Is Obama doing to Wall Street what he did to Republicans?

[yurbud]

It just occurred to me that all those too friendly to Wall Street appointments Obama made may serve the same purpose as his outreach to Republicans: He's giving them the rope to hang themselves.

Obama is a smart man, and he has to know that these guys like Geithner, Larry Summers et al, are fuck ups in spades--the problem is, they are fuck ups who work for very powerful people who have a bad habit of removing (or trying to) presidents that don't follow their orders.

It could be that Obama will let them take their shot, they will continue to fuck over working and middle class people, and those regular people will call for policies more radical than the Wall Streeters would propose, and Obama will, seemingly reluctantly, pinch them off into the toilet bowl of history where they belong. To an extent, we are already seeing this with bank nationalization.

It would seem faster to just go straight to the radical policy, but this could be what Obama's admiration of Lincoln is all about: Lincoln didn't get elected saying he was going to free the slaves, merely stop the growth of slavery. It was the slave owners who went crazy, giving Lincoln the room to take more radical action.

That could be the case today with Obama. He has to tread lightly on the spoiled trust fund babies or they will unleash their flying monkeys on him, but if he gives them enough rope, they will create a situation that requires radical action to neuter their ability to harm the rest of us and the rest of the world, and it will be so apparent to so many that the action will seem inevitable.

As much as most of us here were aggravated beyond words by Democrats inaction during the Bush years, it did have this kind of positive effect--the Republican Party hung themselves.

Now that the puppets are hung, maybe Obama is setting up the puppetmasters to hang themselves next.

[MessiahRp]

1. And exactly how much taxpayer money is this rope worth?

We certainly gave the GOP way too much considering the whopping 3 votes they gave us in the House and Senate combined. Even though we knew they weren't going to vote for anything, we didn't take out many of the concessions we had made for them and while they look like obstructionists we the people were gouged for more ridiculous tax cuts that don't work.

How much is it worth to cave in to these fuckers in hope that they either go along or hang?

Rp

[yurbud]

8. remember JFK? What did he get done after Nov. 22, 1963?

And he didn't propose anything particularly radical, he just didn't follow the financial elite's orders closely enough.

[truedelphi]

11. I stand with you in the logic and sentiment of your statements

Why is Obama giving us, the Middle incomed people, the shaft? Who does he think vote dfor him?

Where is the change he promised? Watching Maixine Waters on Bill Maher and listening to the entire panel of folks - all of whom said that he isn't being radical - he needs to depart from having the bad boys from Wall Street serve as his top appointments.

Waters herself would have been a great choice, rather than geithner, Summers or Rubin. And Gensler is now in the mix Obama listens to?.

[freemarketer6]

12. I salute you, sir.

The disaster that is occurring to middle income people is far more damaging than anything I ever would have imagined. Two couples in the neighborhood next to ours committed suicide about 8 or 9 days ago they were so distraught from losing 70% of their retirement income. It would have been nice had the stimulus package included some short-term stimuli. I'm not a Waters fan, but she could not have made a worse presentation than Tim Geithner, the former New York Fed Head who is responsible for Leyman Brothers closing. That started the crash ball rolling, and his ridiculous presentation a couple of weeks ago merely added speed to it. Be very difficult to stop it now. I have never seen anything like this. Even folks that make reverse mortgages have had to stop, they are fearing loses from contracts already made.

[yurbud]

15. I truly think South America has the right idea--they told all these neoliberals to fuck off

and haven't looked back. They don't seem any worse for the wear.

[freemarketer6]

16. Which part of neoliberalism don't you like? Too much concern

for social justice or too much concern for economic growth?

[yurbud]

17. you don't know what neoliberalism. There is no concern for social justice

it is about as liberal as national socialism was socialist.

[Pirate Smile]

2. One thing is certainly similar to the campaign, Obama focus on the long term and ignores the battle

to win the daily news-cycle.

Wall Street seems to want something for each day (news-cycle) so they can rally for the day - did we end up or down. Obama never focuses on the daily back and forth. The McCain campaign was all about who won "the day". The cable chatter is all about who won "the day" and Obama just wont play that game.

I know some days Wall Street just seems desperate for some comment from the WH to tell them that he will rescue them from what they did over the past years and years. They get back no comment and the Dow falls - or Gibbs says the WH wants to keep Banks private and Wall Steet gets happy until they notice that he didn't rule out temporary receivership.

I would bet the WH is waiting for the stress tests to start on Wednesday and then proceed from there. That is one of the big parallels I see from the campaign - long term v. focus on today.

[damonm]

3. I've noticed that about him.

Obama tends to be a long-term thinker, which is why he seems always to be about 2-3 steps ahead of his opposition. Wall Street and the GOP are historically short-sighted (GOP examples I've given elsewhere; Wall St. examples ABOUND), and this is why Obama will beat them both - badly. He has his vision and his agenda, and does not deviate from that to fight the day's battle.

[yurbud]

4. I would say GOP is medium-sighted: they can think a couple of moves ahead, but not far enough

to accomplish what they want long term, which effectively a corporate owned state.

[tooko13]

7. They already have that

Basically, they already have a corporate owned state (federal
reserve, personhood rights for coporations).  They are just
working on perpetuating it and weaving it more tightly into
the global system of states.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

5. It's all a brilliant plan. Much better than "CATS" I will see it again and again...

[yurbud]

9. CATS? the musical?

[uponit7771]

6. Worked for FDR, you should hear some of his speeches against "ruling class", you'd think he was Rush

...against black and Hispanic folk

[backscatter712]

10. Good point.

He's letting them have some slack, along with the warning "Fix this, or I'll fix it for you."

He's waiting until America's just short of the point of grabbing torches, pitchforks and a rope and going out to lynch the Wall Street executives.

Hopefully, at that point is where he announces the real economic recovery plan: nationalization of the biggest failing banks and such, strict reregulation of Wall Street, writing off all the bad assets, and rebooting.

[glitch]

13. Oh my God please make this be so.

Some guy, chairman of CBS or something, just said Obama is incredibly dangerous. Perhaps this is what his spidey sense is telling him.

[Uzybone]

14. One thing is clear: Wall Street does not have Americas best interest in mind

They are interested in lining their pockets as fast as they can. Anything that does not allow them to continue without oversight and without $50 million bonuses causes them to panic.

Watching Jim Cramer now go nuts about what Obama isn't doing sickens me.