Comments (0)

By jdb, November 11, 2009

I don’t mean to advocate blind acceptance of the situation. Only a calm objectivity. If you’ve got a patient on the table and his guts are spilling on the floor, it’s not the time to think about curing the underlying disease or giving him lessons in nutrition. You’ve got to sew him up so he doesn’t die. That’s the priority.

When the Bush administration first approached the financial crisis, they were going to buy the bad assets – but I think it was too late for that. What they ended up doing was swallowing a bitter ideological pill and just giving the banks some money. That scares the hell out of me, not because I think they were rewarding their friends for being dipshits or whatever, but because the money that wasn’t used to acquire banks that were basically dead outright was needed as operating capital. It got them through Christmas, and hopefully through the bottom of the financial markets. What that says to me is that those banks were weeks away from complete collapse.

So I think the bailout was 100 percent necessary, and nothing would get done in terms of reform if it hadn’t happened. You can’t re-engineer jack shit if you’re broke, and a good chunk of the third world is one hundred percent dependent on those banks being solvent. Famine, anyone? The entire world is intertwined with those banks. I don’t think I’m overstating the case when I say that, given how interdependent and ‘globalized’ we are now, if there is deep depression in this country, then there are parts of the world that would experience famine and plague. I say do whatever we have to do. I don’t care whose fault it is, all hands on deck! There is a hole in the boat and we can worry about shouting matches later. It might not be the boat I want to be in but that doesn’t mean I want it to sink.

Without the bailout money, Wachovia would have gone under, and let me tell you it would have cost a lot more to fix that one! All that FDIC insured money, you see. I don’t give a piss about some fat cats bonus, it’s a drop in the bucket, and if you have to prime an engine to keep it going so be it. I’d rather have a different engine but that’s the kind of thing you have to build first then put in, especially if you need the thing to work.

Speaking of engines, I think the ‘bailout’ of the auto industry is necessary even though it preserves the status quo – a drawback that people are rightly upset about – because right now our industrial capacity is only half used, and if the gov. didn’t step in and buy big chunks of it, it wouldn’t be there later. If our transport network even hiccups we’re pretty much screwed. Even if other nations were able to buy a lot of it up, I’m not sure that’s a good spot to be in. I think it’s for the same reason we subsidize grain and basic foods – and other countries do as well. You don’t want to get into a situation where you have to import all of your food.

But I digress. Now that patient, the economy, is stabilized, it’s time to set up a program for healing. Unfortunately, I think there are some people in Congress who are far more aware what the situation calls for then we are, and they are playing politics and fueling populist anger in order to grab for their lost power – regardless of what is best for the country. I think this is more than gauche, this is dangerous. Because they are opposing the kind of regulation that will keep the system they are attached to from failing completely in the future.

I’d like to see regulations that make it more profitable for banks to be smaller, help small banks out, that prise apart consumer and investment banks more permanantly this time so Republicans can’t mess it up. I’d like to see a new international currency system that limits trading. Maybe an international standard for Alex Jones to get an ulcer about. Hopefully 10 or 12 years down the road we can have a more sustainable system, more able to withstand shock. Over time, it could be reshaped and no one has to shoot anyone else or go hungry.

Comments (0)

By jdb, October 12, 2009

Random things I wrote responding to the following, instead of just talking to the screen:

http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/10092009/watch.html

The framework for the financial crisis was created by members of Congress who worked tirelessly to deregulate the financial industry, not a president or treasury secretary. That is the legal framework in which the bailout happened and the government has to follow the law like everyone else. Now that the worst of the crisis is over, it’s time to demand that Congress pass appropriate regulations. The progressive House is no problem, but Wall Street still holds a lot of sway with the conservatives in the Senate.

I’m actaully Ok with the treasurer ‘being on the phone’ literally or metaphorically with the financial industry every day – becuase they are the people who finance the government and the entire economy – from health care to transportation to college loans. Does that mean the president dances when they say so? I imagine the relationship between banks and government is as complex as it’s always been so I’m reluctant to take the populist view. The legal framework under which Wall Street operates is created in Congress and honestly if it weren’t for the Republicans in the Senate this would all be ancient history.

The reason that the fat cats got to keep their bonuses etc., is becuase the white house found out it would be illegal to make those demands, they would have lost a court case (probably in the Supreme Court) and it would have taken years for the whole thing to go through. Much easier to suffer the hue and cry of the populace and address the issue in the regualtion legislation, which both houses of Congress are supposed to start on after Health Care – Moyer’s programs are always a little bit ahead of the Congressional schedule. What I hope is that when the legislation starts to work it’s way out of committee things like this help to build momentum behind regulation.

To Moyers and his distinguished guests, how has the opportunity for reform passed? What does this fellow who participates in economic policy at the global level have to gain from spreading FUD? What is his idea for real reform? Do you really think that fanning this populist fire is going to help the Democratic agenda in any way, left, right, or indifferent?

Comments (0)

By jdb, September 25, 2009

Obama gave a nice speech at the UN the other day. I enjoyed it like I enjoy all of his speeches. But I kept watching the feed from the UN after he left – and ‘got to’ see Colonel Muammar Gaddafi’s follow up speech. It was a laugh riot, if ‘long and crazy’ is funny. First, I learned that JFK was assassinated by Israel. MLK too I bet. Then, I learned that US troops were systematically butt raping POW’s. Really? I think there are a lot of orders that grunts will follow blindly, but that’s not one of them. Continue reading 'Gaddafi Brings Baggage to United Nations Speech'»

Comments (0)

By jdb, September 22, 2009

Here is Obama on Letterman, further explaining his centrist policies.

Why does Obama seem to be pandering to the right on health care issues, when we have majority and both houses and plenty of public support? Continue reading 'Obama Maintains Centrist Message on Letterman'»

Comments (0)

By jdb, September 19, 2009

So, we normalize trade with totalitarian China but keep restrictions on the far more liberalized Russia? It makes no sense. How could we make such a clamor about their economy being westernized all those years ago and not tear down OUR wall?

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5i0xBv8YQwWSZqAQgjd42RCvU1uEAD9APM6E00

Comments (0)

By jdb, September 12, 2009

 http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-capitol-rally13-2009sep13,0,5742055.story

Just like the hippies got radical and protested the rise of crimnality and racism under the Republicans, now that the right is out of power, the wingnut racists and haters are protesting the return of American values and reason. Continue reading 'Right Wing In Flames'»

Comments (0)

By jdb, August 31, 2009

There’s been much ado about the trials of Al Qaeda leaders in the wake of the decision to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay. Personally, I’m not sure why we’re making a fuss about it. If what we’re talking about is trying the upper echelons of Al Qaeda, and I think there’s only a half dozen or so head villains any of this applies to, not even the rank and file, I personally don’t see the need to do anything except what we did to the Nazi’s. A military tribunal and, if I had my way, life in prison instead of execution. But if they aren’t POWs then a military tribunal is probably inappropriate. I wonder if there isn’t some international precedent which covers this.

Comments (0)

By jdb, August 31, 2009

I watch the Republicans in Congress arguing against health reform, and I see the problem arguing against the solution. I think most people in the country do support health reform, according to polls, they support single payer, they support the ‘public option’. The House of Representatives reflects that. The Senate is different, each state gets two senators regardless of population. So the battle there isn’t about the will of the people, it’s about the will of the government. The polls lately have focused on how satisfied people are with Obama’s performance on health care – instead of the health care issue itself – and the thing is, half the liberals don’t think he’s doing enough, so his numbers are down. I don’t think the approval numbers reflect an opposition to a public plan or health care reform.

Actually, what bothers me the most is that we were promised ‘universal health care’ and because of the losers in the Senate the dialogue has changed to ‘affordable coverage’. Insurance is not health care.

Comments (0)

By jdb, August 31, 2009

I pray to the great gods of the hive mind, and entreat my friends and relations, please don’t send me any more fucking Alex Jones links. If you do, make sure you say it comes from the diseased mouth of Alex Jones at the top and spare me the trouble of reading it. The only thing I can think of that’s more unreliable, misleading and just plain goofy than Rev. Moon’s Washington Times is ‘Infowars’.

Alex Jones is the man whose frothy mouthed followers videotaped a train yard that had barbed wire around it and Alex etc. claimed that the ‘new world order’ run by bankers was going to put us all in internment camps. A little research on their part might have revealed that federal prisoners are transported on trains and by law they need to be let out to walk around. Thus the barbed wire. But you can’t have a website and stand up in front of people and shout about the actual, real world, you need a mass hallucination to be really popular.

His conspiracy world-view is a very simple iconography that bears striking resemblance to antizionist garbage from the first half of the century, with any reference to race removed and replaced with other words. Middle class white people are terrified right now, they’ve signed away their wealth, they are losing their demographic power, and they are taking out their frustrations on all sorts of targets. The ‘federal reserve is taking over the planet’ religion is gaining traction, and those people finally found a TV camera they could shout at.

Comments (0)

By jdb, August 7, 2009

I’ve been watching a senate committee discussing the plight of the US post office, which is in fairly dire straits because of the recession. Republican Sen. Coburn has brought forward an amendment that takes the loss out of the hides of the USPS employees – which would lead to further losses because they’d be understaffed. The really interesting thing to me is, most of the shortfall has to do with how they account for pensions – I’m not sure I have all the facts, but from what I can tell, a few years ago a Republican congress made them account for future pensions now, instead of when they actually pay them. I think that is enough to essentially break the bank. It’s a favorite tactic of Republicans to break something so they can point to it and say it’s broken, let’s get rid of it, how can government possibly do anything anyway? On the face of it, this is is an ideological act – but if you watch a lot of them interact as people over a period of time, I think it reveals a racist and classist predisposition, a permanent anger, fitting an ideology born as a reaction against politically organized labor and the civil rights movement. Which, I think, is why they are all so angry now, from the Senators to the schils in the street – they lost their fight. Their world view is turned on it’s head and they are powerless to do much of anything about it.

Regardless, we need a post office. We need to know that pieces of paper and boxes are going to keep going from one place to another whether or not someone is going out of business. We need to make sure we have that ability even if foreign companies buy private carriers. We need it in case we go to war, in case our electronic infrastructure is crippled (much easier to do than it is to stop a nationwide fleet of guys in trucks) and we need it in case someone sends something they don’t want someone else to be able to read. It doesn’t matter if it is inefficient, it doesn’t matter if it loses money, we need it.

Man, Republicans are stupid.