Matt Taibbi: Obama's Big Sellout to Wall Street
By Heather Thursday Nov 26, 2009 5:00pm
From Morning Meeting Nov. 25, 2009, Rolling Stone's Matt Taibbi and the Financial Times' Chrystia Freeland discuss Matt's recent article at Rolling Stone and the divide between the recoveries on Wall Street and Main Street. Their analysis about what's wrong with the economic team Obama has surrounded himself with is spot on and until he starts listening to some different voices on how to fix our economy, Matt Taibbi is correct, the cycles of bailouts are going to continue to repeat themselves.
Ratigan: But Matt’s ultimate point is that we have all these people that are still perpetuating a policy that is supportive of the banking system for sure, regardless of who’s in there and an economy that is, has small business lending off a cliff, profits back at a record on Wall Street, one in four, one in seven mortgages delinquent; you know I could go on and on with these statistics but basically the economy was torpedoed and the financial markets were supported and the reality Matt is that it’s far more profitable not to lend money In this country. The fact of the matter is we’re giving banks money at a time when the government has rules that say you can make more money if we give you money if you don’t lend it.
Taibbi: Right…right…
Ratigan: And that is the inherent insanity of the entire situation. It’s like giving the banks money, legalizing the banks to make money without having to lend it is like letting the cops create a military state. They’re the custodians of wealth, the custodians of security have been completely compromised—you think it’s the people around the President that are largely responsible for that, correct?
Taibbi: I think so. I mean you have to remember that probably, if you were going to have a Nuremberg for the financial crisis, Bob Rubin would be one of the first people on the dock.
Ratigan: Yeah.
Taibbi: I mean he has a unique responsibility for what went wrong because he was not only responsible for the bad policy, the deregulatory policy under Clinton but he also helped destroy one of the biggest companies in the world in CitiGroup. And yet he was the guy who was put in charge and his people of being the architect of Clinton’s economic policies.
Ratigan: I think he’s got a great point, and I’m a, I was a Rubin, well listen I...I, Bob Rubin is an incredibly, obviously very accomplished, intelligent, etc., etc., etc. and they had an idea which was we’ll create a hyper-efficient system—we’ll create the most efficient financial system in the history of the world—as long as it doesn’t collapse we won’t have a problem. But it’s like an efficient sports car. It goes around the track real fast and then it blows into the wall, but if you’re able to bail out and give the crash to the tax payer.
Freeland: I just think we need to be careful because Bob Rubin isn’t in the White House right now and the big bailout of Wall Street—we have to really be clear…
Ratigan: Umm hmm.
Freeland: …wasn’t Obama’s bailout. The bailout of Wall Street…
Ratigan: Understood…
Freeland: …was Hank Paulson’s bailout. That’s when the TARP happened. It was last… (crosstalk)
Ratigan: There’s no question that the car hit the wall last year… (crosstalk)
Taibbi: With the bailouts every step of the way Obama named…
Freeland: That is absolutely right and it was Obama’s choice to keep him, but it wasn’t Obama’s White House…Ratigan: Let him finish. Go ahead Matt.
Taibbi: Obama got elected. On the day after he got elected he put two CitiGroup executives in charge of the economic transition team, especially Froman. Two weeks later they do a gigantic bailout of CitiGroup and that very same day those same, those CitiGroup executives hired Tim Geithner to be the Treasury Secretary. It’s an absolute quid pro quo.
Ratigan: I would say Tim Geithner as the head of the New York Federal Reserve since 2003 as the bank regulator, in New York, over these banks at a time when the banks were accumulating leverage, at a time when the swaps market was continuing to get crazier and crazier, that this, that these people believe, implicitly or explicitly that that type of modeling is somehow good for America, based over a period of years.
Freeland: Well don’t get me wrong; I’ve written a piece complaining…
Ratigan: I know, I’ve read it.
Freeland: …about how the guys at Goldman Sachs…
Ratigan: I get it.Freeland: …think that they’re Ayn Rand characters, but I just think that we have to be careful to get our facts right and so for example if you talk about CitiGroup, these actions were taken when Obama was not yet in office and I think one of the original sins about the financial bailout was there should have been more strings attached. If you look at the strings that Warren Buffet attached to the money that he lent to Goldman Sachs, he got a better deal than the U.S. Treasury did.
Ratigan: But to allow the continued funding of the banks under the counsel of the Obama advisory team and not come out with a windfall profits tax to take back the profits being made this year and all the banks CEO’s compensation for the last ten years, because those people were paying themselves to accumulate risk that they couldn’t accumulate because they legalized doing that.
And the fact of the matter is that I think Matt’s onto something, is there’s a good question to be asked which is why is it we’re not seeing a windfall profits tax? Why is it we’re not seeing a restoration of the rules of lending and investing? And the question you’re asking is maybe there…or the answer you’re positing is maybe the reason you’re not getting that is because the people advising the President don’t want us to have that.
Taibbi: And also you have to look at the way the financial regulatory reform was you know what the White House proposals were on that this fall. All the things that Tim Geithner sent to the Hill were very, you know, soft touches on Wall Street. There was sort of a permanent bailout mechanism written into the resolution authority portions of the House bill.
Ratigan: That’s a fact.
Taibbi: And it required a sort of open revolt in the House to get those measures killed or watered down. That was the White House’s position. They wanted to have basically an automated future bailout system.
Ratigan: So that I can basically pay myself out, torpedo the system and then whoever is left has to pay. It’s totally nuts. And that was a Geithner… (crosstalk)
Taibbi: This was a built in safety net for the top twenty five banks in the country.
Freeland: This is where I’m with you. I think that financial reform has not gone far enough, absolutely.
Taibbi: And that’s all because that it was these people who were writing these bills.
Ratigan: So the issue you take Chrystia is to be cautious in assigning particular blame to Larry Summers or to Bob Rubin at this point because we don’t have enough information to know whose doing or did what. But we know that what’s gone on has been directly offensive and destructive to American and directly beneficial to the banking system.
Freeland: Yeah and look…
Ratigan: We just have to figure out who and why.
Freeland: I think bailing out the financial system, no matter what your politics, you have to be glad that that happened because we didn’t have a second Great Depression.
Ratigan: I disagree. I would say that’s like saying putting out a house on fire—we’ve got to be glad we put the house out that’s on fire…
Freeland: Yes…right…
Ratigan: But I’m more concerned about the fact that the people building our houses build houses that burn everybody in them down every ten years and everyone’s acting as though the fire was an accident and the fire wasn’t an accident. The fire was started consciously by individuals ten years ago and it came home. That’s my… (crosstalk)
Taibbi: It’s also a repeat of a pattern. Let’s not forget that.
Ratigan: Exactly.
Taibbi: This isn’t the first time we’ve bailed out Wall Street. You go back to the Peso Crisis, Long-Term Capital Management, the, you know…Greenspan cuts the rates eleven times after the tech crash, we have the housing bubble. It’s over and over and over again we have the same policies and it’s because it’s the same people who are setting the policies in the White House. I mean it’s not… it’s no accident that this is happening.
Freeland: Well that’s why financial reform legislation needs to be the central part of the discussion. That’s how the new house gets built.
Ratigan: Exactly and more importantly making sure that we identify who burned the house down, who made themselves rich burning the house down, getting the money back from those who made themselves rich burning the house down, punishing those who burned the house down and then building a new house that doesn’t allow people who like to burn houses down to build them. And they’re acting like the house fire was an accident and I think that’s where you run into a lot of problems.
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There was a financial coup d'Etat in September of '08. The election was a formality.
The Oligarchs have spoken.
Obama didn't create the mess but he isn't doing anything to fix it, he simply stepped blessed Bernanke to step on the gas. We're in trouble, we're in big f'ing trouble, it's just a matter of time, a few years at best before we have another crash. The dollar is toxic.
Show me where I ever said that.
I am for ending capitalism, period. I am not alone.
The capitalists are destroying the earth, they will continue until the last dying ember.
End capitalism, and what would you use to run a global economy in its place?
After having said that if anyone thinks what we have now is capitalism, they're delusional, what we have is a system where large corporations control all 3 branches of government through campaign finance contributions and backdoor paychecks to congressman and Senator through spousal board memberships, along with a half dozen other methods most of us have no inkling of. I say all three because who doesn't think contributors don't get a say in supreme court nominees?
Mankind has been partaking of capitalism since one caveman decided he just had to have that spiffy stone knife his cave mate whipped up one snowy day when he had nothing better to do. It's a natural by-product of the human condition, and when practiced correctly, really does keep everyone honest.
Capitalism isn't the problem, this system where we privatize profits while we socialize risk, or we allow companies who make profits in the U.S., offshore jobs because the profits are greater due to lax regulations, be they labor, financial(although it's kind of hard to find a country with those regs more relaxed), or environmental, to name just three.
This isn't capitalism, I've heard this model described as a form of fascism, I don't know about that. But I do know this, unless we figure out how to keep congress from allowing the corporations to continue gaming the system, we are lost.
You, like many people, confuse capitalism with markets or commerce. THOSE have certainly existed for aeons, and perhaps (PERHAPS) they are an inevitable feature of human societies. Capitalism, however, is not. That implies private control of companies, the commoditizing of labor, the existence of corporations as entities (especially limiting liability - a HUGE part of why people feel comfortable investing), and, finally, the redistribution of profits to the owners. It's our faith in THAT system that is flawed - the idea that we need to deregulate our control of that system and allow private investment to rule all aspects of our society. In the recent past this collapsed most catastrophically with our deregulating control of financial instruments and investment (most significantly repeal of the Glass-Steagall act in 1998), but this is hardly a surprising development. If you want to ride this snake, you have to keep your heels firmly pressed down on its writhing neck - otherwise it will, no doubt, rear up and strike you, vicious and mindless thing that it is. You want to figure out how to keep congress from allowing corporations to game the system? Brother, they own the whole damn thing, hat to boots. We have got to bring it down.
"Mankind has been partaking of capitalism since one caveman decided he just had to have that spiffy stone knife his cave mate whipped up one snowy day when he had nothing better to do. It's a natural by-product of the human condition..."
are you similarly entralled with your poop and want to model all your economic, political and social relations to reflect the fact that poop comes out of your butt?
capitalism is about making money with money. it's a parasite on the mechanisms of modern (post-"primitive") monetary transactions, but which has been allowed to take over it's host.
trade and commerce and the use of money as a convienent mediator may (perhaps) be natural and thus sustainable, but that is not capitalism, nor is capitalism either of those things.
as an aside, you may be interested in doing some research into "primitive" or pre-modern peoples. the "caveman" myth has really contributed to widespread ignorance of our ancient origins, and of our human abilities and potentials. in addition, it exploits fears of nature and the natural, creates divisions and false hierarchies amongs human creatures and disconnects us from our mother and partner in survival, our earth.
I hit reply to the wrong post, I don't recall you saying that, I thought I had clicked on post new comment. My bad. But I personally do disagree with ending capitalism, I say we need to bring it back. What we have is not capitalism it's cronyism. When the lobbyists and corporate America got in bed with each other capitalism started to die.
If there is a better system by all means I'd love to here about it, personally I can't think of another system that give people the incentive to get up and do great things. If you can't expect to enjoy prosperity for successfully starting and running a company then why bother at all?
Some of the most productive and inventive people in the world, people who, in my opinion, do far more to advance our pathetic civilization than businessmen do, are research scientists, many of whom work at universities for incredibly modest salaries, doing extremely difficult and creative work purely because they love doing it. Which is the best fricking reason to do anything: because it is awesome. Not because you want to make a million bones; because you believe what you are doing is good, and fun, and productive for humanity. It's amazing that our society has gotten so cynical that we can't even imagine incentives to produce other than raw greed.
but most people go to work to get a check. It's not just greed but you can be assured the greedy will always find a way to play that game to their advantage. There is always going to be some bastard who has to have a bigger car and house in this world.
I love what I do in IT so I work at it in my off hours pay or not. Yet I also do it because I hope to come up with something to help improve my family's quality of life. A resource based economy sounds great but try getting the world on board with that idea. Some of the most essential work is not all that inspiring either, sanitation for example. Take money out of the picture and how many people would clean toilets, wash dishes, pick up trash, etc. for the inspiration of it all? I wonder how many nurses would change out bed pans without a paycheck? How many grocery store clerks would go to work without a paycheck?
Answers to questions like that need to on solid ground before we dump capitalism altogether. The USSR showed clearly people had little incentive under their system, not that I'm suggesting you are proposing that. We're going to need our ducks in a row before we tank what we have.
Amen, Alice. For those who are open minded and interested in what is really going on, as well as an intriguing solution, you may want to watch the free movie ******************. If you google it you'll easily find access.
Obama could have nationalized the banks, Wall Street or the insurance industry.
As if?
Who and how would some enterptising politician get elected to the top slot?
I guess Obama isn't a real dem or liberal or progressive if he doesn't committ political suicide?
Then the GOP could rule and do so from the majority?
I don't make excuses for Barack but really, where would the money come from to run the election (And I mean a winning election) and how about the next one?
Until something is done about campaign finance reform it takes getting in bad with the money dogs (and electing blue dogs).
Kind of silly to worry about counting the fleas.
Purity trolls are a hoot!
:)
I wish President Obama had nationalized the banks at least until they returned to solvency
But we have a mid-term coming up next year (looming ever closer), with people already complaining Obama's too leftist, when I would argue he governing closer to the center.
And then we'd have republicans in office governing for the tea-baggers.
What people are suggesting here in doctrinaire purity would only on the scantest possibility win any battles, but ultimately lose the war.
And even if Obama is not a sweeping reformer, there's still a chance he's an incrementalist.
.
I am sick of hearing Obama is governoring "for" the left..When none of his policies includes a d... thing that the left WAS promised.
Just what in the h... policy has EMANUEL gave the Ok,, for Obama to even consider from the left progressives or whatever people love to call it..
I call Obama governing from the RIGHT center... Obama's bailout and now his CORPORATE written health bill has not a d... thing that was wished from the left , progressive..
And the 65 percent of Americans which wish for a ROBUST public option I guess were the left only..
Our citizens are becoming a group of sheep , when they wish to control your reactions they just use the control words to control your every move..
Obama and Emanuel said right after they received the support , funds and votes of the progressive , left that they were going to run the democratic party from the center which they had to mean the center right because they have already been passing policies to the right of center..
The democrats every year are funding , supporting republicans or perple with republican policies on the democratic ticket and this is why our leaders and most members are controlling and passing policies which are in line with the corporate republicans.
Just look at the lobbyist which are giving political donations of Multi trillion dollars to the members of the democratic senator or house to get their policies passed.
*****
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/07102009/pr...
The nation's largest insurers, hospitals and medical groups have hired more than 350 former government staff members and retired members of Congress in hopes of influencing their old bosses and colleagues
The tactic is so widespread that three of every four major health-care firms have at least one former insider on their lobbying payrolls.
Nearly half of the insiders previously worked for the key committees and lawmakers, including Sens. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) and Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa), debating whether to adopt a public insurance option opposed by major industry groups. At least 10 others have been members of Congress, such as former House majority leaders Richard K. Armey (R-Tex.) and Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.), both of whom represent a New Jersey pharmaceutical firm.
The hirings are part of a record-breaking influence campaign by the health-care industry, which is spending more than $1.4 million a day on lobbying in the current fight, according to disclosure records. And even in a city where lobbying is a part of life, the scale of the effort has drawn attention. For example, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) doubled its spending to nearly $7 million in the first quarter of 2009, followed by Pfizer, with more than $6 million.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CVE72Ae82Tw&fe...
*yawns* Rahm is that you
It takes a lot of money to get elected President of Senator and where is that money coming from. Joe Citizen can't compete with Big Money.
Campaign finance reform is a good start in taking the government back from big money interests.
common good was palpable, as well as the sense that big money does not run everything, unlike in the US. In France, political campaigns are highly regulated and very brief, only people are allowed to contribute, with limits on the amounts they can contribute yearly, and paid political commercials are banned 3 months prior to an election.
Campaign Finance: France
Poorly regulated campaign financing in one of the main causes of political corruption.
Are becoming the party of the left wing REPUBLICANS,,, and if you have an ounce of sense you can see it in their actions and policies which They are passed for these Global Monopolies...
The welfare check to the banks was for Wall street and had not a d... thing to do with the progressives or left..
This Health bill is certainly not legislation that the left would even dream of considering..
The Soldier in Iraq's with drawn was not started as some as Obama took office like he promised..
I do not believe the left would even consider a surge in the troops in Afghanistan for sure..
Just where is there even an ounce of consideration for any wish of the left..
The only way the left or progressive will ever again has a say in politics is to form their own group as the Independents have.
Then when the left does not like the republican like Baucus running on any ticket they can fund and support their own...
The progressives , left or what ever one likes to call them are being attack by the news media , the republicans and now the democrats even thru their wishes are never ever considered , much less do they try to pass any....
So I say the h.... with them ALL.
Their eyes may shine and their teeth may grit ,, but a hold of my a.. they will never get..
Matt's a funny guy. maybe he should have run for president so he could have implemented his plan to save the world economy. Oh sorry Matt doesn't have a plan.
Exactly! LOL
Excuse me? Its not Matt's (or any other journalist's) job to have a "plan".
That's the administration's job. Congress' job.
Shooting the messenger is weak.
When the messenger is right about your guy and you have no real rebuttal
Here's my plan to avert a depression:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwsR71YZPac
Give it to Emanuel so he will let Obama do something except transfer the rest of our money to these Global Monopolies..
Harper's had agreat Ken Silverstein article called "Obama Inc.: The Birth of a Washington Machine" in November of '06...Three years ago....so its not like this is news to anybody who was paying attention.
"He (Obama) quickly established a political machine funded and run by a standard Beltway group of lobbyists, P.R. consultants, and hangers-on. For the staff post of policy director he hired Karen Kornbluh (Obama's Brain), a senior aide to Robert Rubin when the latter, as head of the Treasury Department under Bill Clinton, was a chief advocate for NAFTA and other free-trade policies that decimated the nation’s manufacturing sector (and the organized labor wing of the Democratic Party). Obama’s top contributors are corporate law and lobbying firms, Wall Street financial houses (Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase)."
The kicker is in the final graf:
"...big donors would not be helping out Obama if they didn’t see him as a “player.” The lobbyist added: “What’s the dollar value of a starry-eyed idealist?”
Whatever the price was...seems to be paying off.
when it comes to Iraq, Afghanistan, Wall Street/insurance/pharma bailouts, yet inexplicably becomes very concerned about 'budget balancing' when it comes to programs 'helping' the American people such as health care 'reform', who are expected to carry the costs on their backs...wonder why...
Did you expect anything less?
>
...in the near future!
Been spending too much on jonas brothers albums again?
...I just went to a palm reader and ate Chinese...
(the fortune cookie was the clincher)
Your ate your Chinese palm reader?
Are you already hungry again?
...at the "palmreading"...I couldn't help myself, (I think someone sprinkled MSG on them)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MeQ2yXE1mpU
a lay-up?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L960Yh-NF88
i couldn't resist
now i will return to my regularly scheduled program of minding my own business and the great thanksgiving day boycott of aught-nine
> strange...Obama hands out trillions like peanuts....wonder
> why...
I think the answer can be stated in 4 words: OBAMA IS NOT FDR!
I always wonder if some people on these forums actually don't know how our government works? Obama does not and can not 'hand out trillions' without the consent of Congress. They hold the purse strings--not the president. That is not just a tradition, it is what the Constitution mandates. He can ask for whatever he wants, but if the elected reps in Congress say 'no,' it ain't gonna happen. Bush had a rubber-stamp Congress. That's why he was able to spend money faster and more recklessly than any other president in history. The administration can set priorities, but they can't spend money like 'peanuts' or any other legume without the active participation of the people we elect and send to Congress.
about the need to change the way things have been done, take back the money that has been stolen. It is the only way to fix it. The same thing holds true for bush/chenny until they are held accountable for their crimes against the American people and humanity we can no longer call ourselves the beacon for the world. We are not even a flashlight after the last thirty years but done in by the past eight.
I am dissapointed that Obama kept the same people that created a large protion of our economic problems. There should have been no bush appointee left in any position. That in itself is a recipe for disaster.
republicanism/conservatism is a mental illness that is killing America!
burn burn burn
Can we assess this from a macro-level perspective?
Two things:
1) Anyone who's been paying attention knows this economic train wreck happened under St. Ronnie's watch. Not that capitalism wasn't fucked already, but Reagan's eight years in office racheted up the Corporate Megalomaniacs' hedonism to heretofore unheard of levels. All of the so-called "Economists" who've pontificated for the past thirty years about what should or should not be done with our economy are driven first and foremost by a profit motive, most specifically profit for those in power: those I call the Corporate Megalomaniacs, aka the Military/Industrialists.
2) The more our species' dysfunctional behaviors predominate in the media and other public venues, the more we find Jesus--or pretend to find him. This knee-jerk guilt response is so predictable, but the contemporary manifestation of such guilt--the neo-conservatives and 'Republicans'--are writ larger than life, given the exponential change in our media and the internet.
Capitalism as a failed economic behavior and rampant overpopulation do not HAVE to be our species' long-term legacy, but I think we'd have to experience a planet-wide catastrophe to change our collective fates at this point...
From The Real News Network by way of YouTube.
Excellent analysis of the driving forces in the economic relationship between US and China before and after the global economic meltdown.
China, America & the economic crisis
Freeland: …wasn’t Obama’s bailout …was Hank Paulson’s bailout...
%^$#@ ...I got some news for Freeland.
Chimpstain and Paulspin may have been big fans of the bailout but...
Obama was the one who actually cast a vote. ...and he voted yes for the bailout.
Don't let the media spin it folks...Obama is (one of many) "legislators" responsible for the bailout! He was a Senator ...the one who actually voted for it!
Obama did Paulspin and Chimpsters bidding!
Heather,
I have an incredible amount of respect for Taibbi and he does very good work, but he is wrong on this issue. Taibbi is very nieve about financial markets, and how they work, and how close the global financial system came to a complete nuclear melt down that would have made things much worse and more costly to fix.
I am not sure what you mean by "until he starts listening to some different voices on how to fix our economy,". You also seem to have very little understanding of where this economy was and how far it has come back in the last year. The Obama Adminstration has been doing all the right things to fix the economy, particularly given the politics and the very tough hand that he was dealt by Bush.
This country was on the verge of a great depression, and growth had collapsed a year ago. The financial markets lost nearly 50% of their value wiping out trillions of value.
The economy is now growing at 3%, the stock market is up and we are clearly on the road to recovery by all measures, including jobs. The rate of job losses is shrinking very fast.
Unemployment is very high, but unemployment is always a lagging indicator and will take time to come back.
Geithner, Bernake, and Sumners are doing a great job. They have used all the levers that they have and have been successful at pulling the economy out of its nose dive and did it in a fairly short period of time.
It is easy to be a monday morning quarterback, but at lot of this was in untested waters, where time was not on anyones side.
If there is any anger, it should be placed at Bush's feet, as his adminstration presided over the biggest economic collapse since the great depression. He drove the country into the ground with his policies and lack of policies.
I admire your optimism, if nothing else...
being willing to regulate these markets, and putting a priority on getting people back to work rather than solely protecting Wall Street. I am more than fully aware of how close we came to a global economic meltdown. I remember watching the day the Asian markets crashed on a Saturday and thinking holy crap...we're next and this isn't good. I also have read quite a bit on what they did to stop the bleeding, but I am sure as hell no economic expert. That "lagging indicator" isn't going to get any better if they don't fix our trade laws, and if they don't start worrying more about Main Street as opposed to Wall Street just as what was said during this segment.
I completely agree with you on how much Bush as at fault with what happened and did not mean to take anything away from that. I do however have a completely different view on what Geithner and Summer's interests are. I'd like to see Obama dump them. And yes, it is Monday morning quarterbacking, but since none of us had the luxury of seeing this real time, what else do we have?
And I would also disagree that these are untested waters. Those waters were tested and they led to a Great Depression. Obviously we've learned nothing by undoing all the protections that were put in place to stop that from happening again.
The economy is NOT growing at 3%. The 3rd quarter showed a gain of 2.7% on an adjusted yearly basis but it was heavily weighted by the financials, who have received $17 trillion in largesse.
The financial's profits were up 36% and the non-financials were up 2%.
It is all happy talk.
Personal bankruptcies in '09 are up 34%, 23% of homeowners are in negative equity and foreclosures are at a new record pace.
We are a long way from being out of the woods.
In fact, in my estimation, we will never recover.
These guys are not doing a great job. They are not even doing a bad job. They are horrendous!
Proping up criminals with money from their victims so they can continue to execute their criminal behavior and not be jailed, is actually quite dispicable.
And my eyes, which are not lying, tell me this reccession might be over, but the 2nd republican Great Depression is very very real.
Jobs are a lagging indicator? Are you really trying to sell that flaming turd of a talking point? We are still waiting for the jobs to return from the 2001 recession!
I may have less understanding of the economy than the crooks Obama chose to run it, but I did say back in 2006 this whole expansion was smoke and mirrors. Which is exactly why I dumped my rental properties right before the meltdown, refinanced my home - when all the financial experts told me to keep my super low 5 year arm loan, and have been breathing easy ever since.
This economy is a freaking disaster. Until the global corporate cartels are dealt with, we are screwed!
On the other hand, Obama is an eloquent liar.
Okay, it's easy to monday-morning quarterback. So tell me, sagacious one, with the wisdom of hindsight to guide you - why were these guys who "did a great job" so eager to implement all of these measures without putting measures in place to control the problem? Why was there no discussion of and no effort to undo the fundamental transformations of the marketplace that CAUSED this problem to begin with? Why was there no acknowledgement that there WAS a problem, that we didn't just need a bailout, we needed a reform of the financial system?
Taibbi's reasoning is perfectly sound - because the same people who helped create this mess in the late 90s under Clinton (when the financial deregulation started - when Greenspan was consistently cutting interest rates and forcing money into the system) are the exact people who Obama put in charge of "fixing things". Blame Bush all you want, but the Democrats are just as much to blame with regards to the catastrophe in the financial sector. It's easy for you to call Taibbi naive, but since you fail to address any of his critiques or show why they are wrong, I see no reason to take you seriously.
Taibbi is talking about moral hazard, something you appear to be ignorant of, as you give a pass to an administration that is doling out ample amounts of moral hazard. Yes it inherited a tough hand by Bush, but since he's had the hand, he's been playing the game in Bush style rather than changing tactics. Obama's financial team, and Congressional Democrats, have made exactly ZERO progress at pulling back on their created moral hazard. And therefore, there will be more financial disasters in the future.
You're being an Obama cheerleader. Bush isn't in charge anymore. The time for being angry at him, when he isn't in charge, at all, is past. We need someone who can make economically sound choices for the entire country, not just one segment called Wall Street.
Where are the consequences for what's happened? You have stated as fact that the current team, doing exactly what was signed off on under Paulson, is doing a great job. And that facts are there have been no consequences for these companies. They have faced no real losses commensurate with the mistakes they made. The administration and Congressional Democrats have signed no new legislation, or enacted any new regulations to prevent any of these problems from happening again.
It has been a year. I would call this somewhere between incompetency and complicit. But no, you're giving our elected officials a pass, and want to blame an Ass Hat who isn't even in office anymore. Your suggestion to be pissed at Bush as a solution is a Fantastic Non-solution. Congratulations!
Ah, I was wondering when Dylan would ask the ultimate question that the MSM has avoided like the plague. Who has been benefiting financially from all of these absurd government policies? Indeed, why keep building a house you know will burn down, unless you and your friends in high places can in fact profit from the arson? In this is case, let the tax payer, the ultimate lender of last resort pick up the bill as always. Just keep debasing the dollar as you have to print more of them. But in the end, the Titanic will sink anyway. This is what gold is telling us as it reaches $1,200 per ounce. Inflation is on the way.....Big time!
For further back round as to why all of this is happening, check at today's update at www.worldreports.org. Sounds like a few past presidents as well as the current occupant could well be brought up on treason charges along with Emanuel, Panetta as well as Geithner. To ad insult to injury, the country of Dubai is asking to default on 80 billion in real estate bonds. No wonder the markets around the world are crashing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=at4B2LloM1o
You can read the story at Bloomberg.
The Zombie Banks are crashing around the world today with news of the Dubai World default on $80B in debt owed mostly to the large, multi-national banks.
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/busines...
This Dubai World default is NOT a stand alone instance. There are hundreds if not thousands of large sovereign institutions/nations on the brink of default.. especially in Eastern Europe not to mention almost all the US State governments.
The banks are still leveraged to the hilt (many over 20x) so for every $10B loss in asset value the banks lose $200B. Leverage is great when asset prices are rising but a bitch when they fall. I expect to see a few of the "Too Big To Fail" banks fall in one of the FDIC's "Friday Night Bank Closure Parties". If not this weekend then one very soon.
In the mean time... who holds your money? If your answer is "the bank does" then you have an urgent problem that needs to be addressed immediately.
Make no mistake. WE ARE THERE...
I've read the warning, here and other boards, that commercial real estate will be the next meltdown, usually predicted to occur in 2010.
Seems Dubai's getting an early start!
and all evidence since bears it out.
http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/us/2009/11/2...
There have been a number of condescending remarks about Matt in this thread. I encourage you all to get a copy of Rolling Stone and READ IT.
The piece backs up what Ratigan and Spitzer have been pounding the table on for months now. For one thing the executive compensation thing is a red herring. An obscene one but red none the less.
Matt illustrates what the President has done, who he has placed, from whence they came, and their agendas.
The President is a blue dog at best, a corporatist at worst. The real peril is the continued tolerance of credit default swaps, derivatives, (A derivative is a financial instrument that is derived from some other asset, index, event, value or condition (known as the underlying asset). Rather than trade or exchange the underlying asset itself, derivative traders enter into an agreement to exchange cash or assets over time based on the underlying asset. A simple example is a futures contract: an agreement to exchange the underlying asset at a future date. and leveredge.)
The 'risk taking' is selling 'instruments' that are basically worthless bundled with some things of value. What led to the collapse was two things.
The investment speculators bidding up the prices of commodities to recapitalize quickly last year. The commodities were the only thing of tangible value that could be liquidated quickly for cash.
Secondly it had to happen by the 30th of September of 08.
The international bank treaty Basel II was to come into compliance and everyone had to prove they were solvent/liquid.
Well, the rest is history. The first blast of loot that left our treasury went to all of the foreign banks we sold our worthless derivtives to.
They call it fraud
Ask Brooksley Born
and the people who should be in jail
ask alan greenspan, joseph cassano, goldman sachs, saloman bros,
geithner, summers, rubin, and paulsen for starters.
I used to think the President was playing 3D Chess.
Seeing how chips are falling into place and what his priorities seem to be.
Don't get me wrong, bush left the most vile, festering pile of shit to deal with.
Look how he deals with the wars, look at his attitude about the public option, and see how emphatic he is about regulation for the financial industry.
There were 4 blue dogs to deal with and 56 progressives were told to bend over.
Do the math.
Again,
read what Matt wrote, listen to what Ratigan and Spitzer are saying.
If there aren't any pinstripe perp walks in the next year, I don't see myself voting for this President again.
If I have to, to keep a republican from winning, maybe, but it will have to be close.
Frank Rich was right when he said 'we were punked'
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QhquKI_wq_0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAqtOfW4aRY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3QHskL33Hlc&fe...
Obama hasn't done jack crap for main street other than some road repair work and a couple of unemployment extensions but he and his administration sure have taken care of Wall Street , the red flags went up immediately when I heard who Obama's economic team would be ... the very same Wall Street crooks , insiders , who brought us the disaster to begin with . Now the list of White House visitors has been released and surprise surprise , there's been a steady stream of lobbyists and health care provider heavy weights meeting with Obama's people in the White House . I'm done making excuses for Obama , giving him the benefit of a doubt any more at this point is to be wearing blinders and nose plugs and simply denying the obvious , we've been had . Like myshadow said if I vote for Obama again it'll be to keep a Republican from winning . Oh well ,he gave us some wonderful speeches , I actually had some hope ! Wish I could get my money back .
Sell out to Wall Street.
Sell out to the Military Industrial Complex.
Sell out to the Health Insurance Industry.
Pretty soon there won't be anything left to sell out.
ditto
The Republicans "stole" the Dixiecrats from the Democratic Party. It started with the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and culminated with Reagan's election in 1980.
Before the Civil Right Act of 1964 no self respecting Southerner would be caught dead in the Republican Party - after what the Republicans did to The South during and after the Civil War.
So the Democrats have countered by courting the Corporate Interests who have traditionally been part of the Republican Party. That's precisely what Clinton - and his advisers - did and are still doing, as part of the Obama administration.
This strategy leaves the right wing crazies in charge of the Republican Party, and the Democratic Party sold out to the Corporations.
but I don't see the phony populists on the right fighting concentrated wealth either. The banksters and corps have both parties now and with their ever fewer and bigger entities control the entire economy, everything you buy, eat, even your job! Look at everything around you. It comes from corporate entities It's a corpratocracy folks. If you think the one world order is coming you are late to the party. It's here.
Whatever it takes, read the article in Rolling Stone...AMAZING stuff... The Rubin guys are firmly in charge and better be cut REAL soon OR we're done.
or I'd have linked it in the post. Once they get it up there I'll do another post at Video Cafe to try to make sure anyone who visits my corner at C&L gets a chance to read it.
for a long time, we just refuse to recognize it.
I love Taibbi.
You know this might sound naive but maybe we are toasting Obama's toes too soon.
Yes I know it's been a year and Yes I remember his promises but the man is only human. He can only do so much.
I can imagine being push and pulled on each issue is hard enough but then he has to take into consideration all the politicking (butt kissin)he's going to have to do to get what he wants done. You know what office politics is like. Well Obama's job is a thousand time that.
Then he has to deal with the House and the Senate. Half want him to fail miserably and other half are running around with their heads up their proverbial butts. Seems to me it's kinda like having to do brain surgery with the three stooges in the room.
All I am saying is yes; his plate is full but you gotta remember he didn't ask for it this way. It was dumped on his plate and he has no wiggle room. It may take a while.
As for the economy...I know almost nothing. It does seem to me though if you want to change things then at minimum you need to change those in charge.
Perhaps he needs one or two of them to accomplish another goal. It is after all politics; where all's fair.
Just sayin...
You are right. Obama is always right. We folks on the left should never question nor voice any dissenting opinion when it comes to any of Obama's policies. We should already intuitively know that Obama will always make the right decisions and do what is best for us. It's only been (fill in the blank) months and he's a grand chessplayer so give him time.
as Stephanie Miller likes to say; "He's (Obama) playing chess while the rest of us are playing checkers."
Look, I thought that too. Please, get the article, stand in a store and read it, whatever. This isn't a matter of playing board games. The President has placed so many people who are predisposed to the financial sector, and NOT reformers, who, as Matt has displayed, were sent to beaureaucratic Siberia.
There has to be a collective LOUD expression of coherant outrage. Not teabagging, but a focussed clearly articulated expression of contempt about the situation.
The President has ultimate sway in leadership but there is also barney frank caving to the banksters, and dodd.
I still not too sure about Maria Cantwell but I am still seeing her on the plus side of things.
Again, if there are no perp walks by election next year, I'm done.
Jesus Christ, do you REALLY think that the collapse of the economy of the world DID NOT have some fraud on a massive scale, and since it threatened the economies of the whole WORLD, that is not a crime against humanity?
Geithner sucks!
Summers sucks!
Rahm Emmanuel really sucks!
These are the dipshits Obama chose.
Howard Dean does not suck!
Obama pushed Howard out the door.
What I see, is one sucky-ass president!
It's turnning out that Obama is just another member of the boys in washingtion. His call for change is turnning out to be more of the same bullshit. Yes, bush started the bail out, but, Obama could have steped in and Stop the the bullshit. He did not. He let walstreet do what ever they wanted. He could have steped in and Helped the people who needed help keeping there homes, but he DID NOT. As the 2 wars "HE" said he would End, He did not. Now He wants to send 35,000 more GI's to bushs war to "win", that will be his final down fall. He is on his way to a ONE term in office. Obama, You talked all this shit to get elected, people thought "YOU" would fix all the shit. Now I see that all you are is a good bullshitter. Give me back my money. O shit, you gave it to wallstreet assholes who fucked up America.
Why can't the main Stream Entertainment system put on a One week Special using Ratigan.
Now staying on the FACTS everynight blow these Anti American NIT WIT Net works away.
Next do the Same thing with Maddow with a One Week Special then follow it up with Olbermann followed by Shultz.
These are hard hitting reality based FACT based (and if a mistake is made they have the Intestinal Fortitude to admit the mistake), and they will take it to the mat.
This would put the Clowns on the Right on total defence and NO WHERE to run. In addition these segments could be aired to counter the Lies and Propaganda of the Anti American Hate machine.
The above mentioned are just a starter, with the MSEM kept busy trying to defend its Lies as one come off the other starts a NEW attack,with the FACTS layed out the Anti American right can only find a Hole to crawl in then we can throw the dirt in on top of them.
One of the MAIN advantages of these FOUR they "QUOTE FACT" and with that one can not lose, they talk so the average viewer can understand them leaving the Hyperbole on the sideline, for the CLOWNS on the right to play with then get destroyed with.
If anyone from any of these shows read this I truly hope that you would followup on it, each broadcaster doing a week followed up by a week by the next broadcaster it appeals to me.
With the Facts out there it is going to be pretty hard to deny.
This Leftist, Elitist Socialist Lying, fact twisting truth manipulation is old very old.
I believe that if just these four alone started each week following one another for one hour a day it would blow the Main Stream Entertainment Media and its credibility out of the Water.
In addition with each one co ordinating a whole week every week the Anti American Party RNC could not handle it, because as they try to debunk the next week the other starts and by each following the other these Clowns on the RIGHT would be shown just what kind of circus they really are running.
The KEY is pointing out the FACT that this PROBLEM was INHERITED NOT CREATED by this administration showing all time lines and people involved. The TRUTH what a interesting concept.
Casting blame is foolish when your party still fails to take the necessary steps to make amends. I would be happy to acknowledge that Obama is suffering from republican intransigence on, say, health care reform, if the guy actually bothered to strike up a sensible reform position. Instead he's a spineless douchebag, and so we're supposed to sop up distraction from the likes of Olbermann and Maddow who want us to remember the FACT that none of this is actually Obama's fault, blah blah blah? You can keep your shadow puppets to yourself. I want someone who's actually going to talk about what is really broken and how to fix it, not someone who's going to provide cover for a man who's totally uninterested in helping us out.
And you all know it.
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