold out the elements of FDR's New Deal one by one until the Democrats are primarily puppets of the Wall Street white collar crooks with their high speed trading scams and deregulations scams. The privatize the profits and socialize the losses on the backs of taxpayers.
Obama is in on the kill of the middle class. His appointments have left no room for doubt as to his loyalty to the MIC and Wall Street interests above labor. Labor needs a champion, not a sellout.
What's good for labor is good for the country. Obama has not kept his word to labor.