A Scary Corporate Coup Is Under Way -- We've Got to Stop It | Democracy and Elections | AlterNet.
The White House executed a nifty two-step this week to re-educate the public and deflect anger. On Tuesday, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner relaunched the massive bailout of banking and finance. Knowing how unpopular this is with the people at large, Geithner followed on Thursday with his "sweeping" plans to re-regulate the bankers and financiers.
Whenever official plans are called "sweeping," it indicates that they really, really mean it this time.
Most Americans are not financial experts. It's very difficult, nearly impossible, for normal mortals to sort through the dense policy talk and conflicting opinions to figure out if the rhetoric of reform is real.
Confusion is widespread in the land. Most Americans want to believe this president is leading us out of the swamp, but how can they know? I say, trust your gut feelings. They are as reliable as the learned experts.’
Many Americans want to believe because they think that returning to "normal" means their decimated 401(k) retirement accounts might somehow recover the 30-40 percent that disappeared during the past year. If it takes monster bank bailouts to restore stock-market prices, let's have bailouts.
Good luck with that.
The Dow has regained 21 percent in two weeks of rallies, but I remind friends that steep, short bursts in the stock market do not foretell the future of the economy. Banks may be relieved of their losses without changing the general economic outlook. After the crash of 1929, there were occasional stock rallies, followed by fierce bears. It took 25 years (until 1954) for the Dow to regain its old peak.
Another way to assess the Obama plan for reform is ask: Who likes it? The verdict was swift and sure after Geithner's twin announcements. Wall Street likes it.
The blueprint for regulatory reforms was applauded by the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association; the American Insurance Association; and the Private Equity Council, the trade group for the major private funds that will get public money and backup insurance to buy the banking system's rotten assets.
This could be born-again patriotism. Or it could be the animal appetites of financiers smelling gorgeous opportunity for returns. This may be one of those moments where people can find some guidance from their moral convictions. They do not need to know all the details to ask simple questions.
Does the outline of what's happening to rescue major financial institutions seem morally wrong? Or is it justified by the larger necessities of the national predicament? Is the government insufficiently tough in demanding reciprocal commitments from the beneficiaries? Should Washington pursue larger structural changes in the banking system?
Most Americans are not financial experts. It's very difficult, nearly impossible, for normal mortals to sort through the dense policy talk and conflicting opinions to figure out if the rhetoric of reform is real.
Confusion is widespread in the land. Most Americans want to believe this president is leading us out of the swamp, but how can they know? I say, trust your gut feelings. They are as reliable as the learned experts.’
Many Americans want to believe because they think that returning to "normal" means their decimated 401(k) retirement accounts might somehow recover the 30-40 percent that disappeared during the past year. If it takes monster bank bailouts to restore stock-market prices, let's have bailouts.
Good luck with that.
The Dow has regained 21 percent in two weeks of rallies, but I remind friends that steep, short bursts in the stock market do not foretell the future of the economy. Banks may be relieved of their losses without changing the general economic outlook. After the crash of 1929, there were occasional stock rallies, followed by fierce bears. It took 25 years (until 1954) for the Dow to regain its old peak.
Another way to assess the Obama plan for reform is ask: Who likes it? The verdict was swift and sure after Geithner's twin announcements. Wall Street likes it.
The blueprint for regulatory reforms was applauded by the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association; the American Insurance Association; and the Private Equity Council, the trade group for the major private funds that will get public money and backup insurance to buy the banking system's rotten assets.
This could be born-again patriotism. Or it could be the animal appetites of financiers smelling gorgeous opportunity for returns. This may be one of those moments where people can find some guidance from their moral convictions. They do not need to know all the details to ask simple questions.
Does the outline of what's happening to rescue major financial institutions seem morally wrong? Or is it justified by the larger necessities of the national predicament? Is the government insufficiently tough in demanding reciprocal commitments from the beneficiaries? Should Washington pursue larger structural changes in the banking system?
I find it curious, and not a little disturbing, that William Greider takes in this article what is fundamentally a Bush approach: know it in your gut. It's interesting as a response to the delineation of a zone of unknowability--the fiscal crisis--as a way of restoring some kind of power to the people. And, this isn't new in the history of mass democracy, although elites tend to find it disturbing, just one step toward mob rule.
Hi Jodi
I usually like Greider but I do not by the bs that we should "trust our gut." This does not have to be seen as a morality play in order for most people to understand what is going on. And I am with the "elites" who see mass trusting of guts with mob rule and fascism. As you point out, many people's gut agreed with George W's when it came to the "war on terror" and "fighting them over there so we do not have to fight them here." You didn't have to be a policy wonk, or a leftist, to look at the facts - you just had to have an open mind and a suspension of trusting your gut in a moment of mass fear after 9/11.
Many have said that what we are experiencing may be an "economic 9/11." If this is so, Obama could use it and do the massive restructuring necessary to put the US economy on more solid footing. This is not really as complicated as the media, or the ruling elite, want us to think it is.
Posted by: Alain | March 31, 2009 at 10:48 AM