'Wall Street, for example, is in “a state of bitter, seething, hysterical fury”toward the president'

[Pirate Smile]

The Old Enemies

By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: May 23, 2010

So here’s how it is: They’re as mad as hell, and they’re not going to take this anymore. Am I talking about the Tea Partiers? No, I’m talking about the corporations.
Much reporting on opposition to the Obama administration portrays it as a sort of populist uprising. Yet the antics of the socialism-and-death-panels crowd are only part of the story of anti-Obamaism, and arguably the less important part. If you really want to know what’s going on, watch the corporations.

-snip-
These are extraordinary numbers given the normal tendency of corporate money to flow to the party in power. Corporate America, however, really, truly hates the current administration. Wall Street, for example, is in “a state of bitter, seething, hysterical fury” toward the president, writes John Heilemann of New York magazine. What’s going on?
One answer is taxes — not so much on corporations themselves as on the people who run them. The Obama administration plans to raise tax rates on upper brackets back to Clinton-era levels. Furthermore, health reform will in part be paid for with surtaxes on high-income individuals. All this will amount to a significant financial hit to C.E.O.’s, investment bankers and other masters of the universe.

Now, don’t cry for these people: they’ll still be doing extremely well, and by and large they’ll be paying little more as a percentage of their income than they did in the 1990s. Yet the fact that the tax increases they’re facing are reasonable doesn’t stop them from being very, very angry.
Nor are taxes the whole story.
Many Obama supporters have been disappointed by what they see as the administration’s mildness on regulatory issues — its embrace of limited financial reform that doesn’t break up the biggest banks, its support for offshore drilling, and so on. Yet corporate interests are balking at even modest changes from the permissiveness of the Bush era.

-snip-
So what President Obama and his party now face isn’t just, or even mainly, an opposition grounded in right-wing populism. For grass-roots anger is being channeled and exploited by corporate interests, which will be the big winners if the G.O.P. does well in November.
If this sounds familiar, it should: it’s the same formula the right has been using for a generation. Use identity politics to whip up the base; then, when the election is over, give priority to the concerns of your corporate donors. Run as the candidate of “real Americans,” not those soft-on-terror East coast liberals; then, once you’ve won, declare that you have a mandate to privatize Social Security. It comes as no surprise to learn that American Crossroads, a new organization whose goal is to deploy large amounts of corporate cash on behalf of Republican candidates, is the brainchild of none other than Karl Rove.

But won’t the grass-roots rebel at being used? Don’t count on it. Last week Rand Paul, the Tea Party darling who is now the Republican nominee for senator from Kentucky, declared that the president’s criticism of BP over the disastrous oil spill in the gulf is “un-American,” that “sometimes accidents happen.” The mood on the right may be populist, but it’s a kind of populism that’s remarkably sympathetic to big corporations.

So where does that leave the president and his party? Mr. Obama wanted to transcend partisanship. Instead, however, he finds himself very much in the position Franklin Roosevelt described in a famous 1936 speech, struggling with “the old enemies of peace — business and financial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, sectionalism, war profiteering.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/24/opinion/24krugman.html?src=twr

People doing everything they can to destroy this President are playing right into the hands of Rove and the Corporations. I'm sure they really appreciate all the assists they've been getting this weekend.

[RandomThoughts]

1. What are they angry at.

People trying to correct problems that have been going on for to long, or are they angry at seeing the ramifications of their own actions and what that will mean for them, especially if they continue.

Personally if they get angry that is their problem, I do not consider their claim to have any power to be accurate or argued, so they have no power to make social legislation.

Furthermore, their claim to have anything is marginal at best, so that has to be considered when looking at where they will end up.

If they have an argument they would not be angry. And if they get angry, they only direct it at their own actions.

Peace and love is a better feeling.


With no self claim, nor belief in the metaphoric doctrine in that exact clip, every person can put a cape on for better ideas and to work for better effects through best intents.

Greates American Hero.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9Q3orQhEcA

[DJ13]

2. Their "crying wolf"

I doubt McCain would have been as supportive of the corporations as Obama has been.

And they know it, but they've long had it as standard policy to scream how badly their being treated knowing it makes an administration (no matter the party) give them even more to soothe over their phony hurt feelings.

[Pirate Smile]

4. They thank you for your support.

[DJ13]

12. My post was far from support for the corporations

If you didnt get so defensive for Obama you might have seen that.

[Pirate Smile]

13. I've seen it all day and all over the place. You guys are doing your best to weaken the President

and the real effect it will have is to help Republicans and those Corporations.

[Cha]

46. Not Gonna Happen.

"weaken the Prez"..:)

[rockymountaindem]

5. "I doubt McCain would have been as supportive of the corporations as Obama has been."

Where the heck do you get that idea?

[Pirate Smile]

8. Probably listening to the crap spewed against Obama on a lot of left-leaning

websites.

As usual, we eat our own and form our own firing squads. It is all over the place right now. People aren't defending Obama against RW critics. A lot are pushing the same BS.

[SemiCharmedQuark]

19. Straight out of "they're" butt.

[Jennicut]

14. McCain was the one of the young Rethug leaders for Reagan's "revolution".

Do you not know anything about the man? He was for Reagan's deregulations long before Bush and Cheney got into office. Where do people come up with these ideas?

[SemiCharmedQuark]

18. Wow, that's way out of the orbit of reality

Please support that with voting records.

[Donnachaidh]

40. they are helping to set up the voting sheep for the next election.

See -- we're really, really, REALLY mad at Obama because he's being MEAN to us! You should know that middle class America! He's a big meanie that is looking to be re-elected so REMEMBER -- he's being MEAN to US -- the villains who tanked the economy. Yeah -- that's right. He's forcing REFORM on us -- reform that does little (if anything) to stop us from tanking the economy AGAIN.


So you have to vote for him AGAIN, so he can keep being mean to us some more.


Bread and circuses. It's all planned out in advance.

[Arkana]

51. You're...you're kidding, right?

Really? McCain, the guy who brought in Princess Oil Slick as his VP nominee, opposes financial regulation in any form, etc.

You think Obama is a better friend to corporations than McCain would have been?

...can I have a hit of whatever you're smoking?

[stevenleser]

53. From the reactions, am quite pleased I have that one on ignored, whoever it is n/t

[catrose]

3. K&R

[depakid]

6. And yet the administration has let one after another off the hook

for violations of federal law. Indeed, in terms of holding corporate criminals and public officials accountable, this administration ranks up there with among the worst in history.

Go figure.

[Name removed]

22. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[depakid]

25. I mean really, go figure- these are just the facts of the matter

Banksters, fraudsters and for crying out loud- food poisoners like Peanut Corp (with mountains of evidence against them) are allowed to walk away scot free, despite having stolen billions- or in the case Peanut Corp's executives and managers, knowingly spreading contaminated products that killed 9 people.

And these corporate CEO's are "writhing in hatred" or Obama? That's just bizarro world.

In addition though- and this is much more important than any retribution angle- failure to reestablish the rule of law and accountability (both legally and politically) not only fails to deter but actively encourages the sort of climate that leads to BP style disasters (along with various other degrees of corrupt and fraudulent behavior).

Not to mention torture....

[boppers]

27. History FAIL.

"Indeed, in terms of holding corporate criminals and public officials accountable, this administration ranks up there with among the worst in history."

Did NCLB really fuck up the schools that bad?

People really think that the current administration "ranks up there", compared to the railroad barons? 1800's land grabs? Teapot dome?

Jeebus.

Here, since your history teachers apparently SUCKED:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Political_scandals_in_the_United_States

edit: remove emoticon in link

[depakid]

30. That ranks up there with the biggest laugh of a post I've seen in a while-

Denialism, cluelesness -coupled with a "snark" attack on anyone who dares to raise an honest criticism of their leader.

Since it seems that you either weren't alive (or cognizant) during the period, here's some excerpts that lay out what has (and has not) occurred:

The financial crisis has spawned hundreds of criminal prosecutions for alleged fraud. Yet so far, defendants have been mostly minor players such as real-estate agents, mortgage brokers, borrowers and a few low-level bank employees. No senior executives at large financial institutions face criminal charges.

That’s in stark contrast to prosecutions during the savings and loan scandal two decades ago, when the government’s strategy targeted and snagged some of banking's most powerful players. The approach back then succeeded in sending scores of S&L executives to prison, as well as junk-bond king Michael Milken and business tycoon Charles Keating Jr.

One explanation for the difference may be that key bank regulators – who did the detective work during the S&L crisis and sent more than 1,000 criminal referrals to prosecutors – have this time left reporting fraud up to the banks themselves.

Spokesmen for two chief regulators, the Comptroller of the Currency and the Office of Thrift Supervision, say that they have not sent prosecutors a single case for criminal prosecution.

An OTS spokesman said the agency, much like the banks themselves, does not see much evidence of criminal fraud inside the financial institutions. The spokesman, Bill Ruberry, citing the agency’s enforcement director, said, “There may be some isolated cases, but certainly there’s no widespread patterns.”

That surprises William K. Black, a former OTS official who helped coordinate criminal investigations during the S&L crisis.

“Dear God,” Black said when told bank regulators haven’t made any criminal referrals. “Not a single one?”

Black sees many signs the the government is less aggressive than during the S&L era – and could result in more bad behavior.

“This crisis was not bad luck," he said. "It was done to us. When you bring those convictions, you hope that at least for a while to deter.”

Banks have reported massive amounts of fraud to the Treasury Department but have not held themselves – or their top executives – responsible, instead pinning blame on borrowers, independent mortgage brokers, and others.

That may account for the dearth of prosecutions against big fry.

More: http://huffpostfund.org/stories/2010/05/too-big-jail#ixzz0opSbnxP7

Along with thousands of prosecutions- for a set of events many magnitudes smaller and less destructive than the latest, there was also this "little deal" called the Resolution Tryst Corp, which liquidated and resolved interests in almost 759 thrifts- with major financial consequences to the players.

More on how all that worked from wiki.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resolution_Trust_Corporation

(The lesson here of course is that if one's going to shill and attack, it pays to know what one is talking about).

[boppers]

32. See #28.

Do you want punishment (GOP) or actual solutions (DNC)?

If your want folks to go to jail, great.

Own it.

If you want the problem *fixed*, don't pretend that jail will fix it.

[depakid]

39. Accountability and deterrence help to solve a great many problems

just as the lack thereof creates and encourages many more of them.

[bluestateguy]

7. Here's FDR's Madison Square Garden speech from October 1936

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BksTHQo8Q78

I for one would welcome the analogy, and I hope President Obama does too. FDR carried 46 out of 48 states in 1936.

[Pirate Smile]

10. That was four years into FDR's Administration. We are 16 months into the Obama Administration.

I can certainly see that happening during the 2012 election. He certainly wont be campaigning on bridging the partisan divide or overcoming it. He'll have to make it clear why that didn't happen even though he wanted it to and it was part of what he ran on in 08'. He will have to make it perfectly clear who is to blame for that and that it isn't him. Because of those circumstances, I can see him pivoting more toward FDR's 36' type of campaign.

Reminds me of this comment by Harry Reid: "When I came here we had -- Republicans and Democrats worked together," Reid said. "But we can't dance if your partner is unwilling to get off the chair. It's like when I was in high school. Um, I wanted to dance but she wouldn't get up, okay?"

[patrice]

9. This is why folks need to be thinking several moves ahead about this President, while

moving definitely Left in local politics.

Wherever you are as a Democrat or as an Independent, why! why! why! play into the hands of those who are destroying America by taking their side against President Obama.

[Pirate Smile]

11. They'll say Obama = Bush so it doesn't matter. It always amazes me to hear

that after we had 8 unbelievably horrible years of Bush - which followed a campaign of Gore = Bush so it doesn't matter who wins.

People are already saying idiotic crap about how it doesn't matter who the President is - 16 friggin months since the Bush Administration. That just blows my mind - especially since we got Roberts and Alito because of Bush which equaled a hard swing to the right by the Supreme Court.

After the hysteria of this weekend, I wouldn't count on folks ever thinking several moves ahead.

I certainly appreciate the fact that you do though. :)

[depakid]

20. Actually, in terms of accountability for banskters and fraudsters, Bush I had a far better record

in the aftermath of the S&L debacle.

Sad but true.

[boppers]

28. Bush "lost" the money (oops!), and sent folks to jail.

Obama got the money back, with interest, without sending folks to jail.

I suppose one's stance depends on whether or not a person supports corporate jails over, oh, getting the money back.

P.S.: Thanks for pointing out where your support lies.

[depakid]

31. ???

You do realize that bit of babble made no sense whatsoever (except perhaps that facts be damned when they don't support Obama über alles).

[depakid]

21. Dupe

[patrice]

24. Yeah, this place is starting to turn even me off and I've been through 2 primary seasons here.

I think more than just a few people around here are drunk on the kind of power that comes from mass hysteria.

Yes, things ARE just as bad as they appear to be, but the worse things are the more necessary it is to be clear about what your priorities are and there's something sooooo self-indulgent about freaking out.

[uponit7771]

36. Don't think those folk are REAL progressives IMHO

[depakid]

42. Sounds more like some folks are in denial

or having difficulty dealing with a bit of cognitive dissonance.

[girl gone mad]

47. Obama has sided against us, time and time again.

Despite the spin in this thread, the fact remains that Obama handed trillions of taxpayer dollars over to Wall Street so they wouldn't have to pay any price for the fallout resulting from their fraudulent, criminal activities.

The fact remains that Obama appointed a cadre of Wall Street insiders to run the Federal reserve, the Treasury department, and to set his economic agenda.

The fact remains that Obama sent his own COS out to undermine and weaken financial reform, all but guaranteeing the banks will not be broken up, Wall Street will be free to continue business as usual, and the Fed will not face the kind of serious audit the Senate wanted.

The fact remains Obama is no friend of the people, ignoring our pleas for real reform and criminal prosecution, ignoring our pleas to force cramdowns, pre-privatize failed banks, put money into the real economy instead of the casino economy, focus on jobs and for god's sake cut the chains that big finance has tethered us with.

Obama chose a different path. He listened to Robert Rubin and Larry Summers and he rescued the greedy elites at the expense of everybody else. These fools have turned what should have been merely a bank solvency crisis into something much more dangerous and damaging to the country long term.

Sorry, this guy is not on my side or on yours, unless you count yourself among the top 1%.

[neverforget]

15. FDR said he welcomed their hatred.

[Blue_Tires]

16. fuck 'em

next time they burn down the forest playing the markets and have the stones to ask for help, i'll encourage them all to jump...

[struggle4progress]

17. knr

[babylonsister]

23. Kick and thanks! I love smart posts and they've been lacking. nt

[FrenchieCat]

26. I don't even want Obama running for another term.

I think we deserve a Republican crazy Tea-party President.
That way we can all whine and holler every fucking day at the top of our lungs,
as the shit hits the fan so hard, any glimmer of even being listened a teeny tiny bit
will be a long ago far away fantasy. Citizens United was made legal for just that purpose,
and some who don't know they mouth from their assholes will have to live with their miscalculation...
kind of like that race in Hawaii.....but in our case, it won't be till just November.

[boppers]

29. I think it's akin to battered spouses syndrome.

If Obama isn't solving everything with dumb, harsh, violence, it must be because "he doesn't love us anymore".

If Obama isn't sending SEALs to arrest BP execs, he's bad.
If Obama isn't throwing prior executive staff into jail willy-nilly, he's bad.
If Obama isn't forcing <whatever> to happen in spite of existing law, he's bad.

It's as if people have become so used to an abusive executive that they're upset when they finally have a president who *isn't* abusive.

[ShortnFiery]

33. Congratulations, you have these complex problems all figured out in benefit of the Executive Branch.

:(

[Arkana]

52. It seems the concept of the unitary executive, which was quite unpopular during Bush,

has become the new fad for DUers under Obama.

[uponit7771]

35. Yeap, whiny ass'd people would rather complain than work for a more progressive congress.

[uponit7771]

34. ROPE A DOPE /sarcasm

[NJmaverick]

37. K & R!

[scheming daemons]

38. there are many disruptors and "sleeper cell" trolls coming out on du lately

they pretend to attack Obama from the left in order to spread FUD (fear, uncertainty, and doubt) among Liberals and Progressives on sites like this.

A lot of the bashing of Obama on this site is so over the top, so extremely "from the left" as to be a parody, that it is clearly part of a FUD campaign.

It is the other side of the astroturf coin.... Pretend to be a progressive and attack Obama from that angle.

Gullible progressives then get sucked in to the criticisms.

I can name names, but you better believe it that my message would deleted.

;-)

[rudy23]

44. Is this the new strategy from the corporate astroturfers? Claim "the left" is funded?

Good luck with that. The "center" is a LITTLE more well funded than those you like to bash on "the left."

[scheming daemons]

48. There is no "center" in American politics anymore

And I'd put you in the "gullible" camp... you're not one of the FUD-spreaders that the GOP uses on sites like this.


You're just gullible and buy into the FUD they're spreading.

[Nancy Waterman]

41. Best Krugman ever

K&R

[donco6]

43. So, what Obama should see from this, I hope, -

is that there's no need to produce soft-pedaled changes to tax rates and regulations. They're going to HATE HIM even for PROPOSING such things. He might as well go for the whole ball of wax - I mean "bitter, seething, hysterical fury"? How much worse could it get? And so far, he's only proffered mild reforms! What, will their heads explode if he goes back to Pre-Reagan era tax rates? Maybe that would solve the problem altogether.

[vaberella]

54. Clarification, Congress shouldn't. But it means nothing b/c Congress does all the editing.

I don't understand why these are always directed to the President. He's not the Legislative division of the government. He doesn't make or vote on laws. So we should be directing this at a really weak Congress who are in Wall Street and Pharmaceutical pockets.

[Obamaknowzz]

45. Theatrics. What better way to keep your agenda intact....

than attacking those who are suppose to be change agents, but are really just soothsayers.

It is just a way of getting people to think: "Well gosh, Obama must be doing something right (for the people) if Wall Street is mad at him."

What a crock. The legislation passed is not going to stop another crisis and that means big profits for the banks in the next gouge. The American Public are looking more favorably on Obama, though he hasn't done anything to prevent another crisis. THAT is the thing that must not be forgotten.

[Phx_Dem]

49. Right back at ya Wall Street. The feeling's mutual.

It's always amusing when the "criminals" get outraged at the cops for busting them.

[TheKentuckian]

50. It is sad how Krugman's call for Obama to take the spoiled brats on

has been spun on this board both as Krugman shilling for the good old boys and passive action from Obama and way, way, way worse those somehow reconfiguring Krugman's Op-Ed into some kind of "proof" that Obama isn't overly focused on the concerns of the rich and powerful or that his policies too often stack in the advantage of the largest corporations, banks, and insurers among others because they are kicking and screaming about what Krugman says less coarsely, a bunch of petty, nothing, greedhead bullshit.

"The Obama administration plans to raise tax rates on upper brackets back to Clinton-era levels. Furthermore, health reform will in part be paid for with surtaxes on high-income individuals. All this will amount to a significant financial hit to C.E.O.’s, investment bankers and other masters of the universe.

Now, don’t cry for these people: they’ll still be doing extremely well, and by and large they’ll be paying little more as a percentage of their income than they did in the 1990s. Yet the fact that the tax increases they’re facing are reasonable doesn’t stop them from being very, very angry."



"So where does that leave the president and his party? Mr. Obama wanted to transcend partisanship. Instead, however, he finds himself very much in the position Franklin Roosevelt described in a famous 1936 speech, struggling with “the old enemies of peace — business and financial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, sectionalism, war profiteering.”

"And that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Roosevelt turned corporate opposition into a badge of honor: “I welcome their hatred,” he declared. It’s time for President Obama to find his inner F.D.R., and do the same.



http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/24/opinion/24krugman.html?src=twr

Krugman is saying take Verruca Salt, Augustus Gloop, Violet Beauregard, and Mike TeeVee and beat their spoiled rotten little asses beet red. They have been terribly behaved and overindulged to the point of extending kindness into cruelty. Krugman says that these miscreants refuse the most moderate corrections and are in a raging tantrum not that Obama is breaking their balls.

In fact, he is saying clearly that basically their hatred is irrational and stupid behavior of boorish children who he seems to hope and encourage and adult to administer some long overdue and much deserved discipline.

Hell, I think Krugman is way closer to telling Obama to tell the big boys that he'll give 'em something to cry about than anything else in this column. Some people either can't read or want to use name recognition and trust to push an agenda in the hopes that most folks won't bother more than to read the excerpts and poster commentary.