The Other 99%

[Time for change]

Increasingly I found myself spending time with people of means – law firm partners and investment bankers, hedge fund managers, and venture capitalists… They reflected, almost uniformly, the perspectives of their class: the top 1 percent or so of the income scale that can afford to write a $2,000 check to a political candidate… They had no patience with protectionism, found unions troublesome, and were not particularly sympathetic to those whose lives were upended by the movement of global capital…

I know that as a consequence of my fundraising I became more like the wealthy donors that I met, in the sense that I spent more and more of my time above the fray, outside the world of immediate hunger, disappointment, fear, irrationality and frequent hardship of the other 99% of the population – that is the people that I entered public life to serve. And in one fashion or another, I suspect this is true for every Senator: The longer you are a Senator, the narrower the scope of your interactions. You may fight it… But your schedule dictates that you move in a different orbit from the people you represent.

And perhaps as the next race approaches, a voice within tells you that you don’t want to have to go through all the misery of raising all the money in small increments all over again… The path of least resistance – of fundraisers organized by the special interests, the corporate PACs and the top lobby shops – starts to look awfully tempting, and if the opinions of these insiders don’t quite jibe with those you once held, you learn to rationalize the changes as a matter of realism, of compromise… The problems of ordinary people… become a distant echo rather than a palpable reality, abstractions to be managed rather than battles to be fought – A former U.S. Senator, explaining, perhaps inadvertently, how politicians become corrupted, from his autobiography, “The Audacity of Hope”


Let me concisely paraphrase the above excerpts: 1) A candidate for high political office finds himself spending lots of time with the wealthiest 1% of Americans; 2) He becomes more like them and less like the other 99% of Americans; 3) He becomes dependent upon their money; 4) His opinions change, and he rationalizes those changes as a matter of “realism”.

When I first read Barack Obama’s “Audacity of Hope” in 2007, I was not impressed with it. I had some serious concerns about him, as I expressed in this post. Much later, as his presidency began to unfold and my concerns about him were confirmed, I expressed my disappointment in another post, titled “There were lots of Clues”. To summarize that post in one sentence: The rightward leanings suggested in Obama’s autobiography, and other words spoken by him during his campaign for president carried over and even expanded during the course of his presidency.

But of all the things that disturbed me about him, the excerpts that began this post were not one of them. To me, those excerpts read like a confession of sorts. I respect people for admitting to their mistakes or vulnerabilities. Admitting to one’s mistakes is the first step to correcting them or avoiding repeating them. So when I read a public confession I generally interpret it as a sign that the confessor takes the issue seriously and is working on making the necessary corrections.

Well, in this case it didn’t exactly turn out like that. Far from it.

Yet ironically, President Obama has been repeatedly and viciously excoriated by Republicans and other right wingers of all sorts for being a Socialist, a Communist, or “the most liberal president we’ve ever had”. What a joke! In many ways, Barack Obama is the most conservative Democratic president our country seen since the 19th Century.

Not coincidentally, second place probably goes to his most recent Democratic predecessor, Bill Clinton – who was also viciously excoriated by radical right wingers for being “too liberal”. It’s a sign of the times. The corporatocracy, through a judicious combination of intimidation and bribes, has succeeded in insinuating their ideas into large portions of the Democratic Party. As conservative as President Obama has been on economic matters, had he tilted just a little less rightward he probably would have been lambasted for that by the corporatocracy and their lapdog media.

I’m not making excuses for him by saying that. As president of the United States I believe that he should be much more concerned about the lower 99% of Americans than the wealthiest 1%, regardless of the risk. President of the United States is just too important of a job to do otherwise.


High Hopes

Barack Obama’s election to the presidency brought with it high hopes for millions of progressives/liberals. Even after he won the Democratic presidential nomination most progressives/liberals – even those like me who harbored serious doubts about him – put aside our doubts to work and hope for victory. I wrote several posts comparing him favorably with John McCain in every area of importance, including the economy, about which I wrote:

Obama has an extensive economic plan, which includes: fighting for “fair trade” instead of “free trade”, as manifested by NAFTA; job creation; restoring workers’ rights to unionize; the creation of a universal 10% mortgage credit to give relief to homeowners; a crackdown on mortgage company abuses; and a crackdown on predatory lending policies.

William Kuttner, who wrote “A Presidency in Peril – The Inside Story of Obama’s Promise, Wall Street’s Power, and the Struggle to Control our Economic Future”, also had high hopes. He wrote in the introduction to his book:

For progressives like me, Obama represented a chance to reclaim a tradition of enriched democracy, affirmative government, and social justice…

Earlier in 2008… candidate Obama was sounding like a radical reformer… In his review of why the system had failed, Obama pointed squarely to the political power of the financial industry: “This was not the invisible hand at work. Instead, it was the hand of industry lobbyists tilting the playing field in Washington.”

It was, sadly, an all-too-prophetic description of his own administration.

Obama’s choice of economic advisors

Just as Obama’s appointment of the Social Security hater Alan Simpson to the cat food commission set the stage for attempted deep cuts in Social Security, his appointment of deeply conservative economic advisors set the stage for the economic fate of our country during his administration. Kuttner writes:

In many respects, the path Obama chose was determined by the people he appointed… By the time he clinched the Democratic nomination, his advisors had become a much narrower group, as the aides oriented towards Wall Street had efficiently elbowed out the progressives on Obama’s team.

Robert Rubin
Robert Rubin was Bill Clinton’s Secretary of the Treasury. Kuttner explains that although the economy during the Clinton presidency appeared to do well, “It later turned out that much of this growth was illusory, built on financial bubbles”. He explains how, as co-chairman at Goldman-Sachs in the early 1990s, Rubin skated on the edge of insider trading:

Goldman invested massively in legal talent to make sure it could both exploit its privileged position and stay within the law. As he moved up at Goldman, this balancing act was Rubin’s trademark. His other signature move was investing in politicians…

With respect to Rubin’s ideology and “accomplishments” prior to linking up with Obama:

The ideology that Rubin is selling is one part deregulation, one part globalization, and one part budget balance, with verbal solicitude but only modest social outlay for the less fortunate. He is passionate about capping the cost of Social Security and Medicare…

Glass-Steagall had separated largely unregulated and more speculative investment banks like Goldman Sachs from government-supervised and government-insured commercial banks… Glass Steagall was designed to prevent the kinds of speculative conflicts of interest that pervaded Wall Street in the 1920s and helped bring about the Great Depression (and that reappeared in the 1990s and helped cause the crash of 2007). The Clinton administration’s prime architect of the Glass-Steagall repeal was Robert Rubin. On Capital Hill, the law repealing Glass-Steagall was nicknamed “the Citigroup Enabling Act.” Four months after leaving the White House, Rubin joined Citi as chairman of its executive committee.

On Rubin’s role in the Obama administration:

In the Obama era, Rubin has been a relentless behind the scenes advocate for a commission that would create a formula to put automatic caps on public spending, particularly of Social Security and Medicare…

Kuttner summarizes the absurdity of Obama’s reliance on Rubin and his philosophy:

Given the abject failure of the financial deregulation that Rubin championed as Clinton’s top economic adviser, followed by the collapse of the business model that he promoted as senior executive at Citigroup, it is remarkable that a consummate outsider like Barack Obama did not view Rubin (or his protégé Summers) as fatally damaged goods. On the contrary, Obama felt he needed men like Rubin and Summers for tutelage, access, and validation. That itself speaks volumes about where power reposes in America…

Larry Summers
As a member of Ronald Reagan’s Council of Economic Advisors and as successor to Robert Rubin as Bill Clinton’s Treasury Secretary, Larry Summers was a big proponent of the kind of financial deregulation that led to our current crisis. He was ousted as president of Harvard University in 2006 for pursuing reckless financial policies. Yet Obama appointed him as his top economic advisor. Kuttner comments on that:

Summers’s checkered past was more than sufficient to persuade (Obama’s) political team and the official vetters that he was not an acceptable risk for Senate confirmation (for Treasury Secretary). But evidently it did not give much pause to the premise that Obama should put Summers in charge of America’s economic policy.

Ben Bernanke
Another indication of Obama’s pro-Wall Street bent was his reappointment of Ben Bernanke as Chairman of the Federal Reserve in January 2010. Bernanke agreed to provide the Inspector General of the TARP program with certain information only on condition that it not be shared with Congress. Kuttner explains that Bernanke’s anti-regulatory philosophy is right in line with Milton Freidman, extreme enough to be considered to the right of Alan Greenspan:

No wonder the people around George W. Bush were fully confident of Bernanke’s conservatism. It’s worth pausing to savor his statement, which is breath-taking in both its extreme free-market conservatism… For Bernanke, the corrupt stock pools, the extreme speculation on margin, the creation of bogus securities, the watering of public utility stocks, and the other forms of manipulation that pushed the stock market to absurd heights by the late 1920s were of no consequence…

Thus, many Democratic Congresspersons would have liked to put a lot more distance between themselves and Bernanke. But Obama wanted him reconfirmed. Kuttner writes:

Democratic senators again found themselves on the wrong side of a backlash against Wall Street. Once more, they were being asked to walk the plank because of a dubious decision of their president. In the end, the White House used all its leverage on wavering Democrats, and Bernanke won confirmation by a vote of 70-30… Thus the Wall Street colonization of the Obama administration.

Rahm Emanuel
Kuttner notes that “If the Obama administration needed one more key official to discourage economic change we can believe in, it was the president-elect’s choice for chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel”. In Emanuel’s three terms in the U.S. House he was the largest recipient of funds from the financial industry. This must have influenced Emanuel’s strategy as head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC). Kuttner summarizes Emanuel’s work in that position:

As head of the DCCC, Emanuel displayed the strategic patterns that would continue into his tenure as White House chief of staff… Emanuel’s ideal candidate for Congress was a corporate Democrat who could raise lots of money from Wall Street… Rahm recruited a lot of candidates who were more center-right than they needed to be. In several districts, a more progressive candidate defeated the Emanuel approved candidate in the 2006 Democratic primary and went on to win the general election in November.

The Wall Street bailout

The Obama administration’s Wall Street bailout was largely a continuation of the Bush administration’s plan. Eminent economists who were NOT associated with Wall Street had a lot of scathing remarks for the Obama administration’s proposed Wall Street bailout plan when it was first proposed. Their underlying messages were very similar: Basically, this was a reverse Robin Hood scheme planned behind closed doors:

Paul Krugman

The Geithner scheme would offer a one-way bet: if asset values go up, the investors profit, but if they go down, the investors can walk away from their debt… This isn't really about letting markets work. It's just an indirect, disguised way to subsidize purchases of bad assets.

Joseph Stiglitz

The U.S. government plan to rid banks of toxic assets will rob American taxpayers by exposing them to too much risk and is unlikely to work as long as the economy remains weak…. The U.S. government is basically using the taxpayer to guarantee against downside risk on the value of these assets, while giving the upside, or potential profits, to private investors… Quite frankly, this amounts to robbery of the American people. I don't think it's going to work…

James Galbraith

The plan is yet another massive, ineffective gift to banks and Wall Street. Taxpayers, of course, will take the hit… The banks don't want to take their share of those losses because doing so will wipe them out. So they, and Geithner, are doing everything they can to pawn the losses off on the taxpayer…. In Geithner's plan, this debt won't disappear. It will just be passed from banks to taxpayers, where it will sit until the government finally admits that a major portion of it will never be paid back.

Robert Reich

If the trillions of dollars the Fed has already committed and the trillions more it's about to commit can't be recouped, the federal debt explodes and you and I and other taxpayers are left holding the bag…. The Fed is subject to almost no political oversight… They hide much of the true costs and risks to taxpayers of repairing the banking system. Those risks and costs should be put on the people who made risky bets on the banks in the first place – namely bank shareholders and creditors. Shareholders of the most troubled banks should be wiped out entirely… And top executives who were responsible should be canned. But Geithner and Bernanke don't want to take these steps… They think it's safer to put the costs and risks on taxpayers – especially in ways they can't see.

Dean Baker

Treasury secretary Timothy Geithner's latest bank bailout plan is another Rube Goldberg contraption intended to funnel taxpayer dollars to bankrupt banks, without being overly transparent about the process. The main mechanism is a government guarantee that would allow investors to buy junk with a 12-to-1 leverage ratio, where they only risk the downside on their own investment, not the borrowed money.

Robert Kuttner
Kuttner summarized the whole mess in retrospect:

Bankers were pleased to take the taxpayer money and guarantees from the Federal Reserve but fiercely resisted changing their business models. Industry moguls opposed mandatory mortgage refinancing, which would force accurate valuation of the toxic securities on their books and compel them to acknowledge concealed losses. They resisted any government interference with the speculative trading strategies that had become their main profit centers during the boom years.

In stark contrast with Roosevelt, who made a clean break with the old political and financial regime, Obama and his economic aides chose instead to work in concert with the Wall Street elite. The government’s immense sums of emergency aid were not used as leverage to compel more fundamental reforms. Even when continuing abuses were disclosed – exorbitant bonuses, new speculative schemes, conflicts of interest, refusals to supply needed credit to small businesses and homeowners – Obama seldom criticized the banks except on occasions when he needed a quick dose of symbolic populism. His administration’s goal was to restore trust in capital markets, even if confidence in the existing order was far from justified. All of this would prolong recession and favor Wall Street over Main Street. It was dubious economics, and worse politics.

Not much help for homeowners

Given that the sub-prime mortgage crisis leading to millions of home foreclosures was at the heart of our economic crisis, one would hope that government interventions would be targeted towards helping homeowners rather than relying on a trickle down sort of solution in which primarily banks were targeted for relief. But it didn’t quite work out like that. Kuttner writes:

The Bush administration made the fateful decision to give primary relief to banks, not to homeowners. Obama continued the basic policy… The collapse in housing prices had wiped out at least $7 trillion of net worth of American families…

Obama’s solution was a program called “Making Home Affordable”. Kuttner explains that this program had several fatal flaws. Perhaps the most fundamental flaw was that it was voluntary for the banks. Instead of mandating actions on the part of banks, they were given various “incentives”. But the incentives weren’t enough to make it worth the bank’s while to provide much help to homeowners. In fact, in many cases they had an incentive to foreclose rather than help the homeowner stay in the home. Consequently, the banks offered very little help for most homeowners.

There was one provision of Obama’s bill that had some teeth. That was the proposed authority of bankruptcy judges to compel banks to modify loans to prevent foreclosures. This provision was fiercely resisted by the financial industry, and therefore given very little support by the Obama administration. Kuttner explains:

In this key battle, the White House did not lift a finger to urge wavering legislators to support their president… Word was quickly passed on Capitol Hill that this was not a provision that mattered to the White House.

The only provision of the bill that was opposed by the financial industry therefore died in the Senate.


Alternatives

I’ll start this section with a personal note: As the Obama administration was attempting to come up with a plan to address the home foreclosure crisis, and it looked as if their primary intervention would be a bailout of banks, my daughter posed an idea to me: Why not give or loan the money directly from the government to the homeowners? Why go through the banks? How do we know that they will put the money to any useful purpose? I responded something like, “Well, that makes sense to me, and I’d like to see it happen. But I don’t hear anyone talking about it. I don’t know why not. Maybe it’s because the corporatocracy feels that if you give money to banks, that’s capitalism, and therefore good, but if you give money people who are in the bottom 99% on the wealth scale, that’s socialism, and therefore bad.”

Well, it turns out that Kuttner (as well as former U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt) was thinking along very similar lines:

There is a straightforward alternative to the administration’s approach to foreclosure prevention, but it would require much more direct government involvement. And it would take a nervy battle rather than a friendly collusion with Wall Street. In the case of unaffordable mortgage loans still held by banks, a “public option” of direct government financing could reduce borrower costs without relying on largely futile incentive payments to bankers…

The comparison with the New Deal is instructive – and depressing, when one contrasts the boldness of Roosevelt with the timidity of Obama. Faced with an epidemic of mortgage foreclosures, the New Deal created four new institutions…

Maybe that’s why FDR’s first and third presidential terms demonstrated the two largest average annual increases in job growth of all presidential terms from 1921 (when records are first available) to the present.

Kuttner comments on the difference in government solicitude for banks, compared with the rest of us – the bottom 99%:

The contrast was all too vivid – several trillions in loans and loan guarantees for the banks, and a grudging $3 billion for the homeowners who had been the banks’ victims. As a consequence of the administration’s half measures and failure to move boldly, the mortgage foreclosure crisis is continuing to drive millions of Americans from their homes, depress housing prices… and retard the recovery… Refinancing underwater retail mortgages is comparatively easy. It just requires political will.

In a nutshell

The book jacket to Kuttner’s book summarizes the tragedy of our current situation and the hope for our future:

Progressives hoped that America’s new leader would enact bold policies for real financial reforms – putting Main Street ahead of Wall Street and restoring broad prosperity. But that, writes Robert Kuttner, is not the way things turned out… because Obama… continued Bush-era regulatory policies, filled his administration with high financiers more interested in business as usual… Obama’s desire for consensus at all costs undermined the leadership that the moment demanded, deferred recovery, and energized the right…

But this story is not over. Kuttner shows how Obama and a resurgent progressive movement may yet redeem this president’s promise and enact the sweeping reforms that America needs.

True, the story isn’t yet over. But if Barack Obama’s promise is to be redeemed, as hoped for in the last paragraph of Kuttner’s book jacket, then Barack Obama will first have to arrive at the point where it is no longer true, as he acknowledges in his own autobiography, that “The problems of ordinary people… become a distant echo rather than a palpable reality”.

[Tuesday Afternoon]

1. K&R AND bkmrkd.

[Martin Eden]

32. Same here. n/t

[ibegurpard]

2. Great stuff!

thanks!

[glitch]

3. Possibly your best. Hard to say, really. Thank you for summarizing our grief. K & R nt

[slipslidingaway]

4. Thanks TFC - knr n/t

[w8liftinglady]

5. wow-awesome-I've bookmarked it,too.

[RainDog]

6. excellent post

thank you.

[lunatica]

7. I had my misgivings before the election and pushed them aside in hope

This is depressing.

[Hawkowl]

8. Well done!

Spot on analysis.

[theaocp]

9. You are judged

by the company you keep. Q. E. D. Grrrrrrrreat post!

[Raster]

10. Many of us had hoped that Obama would be a President of the people, the President...

...we had all been waiting for. Unfortunately, it appears we will need to continue waiting.

[Raksha]

11. K & R, bookmarked

[chill_wind]

12. An excellent synthesis

of so many hard facts and realities. K & R.

[Amonester]

13. K&R

And asking "a distant echo" to "make me do it" after choosing a team of "expert bubble makers" that keep him in an un-palpable reality, to the point the now distant echo is stupidly told it should get drug tested, appears to be , if not ironic, quite surreal, isn't it!

If only there was a way around his bubble makers in order to communicate what we want to "make him do it" ... instead, we R stupidly and coldly told we need to get drug tested without any firm dismissal from the author of "The Audacity of" (so far).

[SammyWinstonJack]

44. +1

:thumbsup:

[bkozumplik]

14. well done. n/t

[RandomThoughts]

15. That distant echo is very hard to avoid.

part of the reason for issolation. It is very difficult to not absorb the mantra of those you are around.

The flattery and sense of being better is very seductive.


All you have to do is crack, and think you deserve, or some are suppose to be in power, and it is all over, and you have no perspective on reality.

It is so easy to fall to a delusion of split realities, or status quo.

Very easy, and it is comfortable also, gated communities exist for that reason, and for progressives to make a difference, people in those thoughts, mostly on islands and expensive estates need to be dragged back into the reality of the world.

They have to pay for wars with blood and treasure, and share in the suffering and joy of every other citizen.


I like this song when I think on expanding empathy circles.

TI Bring Em Out
http://www. youtube. com/watch?v=VuX_zwX3jPg

I really like TI :) yea...


You really want to do that :) Copy paste with space removal for link.

[whoopingcrone]

16. somehow we never asked...

"How come?" way back when the candidates were being selected for being nominated in the primaries.
As in "how come" our choice was between two highly-unlikely-to-win-in-the-general candidates?
Perhaps "they" knew it wouldn't matter whom "we" chose, since all "our" options could be relied on
to do "their" bidding where it mattered to "them".

[ThomCat]

17. A very damning summary of Obama's failure.

And so many people here still think he's some kind of hero who is accomplishing great things. They're too busy believing the Whitehouse PR to see what's really there. :(

[txlibdem]

18. Hard to change when everyone near you are the same

Perhaps when you have no opinion of your own and only parrot those around you it is easy to be led down the wrong path, especially when you have purposely surrounded yourself by the very people responsible for our national collapse.


This is not the "change" that I believed in. November = time for us to vote for Democrats, not conservative Republicons in Dems clothing.

[Overseas]

19. K&R! //nt

[Dr.Phool]

20. The first couple of paragraphs says it all. Campaign finance.

Back in 2004, I decided to run for Congress. I set some modest fundraising goals that I though would give me a fighting chance. No, even a modest goal was in the millions of dollars against an entrenched Republican incumbent.

Fundraising was slower than I would have liked, so I attended a private fundraiser for a Senate candidate, just in the hopes of meeting a lot of like-minded people around my district with a lot of money. I paid the "recommended" $500.00 donation to get in the door and meet these people.

What I met was a lot of people that I didn't really care to be around. Their attitudes and perceptions of the world weren't even close to mine. And this was for an event for a fairly progressive Senate candidate.

When the time came for final qualification, I evaluated the situation, including the fundraising, and what i would have to do to get the funds, I said "No thanks".

Two years later, I was working a friends Congressional campaign. I introduced him to a few of my bigger donors, who in turn introduced him to other donors. One was a lobbyist for Big Pharma. They told him in a roundabout way, "Drop this single-payer nonsense, and you'll get all the money you need". He declined. And lost.

[JDPriestly]

55. I used to do fundraising for a charitable project.

In the end, I found it was a degrading job. Being nice to a lot of control freaks who thought they were God's gift to the poor. They were not really concerned about the problems of the homeless people we served, much less what they could do for them. They just wanted to be recognized and to socialize with their peers. There were a few exceptions, but generally it was just depressing to meet these people who give out charity not out of concern for the people who will receive it but because it makes the donors look good, because here is another business venture that they can control. Disgusting.

[Time for change]

60. That's an incredible story -- and depressing

So, as someone who has been intimately involved with this, what do you see as a potential solution, or at least a constructive way of addressing the problem?

[Dr.Phool]

73. You have to have public financing of elections.

Sadly, to be a Congressman, you not only have to be a)Wealthy, b)Well connected, but c) a very effective telemarketer, because you're going to spend about 8 hours a day, on the phone, calling people you've never met, begging for campaign contributions. It's very demeaning.

Also, you go to Washington, and try to drum up support. The caste system is evident there. If you go to see a Senator, you meet with his Chief of Staff. The Senator is busy meeting with paying customers, er, uh, constituents. In the House, some are more accessible than others. Some, like Dennis Kucinich, Tammy Baldwin, Jan Schakowsky, will talk to you all day long. Even without an appointment. Some others won't give you the time of day.

And don't believe a word the DCCC tells you. Myself and others have spent a lot of time with them. They'll promise you the world, then stab you in the back, and never return your phone calls after that. I've seen that happen to more than one progressive candidates. Especially during the Harold Ford-Rahm Emmanuel regimes. Chris Van Hollen isn't looking any better.

You have got to get the money out of politics. Even in the House, the re-election season starts the day after the last election. Al Gore addressed it partly in the first chapter of his book, "The Assault on Reason". Fritz Hollings also addressed it in a "60 Minutes" interview a few years ago. He calculated what he would need to be re-elected in his next term. It boiled down to an average of nearly $10,000 per day, 7 days per week, to buy airtime. Where else are you going to get that kind of money? Prostituting yourself to rich people.

[fasttense]

21. If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch;

I think President Obama has lost the common touch.

A little Rudyard Kipling to explain it.

[KillCapitalism]

22. K&R

I've begun to refer to this as George W. Bush's 3rd term.

[OneGrassRoot]

23. K&R and bookmarked. n/t

[sagesnow]

24. Another K&R n/t

[bvar22]

25. Bookmarked for future reference.

:patriot:
K&R

I suggest that you submit a compilation of your work here to a publisher.


"If we don't fight hard enough for the things we stand for,
at some point we have to recognize that we don't really stand for them."
--- Paul Wellstone

[indepat]

26. The only Bush-era regulatory policies, other policies, and actions continued that were devastating

to America were each and every one, eos: having done so is inexplicably tantamount to a political death wish and possibly a death knell to this economy, the fiscal viability of the Federal government, the middle class, and the land of the free and home of the brave as we have known it. :P

[asdjrocky]

27. It's sad.

This administration, with all it's cronies, has pounded the death nail. Who would have thought it would come from those we thought were friends?

[sam sarrha]

28. the richest 1% hold 42% of financial wealth, 6 times that of the bottom 80% holds only 7%

http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html

"...This document presents details on the wealth and income distributions in the United States, and explains how we use these two distributions as power indicators.

Some of the information might be a surprise to many people. The most amazing numbers on income inequality come last, showing the change in the ratio of the average CEO's paycheck to that of the average factory worker over the past 40 years..."

[TBF]

30. Very important stats - should be an OP on their own. nt

[metapunditedgy]

31. And can we all finally admit that the super-wealthy do NOT work harder or better

than the rest of us?

If any politician has the guts to do it, calling the wealthy out on this point would get a lot of support from Main Street America. (But unfortunately, it's easier to pander to Wall Street for campaign funds.)

[sam sarrha]

37. they don't "Work", they skim and scam.. everything they do increases the cost of living with no

benefit to anyone else but them, they are nothing but Parasites.

we need a 95% tax on all wall street non value added speculation.. to fund green energy to eliminate fossil fuel as an energy source.. with the savings we might save the coming disasters brought by climate change... very soon everybody will be on their own, don't expect any help when distastes like what is happening in Pakistan starts happening regularly here. the ReThuglickers will want to balance the budget.. Katrina was made a disaster just as a dry run.. for the future

[LWolf]

29. Thank you for explaining this better than I am able to. nt

[orbitalman]

33. "....I became more like the wealthy donors that I met,..."

which is the attitude of ALL republican wannabees even if they're poor as church mice. :headbang: :banghead:

[HCE SuiGeneris]

34. Net recommendation: +100 votes (Your vote: +1)

[orbitalman]

35. The Crux of the entire problem...

Kuttner writes:

The Bush administration made the fateful decision to give primary relief to banks, not to homeowners. Obama continued the basic policy… The collapse in housing prices had wiped out at least $7 trillion of net worth of American families…

I remarked from the beginning that this was the main problem. The money doesn't trickle down, rather, it flows UP. Take care of the "bottom" and the money will flow all the way to the top. The reason this has been turned around is strictly GREED. And it is regressive.

[JDPriestly]

58. Many of us wrote our representatives in Congress suggesting that

they bail out homeowners, not banks. That was before we learned the full extent of the gambling on derivatives and how the criminals on Wall Street had suckered innocent parties like the government of Iceland, school districts and cities around the country and foreign banks into also gambling on the derivatives.

The underlying scheme was huge. It was fraud. It was the crime of the millennium. And Bush and Obama let these crooks get by with it because the participants were too many, too wealthy and too powerful to prosecute.

We will never fully recover from this crime. It as though our country, no actually, the world economy was beaten, raped and left for dead. And these same gambling crooks are alive and well and thriving on Wall Street.

[Enthusiast]

79. Nice one, JDPriestly.

I feel the same.

[orbitalman]

36. The Crux of the entire problem...

Kuttner writes:

The Bush administration made the fateful decision to give primary relief to banks, not to homeowners. Obama continued the basic policy… The collapse in housing prices had wiped out at least $7 trillion of net worth of American families…

I remarked from the beginning that this was the main problem. The money doesn't trickle down, rather, it flows UP. Take care of the "bottom" and the money will flow all the way to the top. The reason this has been turned around is strictly GREED. And it is regressive eventually even to THEM people.

Time 4 Change deserves a doctorate.

[Cal33]

38. So, Obama does not change his treasury advisers because

1. he is unwilling. 2. he is unable to do so because of complex circumstances. 3. He
is more to the right than a centrist. 4. None of the above, but something else.

[JDPriestly]

59. He is afraid for his family and friends. He has been brainwashed.

Also possible.

[Cal33]

64. Yes, quite possible. Also, in his eagerness to bend over

backwards in order to please the Republicans with the hopes of getting them
into a bi-partisanship deal, he has sacrificed the people of his own party
and repeatedly ignored their wishes and needs. He only succeeded in
alienating them.

It's impossible to appease the Neocon Republicans anyway. They continue to
treat him with insulting contempt. Obama should have realized by now that
Neocons would make poor partners - even if they had agreed to a bi-partisanship.
It is far safer to have them as open enemies. And now, his own people are also
angry at and disappointed in him.

At this point, I wonder if he is still capable of switching tactics.

I would still vote for the Dems. - not because I'm so crazy about the present
bunch of politicians, but because I think of them as the lesser of evils. I
don't think there's much of a choice. The demise of democracy in our country
is a real possibility.

[JDPriestly]

85. Obama needs to watch the movie, Mean Girls.

It is an excellent analysis of the psychology of mean girls -- especially the leaders among the mean girls.

Every girl who survived junior high and high school knows about mean girls.

Obama should watch that movie with his daughters. Both he and they would learn a lot. He would learn about the psychology of the Republicans, and they would learn what they need to know to survive the next few years.

[Cal33]

86. I haven't seen the movie either. But I'll keep an eye open for it

when it comes along.

[Enthusiast]

80. He has been threatened with

the death of his family. "Play along or the kids get it."

[Cal33]

87. You know, I've brought up the subject of threats to Obama, and

some members objected to it. I suppose they'd rather not talk about it, and hope
that nothing will happen -- like the proverbial ostrich's head in the sand.

[Enthusiast]

90. It really has me wondering. nt

[ThomCat]

66. They are the ones who will be setting him up with his millions

after he leaves office.

They are the gatekeepers, arranging his connections and primary contacts with the people who will make him wealthy for life after he leaves office.

If he stays on his knees now, Metaphorically fellating them and the other right people, he knows he's absolutely set for life.

[Cal33]

89. I think he is already "set up for life." Like Bill Clinton, he is a

captivating speaker. Also like Bill Clinton, he is much appreciated abroad. As an ex-president
Obama will be invited to speak all over the world. I've read that Clinton makes as much as
$250,000 per speech abroad, somewhat less at home. And think of the books he will be writing.

Obama will be doing well financially, regardless. That, I think, is not his problem. I keep
on hoping that he is a president who is really working for all of the American people, but it
is a difficult job with the Neocon Republicans putting up every obstacle imaginable to block
whatever he is doing -- and, he just might have some plan in mind to overcome this. It is
wishful thinking on my part, I know.

[Faygo Kid]

39. Very good, His backing of Alan Simpson is pretty much it for me.

I have defended and supported him for years, but the fact that he backs Simpson and his loading up of anti-Social Security and Medicare types to the catfood commission pretty much convinces me that progressives need to look elsewhere for leadership.

If Glenn Beck had criticized Simpson, Simpson would be gone. That's just the way it is, and I don't like it one bit.

[ocd liberal]

40. Thanks for reminding me

to finish reading "The Audacity of Hope."

Imagine: We once had a President who had not written a single thing.

[truedelphi]

41. Good post. May I add in that one of Obama's promises while

Running for the Presidency was that he would end NAFTA?

But instead, immediately after being elected, Obama chose Rahm Emanuel as his Chief of Staff.

And Rahm had been the major architect of the legal aspects of NAFTA.

[me b zola]

42. K&R

[Richard Steele]

43. K&R

[gulliver]

45. "Just as Obama’s appointment of the Social Security hater Alan Simpson to the cat food commission"

That quote dramatically weakens your piece. I didn't check for other weaknesses. If you got rid of that quote and other such tendentiousness, you would have a stronger, more serious article.

I admire your effort quite a bit though. I have nothing against putting pressure on Obama and the Dems. Also, I like your conclusion that the "story isn't over." You stop short of providing realistic alternative story lines, however. But one thing shared by all realistic story lines where liberals get their way is that we must win elections.

[earth mom]

49. Wrong! Taking that statement out would weaken the piece.

Let's have the truth, not some carefully crafted version of it.

Frankly, it sounds like you could give a damn about what happens to Social Security.

[gulliver]

50. Actually, I am planning on needing Social Security. That's why...

...it scares me that many of our Dems seem to want to lay down and die and let the GOP take charge. To me, that's not giving a damn about Social Security in spades.

[rhett o rick]

62. The OP is an excellent piece but you apparently found a weakness. Shessh.

How nice that you "didnt check for other weaknesses."

[gulliver]

75. It's a big weakness.

The first thing I look for in a big, quote- and link-laden OP is signs of problems. I won't read them if I know I'm going to get halfway through a half an hour of reading only to find something that ruins the whole thing. So, I look for things like absurdly tendentious/specious quotes against Obama or the Dems. The "cat food commission" line labels this piece as biased and dubious. There is no need to read more. I actually feel pretty bad for the poster.

If you were interviewing a nanny and she seemed great in every respect, you would get your hopes up. But then she tells you she only sniffs glue while the kids are napping to protect them from the fumes. It really doesn't matter what she said before or after that.

In the poster's defense, he/she may have been trying to ingratiate him/herself to a certain clique of highly unhappy people--maybe to avoid being unrecc'ed or for "solidarity" (ironically). I just think that is a mistake if that is the case. It really mars the result.

[rhett o rick]

91. I appreciate your taking the time to write me a reasonable response. However,

I think it unreasonable to expect a passionate writer to totally exclude bias from his/her writing. The OP IMO is trying to make a point and it is a biased point. He apparently objects to seeing our seniors getting screwed over. I happen to support that bias.

I am guessing that if the OP had used the name, "The National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform Committee", you would only have found another reason to dismiss the article.

And think your analogy should go more like this: "If you were interviewing a nanny and she seemed great in every respect, you would get your hopes up. But then she tells you she 'is a liberal'. It really doesn't matter what she said before or after that."

Since you havent said, do you think anything good will come from the The National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform Committee?

[earth mom]

46. A total win win situation for Obama & his cronies.

Meanwhile jobs are nowhere to be found

and

food pantries can't handle the onslaught

and

Social Security...the last hope we all have to hang on to is on the chopping block! :argh:


Hate to say I told ya'll so but some of us did try to warn everyone and few listened...

[Desertrose]

47. K&R. Thanks ...excellent explanation!

[maryf]

48. K&R

Well thought out and written, hope you didn't just post this here!

[lildreamer316]

51. INcredible, well written and researched post. Thank you.

Bookmarked for future argument reference :)

[DeSwiss]

52. An excellent post. - K&R!

And an excellent analysis of how we ended up where we are now -- bereft of hope. And I do not foresee a way to rectify matters under the current system.

"The reality is that institutional establishments, institutions of codified thought, and institutions of societal influence and power, meaning philosophies, dogmas on one hand and corporations and governments on the other, each have a high propensity to engage in denial, dishonesty, and corruption to maintain self-preservation and self-perpetuation. The result is a continuous culture lag where social progress by way of incorporating new socially-helpful scientific advancements is constantly inhibited. It is like walking through a brick wall as the established power orthodoxies continue to perpetuate themselves for their own interests and comforts." ~ Peter Joseph

[kentuck]

53. Excellent synopsis...

and most sad...

Because I see the hijacking of the Democratic Party. If you want to remain a Democrat, then you must support the corporate bailouts and the supremacy of Wall Street over Main Street. It is not an easy decision.

[bertman]

83. I used to feel that way, kentuck, but no longer. My vote goes to

ANY candidate who supports Progressive policies that work for the working classes, and for those candidates only--Democrat, Green, Independent, Socialist. Democrats who behave like Republicans will not get my vote. Period.

The threat of the spectre of Republicans winning another election has no power over me. I feel like they won the last one.

Of course, it took me 39 years to break the habit of voting only for Democrats and I did it reluctantly, but I don't regret it one iota.

[JDPriestly]

54. Thanks, Time for a Change.

I wholeheartedly agree. k&r once again. This is excellent.

[G_j]

56. well done

excellent post

[zeemike]

57. I have felt for some time that we do not own the government.

That is the property of the profoundly wealthy and they use it to own us.
This first came to mind when I heard President Carter tell an interviewer that ask what surprised him the most about being president and he said "I was surprised by how little power I had"
Carter was also put in a bubble but he had the moral integrity to realize it and recognize it for what it was.
And because he was moral they destroyed him and at the same time cleaned up in the financial sector by jacking up interest rates....the one thing these one per-centers know how to do is make money while destroying any competition.

The way I see it is that there is only one way out of this mess....and that is a reveloution...a velvet one that starves the beast and at the same time builds a new society right along side the crumbling one.
But without leadership it will never happen....and they know that and do their best to keep us apart and ignorant....they use their money to co opt any progressive organization that gets big enough to be a threat. and sense they own the media it is simple.

[inna]

61. Top 10 DU posts of all time AFAIC.

[rhett o rick]

63. Ditto AFAIC. NM

[kentuck]

71. Definitely up there.

:thumbsup:

[Dystopian]

65. KandR

Thank you. Excellent piece. Unlike you, I didn't research.
I listened to his words...I was caught up in the madness...the hope of change.
I cried tears of joy when he was elected...
Now a shadow hangs over us all....so very sad.



peace~

[Time for change]

74. Thank you -- I was very happy when he was elected too

I put my doubts about him behind me, hoping that he would be a good president. Though he was to the right of the candidates that I most wanted (Kucinich, Edwards), if he only would have kept his campaign promises we would be much better off than we now are.

[Duval]

67. K&R SIGH n/t

[Swamp Rat]

68. Obama is running out of time if he is going to turn things around

[sam sarrha]

69. he is trying not to piss of the Oligharcy Elite... so nothing will get done,

[RandomThoughts]

70. I am making sure they know they are not elite.

They are deltas on the factory line.

And that pisses them off when they realize that.

Not my doing, I didn't agree to what they did.


But they will pay.

[defendandprotect]

72. Thanks TFC .... we need to keep reviewing and reminding ourselves of what went down....

from Obama's very first steps as a president-elect --

From where I sit, this looks like TPB knew that Americans were not going to vote

for any Repug -- and turned lemons into lemonade in using Obama -- a man of color --

to create a double disconnect in voters mind -- first, that they would fail to sufficiently

question whether they would be betrayed by a Democratic president -- and second, that they

would fail to question whether they would be betrayed by a man whose own people had been

exploited by TPB -- and were still being exploited.

I, too, was hesitant over Obama -- feeling very ill at ease over what I thought was an

overly idealistic rush to this candidate's side. I was also very concerned about DLC/Hillary.

Obviously, the choices we should have been making were neither of the two. But, the confidence

here at DU was so strong for Obama, that I decided I would vote for him because my instincts

and decision making aren't perfect either.

AND, MAINLY BECAUSE I can't go anywhere else until all Democrats wake up and decide to do

something different. I'm still waiting. People here are waking up -- most of them now

"get it." And they're looking for a way to move on, with other Democrats and with other

ideas on how to move the party to the left.

But, now we're up for four years of Obama damage which is following 8 years of Bush damage --

and right wing destruction of government has taken a heavy toll -- their ducks are fairly

well lined up . . . public education, Social Security, Medicare, ending the Middle Class.


There are TWO old lessons that DU'ers absolutely have to come to understand . . .

First -- that TPB/elites have been buying government for 40 years and more -- bribing our

elected officials, essentially. And, that includes the Democratic party and our elected

Democrats and Democratic candidates -- including the president -- and presidential candidates.

Any decisions about the future have to be based on a total and complete

understanding of that reality.

Second -- We need to take to heart the lesson which former Supreme Court Justice Thurgood

Marshall tried to teach us as he was retiring and most of us wondered if Poppy Bush would

would honor his seat as a "black" seat . . .

Thurgood Marshall said:

"The color of a snake doesn't matter. What matters is whether or not the snake bites!"

That lesson, of course, also holds true for women.

Many of us remember the shock following the nomination of Clarence Thomas who was rated

barely qualified by the ABA -- and the ABA was immediately sidelined from having their opinions

sought, offered, or considered in future! Clarence Thomas would seem an undo-able candidate --

even his own friends made clear that he was obsessed with pornography and regularly made

vulgar sexual comments. Later, Thomas was called a "Judas" by members of his own race.

The man who is now VP worked slyly and discreetly to put Clarence Thomas - a known pervert on

our Supreme Court.

The Lieberman VP spot was certainly an attempt to create a Trojan Horse -- had Gore won we

would have had a religious fanatic in the VP spot -- and Gore, of course, holds a degree in

theology. Did Gore not know who this man was?

What all of this says is that the "change" that is needed is really a CHANGE in the thinking

of voters -- there is still too much trust in government -- too much trust in two political

parties which are under the control of TPB/corporations.

[hay rick]

76. K&R

[Omaha Steve]

77. K&R!

[sabrina 1]

78. Since I began reading this excellent post

it appears to have received 20 unrecs.

I just gave it one back. I can only say that I guess the truth is painful, but it should never be hidden.

Great OP, very detailed and well worth reading every word.

:kick: and rec'd

[Enthusiast]

81. K&R nt

[wakemewhenitsover]

82. I believe Rebublicans these days would declare any Democratic President...

..."the most liberal yet", as a means to move the meaning of "liberal" closer and closer to "conservative". Sadly, I agree with your assessment that Obama may be "the most conservative Democratic president our country seen since the 19th Century."

[bertman]

84. A big REC and KICK for this one. nt

[sendero]

88. With respect to the economy....

.. the deal is ALREADY DONE. The US economy is DEAD COUNTRY WALKING and at this point there is nothing Obama or anyone else can do about it.

The window of opportunity to actually accomplish something with regards to unwinding the failed banks was admittedly small, but Obama didn't even look at it as far as I can tell.

So, the game now is to try to make the crash and it's resulting squeeze on most Americans happen as slowly as possible. I don't even think Obama will do a good job at that.