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Forum Post: for mr r k gates

Posted 11 years ago on Aug. 28, 2012, 6:41 a.m. EST by flip (7101)
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Obama, Austerity, and Change We Really Can Believe In

Jack Gerson

BARACK OBAMA TOOK OFFICE three years ago on a euphoric wave of aspirations. Tens of millions in the United States and around the world pinned their hopes on this brilliant campaigner who promised "Change we can believe in" and proclaimed, "Yes we can!" In "Where Will Obama Go?" (New Politics, January 2009), I argued that a cursory look at Obama’s economic and foreign policy transition teams should have been sufficient to dampen the euphoria, since he was relying on the same individuals who had presided over the neoliberal policies of the preceding three decades, policies designed to increase profitability at the expense of the standard of living and institutions of the working class. In the United States, these policies were jump-started in 1979 by Jimmy Carter’s Federal Reserve chair, Paul Volcker. In 1979 Volcker pronounced, "The American standard of living must decline" as he ordered the "Volcker shock," monetary policy designed to reduce inflation and restore corporate profitability. The result was a worldwide recession in the early 1980s, which did indeed hurt American workers, but had a far harsher effect on Mexico (where it led to the 1982 collapse of the peso) and elsewhere in the Third World. Life-long Democrat Volcker praised Ronald Reagan’s union-busting as key to restoring profitability: After Reagan broke the Professional Air Traffic Controllers union (PATCO) in 1981, Volcker said "The most important single action of the administration in helping the anti-inflation fight was defeating the air traffic controllers’ strike". In 2008, shortly after his election, Obama named Paul Volcker to his economic transition team. Leading that team were Bill Clinton’s two Treasury Secretaries, Robert Rubin and Lawrence Summers. This pair, along with then-Federal Reserve chair Alan Greenspan, were architects of the deregulation that eventually blew up the financial markets in fall, 2008. They supported the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act and pushed through the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000, which included a blanket ban on government regulation of derivatives (in the process they conspired to destroy the career of Commodities Futures Trading Commission head Brooksley Bourne for warning that unregulated derivatives speculation would blow up the world financial system). If there is anything remarkable about Obama’s economic policy of the past three years, it is how much in line it has been with his Democratic presidential predecessors of the past thirty years. Obama’s prioritization of the financial industry and corporate profitability did not break new ground, but rather was continuing on the path of Carter, Clinton, and the New Democratic Coalition. However, when he first took office, Obama promised to make good on his campaign pledges for sweeping change. In his inaugural address, Obama proclaimed, "The state of our economy calls for action, bold and swift. And we will act not only to create new jobs but also to lay a foundation for growth. We will build the roads and bridges, the electric grids and digital lines that feed our commerce and bind us together." But Obama’s administration followed a far different path. Not long after taking office, he appointed a bipartisan deficit commission (the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility) packed with deficit hawks and co-chaired by Social Security "reformers" Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles. [This commission predictably issued a report in December 2010 calling for increasing the Social Security eligibility age, scaling back Social Security cost of living increases, and — less predictably but outrageously — reducing personal and corporate tax rates for the highest brackets.] Still more ominously, Obama appointed a protégé of Rubin and Summers, Timothy Geithner, to be Secretary of the Treasury. Geithner, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, had done the bidding of the big Wall Street banks during the subprime crisis and financial market panic of 2008. As detailed in recent books by Robert Scheer[1] and on Ron Suskind[2], he has faithfully transmitted and lobbied for the financial industry’s directives inside the Obama Administration. And, with his help, the financial services industry has committed highway robbery. Three years ago, amid the near-meltdown of the world financial system following the collapse of the housing bubble, it was evident that the big banks and Wall Street brokerages were responsible for the crisis. Yet now, Wall Street, politicians, and the media insist that public workers and public services caused this debt, and that there’s just no alternative to harsh austerity cuts to public programs and to the jobs, wages, and benefits of public workers. Overall, the global financial services industry was handed a bailout exceeding $20 trillion.[3] The U.S. government alone disbursed $16 trillion of that amount.[4] Nearly $2 trillion has not been repaid. Two trillion dollars just happens to be the estimated cumulative total of all U.S state and municipal debts.[5] No wonder York University political economist David McNally says that Wall Street has taken its private debt and transformed it into public debt: In short, the bad bank debt that triggered the crisis in 2008 never went away — it was simply shifted on to governments. Private debt became public debt. And as the dimensions of that metamorphosis became apparent in 2010, the bank crisis morphed into a sovereign debt crisis. Put differently, the economic crisis of 2008-9 did not really end. It simply changed form. It mutated. With that mutation, the focus of ruling classes shifted toward a war against public services. Concerned to rein in government debts, they announced an age of austerity — of huge cuts to pensions, education budgets, social welfare programs, public sector wages, and jobs. In doing so, they effectively declared that working people and the poor would pay the cost of the global bank bailout.[6]

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[-] 1 points by BradB (2693) from Washington, DC 11 years ago

?????? >>>> "Geithner, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, had done the bidding of the big Wall Street banks during the subprime crisis and financial market panic of 2008. ..."

Why do we keep blaming the Fed for what Wall St did ?????

Am I missing something ???

We SHOULD be Blaming the SEC & the corrupt banks for what Wall St did ....

Am I missing something ???

[-] 1 points by frogmanofborneo (602) from New York, NY 11 years ago

I told him. Look how obliging he was.

Obama, Austerity, and Change We Really Can Believe In

Jack Gerson

Winter 2012 Vol:XIII-4 Whole #: 52 Printer-friendly version Send to friend

Barack Obama took office three years ago on a euphoric wave of aspirations. Tens of millions in the United States and around the world pinned their hopes on this brilliant campaigner who promised "Change we can believe in" and proclaimed, "Yes we can!" In "Where Will Obama Go?" (New Politics, January 2009), I argued that a cursory look at Obama’s economic and foreign policy transition teams should have been sufficient to dampen the euphoria, since he was relying on the same individuals who had presided over the neoliberal policies of the preceding three decades, policies designed to increase profitability at the expense of the standard of living and institutions of the working class.

  In the United States, these policies were jump-started in 1979 by Jimmy Carter’s Federal Reserve chair, Paul Volcker. In 1979 Volcker pronounced, "The American standard of living must decline" as he ordered the "Volcker shock," monetary policy designed to reduce inflation and restore corporate profitability. The result was a worldwide recession in the early 1980s, which did indeed hurt American workers, but had a far harsher effect on Mexico (where it led to the 1982 collapse of the peso) and elsewhere in the Third World. Life-long Democrat Volcker praised Ronald Reagan’s union-busting as key to restoring profitability: After Reagan broke the Professional Air Traffic Controllers union (PATCO) in 1981, Volcker said "The most important single action of the administration in helping the anti-inflation fight was defeating the air traffic controllers’ strike".


  In 2008, shortly after his election, Obama named Paul Volcker to his economic transition team. Leading that team were Bill Clinton’s two Treasury Secretaries, Robert Rubin and Lawrence Summers. This pair, along with then-Federal Reserve chair Alan Greenspan, were architects of the deregulation that eventually blew up the financial markets in fall, 2008. They supported the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act and pushed through the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000, which included a blanket ban on government regulation of derivatives (in the process they conspired to destroy the career of Commodities Futures Trading Commission head Brooksley Bourne for warning that unregulated derivatives speculation would blow up the world financial system).


  If there is anything remarkable about Obama’s economic policy of the past three years, it is how much in line it has been with his Democratic presidential predecessors of the past thirty years. Obama’s prioritization of the financial industry and corporate profitability did not break new ground, but rather was continuing on the path of Carter, Clinton, and the New Democratic Coalition.


  However, when he first took office, Obama promised to make good on his campaign pledges for sweeping change. In his inaugural address, Obama proclaimed, "The state of our economy calls for action, bold and swift. And we will act not only to create new jobs but also to lay a foundation for growth. We will build the roads and bridges, the electric grids and digital lines that feed our commerce and bind us together."


  But Obama’s administration followed a far different path.


  Not long after taking office, he appointed a bipartisan deficit commission (the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility) packed with deficit hawks and co-chaired by Social Security "reformers" Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles. [This commission predictably issued a report in December 2010 calling for increasing the Social Security eligibility age, scaling back Social Security cost of living increases, and — less predictably but outrageously — reducing personal and corporate tax rates for the highest brackets.]

  Still more ominously, Obama appointed a protégé of Rubin and Summers, Timothy Geithner, to be Secretary of the Treasury. Geithner, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, had done the bidding of the big Wall Street banks during the subprime crisis and financial market panic of 2008. As detailed in recent books by Robert Scheer[1] and on Ron Suskind[2], he has faithfully transmitted and lobbied for the financial industry’s directives inside the Obama Administration. And, with his help, the financial services industry has committed highway robbery.


  Three years ago, amid the near-meltdown of the world financial system following the collapse of the housing bubble, it was evident that the big banks and Wall Street brokerages were responsible for the crisis. Yet now, Wall Street, politicians, and the media insist that public workers and public services caused this debt, and that there’s just no alternative to harsh austerity cuts to public programs and to the jobs, wages, and benefits of public workers.


  Overall, the global financial services industry was handed a bailout exceeding $20 trillion.[3] The U.S. government alone disbursed $16 trillion of that amount.[4] Nearly $2 trillion has not been repaid. Two trillion dollars just happens to be the estimated cumulative total of all U.S state and municipal debts.[5] No wonder York University political economist David McNally says that Wall Street has taken its private debt and transformed it into public debt:

In short, the bad bank debt that triggered the crisis in 2008 never went away — it was simply shifted on to governments. Private debt became public debt. And as the dimensions of that metamorphosis became apparent in 2010, the bank crisis morphed into a sovereign debt crisis. Put differently, the economic crisis of 2008-9 did not really end. It simply changed form. It mutated.

With that mutation, the focus of ruling classes shifted toward a war against public services. Concerned to rein in government debts, they announced an age of austerity — of huge cuts to pensions, education budgets, social welfare programs, public sector wages, and jobs. In doing so, they effectively declared that working people and the poor would pay the cost of the global bank bailout.[6]

 [Greece is an extreme example of this process. The deal being shoved down the throats of the Greek working class is sacrificing the well being of current and future generations of Greek workers and youth to shore up the holdings of French, Belgian, and German banks. Italy is next in line in this process. The more austere the cuts imposed on a country, the more the country’s economy contracts, and therefore the larger the deficit grows. Greece has already gone through several rounds of austerity, and each one has merely increased the deficit it was supposed to reduce.]


  The United States is farther from the precipice than the southern European nations. Even so, austerity has exacted a grim toll:
[-] 1 points by flip (7101) 11 years ago

very nice job

[-] 1 points by frogmanofborneo (602) from New York, NY 11 years ago

try paragraphs they make a post more inviting

[-] 1 points by flip (7101) 11 years ago

you will have to tell that to jack - i didn't write the piece.

[-] 0 points by funkytown (-374) 11 years ago

Well, that's about the truth of it... and the full story, to the casual observer, appears even worse - Obama is owned in every sense of the word. And a perpetual liar.

[-] 0 points by Lucky1 (-125) from Wray, CO 11 years ago

Nobel Peace Prize... For what?

[-] 1 points by TrevorMnemonic (5827) 11 years ago

For bombing 6 countries. It's 2012. War is for peace now in American eyes.

[+] -4 points by electron (-492) 11 years ago

Obama this, Obama that

[-] 2 points by flip (7101) 11 years ago

thoughtful but i was more focused on the "american standard of living must decline" by mr volker

[-] 1 points by flip (7101) 11 years ago

The Fed is supposed to minimize unemployment as well as inflation, and before 1979, it tried to achieve some sort of balance between the two goals. But under Volcker and his successor, Alan Greenspan, it's simply aimed for low inflation, regardless of the effect that has on jobs. In fact, Greenspan has asked Congress to relieve the Fed of responsibility for keeping unemployment down. Inflation was high when Volcker took over-13% or so. To get it under control, he tightened the money supply. This brought on a monster recession, the biggest since World War II. Within a year, the prime rate shot up to the unheard-of level of 21.5% (compared to an average of 7.6% for the fourteen previous years). Unemployment peaked at just under 11%. According to author Robert Sherrill, Volcker stated, upon taking office, that "the standard of living for the average American has to decline." Sherrill says Volcker was recommended by David Rockefeller because "Wall Street and the international banking fraternity loved [Volcker]. They hated inflation-bankers don't like to be repaid in money that is softer than the money they lend, even if the softer money makes the economy hum-and they knew that Volcker was mean enough to destroy the economy to save the hardness of their dollars."