"Fed up with Wall Street, Democrats look to the left"

[applegrove]

Fed up with Wall Street, Democrats look to the left

by Harold Meyerson at the Washington Post

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/harold-meyerson-democrats-lean-to-the-left/2013/09/17/e7409aa2-1fcd-11e3-94a2-6c66b668ea55_story.html

"SNIP..............................


In a broader sense, Democrats’ turn against Summers signals both a weariness and a repudiation of Rubinomics and its apostles. Ever since he became the head of Clinton’s economic council, and then Treasury secretary, former Goldman Sachs co-chairmanRobert Rubin has been the party establishment’s foremost economic guru, and his proteges — including Summers, former Treasury secretary Tim Geithner and White House economic counselor Gene Sperling — have dominated policymaking. During their reign, they successfully campaigned for the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act (which had separated commercial from investment banking), the decision not to regulate derivatives, the trade deals with China and Mexico that decimated U.S. manufacturing and a post-2008 bailout that pumped more than a trillion dollars into the banks but never compelled — or even persuaded — the banks to use those public funds to help small businesses or homeowners facing foreclosure. They blocked efforts to create a safer, more consumer-friendly economy by women more prescient but less powerful than they — Brooksley Born , who headed the Commodity Futures Trading Commission under Clinton and sought to regulate derivatives, and Elizabeth Warren, who conceived the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau but was precluded from heading it.

Today, it’s Warren, now the senior senator from Massachusetts and the party’s leading critic of Wall Street, who is riding high. So is Bill de Blasio, the presumptive favorite to succeed Bloomberg as mayor of New York. In his primary campaign, de Blasio excoriated Bloomberg for helping transform what had once been a metropolis of thriving small businesses and free higher education into a city where the gap between the rich and everyone else has reached levels seen only in the least-developed nations. The New York Times’ precinct breakdown of last week’s Democratic primary shows that de Blasio ran first or second in every one of New York’s hundreds of neighborhoods, save only the Upper East Side between Fifth and Park Avenues and 59th and 90th Streets — where New York City’s wealthiest live.

These events portend a growing conflict between those Democrats who have hitched their wagons to Wall Street — among them soon-to-be New Jersey senator Cory Booker and Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel (about whom the ominously titled biography “Mayor 1 Percent” is forthcoming) — and those, like Warren and her Senate colleagues Sherrod Brown (Ohio) and Jeff Merkley (Ore.), who believe government’s role is in advancing the interests of the middle class and protecting it from finance.

As Peter Beinart demonstrated in a brilliant essay last week, what Warren & Co. have going for them is millennials’ pervasive disenchantment with the market economics that have plunged them into a nightmare of unemployment and undercompensation. Millennials have suffered mightily from the withdrawal of government support for higher education, from the offshoring of jobs and government’s failure to directly create the jobs that might take their place. Polling shows that they’re the one generation that overwhelmingly supports Obamacareand a bigger government that provides more services. They clearly have no use for Rubinomics — something that Hillary Clinton would do well to realize should she seek to become the 2016 standard-bearer of what is fast becoming a more progressive Democratic Party.



...........................SNIP"

[Skittles]

1. where they should have been looking all along

[calimary]

3. Amen!

[Skittles]

6. Americans are very distracted by shiny things

it's only later that they wake up

[sakabatou]

21. + infinity

[Fumesucker]

23. Americans always do the right thing

After they have exhausted all other possibilities -Churchill

[truebluegreen]

41. Too true. <sigh>

[laserhaas]

2. Thanks for this -

We're going after the big 2 on WS (GSachs & Bain Cap)

and the more discussion on the bad faith issues at WS

the quicker we will get to the issues of reform.

[Rex]

4. Oh...the foaming and nashing of teeth this will cause

has caused...

[adirondacker]

12. I'm surprised it hasn't been alerted on yet! nt

[Rex]

13. We don't really know for sure.

If it wins a jury vote, then we will not be told about it unless a juror so decides to let us know. This thread could already be in the alert system. Many fingers this very moment could be hammering the alert button, like is was a slow elevator.

[adirondacker]

14. I sometimes wonder if they have a built in button...

[Rex]

15. LOL!

For some reason they can never find the green key;

[adirondacker]

16. That's precious!

[Rex]

17. Green key, green key, green key...

nope too late...PANNNNICCC!! Hit the red button, hit the red button! Oh fuck oh fuck oh fuckitty fuck fick fack! Speed...of...light...not..fast...enough!

[adirondacker]

20. Your descriptions are better than the recent stickman cartoons!

Well done!

[Uncle Joe]

5. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, applegrove.

[Smarmie Doofus]

7. Yeaaaahhh, baby. Kick and Rec. n/t

[DirkGently]

8. This is the real corner we need to turn.

A lot will follow from the emphatic repudiation of trickle-down, laissez-faire, empower-the-rich-and-everything's-great garbage the Republicans have been getting away spouting for decades.

How they are still arguing we need to let the bankers and financiers run free, leave healthcare up to employers, and eliminate the social safety net with all that's happened is a mystery in itself.

But I do think it's getting harder. Americans just rejected a hard sell on another war in the Middle East, and asked the architect of the financial collapse to please not attempt to advise us further on things like interest rates.

It will be harder still when 33 million more Americans are insured, and the world does not collapse.

They are desperate.

Good.

[cui bono]

9. The left is where it's at baby!

[jsr]

10. Well, fuck Tim Geithner, and fuck Larry Summers.

[Arugula Latte]

11. Sing in Beach Boys voice: "Oh, wouldn't it be nice ..."

[PowerToThePeople]

18. the issue is

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=3707757

even if the party is looking left, they can not see the left yet. Why can they not see the left? Because they have already turned the corner to the right long ago. So, if the look left from where they are they just see the left side of the right hall. They have to move a long way from where they are to even get a view of "the left" again.

edit - but, we will never get there without starting to move left again.

[adirondacker]

19. I sure hope the Captain knows his port from starboard...

Hard port flank speed!

[mick063]

22. From this post

link

Republicans in power will attempt to implement crazy with respect to social issues. It will be their death knell. Regardless, the social issues can wait as I recognize these social issues as the carrot that the third way is dangling before us. I will temporarily remove that carrot. For me, the primary issue is the concentration of wealth at the expense of the working poor. The GOP are the least of my concerns right now if the only alternative to GOP economic policy is more GOP economic policy.


I'm not going to stop.

Obviously, this article in the OP chimes right in with my views.

[Andy823]

31. Not really

Your view is to simply let the crazies run things further into the ground, then you "think" a new kind of democratic party will come to be that will take things whatever way you want. My fear is that once you let the crazies take control, the damage they will do will make what George W. did minor in comparison.

Doing it all your way, letting the crazies win elections and take control, will also allow them to put new Supreme court judges on the bench. Can you guess what kind of judges they will be? Your plan would allow the crazies to tear down everything that has been accomplished since Obama took office, and contrary to you opinion he is a total failure, he has done a lot to fix the mess Bush left him. The mess Bush left will take longer than Obama's term to fix, and if you allow a crazy teapublican in the WH, along with a congress ran by nuts like Rand Paul, Ted Cruz, and the other morons from the tea party gang, they will undo everything and make it far worse. Then even if you scenario works out and the crazies get voted out of office down the road, how long will it be before we can clean up the mess "they" left along with all the things they would undo, like health care reform, women's rights, programs that help the needy, etc.?

Working to find better candidates for congress and the WH "NOW" would do a lot more towards fixing things than letting the teabaggers run the country into the ground and the hope that the new party you talk about will be able to fix the mess they leave this country in.

[Vanje]

24. Big K & R

Thanks for posting this.
Definitely due for a Left turn.

[Savannahmann]

25. Looking to the Left

The same left that has been denounced regularly on this board and other articles on most of the Democratic leaning sites on the web? The same Left that was accused to be working with Rand Paul to destroy President Obama for two weeks during the must bomb Syria phase of the situation? Not the same left that has been denigrated here regularly by the DLC shills.

The left that turns out and works the phone banks trying to get people to the polls? That Left that has been told by our party leadership how often that we just don't get it and we're totally out of touch?

For some reason, I'm doubtful. It's bad enough being told to grow up and get a real view of the world from the DLC types. It's even worse when the Apologists proclaim that we are working to empower Rand Paul by not bowing and slobbering to the DLC. But now we're getting smoke blown up our collective asses by the metric ton.

Does anyone really think that the Leadership is going to suddenly realize that the Left is their strength? Next week they'll be telling us that they're on our side, but they need us to sell out a couple little principles in order to gain total victory.

[BeyondGeography]

26. Interesting times...Hillary's going to have to move left

and Bill's going to have to keep his mouth shut. The former being more easily achieved than the latter.

[sulphurdunn]

38. Hillary is just another

Third Way conservative Dem. She will put on her populist hat to campaign under if that is to her advantage, but she will remain what she has always been and support for her will remain support for the status quo.

[BeyondGeography]

42. A challenge from Warren would be most healthy

And pretty damned exciting. I hope Warren goes for it; don't see anyone else who could upset the applecart nearly as well. Plus, if it's still Hillary in the end, she'd have to respect the Warren wing much more than if she weren't challenged at all.

[snot]

27. Thank gawd! The voice of reason.

[fredamae]

28. For me-I no longer trust

the Elitist Dems--so...if they were to suddenly change course now (their greed would interfere, likely low risk for late change) I doubt they could sell me on any notion it was for anything But power, wealth and politics.

I am grateful, however for those who speak to larger audiences about this---continuing to ignore the problem only allows the "river of crap" flowing beneath the Dem Party, to overflow the flood line.
We've been too long distracted by the flow of information leading us down the path of "Look, look over there at the GOP-man-o-man are They ever in trouble---they Always vote against their Own best interest! (as I voted time and time Again for a straight Dem ticket, "just because" without vetting).

No more settling-for me anyway.

[2banon]

29. Happy to Rec and Kick this for a much needed dose of Optimism!

It's interesting to see M$M zero-in on the heart of the matter in terms of issues and causes of concern for the Middle Class, and it's about damn time.

Although I don't fall into the Middle Class segment of the population as my status is more on the "poverty"side of the scale, this analysis leaves me optimistic..

I'm seeing more of it lately, and that's not a bad thing.

[WillyT]

30. HUGE K & R !!!

[SomethingFishy]

32. So after a nearly complete collapse of the financial system, billions in bailouts,

and no substantial new regulations, they gave Wall Street 5 years before they got "fed up".

Better late than never I guess. I'll be waiting to see how serious they are. How many too big to fail's get broken up, how many new regulations are put in place to keep banks from accumulating too much power and wealth, and how many new regulations are put into place to keep bankers from scamming the system.

Holding my breath.. NOT.

[Andy823]

33. Good post

I would love to see more members of congress like Warren, Sanders, Brown, and Merkley. What we need to do is start finding these kind of people to run for office. Start making sure the local and state elections are not taken over by teapublicans, and do all we can to get the kind of leaders we need into office.

The one think I can't see working out for anyone is if people sit home and don't get out to vote in the next two elections. We can not afford to have more states taken over by teapublicans, nor can we afford to get more of them in congress, and we sure as hell can't afford them in the WH. Some seem to think that letting the crazies run things for awhile will wake up the democratic party, make them change, etc. It might, but would letting teapublicans control congress next year really help things get better? Would letting a teapublican into the WH help us get a supreme court that would work for the people instead of the rich and their corporate masters?

Now I am open to suggestions on what can be done to change things, but we let a "crazy" person in the WH with George W. Bush, and we let the "crazies" into congress in 2010, and look at what happened. Do we really want to try that tactic again?

[Phlem]

34. It's about fucking time.

K&R!

-p

[grahamhgreen]

35. Don't get cocky, we still have a long way to go:)

[L0oniX]

36. When DLC Dems look left they are looking left of the right which is centre at best.

The Dem party has morphed too far right into something other. We got thrown under the buss right after 2008 ...like a used rubber. Let's see how much the right leaning Dem centrists help out during election season ...other than lip service ...and they better stop moving to the right because if SS and or Medicare gets cuts of any kind ...it's over for the real Dem party. I won't be part of a war party or a party that cuts aid to poor people or a party that continues to do the will of the 1% over the will of the common US person.

[NealK]

37. K&R n/t

[BlancheSplanchnik]

39. thank you--good read k&r. n/t

[silvershadow]

40. The establishment finally has nowhere else to go but with the people on the street? nt