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Ya-ta Boy
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Established in 1994
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 Posted: Wed Jun 01, 2011 1:37 pm Post subject: |
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| Indeed, but what a ridiculous point to even be arguing. Wall St. banksters are so far up the backsides of BOTH parties, it is ludicrous to even debate "Who's worse?" |
In a black and white world, that would be true. So yes, a pox on both their houses, but give me chicken pox over small pox. |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Wed Jun 01, 2011 1:54 pm Post subject: |
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| Menino80 wrote: |
Wall Street, despite their track record, usually tries to back winning horses. Ergo Obama support in 2008 (2:1) and increased GOP support in 2010 (almost 50%, not a majority but still a major shift).
It's not like all of the sudden their ideologies shifted, esp. after the Dems bailed them out with billions in free cash. Really if it were the case that the Dems were in bed, the money ratio would have stayed the same from Jan 2009, but that's not the case. |
Who's saying it has anything to do with ideology? Power corrupts.
But the truth hurts mainline Democrats because history shows that FEDERAL power is traditionally captured by corporate interests, the very corporate interests Democrats (naively) hope to restrain with increasing Federal power.
But far worse than even campaign contributions are the revolving doors.
Peter Orszag, ex-White House Budget Director joins Citigroup
You know, I actually liked Peter, too. But if we're going to talk about Obama personally, we can't say that the system ate him. He never put up a fight.
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�Just look at the timeline of the Citigroup deal," says one leading Democratic consultant. "Just look at it. It�s fucking amazing. Amazing! And nobody said a thing about it."
Barack Obama was still just the president-elect when it happened, but the revolting and inexcusable $306 billion bailout that Citigroup received was the first major act of his presidency. In order to grasp the full horror of what took place, however, one needs to go back a few weeks before the actual bailout � to November 5th, 2008, the day after Obama�s election.
That was the day the jubilant Obama campaign announced its transition team. Though many of the names were familiar � former Bill Clinton chief of staff John Podesta, long-time Obama confidante Valerie Jarrett � the list was most notable for who was not on it, especially on the economic side. Austan Goolsbee, a University of Chicago economist who had served as one of Obama�s chief advisers during the campaign, didn�t make the cut. Neither did Karen Kornbluh, who had served as Obama�s policy director and was instrumental in crafting the Democratic Party�s platform. Both had emphasized populist themes during the campaign: Kornbluh was known for pushing Democrats to focus on the plight of the poor and middle class, while Goolsbee was an aggressive critic of Wall Street, declaring that AIG executives should receive "a Nobel Prize � for evil."
But come November 5th, both were banished from Obama�s inner circle � and replaced with a group of Wall Street bankers. Leading the search for the president�s new economic team was his close friend and Harvard Law classmate Michael Froman, a high-ranking executive at Citigroup. During the campaign, Froman had emerged as one of Obama�s biggest fundraisers, bundling $200,000 in contributions and introducing the candidate to a host of heavy hitters � chief among them his mentor Bob Rubin, the former co-chairman of Goldman Sachs who served as Treasury secretary under Bill Clinton. Froman had served as chief of staff to Rubin at Treasury, and had followed his boss when Rubin left the Clinton administration to serve as a senior counselor to Citigroup (a massive new financial conglomerate created by deregulatory moves pushed through by Rubin himself).
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Froman brought in none other than Jamie Rubin, a former Clinton diplomat who happens to be Bob Rubin�s son. At the time, Jamie�s dad was still earning roughly $15 million a year working for Citigroup, which was in the midst of a collapse brought on in part because Rubin had pushed the bank to invest heavily in mortgage-backed CDOs and other risky instruments.
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So on November 23rd, 2008, a deal is announced in which the government will bail out Rubin�s messes at Citigroup with a massive buffet of taxpayer-funded cash and guarantees. It is a terrible deal for the government, almost universally panned by all serious economists, an outrage to anyone who pays taxes. Under the deal, the bank gets $20 billion in cash, on top of the $25 billion it had already received just weeks before as part of the Troubled Asset Relief Program. But that�s just the appetizer. The government also agrees to charge taxpayers for up to $277 billion in losses on troubled Citi assets, many of them those toxic CDOs that Rubin had pushed Citi to invest in. No Citi executives are replaced, and few restrictions are placed on their compensation. It�s the sweetheart deal of the century, putting generations of working-stiff taxpayers on the hook to pay off Bob Rubin�s [frak]-up-rich tenure at Citi.
It is bad enough that one of Bob Rubin�s former prot�g�s from the Clinton years, the New York Fed chief Geithner, is intimately involved in the negotiations, which unsurprisingly leave the Federal Reserve massively exposed to future Citi losses. But the real stunner comes only hours after the bailout deal is struck, when the Obama transition team makes a cheerful announcement: Timothy Geithner is going to be Barack Obama�s Treasury secretary!
Geithner, in other words, is hired to head the U.S. Treasury by an executive from Citigroup � Michael Froman � before the ink is even dry on a massive government giveaway to Citigroup that Geithner himself was instrumental in delivering. In the annals of brazen political swindles, this one has to go in the all-time [Frak]-the-Optics Hall of Fame.
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Go ahead, Ya-Ta. Tell me how bad the Republicans are. Who knows, maybe I'll vote Green party in 2012 instead. |
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sirius black
Joined: 04 Jun 2010
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| Posted: Wed Jun 01, 2011 2:57 pm Post subject: |
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The country is in desperate need of either a 3rd party with integrity or a maverick, truly independent within either party who can garner popular support.
The Tea Party failed almost as soon as it started by being a proxy party. Ron Paul is the closest either party has of a maverick on a national level. On the other side of the political spectrum is Ralph Nader. You may not agree with his ideology but he has integrity.
There are pols out there though who seems to have unimpeachable integrity. One of my favorites is Jersey City mayor Cory Booker. Google him.
Integrity counts a whole lot for me. I may not agree with some candidate on all things but if they have integrity and are honest at least I know they won't be corrupted by the powers that be. What is particularly disappointing about Obama was that one would think coming from a background of community activism, he'd have held out a bit longer to be influenced by the power structure.
Overall and collectively as a group its the fault of the American people for the mess the country is in. Despite our civil liberties being eroded slowly over time, we still have the right to vote (for now) and not enough are either knowledge enough or care enough to demand the changes that should be done. In the end a people gets the government they deserve. |
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Menino80
Joined: 10 Jun 2007
Location: Hodor?
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| Posted: Wed Jun 01, 2011 3:35 pm Post subject: |
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| I think your average voter doesn't want integrity, at least when it comes to their state or federal reps. They want their pork, and they don't care how bloody their reps hands need to get in order to deliver it. |
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sirius black
Joined: 04 Jun 2010
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| Posted: Wed Jun 01, 2011 6:20 pm Post subject: |
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| Menino80 wrote: |
| I think your average voter doesn't want integrity, at least when it comes to their state or federal reps. They want their pork, and they don't care how bloody their reps hands need to get in order to deliver it. |
If that's true, then we can only blame ourselves collectively as I said. I think the average voter/American is spoiled. They want their pork but also want the government to clean up its act and think its mutually exclusive. |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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