Taibbi vs. Obama

[spiritual_gunfighter]

Taibbi vs. Obama

— By Kevin Drum
| Sat Dec. 12, 2009 6:23 PM PST

Matt Taibbi's long polemic about Barack Obama's economic team in the current issue of Rolling Stone has attracted its share of both support and derision in the blogosphere over the past couple of days. Big surprise, eh? Digby rounds up some of the reaction here.

Well, after reading the piece this afternoon you can basically count me among the supporters. Is it over the top? Of course it is. Are there some matters of interpretation that I think Taibbi gets a bit wrong? Sure. For example: the conceit of the piece is that Obama chose to build his economic team around people who were acolytes of Bob Rubin, and this strikes me as misguided. Basically, Obama chose to build his economic team around mainstream Democratic economists with previous government experience, and virtually all of these guys have ties to each other and therefore to Rubin. That's every bit as bad — maybe worse, in fact — but it changes the problem from one of personal influence to one of systemic influence. There's a real difference there. What else? Taibbi spends a lot of time on Rubin pal Michael Froman, who led Obama's search for an economic team during the transition, and this leads him to say that Tim Geithner was "hired to head the U.S. Treasury" by Froman. But that's kind of silly. At the cabinet level, Obama didn't need Froman's advice. He chose Geithner all on his own. Taibbi also commits one of my pet peeves, suggesting that the bailout may eventually cost taxpayers $23 trillion. That's ridiculous. He also fails to emphasize enough that virtually all of the bailout money was directed by the Fed and virtually all of it predates Obama's presidency.

But look: this is all just nitpicky bullshit. Taibbi's piece is basically about how the finance industry owns Congress and the Obama administration, and that's basically true. In fact, I have a piece coming out in a week or so in the print magazine that makes pretty much the same point. My approach is different, and my language is all PG-rated, but my conclusions are pretty much the same. The finance industry, through both standard lobbying and what Simon Johnson calls "intellectual capture," has, over the decades since Reagan was elected, convinced nearly everyone that what's good for Wall Street is good for America, and that what's bad for Wall Street would be catastrophic for America. Everything else follows from that.

So, sure, I think Taibbi overstates Rubin's influence and thereby understates the real systemic problem here, but hey — it's his article, not mine. Generally speaking, he gets his facts right and he gets the big picture right: Obama's team is nearly as dedicated to the economic status quo as Republicans are. Ditto for many — though not all — Democrats in Congress. It's worth reading.

http://motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2009/12/taibbi-vs-obama-0

[Goldstein1984]

1. Milton Friedmanstein

The trickle-down, deregulation, privatization, tax-cuts-for-the-rich philosophy belongs to Milton Friedman, who equates capitalism and democracy. Reagan loved Uncle Milty. We've had almost three decades of it. We've gotten nothing but unemployment, stagnant wages, union busting, wars, support for dictators, locusts, boils, and somewhere a river is turning to blood with a Predator drone cruising overhead.

Globalization: A localized infection going systemic.

[avaistheone1]

2. Taibbi did a thorough and professional job. Too good a job for what it looks like.

[PHIMG]

3. Un'recing any thread with Taibii in the topic n/t

[Tutankhamun]

4. Taibbi's piece is really making waves, and there's a good reason for that.

[chill_wind]

5. Nothing he wrote negates the big picture.

You've really got to wonder where some people have been.


Nov. 11 2008 (Bloomberg) --

Take a good look at some of the 17 people our nation's president-elect chose last week for his Transition Economic Advisory Board. And then try saying with a straight face that these are the leaders who should be advising him on how to navigate through the worst financial crisis in modern history.

(...)

So, by my tally, almost half the people on Obama's economic advisory board have held fiduciary positions at companies that, to one degree or another, either fried their financial statements, helped send the world into an economic tailspin, or both. Do you think any of that came up in the vetting?

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601039&sid=aNCFKvAMUQ6w

Nov 2009

Bill Black on CIT Group and Geithner

http://www.bearishnews.com/post/2548

[mojowork_n]

6. Recc' for any thread with Taibbi in the topic line.

He writes well.
I've been enjoying his stuff since his earliest days at The Exile.
I trust his instincts.

....Can't think why Matt would get an automatic un-recc from anybody, unless it's one of the former supporters of the Perfume'd Prince, still holding a grudge.

[mbperrin]

7. Rec for Taibbi. He's doing some of the only serious economic

writing in the country.

Period.

[nilram]

8. ditto. rec, & now a kick

[Mithreal]

9. kick