August 30, 2010
It’s coming from everywhere. House Minority Leader, John “BronzeGel” Boehner, while giving a speech in Cleveland on August 24, called for the ouster of Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner as well as the removal of National Economic Council Director, Larry Summers. Bridget Johnson reported for The Hill that on August 28, Representative Tom Price (R-Georgia) echoed the call for Geithner and Summers to step down: “They need to resign because the policies that they’re putting in place are not being effective.”
An editorial from the Republican-oriented Investors Business Daily expanded on Boehner’s criticism of the duo, without really giving any specific examples of what Geithner or Summers did wrong. That’s because what they did wrong was to protect the banks at the expense of the taxpayers — the same thing a Republican administration would have done. As a result, there have been simultaneous calls from the left for the sacking of Geithner and Summers. Robert Scheer wrote a piece for The Nation entitled, “They Go or Obama Goes”. Here is some of what he said:
It is Obama’s continued deference to the sensibilities of the financiers and his relative indifference to the suffering of ordinary people that threaten his legacy, not to mention the nation’s economic well-being.
* * *
While Obama continued the Bush practice of showering the banks with bailout money, he did not demand a moratorium on foreclosures or call for increasing the power of bankruptcy courts to force the banks, which created the problem, to now help distressed homeowners.
* * *
There is no way that Obama can begin to seriously reverse this course without shedding the economic team led by the Clinton-era “experts” like Summers and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner who got us into this mess in the first place.
Economist Randall Wray wrote a great piece for Wall Street Pit entitled, “Boehner Gets One Right: Fire Obama’s Economics Team”. Professor Wray distinguished his argument from Boehner’s theme that because neither Geithner nor Summers ever ran a business, they don’t know how to create jobs:
Obama’s economics team doesn’t care about job creation. (here) So far, nearly three years into the worst depression since the Great Depression, they’ve yet to turn any serious attention to Main Street. The health of Wall Street still consumes almost all of their time — and almost all government funds. Trillions for Wall Street, not even peanuts for Americans losing their jobs and homes. No one, except a highly compensated Wall Street trader, could possibly disagree with Boehner. Fire Timmy and Larry and the rest of the Government Sachs team.
As an aside: If you take offense at Professor Wray’s suggestion that the government should get actively involved in job creation, be sure to watch the interview with economist Robert Shiller by Simon Constable of The Wall Street Journal.
The Zero Hedge website recently published an essay by Michael Krieger of KAM LP. One of Krieger’s points, which resonated with me, was the idea that whether you have a Democratic administration or a Republican administration, both parties are beholden to the financial elites, so there’s not much room for any “change you can believe in”:
. . . the election of Obama has proven to everyone watching with an unbiased eye that no matter who the President is they continue to prop up an elite at the top that has been running things into the ground for years. The appointment of Larry Summers and Tiny Turbo-Tax Timmy Geithner provided the most obvious sign that something was seriously not kosher. Then there was the reappointment of Ben Bernanke. While the Republicans like to simplify him as merely a socialist he represents something far worse.
* * *
What Obama has attempted to do is to wipe a complete economic collapse under the rug and maintain the status quo so that the current elite class in the United States remains in control. The “people” see this ploy and are furious. Those that screwed up the United States economy should never make another important decision about it yet they remain firmly in control of policy. The important thing in any functioning democracy is the turnover of the elite class every now and again. Yet, EVERY single government policy has been geared to keeping that class in power and to pass legislation that gives the Federal government more power to then buttress this power structure down the road. This is why Obama is so unpopular. Everything else is just noise to keep people divided and distracted.
“Keeping people divided and distracted” helps preserve the illusion that there really is a difference between the economic policies of the two parties. If you take a close look at how President Obama’s Deficit Commission is attempting to place the cost of deficit reduction on the backs of working people, the unified advocacy for the financial sector becomes obvious. What we are left with are the fights over abortion and gay marriage to differentiate the two parties from each other.
It’s time to pay more attention to that man behind the curtain.
Trouble Ahead For Congressional Democrats
September 2, 2010
Quite a number of commentators have expressed shock in reaction to a recent Gallup Poll pitting a “generic Democrat” against a “generic Republican” for Congress. As of August 30, the Democrat was trailing by a huge, 10-point margin (51% to 41%). Gallup described it as “the largest in Gallup’s history of tracking the midterm generic ballot for Congress”. An examination of the graph reveals that the hypothetical Democrat’s 49-43 lead in mid-July was lost approximately one week later.
There has been widespread speculation as to the cause of this reversal of fortune. Byron York wrote a piece for The Washington Examiner, which considered a more recent Gallup Poll, pinpointing the particular issues where the Republican position was more popular. Mr. York then provided his own opinions as to why and how the “generic Democrat” was faltering on some of these issues. With respect to the economy, York said this:
As for the problem of corruption in government, York gave this interpretation of the polling results:
The subject of terrorism was another area where Mr. York offered his opinion on the public’s renewed preference for Republican stewardship:
I have a different perspective on what has been motivating the voters to favor a “generic Republican” candidate. Given the format of the poll, I believe the responses are rooted in archetypal motivations rather than the positions and actions of individual candidates on particular issues. For example, consider the timing: Late July was when President Obama was taking his umpteenth vacation and playing golf for the zillionth time. Democrats from the Senate (more so than Congressional Dems) had just sold out to Wall Street by completely eviscerating the so-called, financial “reform” bill, making it as much of a farce as their healthcare “reform” artifice. The two “reform” shams were widely perceived as a betrayal of the Democratic Party “base” by both houses of Congress as well as the Obama administration. The aggregate impact of those two legislative hoaxes impacted the public’s understanding of the extent to which corruption and economic irresponsibility were apparent in their Democratic leaders. I don’t believe it’s so much a problem with excessive spending (i.e. stimulus efforts) as it is with plain-old sleaziness. “Countrywide Chris” Dodd’s skullduggery is more likely seen as a serious problem than the antics of Charlie Rangel and company.
President Obama’s inability to take a decisive position on anything – his constant attempts to travel up the fork in the road – are recognized as weak leadership, which is then reinforced as a trait of all Democrats. The constant golfing and vacationing during this crucial period have helped augment the image of a dilettante — as well as an ineffective and/or unconcerned official. As a result, voters are less confident that these leaders can protect them from terrorism. When a terrorist succeeds, that event magnifies the perceived weakness, regardless of whether and how many other attempted terrorist schemes may have been thwarted under the current administration.
Meanwhile, pollster Nate Silver has come along to tell us that we’re all reading too much into those recent Gallup Polls. In an article for The New York Times, Mr. Silver benefited the rest of us with his unique Brainiac perspective:
Regardless of the cause, the Democrats are headed for serious trouble in November. As far as I’m concerned: It serves them right.
href=”http://statcounter.com/wordpress.org/”
target=”_blank”>