David Sirota: Fool me Once

[alarimer]

The veto is the legislative equivalent of a nuclear warhead—a rarely used instrument of devastating force that singularly vaporizes the votes of 535 elected representatives. So when a president-elect issues a veto threat before being sworn into office, it sets off a particularly big explosion because it is a deliberate agenda-setting edict about priorities for the next four years.

That’s why every American who isn’t a financial industry executive should be nervous.

After President Bush this week asked Congress to release the bank bailout fund’s remaining $350 billion, Obama pledged to veto any bill rejecting the request, meaning he is beginning his presidency not by “turn the page on policies that have put the greed and irresponsibility of Wall Street before the hard work and sacrifice of folks on Main Street,” as he once pledged. Instead, he is promising a mushroom cloud unless lawmakers let taxpayer cash continue to flow to the biggest of Big Money interests.

Amid paeans to “new politics,” we’re watching old-school paybacks from a politician who raised more Wall Street dough than any other—a president-to-be whose inauguration festivities are being underwritten by the very bankers who are benefiting from the bailout largesse. Safely distanced from electoral pressure, Obama has appointed conservative economists to top White House positions; floated a tax cut for banks; and is now trying to preserve corporate welfare that almost exclusively benefits the political donor class.

More

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20090115_fool_me_once/

I think he makes some very important points. It seems like the same people who got us into this mess are going to be in charge of it. Very disheartening for the candidate of "change".

[saracat]

1. This worries me.A lot.

[Avalux]

2. I am wondering too - how people entrenched in the current mess can put forth reform.

I think it's too much to ask; corporations run this country and THAT isn't going to change. It sucks.

[yurbud]

3. my letter to senators:

I was very disappointed to read that you voted to release the remaining Wall Street bailout money without restrictions on how it will be spent, especially restrictions that would funnel that money away from Wall St. and into programs that will actually help average Americans.

Given how Wall St. spent the first half of the bailout on mergers, lavish executive bonuses and parties, rather than giving them more money, you should be making a criminal referral to arrest them for fraud, investigating Henry Paulson and the Bush White House for RICO charges, and trying to get the first half of that money BACK.

During the Bush years, it became painfully obvious that most politicians in DC, including a big chunk Democrats, couldn't care less about average Americans so long as their corporate donors and future corporate employers were happy.

The only silver lining to this betrayal of the working and middle class would be if you used this bailout as a reason to ignore any Republican or Wall Street calls to cut programs for the rest of us or vote against Obama's recovery plan. Now that you have given a blank check to wealthy, you can hardly refuse the people whose votes you theoretically need to stay in office.

[kristopher]

4. I used to ahve respect for Sirota, but no longer.

He has been doing nothing but stirring up shit on this bail out. He has absolutely no basis for his bitching except the observation that there is no specific accounting of the money being used to keep the financial industry from total failure. The fact is there can be no specific accounting of the money because it is being used as cash reserves to back the possibility of large scale loan defaults. That means it goes into a general, large pool of money that is used to continue normal operations.

Buying other banks is not a sign that this money is being misused either. The question that needs to be examined to determine if this is misuse is whether the purchase of other financial institutions places the assets of either or both institutions in a stronger or weaker position vis a vis their liquidity requirements and their loan portfolios. Sirota makes no attempt to actually bring light to the issue, rather he just uses it as an excuse for mindless bitching that is getting him a lot of name and face recognition.

He's a prick to be using a real crisis in this manner IMO.

[alarimer]

5. He is absolutely right on.

There is no fucking accountability! NONE. The fat cat millionaires who brought this crisis on ARE GETTING AWAY with it. They belong in jail. No money from the taxpayers unless they there is accountability for where it goes.

[classysassy]

6. Are

you a banker?.

[kristopher]

9. No I'm not.

I'm a researcher on carbon free energy solutions.

[acmavm]

27. No, he's a pathetic little whiner who, when faced with an opposing opinion

posts something as ignorant and juvenile as this:

<snip>

You're cutting your nose off to spite that ugly face.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=103&topic_id=417019&mesg_id=417301

What a schmuck.

[chill_wind]

8. Sirota has been consistent

about the Bush Treasury conflicts of interest and Wall Street, going all the way back to the disgusting Paulson nomination-rubberstamp-fest and before that. He isn't "using" this crisis--
He predicted it. Long ago, while most of the Paulson-fawning Dem "Leadership" and Main Street USA was still fast asleep. Or pretending to be.

[kristopher]

10. Sure he is.

If he were actually interested in where the money is, instead of just grabbing attention, he'd be telling you the same thing I wrote in my first post above; tracking the bailout money is like tracking a a specific 10 gallons of water you pour into 100 gallon tank. When you take water out, what water are you removing.

This was pretty widely discussed in the early days of the bailout but the headline grabbers (not just Sirota, but he's one of the worst) decided it was sexier to stir the shit pot and play off the anger that financial uncertainty brings.

It is as despicable now as when they used fear of terrorism to stoke people into a lynch mob mentality.

[acmavm]

12. So, you're saying there's NO WAY to track this money? Well isn't that

something? Can't keep track? That's funny.

[kristopher]

13. Let me be clear

I don't think it was the best way to use the money and it does lend itself to abuse - something I can't imagine not happening in anything the Bushies are involved in.

However, the basic idea was workable and the need for the intervention was great. I trust Obama's involvement as an assurance of the need and the general strategy. Are you saying you don't?

[acmavm]

15. Hell no I don't. I was, am, and always will be against this fraud. This was

a raid on the public treasury. And to give that money out with no oversight and no demands for accountability after the fact just shows what a boondoggle it is.

[kristopher]

16. You're cutting your nose off to spite that ugly face.

[acmavm]

17. My face is 'ugly'? How would you know? And aren't you the mature one?

This has been a rip-off from the get go. And since you decided to call me ugly let me ask, is that because you feel threatened? Maybe you have some insecurities in certain areas that make you act like a juvenile asshole when faced with an opposing opinion? Maybe counseling will bring you up to a third grade level on the maturity scale.

[kristopher]

20. I visialized you from your words.

You just want to hate someone and be angry; you don't care if there is actual cause or not. That, my friend, is the kind of ugliness that is bone deep.

[acmavm]

21. Whatta guy! Whatta intelligent answer! Everyone who has an opinion

that doesn't run along with the way you see things is ugly? And they're haters?

Wow! What a DEEP thinker you are.

I've always imagined that DU had its own Basement Brigade just like the site that shalt not be mentioned. Now I know it.

[alarimer]

28. We need to call the Obama administration on similar conflicts of interests.

What Sirota is talking about is nothing new, of course. Every single administration has sucked up to the financial sector. It's a constant revolving door. Personally, I was (and still am, though more doubtful) that change meant change in this area as well.

[glitch]

11. Stirring up shit is how you get sewage cleaned.

All part of the process, that is if you want to clean up the mess.

[kristopher]

14. No it isn't.

We all know Bush fucked everything up. Sirota is visiting Bush's failures on Obama and making it much harder for him to take action.
The only interests this idiotic demand for "accountability" serves is the Republicans as they build up to 2010. Accountability is an essential component of good government. But what is being "demanded" isn't a route to gaining accountability, it is a political power play aided by a god awful bad press corp looking for a headline. We got the accountability we wanted when we elected Obama. WE have to trust him at least until he has been in office for a couple of hours, don't you think?

[chill_wind]

18. Wrong. "Bush fucked everything up" with the greedy willing help

of a corporate kleptocracy ruling class that influences, corrupts and dictates in both parties. Twas ever so (though we have our better Dems), but Sirota has been an unwelcome thorn to DLCers and Bushies alike for especially saying so these past eight years. Would you really deny that?

If you "used to respect him", then you must also surely know he never limited his criticism to Bush alone.

"Idiotic demand" for 'accountability' indeed. Until we see concrete outlines of some, why should he change his message and stop telling it like it is and HAS been?

[kristopher]

22. It is "idiotic" beause the answer is very easy to obtain.

There were a number of academic types on the tube explaining the point early on, do you think Sirota missed what they had to say? Or did he choose to disregard it?

Let's say you're running a business that requires you to keep an amount equal to 15% of your asset on hand in cash. ALL of your operating expenses and accounts receivable flow out of and into this same pool of money. Suddenly you realize that 15% of you assets isn't enough because in an emergency situation, you would not have the money to operate. So you get a personal loan for an amount to bring you up to 18%. You haven't had the emergency and you've continued to operate normally. Two months later, the person you borrowed from comes by and says "I just saw where you bought new computer equipment. I though you said it was an emergency! How did you spend my money?"
You tell them it is part of a pool and explain the situation, but they keep talking about the computers and insist on an accounting. Now you've paid for a lot of vendors, salaries, services, etc during the two months since you borrowed the money. You even took your family to the beach for a three day vacation. During all of this, of course, you've maintained the new 18% rate of cash on hand.

You are the business owner, how do you explain this to a lender that is angry? You've given the truth, but they want accountability; they want to know where every dime of the money they lent is.

[choie]

23. as somebody who sees

how many hoops a public assistance recipient (welfare) needs to jump through to receive their measly benefits, I find it incredible that you feel a bank that receives OUR tax money is unable to provide an accounting of the money they received - especially when their "desperate" financial situation was caused by their greed. I guess the clamor for "personal responsibility" beats "corporate responsibility" every time.

[kristopher]

24. How do you know they aren't able to provide an accounting?

Do you have any idea what goes into an audit of these huge industries? They are required to account for the money in their normal reporting for taxes. Do you actually think you or I would understand and be able to "hold them accountable" if they were to provide the several thousands of pages of documentation that the professional auditing companies require to evaluate the actions and decisionmakeing of these company's financial dealings?

I'm not really comfortable defending these backs because as you state, they got themselves into this mess. The thing is they got the entire nation into the mess with them. I'm saying three things 1) lots of media people are exploiting the inevitable fear and anger related to this mess to get themselves a name, 2) the bailout IS necessary if we don't want a complete collapse of out economic system and 25-30% unemployment, 3) give Obama a chance to do what he must do.

He and the new Dem majority are the keys to REAL accountability and wise use of the treasury funds. Acting like a lynch mob just serves the purpose of the Repukes.

[choie]

25. I could care less about whether David Sirota makes a name

for himself by expressing appropriate anger and cynicism at the bailout. PEOPLE ARE ANGRY, HAVE YOU HEARD???? At least he represents people's disgust at shelling out this money to give corporate executives the means with which to continue their lifestyles and greed. There was no reason the initial money couldn't have had more stringent strings attached to it. Just like the Patriot Act - it had to be done immediately, right? Without any due diligence, right? Do you think these corporations refused to give their executives bonuses at the end of 2008? Come on...there's no lynch mob - just Americans being god damned tired of this crap!

[kristopher]

26. Appropriate is the key word.

Sirota is just full of shit, his claims aren't 'appropriate'.

[glitch]

19. Yes it is. nt

[leftstreet]

7. "corporate welfare .. for the political donor class"

:puke: