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Secret Phone Call

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I’ve been reading a great number of articles by commentators who have expressed outrage concerning President Obama’s shocking capitulation in the negotiations involving the debt ceiling bill.  Despite the Democratic Party’s tactic of blaming the “Tea Party terrorists” for the all cuts – no revenue, pro-billionaire legislation, a few pundits have seen through this fog to point out that Obama actually got the bill he secretly wanted all along.  Glenn Greenwald presented a solid case for this theory at Salon.

Polling guru Nate Silver wrote two items on August 1, in which he analyzed the Congressional voting and demonstrated that President Obama – despite having been afforded the opportunity to include provisions in the bill to make it more economically stimulative and less onerous for those experiencing the greatest hardship from the economic crisis – decided to leave some available provisions “on the table”.

Nate Silver initially made this observation:

Fiscal austerity at a time of economic distress, and on largely Republican terms, is not what Democrats thought they were getting when they elected Mr. Obama in 2008.  Mr. Obama might have done more to make short-term stimulus – like further reductions to the payroll tax, which would not have violated the Republicans’ ostensible goals – the  price for long-term austerity.

Although it is impossible to prove one way or the other, I am not persuaded by the notion that Mr. Obama could not have delivered a better result to Democrats had he done more to stand his ground.  Despite the dissent in the Republican caucus, which had originally seemed like a tactical victory for Democrats, the compromise wound up looking more like Mr. Boehner’s original bill than Mr. Reid’s.

Later that evening, Mr. Silver provided an analysis, which exposed Obama’s abandonment of the objectives he was elected to promote:

These results seem to suggest that Mr. Obama left something on the table.  That is, Mr. Obama could have shifted the deal tangibly toward the left and still gotten a bill through without too much of a problem.  For instance, even if all members of the Tea Party Caucus had voted against the bill, it would still have passed 237-to-193, and that’s with 95 Democrats voting against it.

Specifically, it seems likely that Mr. Obama could have gotten an extension of the payroll tax cut included in the bill, or unemployment benefits, either of which would have had a stimulative effect.

*   *   *

With that payroll tax cut, the deal becomes a much easier sell to Democrats – and perhaps also to swing voters, particularly given that nobody spent much time during this debate talking about jobs.  Plus, it would have improved growth in 2012 and, depending on how literally you take the economic models, improved Mr. Obama’s re-election chances.

As many observers have noted, the plutocracy has been able to accomplish much more with Obama in the White House, than what would have been achievable with a Republican President.  This latest example of a bipartisan effort to trample “the little people” has reinforced my belief that the fake “two-party system” is a sideshow – designed to obfuscate the insidious activities of the Republi-Cratic Corporatist Party.

What follows is the transcript of an imaginary telephone conversation between President Obama and Roger Ailes of Fox News:

Obama:  Hi Rodge!

Ailes:  Hi Barry!  Congratulations on the debt ceiling bill!  Great work!

Obama:  Thanks.  I won’t have to renew the Bush tax cuts again until after the election.  That’s a relief!  Unfortunately, we’re getting some bad polling numbers now.  Problems with the base.  I need you guys to lean on the “liberal” stuff a little harder.  Both O’Reilly and Hannity have been doing OK on it – but I just wish they would get back to some more of the “socialist” accusations.  That would really help rehabilitate my cred with my estranged base.

Ailes:       The “socialist” shtick was more Beck’s routine – but I’ll get them on it.

Obama:   I found some old pictures of myself with Bill Ayers that you guys might want to use    . . .

Ailes:       Ayers is sooooo 2008!  We need something new.  We need to get you to Syria for a meeting with Bashar al-Assad.  When you shake hands with him – make sure you bow!  We can get a lot of mileage here from that!

Obama:   No!  That will piss off too many liberals – especially the Jews.  I’m trying to keep the smart people in my corner!

Ailes:       OK.  OK.  We just really need to get you on some sort of apology tour or something.  You could start traveling around to abortion clinics and promising them some federal aid  .  .  .

Obama:   Great one, Rodge!  I love that!

Ailes:       I’ll plant some of our protesters along the way – the ones who’ve already been cleared by the Secret Service.

Obama:   Yeah!  Bring back that guy with the fake assault rifle!  He was a trip!

Ailes:       I have someone better.  This guy has been posing as a “Tea Party activist” at “town meetings”.  He’s a great new talent!

Obama:   We could set up another “Joe the Plumber”-type of confrontation with that guy!

Ailes:       Definately!  I’ll have my people put a script together.  That story will have some legs that will carry us all the way to the election!  . . .  Speaking of legs – I’m getting some good numbers in on Bachmann!

Obama:   How’s our girl doing?

Ailes:       Great!  She’s really gonna’ kick some ass in Iowa!

Obama:   I saw her on with Sean the other day.  She’s doing a great job!  Are you guys going to start a scandal involving Mitt?

Ailes:       I need to maintain plausible deniability about what Rupert’s operatives are up to.  You know  .  .  .

Obama:   Gotcha!  ‘Nuff said!

Ailes:       Well, I’ll let you get back to work.  You must have loads of angry campaign donors trying to bend your ear right about now  . . .

Obama:   Yeah  . . .  But that’s not where the real money is.

Ailes:       Amen!


 

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Our Sham Two-Party System

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It’s becoming more obvious to people that our so-called, “two-party system” is really a just a one-party system.  Last summer, I discussed how the Republi-cratic Corporatist Party is determined to steal the money American workers have paid into the Social Security program.  While we’re on the subject, let’s take a look at an inconvenient law which the Beltway Vultures choose to ignore:

EXCLUSION OF SOCIAL SECURITY FROM ALL BUDGETS Pub. L. 101-508, title XIII, Sec. 13301(a), Nov. 5, 1990, 104 Stat. 1388-623, provided that:  Notwithstanding any other provision of law, the receipts and disbursements of the Federal Old-Age and Survivors Insurance Trust Fund and the Federal Disability Insurance Trust Fund shall not be counted as new budget authority, outlays, receipts, or deficit or surplus for purposes of – (1) the budget of the United States Government as submitted by the President, (2) the congressional budget, or (3) the Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985.

In a recent interview conducted by Anastasia Churkina of Russia Today, investigative reporter and author, Matt Taibbi described the American political system as a “reality show sponsored by Wall Street”.  Taibbi pointed out that “… the problem is Wall Street heavily sponsors both the Republican and the Democratic Parties” so that whoever gets elected President “is going to be a creature of Wall Street”.  After noting that Goldman Sachs was Obama’s number one source of private campaign contributions during the 2008 election cycle, Taibbi faced a question about the possibility that a third party could become a significant factor in American politics.  His response was:  “Seriously, I don’t see it.”  Taibbi went on to express his belief that the “average American” is:

… seduced and mesmerized by this phony, media-created, division between blue and red – and left and right, Democrats and Republicans, and people are conditioned to believe that there are enormous, profound differences between these two parties.  Whereas, the reality is:  their differences are mostly superficial and on the important questions of how the economy is run and how to regulate the economy – they’re exactly the same – but I don’t think ordinary people know that.

At this point, the question is whether there can be any hope that “ordinary people” will ever realize that our “two-party system” is actually a farce.

The type of disappointment expressed by Matt Taibbi in his discussion of Barack Obama during the Russia Today interview, has become a familiar subject.  I was motivated to characterize the new President as “Disappointer-In-Chief” during his third month in office.  An increasing number of commentators have begun to admit that Hillary Clinton’s campaign-theme question, “Who is Barack Obama?” was never really answered until after the man took office.  One person who got an answer “the hard way” was Professor Cornel West of Princeton University.

In a recent article for Truthdig, Chris Hedges discussed how Professor West made 65 appearances for Candidate Obama on the campaign trail.  Nevertheless, Professor West never received an invitation to Obama’s Inaugural.  Although he traveled to Washington for that historic occasion, Professor West ended up watching the event on a hotel room television with his family.  As an adversary of Obama’s financial mentor, Larry Summers, Professor West quickly found himself thrown under the bus.

The following passage from Chris Hedges’ article presents an interesting narrative by Professor West about what I have previously described as Obama’s own “Tora Bora moment” (when the President “punted” on the economic stimulus bill).  Professor West also lamented the failure of the Democrats to provide any alternative to the bipartisan tradition of crony corporatism:

“Can you imagine if Barack Obama had taken office and deliberately educated and taught the American people about the nature of the financial catastrophe and what greed was really taking place?” West asks.  “If he had told us what kind of mechanisms of accountability needed to be in place, if he had focused on homeowners rather than investment banks for bailouts and engaged in massive job creation he could have nipped in the bud the right-wing populism of the tea party folk. The tea party folk are right when they say the government is corrupt.  It is corrupt.  Big business and banks have taken over government and corrupted it in deep ways.

“We have got to attempt to tell the truth, and that truth is painful,” he says.  “It is a truth that is against the thick lies of the mainstream.  In telling that truth we become so maladjusted to the prevailing injustice that the Democratic Party, more and more, is not just milquetoast and spineless, as it was before, but thoroughly complicitous with some of the worst things in the American empire.  I don’t think in good conscience I could tell anybody to vote for Obama.  If it turns out in the end that we have a crypto-fascist movement and the only thing standing between us and fascism is Barack Obama, then we have to put our foot on the brake.  But we’ve got to think seriously of third-party candidates, third formations, third parties.

When one considers the vast number of disillusioned Obama supporters along with the number of people expressing their disappointment with the Republican field of Presidential hopefuls, the idea that 2012 could be the year when a third-party candidate makes it to the White House doesn’t seem so far-fetched.


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Ron Paul Struts His Stuff

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August 17, 2009

Republican Congressman Ron Paul of Texas has become quite a popular guy, lately.  Back on February 26, he sponsored his own bill, the Federal Reserve Transparency Act, (HR 1207) which would give the Government Accountability Office authority to audit the Federal Reserve and its member components, requiring a report to Congress by the end of 2010.  On July 29, a Rasmussen poll revealed that 75 percent of those surveyed were in favor of auditing the Federal Reserve, with only 9 percent opposed to such a measure.  Lew Rockwell’s website recently featured an article by Anthony Gregory, discussing the Rasmussen poll results and the popularity of Ron Paul’s proposed legislation:

While much of the hostility toward Obama’s domestic policy might be seen in partisan terms, distrust of the Fed completely transcends typical ideological or partisan lines.  While all Congressional Republicans support Ron Paul’s bill to audit the Fed, so do more than a hundred Democrats, demonstrating the impact of the wide public outrage over the Washington-Wall Street shenanigans since the financial downturn.

The Federal Reserve, a centerpiece in the bipartisan establishment, an essential component in both war finance and economic management, is now the least trusted government agency.  More than two thirds of Americans do not believe the Fed is doing a good job.  Two years ago, virtually no one even talked about the Fed; it was an obscure institution assumed to be necessary, wise and uninteresting.  Anyone who brought it up was accused of being outside the sphere of respectable opinion.  Now its champions are on the defensive, and they are desperately scrambling to restore public awe for the central bank behind the curtain.

But the opposition to Obama’s economic policies, both on the right and on the anti-corporate left who view his ties to the banking industry with suspicion, along with a growing disappointment on the left as it concerns civil liberties and war, may eventually constrain Obama.

The mistrust of the Fed, discussed by Mr. Gregory, was based on a Gallup Poll, also conducted during July, which revealed that the Federal Reserve is now “the least trusted” of all government-related entities.

Despite protests from the academic world and an unsupportive editorial from The Washington Post, support for Ron Paul’s bill continues to gain momentum.  Howard Rich, Chairman of Americans for Limited Government, wrote a favorable commentary on this proposal, pointing out that he initially thought it was a rather strange idea.  He eventually looked at the situation with this rationale:

From its founding in 1913, the Fed has existed as an island of almost total independence — setting interest rates, managing inflation and regulating banks according to the will of its Chairman and seven-member Board of Directors.

It cannot be audited. Its ledger is not disclosed. Its meetings are private. Its decisions are not up for debate.

Of course, this ongoing shroud of secrecy ignores the fact that the Fed — as it exists today — is a completely different animal than it was even two years ago.

No longer merely a “regulatory” agency, the Fed has used the current economic crisis as an excuse to dramatically expand its role.  With zero transparency, accountability and effectiveness, it has printed and loaned trillions of dollars since mid-2007 in a costly and unsuccessful effort to mitigate fallout from the sub-prime mortgage crisis.

The question of where those trillions of dollars went is exactly what is on the minds of most people demanding more accountability from the Fed.  Was any favoritism involved in determining what banks received how much money?  Dean Baker wrote an opinion piece for The Guardian, arguing against the re-appointment of Ben Bernanke for another term as the Fed chairman.  The subject of favoritism in the Fed’s response to last fall’s financial meltdown was apparently a matter of concern to Mr. Baker:

By this measure, Bernanke’s performance is very poor.  He has refused to provide the public, or even the relevant congressional committees, with information on the trillions of dollars in loans that were made through the Fed’s special lending facilities.  While anyone can go to the Treasury’s website and see how much each bank received through Tarp and under what terms, Bernanke refuses to share any information on the loans that banks and other institutions received from the Fed.

Where we do have information, it is not encouraging.  At the peak of the financial crisis in October, Goldman Sachs converted itself from an investment bank into a bank holding company, in part so that it could tap an FDIC loan guarantee programme.  Remarkably, Bernanke allowed Goldman to continue to act as an investment bank, taking highly speculative positions even after it had borrowed $28bn with the FDIC’s guarantee.

The idea that the Federal Reserve could loan trillions of dollars to unidentified beneficiaries on secret terms has resulted in outrage from across the political spectrum.  In his rebuttal to The Washington Post‘s editorial criticizing Ron Paul’s Fed transparency initiative, Independent (and self-avowed socialist) Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont had this to say:

This legislation wouldn’t undermine the Fed’s independence, and it wouldn’t put Congress in charge of monetary policy.  An audit is simply an examination of records or financial accounts to check their accuracy.

We must not equate “independence” with secrecy.  No matter how intelligent or well-intentioned the Fed chairman and his staff may be, it isn’t appropriate to give a handful of people the power to lend an unlimited supply of money to anyone it wants without sufficient oversight.

Absolute power corrupts absolutely.  The American people have a right to know what is being done with their hard-earned taxpayer dollars.  This money does not belong to the Fed; it belongs to the American people.

The tremendous upsurge in support for the Federal Reserve Transparency Act was obviously what motivated Ron Paul to write an essay on the matter for Sunday’s edition of The Philadelphia Inquirer.  With such a strong wind at his back, he confidently trashed the arguments of his opponents and began the piece with this assertion:

The Federal Reserve’s unprecedented intervention into the U.S. economy has inflamed more Americans than almost any other issue in recent memory.

Congressman Paul then proceeded to pound away at the criticism of his bill, reminding me of a boxer, who sees blood flowing down into his opponent’s eyes:

The most conservative estimates place the potential cost of the Federal Reserve’s bailouts and guarantees at about $9 trillion. That is equivalent to more than 60 percent of the U.S.economy, all undertaken by one organization, and almost all of those transactions are exempt from congressional oversight and public scrutiny.

The Fed and its apologists are using bogeymen to deflect criticism.  If the Fed were audited, they argue, monetary policy would be compromised as Congress tries to direct the Fed’s actions, and the Fed’s record of economic stability and low inflation would come to an end.  Nothing could be further from the truth.

*   *   *

The Fed’s mismanagement created the Great Depression, the stagflation of the 1970s, and now our current economic crisis. Over the nearly100 years of the Fed’s existence, the dollar has lost nearly 95 percent of its purchasing power.  A “mild” rate of inflation of 2 percent per year means that a baby born today will see the dollar’s purchasing power erode by a further 75 percent over his lifetime.  If this boondoggle is the Fed’s definition of stability and sound management of the dollar, I would hate to see what instability looks like.

Yet that is exactly what we face today and in the near future with a federal government and a Federal Reserve working hand in hand to bail out favored Wall Street firms with sums of money that have quickly reached absurd proportions.

*   *   *

The fact that a single entity, the Federal Reserve, has dominated monetary policy for so long has been detrimental to the economy.  As long as we try to keep up the fictions that the Federal Reserve works to benefit the American people, that attempting to fix interest rates will not distort the economy, and that the Fed can end a recession by injecting liquidity, we will never free ourselves from the boom and bust of the business cycle.

A necessary first step to restoring economic stability in this country is to audit the Fed, to find out the multitude of sectors in which it has involved itself, and, once the audit has been completed, to analyze the results and determine how the Fed should be reined in.

When one sees a former Republican Presidential primary contender enjoy this type of momentum, the inevitable question is whether Ron Paul might make another run for the White House.  Justin Miller had this on his mind last month when he discussed this subject for The Atlantic:

Paul is just as plausible a candidate to run for the Republican nomination as are Mitt Romney, Sarah Palin, or Mike Huckabee who were tested in polls this month.  Like them, Paul’s run for the White House (twice) before and has said he isn’t opposed to doing it again, albeit he said it’s “unlikely.”  What’s more likely, based on the circumstantial evidence, is that the Republican voters would receive Paul better than they did last year.  Feature him in polls from now on and we can test this hypothesis.

As President Obama continues to alienate the liberal base of the Democratic Party, Ron Paul might be just the person the Republicans would want to nominate in 2012.  He’ll be 77 years old at that point — just in time for a single term.