An Answer to Obama and the Corporate Oligarchy
Mon, 2011-01-03 11:11
#1
An Answer to Obama and the Corporate Oligarchy
Mon, 2011-01-03 11:13
#2
Nader fears a repeat of the left's cowardice in the next election, a cowardice that has further empowered the lunatic fringe of the Republican Party, maintained the role of the Democratic Party as a lackey for corporations, and accelerated the reconfiguration of the country into a neo-feudalist state. Either we begin to practice a fierce moral autonomy and rise up in multiple acts of physical defiance that have no discernable short-term benefit, or we accept the inevitability of corporate slavery. The choice is that grim. The age of the practical is over. It is the impractical, those who stand fast around core moral imperatives, figures like Nader or groups such as Veterans for Peace, which organized the recent anti-war rally in Lafayette Park in Washington, which give us hope. If you were one of the millions who backed down in the voting booth in 2008, don't do it again. If you were one of those who thought about joining the Washington protests against the war where 131 of us were arrested and did not, don't fail us next time. The closure of the mechanisms within the power system that once made democratic reform possible means we stand together as the last thin line of defense between a civil society and its disintegration. If we do not engage in open acts of defiance, we will empower a radical right-wing opposition that will replicate the violence and paranoia of the state. To refuse to defy in every way possible the corporate state is to be complicit in our strangulation.
Chris Hedges
Mon, 2011-01-03 11:49
#3
Since open revolt and physical confrontation are not the sort of things the mainstream left would contemplate, and since the corporate media establishment and corporate political financing has essentially rendered the way of the voting booth useless, there is nowhere to go.
Mon, 2011-01-03 12:04
#4
I disagree. Nature abhors a vacuum; there's always somewhere to go.
Perhaps the key in your dismissal is the idea of "mainstream" left, which in the USA isn't the left at all. Nader seems to be saying that an antidote to the machinations of the radical right is for the left to end its complacency and adopt radical methods itself.
Mon, 2011-01-03 13:01
#5
I disagree. Nature abhors a vacuum; there's always somewhere to go. Perhaps the key in your dismissal is the idea of "mainstream" left, which in the USA isn't the left at all. Nader seems to be saying that an antidote to the machinations of the radical right is for the left to end its complacency and adopt radical methods itself.
Nader is correct. He's a voice in the wilderness though. Anyone with anything similar to say on the matter is shut out of the public discourse. In this country we can't even manage to get a leftist viewpoint heard on the public broadcaster. Most leftists have been convinced that we need to wait for mass spontaneity in the streets, some sort of collective will that captures and mobilizes everyone at the same time, before the acts which flow from such an occurrence are considered valid. Some universal resonance among the population that collectively informs us that we simply can't take anymore, is apparently required before complacency jumps aboard the bandwagon with its stamp of approval.
Mon, 2011-01-03 13:07
#6
quote: "Nature abhors a vacuum"
And Tea Partiers are happily filling the void.
And rather than "radical methods" perhaps "practical ideas" that would resonate with the out-of-work ?
Mon, 2011-01-03 13:08
#7
They're filling the void with an abyss.
Mon, 2011-01-03 13:12
#8
And rather than "radical methods" perhaps "practical ideas" that would resonate with the out-of-work ?
Yes George, because the way to advance the struggle against corporate fascism is to devise more effective strategies to get more people working for them.
Mon, 2011-01-03 13:14
#9
But perhaps its the nature of an obdurate opposition and a dumbed-down electorate:
From the NYTimes :
January 2, 2011
G.O.P. Newcomers Set Out to Undo Obama Victories
By JENNIFER STEINHAUER and ROBERT PEAR
Correction Appended
WASHINGTON - Soon after the 112th Congress convenes Wednesday, Republicans in the House plan to make good on a campaign promise that helped vault many new members to victory: voting to repeal President Obama's health care overhaul.
The vote, which Republican leaders pledged would occur before the president's State of the Union address later this month, is intended both to appeal to the Tea Party-influenced factions of the House Republican base and to emphasize the muscle of the new party in power. But it could also produce an unintended consequence: a chance for Democrats once again to try their case in support of the health care overhaul before the American public.
Democrats, who in many cases looked on the law as a rabid beast best avoided in the fall elections, are reversing course, gearing up for a coordinated all-out effort to preserve and defend it. Under the law, they say, consumers are already receiving tangible benefits that Republicans would snatch away.
Even the Dems now recognize that at least it was something.
Mon, 2011-01-03 14:49
#10
N.Beltov
... once you take a broader view, it is the difference in the mph of corporatism. McCain is 50 miles per hour and Obama is 40 miles per hour.
And both, of course, are going in the wrong direction. But Obama is going less fast in the wrong direction! lol.
Mon, 2011-01-03 15:10
#11
Apparently the answer lies in booking passage aboard the slow boat to oblivion.
Mon, 2011-01-03 19:59
#12
Since the Canadian craft are sailing in the same direction, do you have the same "overview" for dear old Canuckistan?
I mean, my one consolation over the whole of my life has been that we were above all that stupidity, and that the U.S. voter, electing an ignorant Ronnie Raygun, an even dumber Dubya, etc.,would someday awaken to the bait and switch perpetrated on them. ( Mind you, I've noticed - post Eisenhower - that it's taken "cultural" figures in the U.S., from Pogo's "we has seen the enemy" in the late 1950s, to writers and actors in the whole period to the present to ring the alarm bells.)..with too few Chomskies and too much patriotism to allow students to mature into a meaningful alternative on reaching maturity. The Democratic party was it.
I've always compared the GOP/Democratic pair with Tommy's Tweedledee and Tweedledum ...but since my observation in 1975 of the degree to which the common masses have been corralled into the market dependency - the speculation and play - and the "rising expectations" that P.E.T. observed, I've wondered if we can go around the greed.
I don't believe our canoes also have to go over the Niagara of a "corporate oligarchy" ...thanks, strangely enough, to the growing threat of our environmental destruction...we have always done well in mobilizing for conventional war, it has always "eliminated" the control of oligarchs, ruling classes, etc. It has always made greed unacceptable. But it would be just as well, I think, to have the "well meaning" in power when the realization of the need for mobilization comes. To correctly define the reasons for mobilization.
Tue, 2011-01-04 15:11
#13
I do hope I'm not flogging a dead-tired horse, here -- but ain't the whole notion of there being even a modicum of effective "opposition', from the official "left'', to the entrenched oligarchy -- to the determined imperialists -- to the soul-less fascists -- illusory as hell? despite the 'tweedle-dee, tweedle-dum'' obviousness -- since they (the ''left'' -- ie Dems -- as if) seem, after having been elected over ''change coming to America',' to have blatantly caved to it all, from the start (of the Obama admin)?
Despite their innate (or induced) ignorance, it seems that there are a LOT of Americans (and Cdns, too) who, if they're not down-right angry, are completely confused -- just plain discombobulated -- by this development, their world having been turned upside-down, considering that the healthy "change" many had been naturally hoping - even praying - for, now lies twisted and broken and lifeless before them.
It's like the true progressives (Emanuel's "f***ing retards"?), don't even know how, now, to frame those questions which seemed so clearly begging, given the actions of the previous administration
.... and I think I've come to realize WHY Obama -- and of course H. Clinton, too -- who both may originally have had some truly big progressive initiatives in mind -- completely ''caved'' to the Bush/neo-con format
... imho, both Clinton and Obama (either Barry or Michele or both) and anyone else who might oppose the Bush White House, had his/her/their phones/emails/1stClass Mail compromised, by the 'warrantless wiretaps', long before they were even a twinkle in the Dems presidential-hopeful's eye, the result of which is that discombobulation
http://thinkprogress.org/2007/10/13/warrantless-wiretapping-in-place-before-911/
'course, the NYT managed to lie thru it's editorial teeth about it all, effectively 'disappearing' the possibility of any notion being subsequently raised, of the Bush White House (read Karl Rove's) 'secret spying' being performed on 'political opponents', immediately upon their being installed in office in 2001.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/04/opinion/04sun1.html
Tue, 2011-01-04 15:18
#14
I guess my point, above, was that Rove and Bush slyly (and illegally) 'got the jump' on whoever might eventually come to oppose what they had already determined to do: Regime Change in Iraq
They knew they were going into Iraq before Bush even became president, AND they also knew -- and rightly so -- just how bloody unpopular it would be -- 9/11 gave them some breathing room -- but compromising their potential opposition -- pre-9/11 -- couldn't hurt either, right?
Tue, 2011-01-04 21:51
#15
Yes, Rove and Bush are bad. And Dick Chaney's heart pump is performing well enough to allow him to go hunting again. Maybe he'll take Sarah out in the fields and they can do a number on each other.
Tue, 2011-01-04 23:42
#16
There are more answers to corporate oligarchy. Perhaps Obama could follow this example:
Here's an excerpt from an article titled "Venezuelan National Assembly Passes Law Making Banking a "Public Service":"Venezuela's National Assembly on Friday approved new legislation that defines banking as an industry "of public service," requiring banks in Venezuela to contribute more to social programs, housing construction efforts, and other social needs while making government intervention easier when banks fail to comply with national priorities."...
The new law protects bank customers' assets in the event of irregularities on the part of owners... and stipulates that the Superintendent of Banking Institutions take into account the best interest of bank customers - and not only stockholders... when making any decisions that affect a bank's operations."
So why isn't Obama doing the same thing? Is he too afraid of real change or is he just Wall Street's lackey? Here's more from the same article:
"In an attempt to control speculation, the law limits the amount of credit that can be made available to individuals or private entities by making 20% the maximum amount of capital a bank can have out as credit. The law also limits the formation of financial groups and prohibits banks from having an interest in brokerage firms and insurance companies.
The law also stipulates that 5% of pre-tax profits of all banks be dedicated solely to projects elaborated by communal councils. 10% of a bank´s capital must also be put into a fund to pay for wages and pensions in case of bankruptcy.
According to 2009 figures provided by Softline Consultores, 5% of pre-tax profits in Venezuela's banking industry last year would have meant an additional 314 million bolivars, or $73.1 million dollars, for social programs to attend the needs of Venezuela's poor majority."
"Control speculation"? Now there's a novel idea. Naturally, opposition leaders are calling the new laws "an attack on economic liberty", but that's pure baloney. Chavez is merely protecting the public from the predatory practices of bloodthirsty bankers. Most Americans wish that Obama would do the same thing.
Wed, 2011-01-05 01:25
#17
The problem is, most people on the left think Marx was wrong.
Wed, 2011-01-05 05:22
#18
Really? How so?
Wed, 2011-01-05 06:04
#19
The problem is, most people on the left think Marx was wrong.
As Joe Bageant makes clear in Deer Hunting, there's been some brainwashing going on: "Now decades and hundreds of millions of PR dollars later, the over-arching conservative Republican narrative has been perfected and is embraced by half of America. Along the Republican road between Lee Atwater and Karl Rove, it evolved into something more brazen and meaner."
And that's just the really vulnerable folks of America.
The academic community just found it easier to avoid politics.
And of course, Marx had not gotten around to discussing "planet Earth" in the context of vulnerability of its species.
We know that Marx wasn't "wrong" - social change can only be understood from the perspective of historical materialism - but only the diehards can resist calling him irrelevant as a revolutionary force in the developed world, folks who use language like (and their challenges to capitalism and capitalist institutions always begin with "so") :"So why isn't Obama doing the same thing? Is he too afraid of real change or is he just Wall Street's lackey?"
Wed, 2011-01-05 10:06
#20
So, don't call such a reform "Marxist." Call it instead, "a practical solution to a pressing need in society."
Wed, 2011-01-05 10:14
#21
"When word leaked yesterday that President Obama might be considering former Commerce Secretary Bill Daley as his next chief of staff, the reaction was immediate: Obama was about to start another war with his most liberal supporters.
After all, Daley, a hard-charging pro-business centrist, has a long history of clashing with those on the left. As President Clinton's Commerce secretary, Daley earned the wrath of the labor movement by pushing for the passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) as well as trade with China. In 1999, AFL-CIO president John Sweeney declared Daley to be "squarely on the opposite side of working families."
More recently, Daley alienated the left by being one of the few Democrats to publicly urge Obama and Democrats to move back toward the center. "Either we plot a more moderate, centrist course or risk electoral disaster not just in the upcoming midterms but in many elections to come," Daley argued in a Dec. 2009 Washington Post op-ed.
Add to that Daley's most recent employment history as a top Wall Street executive with JPMorgan, and it would seem that Obama was virtually asking for a fight with his most liberal supporters, who have already charged the president with selling out to Wall Street on issues like bank reform and last year's financial bailout."
http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_theticket/20110104/ts_yblog_theticket/will...
Wed, 2011-01-05 10:16
#22
@alQ
quote: "So, don't call such a reform "Marxist." Call it instead, "a practical solution to a pressing need in society."
Right on!
Wed, 2011-01-05 10:22
#23
Boom Boom
This arrived in my email 'Inbox' yesterday - I couldn't believe it:
"And the great Barack Obama, that leftist agent of change, has just added in seven months another trillion dollars to the deficit, all the while running
down Bush's cause of deficit expansion. Seems if Obama does it, then it is OK. When the Right does it, it is evil.
Give the liberal Left enough time, and they'll ruin everything they touch."
"...Bush's cause of deficit expansion" LOL!!!! 
Wed, 2011-01-05 10:22
#24
"When word leaked yesterday that President Obama might be considering former Commerce Secretary Bill Daley as his next chief of staff, the reaction was immediate: Obama was about to start another war with his most liberal supporters.
After all, Daley, a hard-charging pro-business centrist, has a long history of clashing with those on the left. As President Clinton's Commerce secretary, Daley earned the wrath of the labor movement by pushing for the passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) as well as trade with China. In 1999, AFL-CIO president John Sweeney declared Daley to be "squarely on the opposite side of working families."
More recently, Daley alienated the left by being one of the few Democrats to publicly urge Obama and Democrats to move back toward the center. "Either we plot a more moderate, centrist course or risk electoral disaster not just in the upcoming midterms but in many elections to come," Daley argued in a Dec. 2009 Washington Post op-ed.
Add to that Daley's most recent employment history as a top Wall Street executive with JPMorgan, and it would seem that Obama was virtually asking for a fight with his most liberal supporters, who have already charged the president with selling out to Wall Street on issues like bank reform and last year's financial bailout."
http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_theticket/20110104/ts_yblog_theticket/will...
The Democrats, as a collective, tended not to be there for him in the House. Can't imagine them doing anything now. But perhaps this cat can do something among the Republican pigeons. Unless his statement: "Either we plot a more moderate, centrist course or risk electoral disaster not just in the upcoming midterms but in many elections to come," Daley argued in a Dec. 2009 Washington Post op-ed." does not somehow make sense in the prevailing climate of ignorance and fear?
Wed, 2011-01-05 10:26
#25
"...Bush's cause of deficit expansion" LOL!!!!
Not sure where you're at on this line, Boomer?
Wed, 2011-01-05 10:31
#26
So, what's holding Obama back? Not the unwashed rabble, shurely?
Sixty-one percent of Americans polled would rather see taxes for the wealthy increased as a first step to tackling the deficit, the poll showed.
The next most popular way -- chosen by 20 percent -- was to cut defense spending.
Wed, 2011-01-05 10:39
#27
MOST OF THEM DON'T BOTHER TO VOTE (And the CONS' POLLS tell them exactly who will turn out, and what they believe) : )
Surely you understand that's how Steve manages it up here, as well? The $ get him accurate polling. Al Gore tells us in The Assault on Reason that that is how it's done...frighteningly, done best by the Cons.)
Wed, 2011-01-05 10:52
#28
meanwhile the meter's still running...
US National Debt Climbs To $14 Trillion
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/158695.html
"The US national debt has climbed to a record high over $14 trillion amid concerns that the figure might surpass the debt ceiling set by the Congress.."
Wed, 2011-01-05 10:53
#29
Mildly interesting, but not an unexpected result. One can read into this majority sampling of Americans who prefer to retain at any cost the massive military industrial apparatus, and recognize that it may very well speak to a level of awareness, subconscious or otherwise, of a degree of complicity with the state of exceptionalism that has generated so many enemies. Bread and butter concerns really do become secondary issues when the more immediate apprehension involves warding off the perils that one knows deep down they've helped to create through willful and convenient ignorance.
Wed, 2011-01-05 11:55
#30
Boom Boom
"...Bush's cause of deficit expansion" LOL!!!!
Not sure where you're at on this line, Boomer?
It just struck me as me as odd, because I don't recall Bush running on a promise to expand (ie, "grow") the deficit.
Maybe I'm reading that comment wrong?
Wed, 2011-01-05 12:03
#31
They may "grow," but you can't plant a deficit in your garden and expect to "grow" one.
Gee, Bush didn't promise to increase the deficit? No fooling. Remember that this is the guy who has the blood of hundreds of thousands on his hands because Sadaam Hussein was about to invade Peoria.
Wed, 2011-01-05 12:17
#32
Boom Boom
Yes, we all know what Bush did in his regime - I am not disputing in that in the slightest, my friend.
Here is the entire comment again that was sent to me, see if you can make sense out of it:
"And the great Barack Obama, that leftist agent of change, has just added in seven months another trillion dollars to the deficit, all the while running down Bush's cause of deficit expansion. Seems if Obama does it, then it is OK. When the Right does it, it is evil.
Give the liberal Left enough time, and they'll ruin everything they touch."
Wed, 2011-01-05 12:22
#33
Boom Boom
Okay - I think I get it - the writer is criticizing Bush as the cause of deficit expansion. The word "the" was omitted in the sentence, which confused me.
Wed, 2011-01-05 12:32
#34
Maybe the writer is being ironic in saying that Bush's cause was expanding the deficit? In any case, it's a poorly-written smudge on my computer screen.
Wed, 2011-01-05 13:57
#35
Obama's Assault On Working People...
http://www.unionbook.org/profiles/blogs/obamas-assault-on-working
"Obama's assault on working people only possible because of the support by the trade union officialdom to Obama and the Democrats"
Wed, 2011-01-05 19:21
#36
Obama's Assault On Working People...
http://www.unionbook.org/profiles/blogs/obamas-assault-on-working
"Obama's assault on working people only possible because of the support by the trade union officialdom to Obama and the Democrats"
Union people are afraid that Republicans are going to take revenge on them for supporting the Democrats.
That now becomes "Obama's assault on working people..."
You really are working overtime on your "get Obama" campaign, NDPP. But with this you are really spreading the shit too thin.
Get some sleep.
Thu, 2011-01-06 07:54
#37
Union leaders across North America caved to the globilization project years ago. Most of what can be manufactured elsewhere at a profit has already been sent off into the night as they slept. The primary fear would be that the rank and file might wake up and realize their wallets have been picked for dues to support the lifestyles of an upper management apparatus that steered them over a cliff. Why indeed would a suit from Chicago and his Wall Street entourage of handlers care about working people when they've been treated with such contempt by the union suits. Actually, it speaks to the wider issue of the wholesale lack of representation across numerous sectors, where wage slavery, zero benefits, and billion dollar profit industries are shamefully permitted to coexist. The problem with Labour movements in general, or at least with the way they've been led, appears to involve an urge to begin entrenching themselves into bunkers at the 20 to 30 dollar range. The last person in is expected to barricade the door.
Thu, 2011-01-06 09:35
#38
Boom Boom
The Shameful Attack on Public Employees
excerpt:
This is what the current Republican attack on public-sector workers is really all about. Their version of class warfare is to pit private-sector workers against public servants. They'd rather set average working people against one another -- comparing one group's modest incomes and benefits with another group's modest incomes and benefits -- than have Americans see that the top 1 percent is now raking in a bigger share of national income than at any time since 1928, and paying at a lower tax rate. And Republicans would rather you didn't know they want to cut taxes on the rich even more.
Thu, 2011-01-06 11:00
#39
Workers, and even members of different unions, being pitted against one another is one of the hallmarks of the race to the bottom. Sort of cagematch entertainment for capital and the corporate media.
Thu, 2011-01-06 11:21
#40
quote: "Union leaders across North America caved to the globilization project years ago."
Actually, all of society "caved" around them. WalMart alone grew.
As for the union "suits"..."Why indeed would a suit from Chicago and his Wall Street entourage of handlers care about working people when they've been treated with such contempt by the union suits. "
This cannot be coming from someone who has actually bothered to read of the engagement of the contemptible "suit from Chicago" with the unorganized of south Chicago. And one wonders why unions would have contributed so much to Democrats campaigning in 2008 as an act of "contempt." An act of desperation, perhaps.
Thu, 2011-01-06 12:12
#41
Actually, all of society "caved" around them.This cannot be coming from someone who has actually bothered to read of the engagement of the contemptible "suit from Chicago" with the unorganized of south Chicago. And one wonders why unions would have contributed so much to Democrats campaigning in 2008 as an act of "contempt." An act of desperation, perhaps.
Certainly no one should have expected the sort of leadership that would have mobilized people in defence of their livelihoods. And special prizes once again to the plutocracy for hoodwinking everyone George. When the brand A and brand B variants scarcely bothers to conceal itself as a monopoly anymore, being suckered by false hope is the unavoidable outcome when sounding the alarm is too much of a discomfort for the ones nearest to the switches. And really George, aren't you about done already with that ‘great unread' comedy routine?
Thu, 2011-01-06 12:19
#42
You suggest, jack, that unions, south of the 49th, had more than a choice between Tweedledee and Tseedledum in Congress?
As for this: "aren't you about done already with that 'great unread' comedy routine?" It ain't funny when it accurately describes the pseudo-intellectual who never got past Leviticus.
Thu, 2011-01-06 12:38
#43
I just have to laugh at the Republican's "we HAVE to cut the debt and deficit" routine whenever there is a Democrat as President. Too bad so many American's swallow it.
All this is about is the Republicans trying to keep Democrats from spending money on things the left likes. Republicans would prefer to spend the money making war, and other ways to make wealthy people wealthier. [Democrats like to spend money on health care and education and so on].
Every Republican President since WWII has overseen a huge INCREASE in government spending.
No matter which party is spending it, American money can be printed, borrowed, and spend without it actually costing anything due to "global dollar hedgemony" [which has not yet crashed despite the many predictions]. It is all so neatly arranged, with other nations being so heavily invested in US dollars and trade that none of them could AFFORD to let the US dollar fail, or even be devalued.
Thu, 2011-01-06 12:51
#44
Obama does appoint corporate hack Daley to be his chief of staff. Some background:
William M. Daley serves as Senior Executive of Midwest Region and has been Chairman of Midwest Region of J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. since May 2004 and serves on its Executive Committee and its International Advisory Council. Mr. Daley joined J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., after serving as the President of SBC Communications Inc. from December 2001 to May 2004. He also serves as Director at Local Initiatives Support Corporation since January 2007. Previously, he served as U.S. Secretary of commerce under President Clinton from January 1997 to July 2000. As special counsel to President Clinton in 1993, he coordinated the successful campaign to pass the North American Free Trade Agreement. He also coordinated the effort for permanent Normal Trade Relations with China as Chairman of the 2000 presidential election campaign of Vice President Al Gore. Earlier in his career, he was a partner at Mayer, Brown & Platt; President and Chief Operating Officer of Amalgamated Bank of Chicago; and a lawyer at Daley & George Ltd. Mr. Daley served as Vice Chairman of Evercore Capital Partners LP, a private equity investment firm, from January to November 2001. He was Chairman, Vice President of Albert Gore's 2000 presidential election campaign from June to December 2000; Secretary of Commerce from January 1997 to June 2000. He has been a Director of Boston Properties Inc. since May 7, 2003 and is the Chairman of the Nominating and Corporate Governance and a Member of the Audit Committee. He has been a Director of Abbott Laboratories since October 8, 2004. Mr. Daley serves as a Director of US-China Business Council, The Joffrey Ballet of Chicago, Loyola University and The Committee on US-China Foreign Relations. He also sits on the Council on Foreign Relations. He served as a Director of Merck & Co. Inc. since 2002.
Thu, 2011-01-06 13:00
#45
Boom Boom
Obama does appoint corporate hack Daley to be his chief of staff. Some background:
....As special counsel to President Clinton in 1993, he coordinated the successful campaign to pass the North American Free Trade Agreement....
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
Thu, 2011-01-06 13:20
#46
Obama does appoint corporate hack Daley to be his chief of staff.
Yabbut, Obama's heart's in the right place so this is OK.
Thu, 2011-01-06 13:30
#47
There should be some sort of martyrdom award for fighting the good fight against all odds. It might look nice up on the mantle next to his Nobel Peace prize.
Thu, 2011-01-06 14:14
#48
Boom Boom
Thu, 2011-01-06 14:24
#49
Meanwhile, whichever man Obama chooses to be his new top economic advisor should feel right at home with Daley:
The second notable characteristic of the three is that they're all multi-millionaires with close ties to Wall Street. None more than Altman, of course, who has his own bank. But Levin is on the board of American Express, which paid him $181,362 in 2009, and where he has shares and "share equivalent units" worth $539,000. Which might not be a huge sum compared to the $1.5 million or so that he's earning at Yale, but is still more than enough to make him a denizen of Wall Street rather than Main Street.
Finally there's Sperling, who in some ways is the worst of the three when it comes to grubbing money from Wall Street. The other two have well-defined and easily-understood jobs; Sperling, by contrast, signed up with the Harry Walker Agency and started giving speeches to anybody with cash, including not only Citigroup but even Allen Stanford. He also wrote a monthly 900-word column for Bloomberg for $137,500 a year, which works out at about $13 per word. Then he started "advising" Goldman Sachs on its charitable giving, which advice came very expensively indeed:
Goldman Sachs paid Sperling $887,727 for advice on its charitable giving. That made the bank his highest-paying employer. Even Geithner's chief of staff Patterson, who was a full-time lobbyist at the firm, did not make as much as Sperling did on a part-time basis. Patterson reported earning $637,492 from Goldman Sachs [in 2008].
http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2011/01/03/replacing-summers-with-...
Fri, 2011-01-07 13:48
#50
New Obama Chief of Staff a Message to Wall Street (Real News and vid)
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&I...
Another JP Morgan / Goldman Sachs Attack: Meet the New Economic Death-Squad
http://ampedstatus.com/obama-renews-commitment-to-complete-destruction-o...
Fri, 2011-01-07 20:25
#51
Another thoughtful piece from Krugman on the realities that face Democrats and organized labour in the land of the nutbar.
Of course, people like NDPP do not have tio offer up their own position on the implications of the threatening economic collapse...their shallow take on the U.S. economic/world picture is all contained within the ahistorical columns that NEVER offer up alternative positions. What a happy state of sublime ignorance at so many levels.
I'm sure the "progressives" have a secret cache of policy proposals.
The NYTimes, January 6, 2011
The Texas Omen
By PAUL KRUGMAN
These are tough times for state governments. Huge deficits loom almost everywhere, from California to New York, from New Jersey to Texas.
Wait - Texas? Wasn't Texas supposed to be thriving even as the rest of America suffered? Didn't its governor declare, during his re-election campaign, that "we have billions in surplus"? Yes, it was, and yes, he did. But reality has now intruded, in the form of a deficit expected to run as high as $25 billion over the next two years.
And that reality has implications for the nation as a whole. For Texas is where the modern conservative theory of budgeting - the belief that you should never raise taxes under any circumstances, that you can always balance the budget by cutting wasteful spending - has been implemented most completely. If the theory can't make it there, it can't make it anywhere.
How bad is the Texas deficit? Comparing budget crises among states is tricky, for technical reasons. Still, data from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities suggest that the Texas budget gap is worse than New York's, about as bad as California's, but not quite up to New Jersey levels.
The point, however, is that just the other day Texas was being touted as a role model (and still is by commentators who haven't been keeping up with the news). It was the state the recession supposedly passed by, thanks to its low taxes and business-friendly policies. Its governor boasted that its budget was in good shape thanks to his "tough conservative decisions."
Oh, and at a time when there's a full-court press on to demonize public-sector unions as the source of all our woes, Texas is nearly demon-free: less than 20 percent of public-sector workers there are covered by union contracts, compared with almost 75 percent in New York.