Is Obama Trying to Dismantle Roosevelt's New Deal?

[Octafish]

Steve Fraser of Tomdispatch wanted to know back in February.



As a Kennedy-Truman-FDR Democrat, I want to know, too.

Is Obama Trying to Dismantle Roosevelt's New Deal?

By Steve Fraser, Tomdispatch.com
Posted on February 11, 2010, Printed on August 1, 2010

On March 4, 1933, the day he took office, Franklin Roosevelt excoriated the "money changers" who "have fled from their high seats in the temples of our civilization they know only the rules of a generation of self-seekers. They have no vision and where there is no vision, the people perish."

Rhetoric, however, is only rhetoric. According to one skeptical congressional observer of FDR's first inaugural address, "The President drove the money-changers out of the Capitol on March 4th -- and they were all back on the 9th."

That was essentially true. It was what happened after that, in the midst of the Great Depression, which set the New Deal on a course that is the mirror image of the direction in which the Obama administration seems headed.

Buoyed by great expectations when he assumed office, Barack Obama has so far revealed himself to be an unfolding disappointment. On arrival, expectations were far lower for FDR, who was not considered extraordinary at all -- until he actually did something extraordinary.

The great expectations of 2009 are, only a year later, beginning to smell like a pile of dead fish with new rhetoric -- including populist-style attacks on villainous bankers that sound fake (or cynically pandering) when uttered by Obama's brainiacs -- layered on top of the pile like deodorant. Meanwhile, the country is suffering through a recovery that isn't a recovery unless you happen to be a banker, and the administration stands by, too politically or intellectually inhibited or incapacitated to do much of anything about it. A year into "change we can believe in" and the new regime, once so flush with power and the promise of big doings, seems exhausted, vulnerable, and afraid. A year into the New Deal -- indeed a mere 100 days into Roosevelt's era -- change, whether you believed in it or not, clearly had the wind at its back.

CONTINUED...

http://www.alternet.org/story/145641/

The guy's had my support since August, 2008. Here it is August, 2010 and I'm wondering if he really is setting out to reverse what FDR started and all modern Liberal progress has done to make America better for ALL Americans. If that's his intent, it explains what happened to the "notion" of a New Deal for the 21st Century.

[Jim Sagle]

1. Everything old is new again. Get ready for the Old Deal -

the feudal system where work is not paid for but extracted by the whip and the gun.

[Hannah Bell]

22. +100

[Octafish]

65. Feudalism: Redistributing the Wealth Up to Where It Belongs since the Middle Ages

This letter to the editor from 1999 (perhaps a friendlier time) explains things from the, eh, longterm view: Welcome to the New Feudalism (int'l edition)

[Jackpine Radical]

123. I keep thinking of Andrew Mellon

who, as Hoover's Secretary of the Treasury, summarized his view of things by saying that depressions are those times in history when wealth flows back to its natural and rightful owners. By that definition, we are in a depression. And it is a good thing.

[Octafish]

126. The Two Documents Everyone Should Read to Better Understand the Financial Crisis

Thank you for the heads-up on Mellon, Jackpine Radical. No wonder Reagan and his ilk worship Hoover.

The Two Documents Everyone Should Read to Better Understand the Crisis

William K. Black
Assoc. Professor, Univ. of Missouri, Kansas City; Sr. regulator during S&L debacle
Posted: February 25, 2009

EXCERPT...

The FBI correctly identified the epidemic of mortgage control fraud at such an early point that the financial crisis could have been averted had the Bush administration acted with even minimal competence. To understand the crisis we have to focus on how the mortgage fraud epidemic produced widespread accounting fraud.

Don't ask; don't tell: book profits, "earn" bonuses and closet your losses

The first document everyone should read is by S&P, the largest of the rating agencies. The context of the document is that a professional credit rater has told his superiors that he needs to examine the mortgage loan files to evaluate the risk of a complex financial derivative whose risk and market value depend on the credit quality of the nonprime mortgages "underlying" the derivative. A senior manager sends a blistering reply with this forceful punctuation:

Any request for loan level tapes is TOTALLY UNREASONABLE!!! Most investors don't have it and can't provide it. e MUST produce a credit estimate. It is your responsibility to provide those credit estimates and your responsibility to devise some method for doing so.

Fraud is the principal credit risk of nonprime mortgage lending. It is impossible to detect fraud without reviewing a sample of the loan files. Paper loan files are bulky, so they are photographed and the images are stored on computer tapes. Unfortunately, "most investors" (the large commercial and investment banks that purchased nonprime loans and pooled them to create financial derivatives) did not review the loan files before purchasing nonprime loans and did not even require the lender to provide loan tapes.

The rating agencies never reviewed samples of loan files before giving AAA ratings to nonprime mortgage financial derivatives. The "AAA" rating is supposed to indicate that there is virtually no credit risk -- the risk is equivalent to U.S. government bonds, which finance refers to as "risk-free." We know that the rating agencies attained their lucrative profits because they gave AAA ratings to nonprime financial derivatives exposed to staggering default risk. A graph of their profits in this era rises like a stairway to heaven . We also know that turning a blind eye to the mortgage fraud epidemic was the only way the rating agencies could hope to attain those profits. If they had reviewed even small samples of nonprime loans they would have had only two choices: (1) rating them as toxic waste, which would have made it impossible to sell the nonprime financial derivatives or (2) documenting that they were committing, and aiding and abetting, accounting control fraud.

Worse, the S&P document demonstrates that the investment and commercial banks that purchased nonprime loans, pooled them to create financial derivatives, and sold them to others engaged in the same willful blindness. They did not review samples of loan files because doing so would have exposed the toxic nature of the assets they were buying and selling. The entire business was premised on a massive lie -- that fraudulent, toxic nonprime mortgage loans were virtually risk-free. The lie was so blatant that the banks even pooled loans that were known in the trade as "liar's loans" and obtained AAA ratings despite FBI warnings that mortgage fraud was "epidemic." The supposedly most financially sophisticated entities in the world -- in the core of their expertise, evaluating credit risk -- did not undertake the most basic and essential step to evaluate the most dangerous credit risk. They did not review the loan files. In the short and intermediate-term this optimized their accounting fraud but it was also certain to destroy the corporation if it purchased or retained significant nonprime paper.

Stress this: stress tests are useless against the nonprime problems

CONTINUED...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/william-k-black/the-two-documents-everyon_b_169813.html

Money buys a lot of stuff. Politicians, for instance.

[TBF]

76. Right on.

Unfortunately you are exactly right. And this class warfare is even more odious because we have a democrat leading the charge.

[awoke_in_2003]

134. As only Nixon could go to China...

only a democrat can kill the work of FDR.

[Starry Messenger]

2. Capitalism has been dismantling the New Deal for decades.

Obama is the newest guy at bat. This is why half-measures at "regulated capitalism" are doomed to fail. The fuckers chew through the straps.

[Octafish]

69. We the People need the New Deal 2.0...

From JANUARY 2010, a smart fellow examines why those classified as
big money doesn't like to share...

Joseph Stiglitz on ‘Ersatz Capitalism’ and Moral Bankruptcy

Of course, we need more oversight, regulation and transparency. Most of all we need fairness. That used to be government's job, until it became a wholly owned subsidiary of Wall Street.

[Rincewind]

3. No nt

[Octafish]

79. OK.

Got it. Why do you think he's not dismantling the New Deal?

[sandnsea]

4. I think we're finally scraping out the septic tank

This is the worst post on DU ever.

Maybe some folks need to talk to the people in Detroit.

http://obama-mamas.com/blog/?p=1798

[Hardrada]

6. That Detroit bit is just a dog and pony show.

[sandnsea]

14. Union workers? Dogs and Ponies??

Pathetic.

[pnorman]

8. "This is the worst post on DU ever."

I'm not sure about "ever", but t certainly comes close!

[Octafish]

80. You're talking to a Detroiter.

Obama did a wonderful thing, spearheading the loans for Chrysler and GM. Unfortunately, there is a heck of a lot more to be done.

Have you ever been to Detroit? If so, you'd know that GM once employed 250,000 UAW members. Today, it's about 50,000. Lots of jobs have been outsourced overseas, others are now done by robots.

PS: Thanks to Chapter 11, GM got to rewrite their contract with the union, meaning new employees will make about half of what the old timers make. They're lucky to have jobs, right?

[Dappleganger]

103. Of course they are.

I'm sure they're reminded of that constantly every paycheck when they can't find enough for the mortgage or necessities.

[sharp_stick]

114. The fact that this shit

gets enough recs to make the Greatest page makes me sick. At least it allows me to update my ignore list, there's already plenty listed on this thread but I'm happy to add a few more.

[laughingliberal]

5. It certainly looks that way. nt

[Octafish]

87. The New Deal made life better for ALL Americans.

What part of that is hard to understand? The money part? Prying it from the have-mores?

[Fearless]

113. +1

[Overseas]

7. K&R. Worth thinking about. //nt

[scheming daemons]

19. If it is "worth thinking about".... isn't it worth READING THE ARTICLE?

Written in February.

Events since then invalidate the theme of the article.


READ!

[whathehell]

62. Agreed....In light of everything we've seen,

I don't know why some here would find the OP's question to be something akin to blasphemy. :shrug:

[Donnachaidh]

109. invalidate? Uhh no dear

your opinion. And opinions are like assholes - everyone has one.

[wildbilln864]

127. lol...

and some of them stink. :hi:

[Overseas]

110. Finally getting my 21st Century FDR was one of my cherished dreams. It was pragmatic too.

I thought we were good to go with a pragmatic president because FDR moves improve our economy. And he had the Bush Crash and bailout as urgent moral imperatives to defend such moves. Our citizens were being evicted from their homes, and thousands of others were bankrupted by our privatized national health systems. Surely it was time for Medicare for All.

The Bush Wars, melting glaciers and the other destructive results of favoring fossil fuels too much for too long, like Cheeney's secret energy meetings, also provided strong pragmatic reasons to go all FDR with green jobs on a massive scale.

But we didn't get those things. And I have been heartbroken, as Van Jones noted.

My tiny little post was a heartbroken statement. Even as I try to hold together behind the Democratic party because the Rabid Right wants to take back our government and they are even more cruel than a president not having a Democratic block behind him to push a beautiful, necessary New Deal for the New Century, it may be worth reading the article in full.

But it may also be too painful right now.

Because I know we would be in a much better position as a country if our Democrats had banded together as a block and pushed through 21st Century FDR moves. That's what the 29% GOP had feared most. But there they were, at only 29%, and we still didn't do it.

[Scurrilous]

9. LOL

Next!

[Octafish]

78. Laugh all you want. I'm worried that the country is ready to throw in the towel on the New Deal.

FWIW: I don't even think dismantling NASA and ending the New Frontier is all that funny, either. In fact, ending government's role in scientific, social and economic progress is a most serious business.

[SunsetDreams]

10. Where did you get "Printed on August 1, 2010"?

the link does not say that

[cornermouse]

30. Don't read too carefully do you?

The OP clearly states above the magazine picture that the person wrote the article back in February and includes the February date in his cut and paste.

[SunsetDreams]

33. I read just fine

I see what the OP stated, and also represented in the article.
What is represented is not what you get when you actually click on the link.
It does not say "Printed August 1, 2010"

My question was to the one who posted the OP.

[cornermouse]

35. The "printed on August XX, 2010" shows up when you

hit the little printer icon in the "article tools" box off to the right of the article.

[SunsetDreams]

36. exactly, that's when an individual prints it

I can click on that right now and it changes to August 2, 2010

That doesn't have anything to do with when the author of the article wrote it.
The author wrote it in February. It's misrepresentation of the author, to say otherwise.

[cornermouse]

37. (sigh) Speaking strictly as a mother.

You are now sounding like my kids did when they were 3 years old. I'll tell you the same thing I told them then. When you're wrong, its better to admit it and move on to something where you know you're right.

[SunsetDreams]

38. sigh right back at you :)

It's a copyright issue.

[cornermouse]

40. You got caught being wrong.

I have no patience at all with people who try to claim they're right after they've been proved wrong. After all, if you're determined to continue being wrong, who am I to stop you? I'm going to give you the same treatment I gave my kids when they were three. I've told you how it is and now I'm "walking" away and shutting the door behind me.

[SunsetDreams]

41. LOL

I don't think it is I, who was caught wrong on this.
Copyright is a very serious issue.

[Bobbie Jo]

67. Wow....condescending much?

[fascisthunter]

115. you funny

[Bobbie Jo]

125. I'm sorry...

have we met? :hi:

I'm sure you funny too.

[Subdivisions]

74. Can you be more rude? n/t

[cornermouse]

102. Actually?

Yes. If you think that was rude, you don't know what rude is.

[Subdivisions]

104. Oh no,

I don't know what rude is. I'm just an ignorant librul.

[Number23]

121. Not only is it you that is wrong, but why are you being nasty too?

Wrong is bad enough. Loud, MEAN and wrong is much worse.

[anigbrowl]

71. there is no copyright issue here.

[robertpaulsen]

175. "The author wrote it in February. It's misrepresentation of the author, to say otherwise."

Here's what Octafish said in his unedited OP:

Steve Fraser of Tomdispatch wanted to know back in February.

This is what your charge of "misrepresentation" is:



Got it?

[Octafish]

77. The original article includes it when in the 'print' mode template.

Here's the print mode template URL:

http://www.alternet.org/module/printversion/145641

Identical to the archived copy, the print version of the article contains less coding and graphics, making it easier to copy and paste text. You'll notice the date now reads "Printed on August 2, 2010."

[flyarm]

11. yes! and I have never had any doubt about it!

[Octafish]

112. We've Been Here Before -- Black Tuesday and How We Got Out of It

Like Whitney (and the Galbraiths) I believe in a sound fiscal policy when the funds are invested in the U.S. people, not corporations or a few trillionairewannabe superbillionaire so-and-sos. Perspective from October, 2009 (for those who keep track of such data).

We've Been Here Before

Black Tuesday and How We Got Out of It

By MIKE WHITNEY
CounterPunch
October 27, 2009

"October 29, marks the 80th anniversary of the Stock Market Crash of 1929, the event which most historians point to as the beginning of the Great Depression. On Black Tuesday, traders dumped 16 million shares in one day, sending the markets into freefall. In the months that followed, stocks rallied -- sometimes for long periods at a time -- but the underlying economy continued to deteriorate as consumers curtailed spending and cut back sharply on credit. As a result, hundreds of banks were shuttered, thousands of businesses failed, and unemployment soared to 25 percent. Public confidence plunged and the economy slipped into a decade-long slump. Tariffs were thrown up, international trade slowed to a crawl, and shanty towns began to sprout up across the country.

In his article, "The Main Causes of the Great Depression" Paul Alexander Gusmorino said:

"Many factors played a role in bringing about the Great Depression, however, the main cause was the combination of the greatly unequal distribution of wealth throughout the 1920's, and the extensive stock market speculation that took place during the latter part that same decade".

Income disparity widened throughout the 1920's. While disposable income rose 9 percent from 1920 to 1929, those in the top 1 percent enjoyed a 75 percent boost in disposable income. A similar, though larger, gap has emerged in recent years as a larger share of the nation's wealth has been shifted to the country's richest people.

"By 2006 the top 1 percent of households received close to a quarter of all income and the top 10 percent got 50 percent of the income pie. In 2006, the 400 richest Americans had a collective net wealth of $1.6 trillion, more than the combined wealth of the bottom 150 million people. This degree of income and wealth inequality was last seen just before the beginning of the Great Depression." ("The ABCs of the Economic Crisis: What Working People Need to Know" By Fred Magdoff and Michael Yates, Monthly Review Press)

Also, between 1925 and 1929 total credit more than doubled (from $1.38 billion to around $3 billion) just as it has in the last decade. According to McKinsey Global Institute:

CONTINUED...

http://www.counterpunch.org/whitney10272009.html

Even if it's just with one eye open a tiny bit, one can see it's deja vu all over again. We all should see, as the turds who ripped off the system are the ones getting away with it today. Truly appreciate you've got your peepers shining on the situation, flyarm.

[scheming daemons]

12. That article was written a month before HCR passed

...

...and 5 months before FinReg passed.


The author's claim has been proven false.

[SunsetDreams]

13. ya think?

:evilgrin:

[Tarheel_Dem]

15. But it has 11 recs, and I'll bet not one of them bothered to read the article,

or the date in question. But, it slams Obama, and that's enough for DU these days. :eyes:

[scheming daemons]

17. Guaranteed.... Every "K&R" is from someone who read the headline only

Events since February invalidate the article.

[EFerrari]

34. You can repeat that as often as you like

but it doesn't make it true.

[Lost4words]

173. in dreamland maybe!

[cornermouse]

31. Actually, I think there are quite a few of us

who don't see it as false at all.

[SunsetDreams]

43. Yeah written in February

Smart like a chicken. This is the same cleverness that, beginning with Ronald Reagan's triumph, turned the Democratic Party into Republican-lite. Shrewdness like this helps explain, in part, why Obama's inner circle and Democratic leaders took the early, fateful steps that were bound to land them where they find themselves today.

Would the Republican right and its tea-party populists -- marginal, mockable political freaks less than a year ago -- have enjoyed their current growth spasm if the administration hadn't been committed to bailing out the very institutions most people considered the villains responsible for running this country into a ditch? Would the Democratic Party have been in imminent danger of losing its faltering grip on Congress had it found the will to pursue serious health-care reform and environmental legislation, or wrestled the financial oligarchy to the mat as Roosevelt did? A long generation spent cowering in the shadows of the conservative ascendancy has left the newly empowered Democrats congenitally incapable of seizing their own historic moment.

http://www.alternet.org/story/145641?page=4

Financial Regulation, and Health Care reform, have since passed.

I fail to see where this is relevant to today.

I also fail to see logic, in calling the Democratic Party Republican Lite, and then saying, the Republican right and it's tea-party populists have enjoyed a growth spasm. If the Democratic Party is so Republican lite, then why would that cause you to go further Republican?

hmmmm

[Octafish]

117. Here's more, from before the time Public Option and Single Payer were taken off the table.

Guess who benefits most from health care reform? It's the health insurance industry and the Big Money that owns it.

From June, 2009:

Following Clinton's Doomed Path

How Obama is Blowing the Chance for Real Health Care Reform

By DAVE LINDORFF
CounterPunch
June 15, 2009

EXCERPT...

The second is access. One in six Americans—a total of 50 million people at latest count—have no way to pay for that care. Too young for Medicare, too “well off” for Medicaid, but too poor to buy private health insurance or too sick to be admitted into a plan, or employed by a company that doesn’t provide health benefits, these people get no medical care until they get so sick that they are brought into a hospital emergency room where they get treated (often too late) at public expense, or at the hospital’s expense, with the cost shifted onto taxpayers or onto insured patients’ premiums.

Any reform of this atrocious “system” must address these two major failings or it is no reform at all.

And that’s where all the various versions of Obamacare fall flat.

Simply put, you cannot solve either of these problems by leaving the payment system for medical care in the hands of the private insurance industry, since the whole paradigm of insurance is to make money by keeping high-risk people out of the insured pool, and by keeping reimbursements and coverage for premium payers as low as possible.

Having a so called “public option” plan working in competition with private insurance plans will not solve this problem. Either the public option will become like the private options—trimming benefits and rejecting some applicants—or it will become a dumping ground for all the high-cost, high-risk people that the private sector insurance industry doesn’t want. At that point, the public plan will become a huge cost burden on the taxpayer, who will begin demanding that it cut back in the benefits it provides, taking us right back to where we started.

CONTINUED...

http://www.counterpunch.org/lindorff06152009.html

David Lindorff can get deep fast. Hope the dates didn't throw ya.

[defendandprotect]

140. What passed is pretend HCR and pretend Financial Reform --

We need complete re-regulation of capitalism -- complete reinstituting of

New Deal regulations -- including Glass-Steagall -- and an actual Universal

Health Care Plan -- which every other nation has --

We also need to stop pretending that we don't know this --

Pretending anything meaningful has happened is simply building a house of cards --

Re your questions about the "growth" of the Republican right, it's based as

always on political violence, stolen elections, rw propaganda -- and BOUGHT

and PAID FOR by the right wing as the T-baggers, once more, have been bought

and paid for -- and run out of a PR agency!

If the Democratic Party is so Republican lite, then why would that cause you to go further Republican?

It is the co-option of the Democratic Party by the DLC-corporate wing -- also known as

New Democrats -- which seeks to move the party further to the Republican corporate right --

[Octafish]

122. Regarding Financial Regulation --- WHAT A CROCK OF HORSEFEATHERS!

William Black, the forensic economist who understands "Control Fraud," explains.

Why the financial reform bill won't prevent another crisis

William K. Black
Fortune CNN
July 19, 2010

FORTUNE -- Financial regulators, white-collar criminologists, and economists all agree that perverse incentive structures cause crises and they agree that the finance industry's incentive structures have long been perverse.

The Obama administration asserts that the financial reform bill the President will sign into law this week will prevent future crises. In fact, it will fail to do so because it does not effectively address those perverse incentives. Indeed, it increases the likelihood of the accounting scams that are the very reason why perverse incentives pay.

Over time, crises have gotten more severe because many reform policies have the unintended consequence of encouraging these types of incentive structures. Executive and professional compensation create the motives, while deregulation, desupervison, and regulatory "black holes" create the opportunity.

Accounting is the CEO's "weapon of choice" that transforms the perverse incentive into what economists, regulators, and criminologists agree is a "sure thing" in crises (means). That's the classic recipe for disaster: motive, means, and opportunity.

The reform bill falls short

The bill does not address the problematic nature of modern executive and professional compensation even though the data shows that these are leading causes of the Great Recession. The percentage of executive compensation tied to short-term reported income has increased since the crisis, according to an independent study by James F. Reda & Associates. Accounting is a "sure thing" when it comes to creating whatever short-term income the CFO and CEO desire to report.

CONTINUED...

http://money.cnn.com/2010/07/18/news/economy/finreg_law_incentives_bill-black.fortune/index.htm

Gee. The guy who dissected the criminality at the heart of the Savings & Loan fiasco of the Bush I administration doesn't sound like we got the kind of reform that keeps crooks under Bush II -- and many of whom continue in office under Obama -- honest, does it?

Sure do appreciate the Single Payer, I mean Public Option, I mean coverage that I may start to buy in 4 years also. May we all live to see the day, eh?

[defendandprotect]

142. "Dodd sold out financial reform for a new career in banking" . . .

evidently, that's how insiders -- including his own staff -- have been telling it.

We aren't reinventing the wheel -- we simply need to reinstate New Deal rules and

regulations on capitalism -- including Glass-Steagall.

Every other nation has Universal Health Care -- we know what it is and what Obama gave

us isn't it -- what we actually got is HC deform for the benefit of insurance companies

and health care industries!


Just want to also emphasize that the S&L theft and embezzlements were crimes -- not

simply a "fiasco."


Capitalists don't want to sit around waiting to make 10% profit --

they need "uncertainty" for the consumer to rake in any real dough --

and that's what these changes represent -- continuing uncertainty for the patient

and the economy at our expense!

[girl gone mad]

16. k & r

[scheming daemons]

18. You're K&R-ing an article from February that turned out to be wrong?

[Tarheel_Dem]

20. Of course she is.....

:rofl:

[Name removed]

64. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Dogmudgeon]

21. But it was "Printed on August 1, 2010"

It says so right there!

It's like K&R-ing an article from yesterday!

--d!

[SunsetDreams]

23. that's not what the link says

[cornermouse]

32. What part of "Steve Fraser of Tomdispatch wanted to know back in February."

above the magazine cover and

"Is Obama Trying to Dismantle Roosevelt's New Deal?
By Steve Fraser, Tomdispatch.com
Posted on February 11, 2010, Printed on August 1, 2010
(cut and paste from OP)

do you not understand?

[Triana]

24. Yeppers. He'll probably get further with it than any Republican admin

would have too.

[SunsetDreams]

25. love your sig line

"Tabloid Junkies: "Just because you read it in a magazine Or see it on the TV screen Don't make it factual, actual You're so damn disrespectable"

Just perfect :toast:

[Naturyl]

141. Yep. It was Clinton who dismantled welfare

For the capitalists, Democrats are more useful the Repukes, because they can get away with doing what Repukes can't.

[defendandprotect]

144. Clinton did dismantle New Deal safety net -- with a nod from Gore . . .

"New Democrats" at their worst!!

[Naturyl]

154. Yes indeed.

Gore is no prize either. Never was.

[Chulanowa]

26. That is so insufferably stupid that I don't even know where to start

Yes, the new Deal was doing perfectly well right up until January 20, 2009. Not a peep was heard about any of its provisions until that asshole showed up, right?

Look, if you've got issues with Obama, fine. Talk about the issues. But don't do this ridiculous shit. it doesn't take a genius to figure out that FDR's new deal has been hanging by strings for quite a long time now. if you want to jump Obama's case for not repairing the damage, that's legit, go for it. if you want to jump on him for eyeing those last threads with a pair of scissors in his hands, go for it, make your case.

But don't fucking pretend he's the one who put it in that state. As a "Kennedy-Truman-FDR Democrat" you should know better.

[Enthusiast]

46. Social Security is not hanging by strings.

And it is an essential service for millions of us. Essential.

[defendandprotect]

157. Correct -- and it runs HUGE SURPLUSSES every year --

which indicates that there has been a greater burden of FICA placed upon the poor

and middle class than was required --

the right wing argument being that it was necessary to cover the "boomers" --

Social Security was intended ONLY as a pay-as-you-go program -- not to run surplusses

which as we well know are a temptation for dishonest politicians --

Bush used surplus to pay for his wars and tax cuts for rich --

Nor was Social Security ever intended to be part of the General Budget with SS surplusses

offsetting MIC and making it look smalleer --

[defendandprotect]

145. New Deal has been under steady attack by the right/Repugs ... we didn't expect

that it would be further attacked by Democrats!!

Or that Obama would set up "The Cat Food Commission" to succeed Bush's

failed attempts at destroying Social Security!!

[Cirque du So-What]

27. Your load of FAIL has arrived

and there's plenty to go around for the yup-yups who rec'd this steaming heap that was rendered invalid months ago.

[Radical Activist]

28. lol

yes

[EFerrari]

29. Out of curiosity, how was this article "rendered invalid"?

The title is too big a claim but this administration, just like everyone since Reagan, is chipping away at the New Deal. What part of this material is not right?

[Marr]

70. That's what I've been wondering.

That line is being repeated here over and over, but I don't see what it's based in. Obama's "reforms" have been thinly disguised aid for Wall Street.

[scheming daemons]

81. The article says that Obama/Democrats have failed to pass HCR or FinReg legislation...

...and it uses that as evidence that Obama/Democrats are dismantling the New Deal.


In subsequent months, both of those things HAVE passed.... making the entire premise of the article crumble like a house of cards.

[EFerrari]

85. Well, in your opinion. Those two pieces of legislation

are not transparently progressive.

[Jackpine Radical]

124. And don't forget the wonders Bush did for the environment

with his Clear Skies Initiative.

And for free speech with his Free Speech Zones.

Labels are wonderful things. Here's another: Health Care Reform.

[defendandprotect]

146. Yes. .. like Leave No Child Behind ... we have No health care HCR ...

and No change Financial Reform -- !!

[Jenny_92808]

44. I think Obama has done a great job...

...working for us when there has been a system where the cards had been stacked unfairly against non-rich people. He is doing his best to reshuffle the deck.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/paul-abrams/fdrs-new-dealjfks-new-fro_b_251264.html

[Number23]

118. Thank you. This is what I don't understand either. This article was written almost 6 months ago

Are folks that desperate for negativity here?

[stevenleser]

138. Yep, +10000

[Junkdrawer]

39. That's what New Democrats are for. n/t

[Individualist]

60. Exactly

Obama's actions are more in line with Hoover than with FDR.

[pampango]

108. Maybe. Hoover signed Smoot/Hawley (all repubs) and FDR worked to dismantle it and promote trade with

the predecessor of the WTO (GATT).

Obama hasn't raised tariffs as Hoover did, but he hasn't done much either way on trade so far.

[OZark Dem]

42. I doubt they understand it well enough to dismantle it

The whole economic team seems to be flying by their ass.

[DailyGrind51]

45. He's trying to save it, but feels forced to compromise.

[defendandprotect]

147. Founders compromised with Slavery -- and it led to the Civil War . . .!!

[tomp]

166. it doesn't need saving....

...except from people like obama, who want to destroy it.

[BrklynLiberal]

47. what a revoltin development this is...

[Hubert Flottz]

48. That sinking feeling I had during the eight long years of neocon

rule...is starting to set in on me again. "He could have been a star, he could have been a contender" So could his little helpers on Capitol Hill. We gave them all the paddles and the tiller too, to get us out of stinky creek and they "Followed The Course." When they forgave Joe Lieberman I knew we the people were SOL. Instead of fixing our potholes they bailed out the very people who helped to bring us Bush and the world of shit he created. We could have repaired our crumbling infrastructure and created countless American jobs, instead our "leaders" "Followed The Course" and continued the massive spending on those "preemptive" wars, that BushCorp's preemptive lies created abroad. We've rebuilt bombed flat goat pens in the Middle East, as "death panel Granny" did without her pills this month, while she gets ready to do without food next week.

The real "WMD" was in the oval office behind a purdy desk for eight long painful years. Little George was the Mother Of All ClusterFlopps/WMD, but hey, nobody elected him and we knew he was a thief from day one.

An FDR the dude ain't, I'm afraid. The mess Bush left our FDR in waiting, was pretty much a country in ruin. The voters did what they could. It's long past the time for the "democrats" that we elected in 2008, to put down that "bipartisanship" crack pipe and man up.(are we a mule, or a mouse)

Hopefully, America will survive the attack/crusade of Dick Armey's teabragger kkkristian soldiers of the self-righteous Reich. One can account for many things, but there's no accounting for the stupid we've seen in Washington from the GOP. They really would sooner see the country broken, as to admit that they were replaced by the voters in 2008 and do something right for a "change"

[glitch]

57. neocon=neoliberal=chicago school of economics.

Unfortunately that's who is running the show.

And to some of the above posters, no, corporate giveaways do not equate to salvaging the new deal.

[defendandprotect]

148. +1000%

GOP are the intentional destroyers -- their dream: "a third world America" --

Unfortunately, New Democrats seem to have the same idea!

[defendandprotect]

149. dupe

[treestar]

49. It's possible to spin anything any way you want to

This absurd assertion proves it.

[EFerrari]

89. What part of the argument is absurd?

[seafan]

50. An outstanding piece. Thanks for posting it, Octafish.

Steve Fraser explains exactly how, in 2010, we've arrived at this corrosive and demoralizing outcome.

.....

The Congress elected in the off-year of 1934 was not only more overwhelmingly Democratic, but the Democrats who won were considerably more progressive-minded. They were far readier to jettison the shibboleths of the old order and press a still cautious President in their direction. By 1936, the essentials of the social welfare and regulatory state were in place, an insurgent labor movement had won the elementary right to organize (while becoming the New Deal's most muscular constituency), and the president was denouncing "economic royalists" and "tories of industry" whose "hatred" for him he "welcomed."

Today the Obama administration and the Democratic Party are visibly moving in the opposite direction. They read the lesson of humiliating defeat in Massachusetts and the voluble hostility of the populist right as an advisory to move further to the right. Tacking rightward, tailoring policy to match the tastes of business and finance, cautioning Americans that they'll need to tighten their belts (as if they hadn't already been doing so), adopting the parsimonious sanctimony of the balanced budget, slimming down their great expectations until what little is left mocks the hopes of so many who elected them -- all of this is seen as smart politics.

Smart like a chicken. This is the same cleverness that, beginning with Ronald Reagan's triumph, turned the Democratic Party into Republican-lite. Shrewdness like this helps explain, in part, why Obama's inner circle and Democratic leaders took the early, fateful steps that were bound to land them where they find themselves today.

Would the Republican right and its tea-party populists -- marginal, mockable political freaks less than a year ago -- have enjoyed their current growth spasm if the administration hadn't been committed to bailing out the very institutions most people considered the villains responsible for running this country into a ditch? Would the Democratic Party have been in imminent danger of losing its faltering grip on Congress had it found the will to pursue serious health-care reform and environmental legislation, or wrestled the financial oligarchy to the mat as Roosevelt did? A long generation spent cowering in the shadows of the conservative ascendancy has left the newly empowered Democrats congenitally incapable of seizing their own historic moment.

After a year of feinting to the left without meaning it, how seriously is anyone going to take the administration's latest call to tax the banks or break their addiction to reckless speculation? Even if Obama now means to push ahead with some sort of health-care reform or put some teeth into new financial regulations, he has spent so much political capital moving in the opposite direction and seeking partners where there never were any that his quest, even if genuine, may now be purely quixotic. As for the surge in Afghanistan and the endless war that goes with it, by election time 2010, it's an even bet that it will have further undermined any hopes of a late-inning Democratic Party revival.

.....

The crucial point can be distilled down to one sentence from the piece:


'A long generation spent cowering in the shadows of the conservative ascendancy has left the newly empowered Democrats congenitally incapable of seizing their own historic moment.'



It's really the moment of truth for our country.

[lonestarnot]

51. K & R and yes I read the article.

[geek tragedy]

52. Stupid people outnumber smart ones by about +22 recs so far. nt

[Bluenorthwest]

53. Great piece and a very telling thread...

Not one person who takes issue with the article has a factual thing to say about it. They say 'absurd' and 'stupid' and make blustery snark, go off about their own misreadings and such, but not one addresses a single point and is able to counter that point. If they had a point, they'd make it. What a display.

[Octafish]

131. Bors puts the situation into a picture even the most sensible among us can understand.

Thank you, Bluenorthwest, for giving a damn. We need something more powerful than righteous indignation. Our Party and our nation need Truth.

EDIT: Tip o' the pin to n2doc for the heads-up on Bors.

[tomp]

167. correct. nt

[Stinky The Clown]

54. What was that about Ducks and Ambulation?

[Fumesucker]

55. Stupid K&R

[Catherina]

56. The answer is yes

Neither party cares about the welfare of the average American.

[socialist_n_TN]

58. Well, it DID take Nixon to go to China and ..................

Clinton to "reform" welfare. I guess it'll take Obama to dismantle Social Security and Medicare and the rest of the New Deal.

This is one of those mornings when I'm thinking that the only way rampaging capitalism can be stopped is by revolution. NOBODY in positions of real authority seems to give a rat's ass about actual PEOPLE, only corporations. IF the Republicans get back in power maybe they'll tank the economy and the rest of the country so badly that even Americans might wake up. If not, well maybe my reeducation camp won't be so bad.

[amborin]

59. the evidence says 'yes'; as one poster said, substituting a "raw deal" for the new deal

[G_j]

61. K&R, & agree with the "raw deal" description.. nt

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

63. Yes. But, he's just being "realistic" and "sensible" and needs to support his "necessary" war.

[scheming daemons]

86. At some point, you might want to come up with your own meme

...instead of relying on Tom Tommorow to do your thinking for you.


Tom's great, most of the time.... but geez, can you come up with an original thought of your own?

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

105. Make that Tom's and Obama's meme.

i.e., "necessary" war.

[Barack2theFuture]

66. undeniably

his is the U of Chicago neoliberal political agenda. (The same one that gave us reaganomics)

[Arkana]

68. No. Next question.

[Karenina]

72. Good question.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=62xLO5iYsyQ&feature=related

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

73. Nice use of the Fox News techinque....

Instead of making an accusation, you phrase it in the form of a question so you can later say, "I never said that"

Does Steve Fraser secretly molest children?

I'm not saying the Steve Fraser is a pedophile, mind you, but I'm just asking the question. I certainly wouldn't allow my young children to be along with him, but that's just because we've never met and not -- I can't stress this enough -- not because their are unanswered questions as to whether he's a sexual predator.

See? It's simple to malign somebody! And Fun!!

[Octafish]

82. So, I'm like Fox News?

Read my Journal, especially the archives. Fox should be so lucky, huh?

[scheming daemons]

84. Here's where you're similar to Fox News:

You take an old, out of date story.... present it as new.... and then say "who me?" when called on it.


All the claims of the February article you posted have since been rendered invalid. A lot has changed since February.

[EFerrari]

88. Octafish didn't do that. He didn't "present the story as new".

And no, all the claims of the February article have not been rendered invalid. That is debatable even though, or maybe because, there have been developments since then.

Instead of just repeating the denial over and over, why not take up the issue itself? How did the insurance bill shore up the New Deal? Or the Dobbs-Frank bill?

[Radical Activist]

161. Do some people believe everything they read if it attacks Obama from the left?

You're right. It works.

[tomp]

168. dear non-radical maybe-activist,

i'm very glad attacking obama from the left works. you should consider that maybe it works because the truth of the attack resonates.

[Radical Activist]

174. Dear gullible, easily manipulated tomp,

(I assume you're gullible and easily manipulated because that's what someone would have to be if they believe every attack on Obama from the left) I'm glad to see honest, accurate, well-reasoned criticism of Obama from the left. But, too many pundits and bloggers cry wolf. It would be a frightening world if all radical activists were so easily lead along like sheep because they didn't thoughtfully examine claims made by fellow activists.

[tomp]

178. YOU say it's crying wolf, we don't. fortunately, you are not the final arbiter.

you can decide for yourself what you believe is well reasoned, but not for me.

i have given you plenty of opportunity to convince me and you failed.

change your fucking obviously intentionally misleading screen name.
you are clearly no radical.

you sound just like the republicans who are so fond of labeling others with their
own faults. you're the gullible and easily manipulated one...or the rightist operative.
there are no other logical choices to explain your positions.

[MilesColtrane]

75. .

[CBR]

83. ...

[bobthedrummer]

90. I've got your left flank covered sir . K&R. n/t

[bvar22]

91. "On March 4, 1933, ...

...the day he took office, Franklin Roosevelt excoriated the "money changers"

On Jan 20th, 2009, President Obama invited the Money Changers into the White House, gave them seats on his cabinet, and let them design the Economic Policy of the USA.

[EFerrari]

93. Ouch. n/t

[MilesColtrane]

97. FDR's first Treasury Secretary was a Republican businessman who was a big campaign donor.

You probably wouldn't have liked him.

[Octafish]

129. Was he better than Tim Geithner?

Then, I'd like him.

New Documents Show Goldman Sachs Would’ve Lost Billions in AIG Collapse

By Alain Sherter
bnet.com | July 26, 2010

Goldman Sachs (GS) has always insisted that it wouldn’t have lost a nickel if AIG had failed in 2008. The investment bank claims that it was fully insured against the risk that the financial giant could collapse under the weight of its credit derivative-related losses.

That story is now officially hokum. New documents turned up in a congressional probe show conclusively that Goldman had, in fact, purchased insurance against the possibility that AIG might go bankrupt — from financially troubled firms that were in no position to make good on their obligations.

For instance, one company that that would’ve had to make a payment to Goldman if taxpayers hadn’t saved AIG is Lehman Brothers, which went bankrupt in September 2008. It would’ve owed $175 million, according to information that Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, forced Goldman to provide last week. Citigroup (C), itself the recipient of a government bailout, owed Goldman $402 million if AIG failed. Indeed, the list of companies that had sold credit default insurance to Goldman on AIG, which includes numerous foreign players, is riddled with firms that had been severely damaged by the financial crisis.

SNIP...

“Not entirely accurate” is putting it mildly. If there are any lingering doubts that Goldman was on the hook, consider this: The bank stood to collect an insurance payout of $1.7 billion if AIG failed; after the feds showed unusual largess by paying 100 cents on the dollar to save AIG, Goldman got $12.9 billion from AIG, including $8.1 billion linked credit default swaps. Do the math.

Or in other words, Goldman exploited its and AIG’s status as companies that were “too big to fail” to make the U.S. government an offer it couldn’t refuse. Then New York Federal Reserve Bank chief Tim Geithner and other government regulators who brokered the deal with Goldman quickly caved, either in panic over the disintegrating financial system or knee-jerk deference to Wall Street (and probably both). As investment analyst Joshua Rosner puts it:

Clearly Goldman’s calculation was more tied to their expectation of the political dynamics of forcing moral hazard than the fundamental realities of the financial strength of counterparties.

CONTINUED...

http://www.bnet.com/blog/financial-business/new-documents-show-goldman-sachs-would-8217ve-lost-billions-in-aig-collapse/6775

Gee. As Susie Madrak of CrooksandLiars.com put it: Thanks to Tim Geithner, AIG Was Forced To Pay 100 cents on the dollar with OUR money.

Ever hear of Hank Paulson?

[MilesColtrane]

139. He was better than Geithner because he resigned after 10 months...

and died shortly after.

Even Woodin's replacement was a staunch anti-Keynesian who regularly disagreed with FDR's approach to revive the economy.

I have no love for Geithner, so I won't defend him. And yes, I would have preferred "Tall Paul" as the head of Treasury.

My point is was the there was an equal disconnect between Presidential rhetoric and Cabinet appointments in FDR's case.

I'm not willing to judge Obama's performance on the economy on either one of those points, but by the numbers.

[mix]

155. truth nt

[DevonRex]

92. On Democratic Underground I've learned that:

Obama is:

1. Dismantling FDR's New Deal.

2. Destroying public education.

3. Feeding old people cat food.

4. Destroying Social Security.

5. Perpetuating a fruad on the American people.

6. Continuing wars forever and ever.

7. In bed with all the oil companies.

8. Wishing for hurricanes to hit the Gulf of Mexico.

9. In bed with all health insurance companies and wants us all to die except for rich people.

10. A Bildergerger.

11. In league with God only knows whom in order to perpetuate lies about 9/11.

12. Satan.

On DU I've learned that I must be in collusion with Satan because I'm a Democrat.

[Scurrilous]

95. LOL

:thumbsup:

[DevonRex]

96. .

Hello, fellow minion.

[CBR]

100. Same old stupid shit -- different day.

Guess I will go back to the super secret DLC, centrist Emanuel abode and plot for the next FOIA capture. LOL!!!

[mix]

156. With the exception of 11 and 12, you scored a perfect 10! nt

[deacon]

164. Yep. Great post. "Knee Jerks" - pardon me while unrec this nonsense. n/t

[tomp]

169. that's correct. go to the head of the class.

now you can help us figure out what to do about it.

[DevonRex]

171. Since you agree that Obama is Satan, all you can do is wait for Armageddon. Sorry.nt

[tomp]

172. brilliant. nt

[blindpig]

94. Strange day at DU

Octafish thrown under the bus, whodda thunk?

I've been here for 7 years and you haven't budged an inch, but something has.

[G_j]

98. +1000

[upi402]

99. It'd crowded under here. ^ +1,000 n/t k/r

[Starry Messenger]

111. +2

Some of these people I've never even seen in an Octafish thread before.

[Bodhi BloodWave]

162. Why is it people say somebody is thrown under it, when they dive under it themselves? nt

[TheKentuckian]

101. As valid today as it was when written. The show piece legislation passed since is indeed the

deodorant smeared over the stink and nothing more.

The "reforms" are shells operating over the same failed systems that brought us to the place we are now.

[upi402]

107. The "reforms" passed are the deoderant over the stink

:rofl:
Good one!

I blast Obama as needed, but the media is flat lying about him, and the people lap it up. Curiouser and curiouser, me thinks. So his betrayal of workers and real Democrats is lost in the neocon noise machine. This man is smart but has no damn sense.

[tomp]

170. there is no denying this...

...except by rightists.

[mmonk]

106. There are some moves in that direction. It concerns me because

many young people (adults) are sold on things like social security being unsustainable because they have grown up in the age of Reagan and will let it die.

[fascisthunter]

116. ummmm... yes he is

[Kermitt Gribble]

119. Sure seems that way. It's the agenda of his masters. n/t

[quiet.american]

120. At this point, symbolic UNREC. I take the piece pointed to in the OP as pure nonsense. nt

[EFerrari]

128. And yet no one who is saying they object to this article

has actually mounted an argument against it.

[ProSense]

130. Well, President Obama did repeal Rule 436(g) of the Securities Act of 1933

that exempted credit rating agencies from being held liable and he did create a first-of-its kind consumer bureau.

Doesn't seem like it.

[Name removed]

132. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Forkboy]

135. You guys seem obsessed with that place.

Perhaps a life is in order?

[Goldstein1984]

133. It's probably not intentional

This assault on the working person has been going on since Reagan.

Obama seems to be powerless or too beholding to special interests to stop it.

[Dinger]

136. Kick & Rec # 78 (nt)

[johnaries]

137. NO. It's obvious that he's trying to EXPAND it.

Although Obama has said his "mentor" was Lincoln, he has worked hard to expand many of the dreams of FDR. And he is still working hard towards those goals and doing it Constitutionally through the Congress, rather than relying on Imperialistic "Unitary Executive" techniques like our previous pResident.

Obama has repeatedly said that he is working for the long-term. I really don't understand why people can't see that.

"I want it NOW, and I don't care about the consequences in the future!" Childish and foolish. Fix it for the future, so that it will last.

[defendandprotect]

150. You're right -- but only if "up" is down and we all can't add 2 + 2 --- !!

[earcandle]

143. We have got to take the bull by the horns. Whatever we did to get an audit of the Federal Reserve,

we got to do again and again to get our country back.

Thousands of calls, letters and exacting words regarding withdrawal of support to house and senate.

We need to rebuild our country. Not anyone else's country. Fuck goodwill if you neglect your own.
That is sick and dysfunctional and a bad daddy.

Daddy Auction

[defendandprotect]

151. Evidently, Obama also got the Fed "audit" scaled back . . . way, way back -- !!

[earcandle]

160. WHAT>????? Does Grayson know about that? Grrr....!!! I know I am not supposed to name call when

playing politics and therefore, never? 

[defendandprotect]

177. Someone mentioned it in a response to one of my posts the other day . . . evidently ...

as quickly as the FULL AUDIT of the Fed got passed, Obama was on the phone calling

Congress and got the whole thing made usless??

I don't know this personally, but it's what someone mentioned in a post to me --

Which reminds me -- I missed listening to Hartmann today -- he's been rather good

on keeping all the info straight and on background of what's going on!

:)

I'll see if I can find the message -- it was a day or two ago???

[Poboy]

152. k&r

[mix]

153. Of course.

He's a neoliberal, University of Chicago product.

[craigmatic]

158. This article makes no sense. Clinton effectively killed the New Deal with the nullification of Glass

-Stegal and welfare reform. If anything Obama is the only democratic president after LBJ to be actually adding to the New Deal. Sure Obama is no FDR but FDR had low expectations on him because the state didn't do anything but fight wars up until that point. FDR was the first president to actually use the power of the government to actually improve peoples' lives. Expectations were too high on Obama going in. That was partially his own fault and partly the fault of his supporters who believed that he could govern like bush had only from a liberal perspective. Bush had it easy all he had to do was make government not work and cut taxes which was his whole political philosophy in a nutshell. Obama has to make government work as well as fix the economy while fighting 2 wars and taking cheap political shots from the repubs all at the same time. Put yourself in his shoes and think about what a tough balalancing act that would be. Personally I think he's doing a good job all things considered.

[earcandle]

176. I think he has acted cowardly, but gentile.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

159. I'm loving the responses to this thread...

and the responses by the same posters in that other thread that basically suggested reforming the CCC for homeless people.

Whoo boy.

[maryf]

163. Keeping the truth alive...

:kick: wish I could rec...thanks!

[AzDar]

165. When Obama's "reforms" actually begin to reform, the points made in this article will be old-hat.

Past being prologue, I won't be holding my breath 'til that happens...