Naomi Klein : Obama’s New Economic Team & Stimulus Plan

[laststeamtrain]

Naomi Klein, Robert Kuttner and Michael Hudson Dissect Obama’s New Economic Team & Stimulus Plan

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AMY GOODMAN: We begin with Naomi Klein. Your response to these appointments, and what they signify. If you could begin with Larry Summers, the former Clinton Treasury Secretary.

NAOMI KLEIN: It is good to be with you. I have to say it is a profound disappointment. It really does represent a very safe choice, but let’s remember Barack Obama won this election saying that taking the status quo, staying with the same policies that have been governing the country for the recent past, was actually a very dangerous course. I think in many ways we are paying the price of the intellectual dishonesty of the progressive liberals left during the bush years. Because Obama said again and again during the campaign that the crisis on Wall Street represented the culmination of an ideology of deregulation and laisse-faire trickle-down economics that had guided the country for the past eight years.

The truth is, it was not just eight years, they guided them under Reagan and also under Clinton.
That is where Larry Summers comes in because he was the last treasury secretary under Clinton. He along with Alan Greenspan and Robert Rubin were the key architects of the policies of deregulation that created the crisis that we’re living now. And those key policies are the killing of Glass-Spiegel that allowed a series of very large but mergers that created these institutions that are too big and too intermingled to fail we’re told again and again.
The deliberate decision to keep the derivatives out of the reach of financial regulators- that was also a Summer’s decision. And also allowing the banks to carry these extraordinary levels of debt. 33 to 1 in the case of Bear Sterns.

Now, in my book the Shock Doctrine I started chapter with a quote from Larry Summers in the context in which he says it was 1992 and it was when he was making World Bank economic policy as it related to Russia, in the midst of a financial crisis. What he said and this is why I quoted him because it really shows the extent to which he is truly an ideologue and a follower of the very ideology- not just a follower but a propagator of the very ideology that Obama ran his campaign against. And here’s the qoute. This is Larry Summers in 1992: “Spread the truth. The laws of economics are like the loss of engineering. One set of laws works everywhere.” And then he laid out those laws a little bit later.

He referred to the three “ations”, and those were privatization, stabilization, and liberalization. So he has been preaching the doctrine. He is by no means an innocent bystander. He is a dyed-in-the-wool privatizer, free trader. And he along with Tim Geithner, his deputy play key roles during the economic crises.—along with Timothy Geithner.

They preached more deregulation, more privatization and economic austerity to disastrous results. I think this is really troubling. One thing that Obama said is that Larry Summers set the terms of the debate for this financial crisis and that once again is very worrying. Because if Barack Obama thinks that these are the only terms, the parameters of the debate, then there’s very very narrow…

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http://www.democracynow.org/2008/11/25/naomi_klein_robert_kuttner_and_michael

[Cleita]

1. This interview with Naomi Klein and yesterday's airing of a speech by Noam Chomsky, two

liberal and intellectual thinkers that I have deep respect for, makes me feel very disappointed in how the Obama administration is shaping up so far. I felt these misgivings as they unfolded, but when experts validate the same thing that I'm thinking, it does not make me feel secure about the change we need for the future.

[NashVegas]

20. I Can't Blame Obama For Taking Advantage of a Situation

I blame the people who greased the way.

I think in many ways we are paying the price of the intellectual dishonesty of the progressive liberals left during the bush years.

If you read much of the apologists for center-right governing from a "change" candidate, the general gist is, "he's doing exactly what I thought he would, you weren't listening." Well, it was kind of hard to listen, for many, between the "Obama is magic" propaganda and all the hissing and harassing of those who weren't buying it. When he started talking Reagan, well ...

Anyways, we didn't really have any real electable alternatives this year. I voted for HC in the primaries knowing it would be about the same, maybe slightly more left. We had a potential one in Dean four years ago, IMO, but the same DC crowd stamped that fire out, but good.

[Skittles]

2. Ms. Klein should be part of that economic team

yes INDEED

[judasdisney]

17. I've been saying that for months. Secretary Naomi Klein.

And how about Eliot Spitzer as a backroom unofficial advisor?

[katanalori]

3. With due respect

Shut up Naomi. This is NOT the 90's. Summers has EVOLVED. He is SMART - thinking has changed dramatically!
This is like saying: "You smoked pot 15 years ago (in the 90's), so are are obviously a druggie now." NOT.

[Runcible Spoon]

4. Klein has been right on the money about economic issues for decades

I'm glad she has found a wider audience. Telling her to STFU on DU thankfully won't silence her. Summers is a neoliberal enabler and a sexist piece of shit to boot. Rove was "smart" too, do you want his piggy little hands all over the government again?

[katanalori]

10. I don't agree with his deregulation agenda,

but he's a breath of fresh air from the policies of the last eight years. That'll do for me.
As Axelrod said, Obama is not looking for appointments to give him an agenda. He knows what his agenda is. He is looking for competent people who make that happen as fast and substantively as possible.

[Two Americas]

24. those whose hearts are in the work

"Our cause, then, must be entrusted to, and conducted by, its own undoubted friends - those whose hands are free, whose hearts are in the work - who do care for the result. Two years ago we mustered over thirteen hundred thousand strong. We did this under the single impulse of resistance to a common danger, with every external circumstance against us. Of strange, discordant, and even hostile elements, we gathered from the four winds, and formed and fought the battle through, under the constant hot fire of a disciplined, proud and pampered enemy. Did we brave all then, to falter now? - now, when that same enemy is wavering, dissevered and belligerent? The result is not doubtful. We shall not fail - if we stand firm, we shall not fail. Wise counsels may accelerate, or mistakes delay it, but, sooner or later, the victory is sure to come."

Abraham Lincoln
"House Divided" Speech
Springfield, Illinois
June 16, 1858

[alfredo]

26. That's what I was thinking. He was looking for the best minds for the job.

I have no doubt Summers and the others know who they are working for and exactly what is expected of them.

[leftchick]

31. why not choose an actual economist?

instead of complicit wall street thieves who brought us to this point?

[Two Americas]

13. it is amazing

Yet people will deny that anyone is trying to shut people up (or convince people to not listen to certain voices, or make it difficult to do so.)

[judasdisney]

16. Bingo -- "Shut up Naomi" ??? Wow. Make "Katanalori" a DU moderator, pronto.

[Mojambo]

5. How has Summers evolved? n/t

[Runcible Spoon]

6. I'm sure he's gotten richer

that's all that really matters to plutocrats

[luvspeas]

8. I am a bit disappointed

but I am a LOT more progressive than Obama ever was. He really is and always has been a centrist and I am really not surprised about what he is doing. I'm not thrilled, but that's because I want there to be more changes. I'm not sure that big wide sweeping drastic changes would be the best idea right now either. I am hoping that by bringing in a more centrist cabinet, that more change will be widely accepted. I think he will be able to accomplish more through his methods than if he got into some big battle with almost everyone else in power. Then nothing would move. He's not ever gonna do anything to make a big old socialist revolution. That's not who he is.

[Two Americas]

14. sure

That doesn't matter. We have a duty to speak our opinions and lobby for the principles and ideals that we have always stood for.

It does not matter "who he is." This is not a monarchy or dictatorship. It is what he will do that matters, and a good politician will do that which is demanded of them.

The only reason that "big wide sweeping drastic changes" would be a bad idea would be if the public did not support that. I think we are dramatically underestimating just how much change the public is now ready for, and that will only increase. In any cases, of we all have to accept "what is" and "who he is" as though we purchased a consumer item with a no return policy, public opinion never could change. The "logic" of that is "public opinion isn't changing so don't try to change it, and we can't do anything because of public opinion." That has been the excuse of Democratic party politicians and there sycophants for too long. Let's change THAT. That would be real change.

Paraphrasing FDR - "if you want me to do something, generate public support and force me to do it." A good leader welcomes that. Too many here are trying to discourage that.

[katanalori]

11. If you want to know how Summers HAS evolved:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/24/us/politics/24rubin.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss
Very recent article about exactly that.

[Mojambo]

15. That's it?

There is precious little in that article to indicate that Summers has changed much at all. Other than now supporting stimulus and the need for more deficit spending, positions that pretty much EVERYONE agrees are necessary to get us out of the position Summers largely helped get us in.

I see nothing there to indicate that Summers is anything but the free trading, supply-side Reaganomics supporter he's always been.

[G_j]

9. when did his thinking change dramatically?

recently?
:shrug:

[JanMichael]

21. Don't bother arguing with true believers.

It just doesn't work.

Let's just give them 4-8 years and then maybe they'll get it. Probably not though.

[Two Americas]

25. true unbelievers

It should be "true unbelievers," shouldn't it?

[Pastiche423]

23. W/his 1st appointment

As soon as I heard he had appointed the nastiest DLCer, I knew things were heading in the direction I most feared from a "Democrat"..

[rhett o rick]

12. LOL, that's like saying that Charlie Brown got smarter after missing the football a million times.

Why trust someone that has failed in the past instead of picking someone that hasn't?

[femrap]

27. Go away, please.

Another willfully ignorant.

So heartbreaking.

WASF w/ comments from beings like this.


eta: whatever happened to samantha powers?

[AtomTan]

30. No, it's more like saying

You were a child murderer fifteen years ago, and now I'm hiring you to teach the second grade.

[RoyGBiv]

7. Glass-Spiegel

Is this a difficulty in the transcription, or did she actually say this?

I listened to the audio and can't quite tell.

I assume she knows the proper name, but am just curious.

[katanalori]

18. Obama is choosing

experienced hands for the crisis, trusting that their experience does not impede the new thinking needed to get us out of this hole. He'll set the direction. And so far, he’s on course.

[RoyGBiv]

19. I'm not disagreeing ...

... but I'm still curious about the Spiegel thing.

I mean, I saw the catalog once.

[moodforaday]

32. I think you are deluding yourself

So far it seems the only person in or near the White House who shares Obama's "new thinking" is Obama. It's looks more and more like a repeat of the dashed hopes after 2006. I certainly hope I am wrong, but I'll take facts and opinion from people I respect, people like Naomi Klein who've been right all the time, over wishful thinking just because the guy I like won the election.

[RoyGBiv]

36. Summers ...

I, personally, am iffy on Summers. I just want to get that out of the way. He's not the devil, and I think Klein stretches the point a bit too far, but he would not have been on my short list if I had a say.

However, even before the announcement, I was reading a lot of liberal and left-center economics blogs and forums, and the name Summers kept coming up as a preferred choice. One preferred him as Sec. of Treasury even though he had earlier and at length railed against the gutting of Glass-Steagall.

So, I started paying attention, and when the announcement came, I wasn't surprised.

It seems the general consensus is that his management style is a great deal of his attraction. He's willing to change his mind when he tries something and finds it doesn't work. He puts people into positions of responsibility who can get the job done, and then he gives them the tools to get it done. He takes orders from above very well. (This is an important point with regard to deregulation and will be important to Obama.) And, if a subordinate notes a flaw in his plan, he's been known to change course on the spot and assign credit where it is due.

IOW, he's not rigid ideologically and can get along with people with a wide array of opinions. For the position he has been given, that sounds pretty good actually.

But, we'll see.

[DireStrike]

33. "The laws of economics are like the loss of engineering."

Maybe it was some kind of automated, voice recognition transcription?

[RoyGBiv]

35. Possibly ...

There were a lot of things wrong with the transcript now that I look at it more closely, such as long phrases being left out.

None of it changed the meaning, but it resulted in a lot of little things like that. It's a very poor transcript, IOW.

I listened to the audio three times, and I couldn't tell which she said, so whether it was voice recognition software or just a human unaware that was wrong, it can be forgiven.

[tomp]

22. intellectual dishonesty of progressive liberals?

first time i've ever disagreed or not understood her. liberals maybe (almost by definition), progressive, no, by definition (mine-if you're intellectually dishonest, you're not progressive). is there even such a thing as a progressive liberal?

[Solly Mack]

28. K&R

[Kolesar]

29. This writing is hard to follow--probably because it is an interview

I got lost in all the obscure references.

"but let’s remember Barack Obama won this election saying that taking the status quo, staying with the same policies that have been governing the country for the recent past, was actually a very dangerous course. "

[sendero]

34. There are basically two camps..

.. in the "fix the economy" set. One camp, led mostly by wall streeters, promotes large cash infusions to the troubled banks, IBs and insurance cos.

The other promotes the idea that, basically, there is not enough tea in China to bail out all the losers, so we shouldn't bail out any of them. Just let the bad ones fail and pick up the pieces.

I'm pretty firmly in the second camp, but I don't think there are 3 presidential-material people in the country who would have the courage to go that way. And I'm not the least bit surprised that Obama is basically going with plan 1.

Obama ran as a centrist, and he's going to govern as one. Anyone finding that surprising was just not paying attention. That said, Obama is straddling the fence at least a little with his proposed stimulus-infrastructure plan.

So, all in all I'm satisfied. If you don't expect perfection, you'll not so often be dissapointed.

[RoyGBiv]

37. Guess which one Hoover was n/t