Robert Reich: Is Wall Street Preventing Democrats from Telling Their Story?

[amborin]

The Two Stories of This Terrible Economy, Yet Obama and the Dems Won’t Tell Theirs


The public doesn’t understand specific policies but it does understand stories that link them together. The stories give the policies context and meaning, and thereby show where policymakers are taking a nation (and, by implication, where the opposition would take it).
Republicans lack specific policies but they have a story. Obama and the Democrats have lots of specific policies but don’t have a story. That spells even more trouble for Democrats.

The Commerce Department reported today (Friday) that the economy grew only 1.6 percent in the second quarter, which is a fancy way of saying what everyone on Main Street already knows. The economy has stalled. Unemployment is still in the stratosphere and shows no sign of improving. The housing market is worsening.
Why? What to do? The Republican story is simple. It’s the fault of government. They say Obama’s policies have bankrupted the nation and made businesses too uncertain to create jobs. The answer is less government. Cut taxes and spending, privatize, and deregulate.
It’s not a new story but it’s capturing the public’s mind because the Democrats offer no story to counter it with.

Obama and the Democrats respond by defending their specific policies. The stimulus worked, they say, as did the bailout of Wall Street, because the economy is better today than it would be without them. If anything, we need more stimulus. And healthcare reform will protect tens of millions.
A large and growing segment of the public believes none of this. The public doesn’t think in terms of specific policies. All it knows is the economy has stalled and there’s only one story that explains why and points the way forward – and that’s the Republican’s.
What should the Democratic story be? How can they connect the dots?
Here’s a clue. In times of economic stress, Americans lose faith in the nation’s large institutions. They blame either government or its counterpart in the private sector – big business and Wall Street.

snip

It wouldn’t be hard for Democrats to make the case that big business and Wall Street blew it. The Street’s wild speculation took the economy off the cliff, caused the stock market to crash (and millions of 401(k)s along with it), and created a housing bubble whose burst has hurt millions more.
Big business has used the Great Recession as an opportunity to slash payrolls and cut wages and is now sitting on a $1.8 trillion mountain of cash it refuses to use to create new jobs. Instead, it’s using the cash to build more factories abroad, buy back its own shares of stock, invest in more labor-replacing technologies at home, and do mergers that will lead to even fewer jobs.

snip

If Obama and the Democrats would connect these dots they’d have a story that would make Americans’ hair stand on end. We’re in this mess because of big business and Wall Street. Government is needed to get us out of it.
It’s not that big business and Wall Street are evil. It’s that they’re out to make as much money as possible – which is what they’re set up to do. That’s why we need an activist government to stimulate the economy, create jobs, and protect the public from their excesses.
So why haven’t Obama and the Dems succeeded yet? Big business and Wall Street have used their money and political clout to stop government from doing as much as needs to be done.
The story is clear, and it has the virtue of being the truth. Why won’t Obama and the Democrats tell it? Is it because big business and Wall Street have the money and political clout even to prevent the story from being told?

http://robertreich.org/post/1020104902/the-two-stories-of-this-terrible-economy-yet-obama-and

[fasttense]

1. The current administration is fighting for Wall Street's and corporate Monopolies' money and clout.

Thanks to the dancing supremes and past failures of the opposition party to stand up to the money hungry uber rich, the only way to succeed in politics is to kiss up to the excessively wealthy and monopolies. They can't turn around and blame our current mess on Wall Street and corporate Monopolies or they wont get their backing.

So, their left with the only story they are allowed to use - see the stimulus did work.

Until normal Americans (not tea-baggers and Becker Heads) stand up and protest in mass, nothing will change.

[katandmoon]

2. Well, duh!

[RaleighNCDUer]

3. I wonder if much of the administration sees this as a Catch-22 scenario.

They know Wall Street is responsible for the mess. They need to restore confidence in the economy. And if they go after the institutionalized corruption of Wall Street people will lose faith in our economy causing a deepening of the recession. Therefore, the only thing to do is keep the power in the hands of those that caused the problems in the first place, which can only result in further abuses and a deepening of the recession.

[nashville_brook]

4. great piece.