NYT: How Obama Saved Capitalism and Lost the Midterms

[stopbush]

Nobody gets credit for preventing a plane crash. “It could have been much worse!” is not a rallying cry. And, more telling, despite a meager uptick in job growth this year, the unemployment rate rose from 7.6 percent in the month Obama took office to 9.6 today.

Billions of profits, windfalls in the stock market, a stable banking system — but no jobs.

Of course, the big money interests who benefited from Obama’s initiatives have shown no appreciation. Obama, as a senator, voted against the initial bailout of AIG, the reckless insurance giant. As president, he extended them treasury loans at a time when economists said he must — or risk further meltdown. Their response was to give themselves $165 million in executive bonuses, and funnel money to Republicans this year.

Money flows one way, to power, now held by the party that promises tax cuts and deregulation — which should please big business even more.

President Franklin Roosevelt also saved capitalism, in part by a bank “holiday” in 1933, at a time when the free enterprise system had failed. Unlike Obama, he was rewarded with midterm gains for his own party because a majority liked where he was taking the country. The bank holiday was incidental to a larger public works campaign.

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/11/02/how-obama-saved-capitalism-and-lost-the-midterms/

[gkhouston]

1. I think we know which choice Bushco would have made.

Oh wait, that's how we got where we are. :banghead:

[mzmolly]

2. "Their response was to give themselves $165 million in executive bonuses, and funnel money to Republ

Republicans this year."

Shakes head.

[Uncle Joe]

3. I have to disagree with the first sentence.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x4835332

Thanks for the thread, stopbush.

[unblock]

9. the 4th paragraph isn't too accurate either --

republicans will hold more power in the new congress than in this one, but democrats still control the white house and the senate. more to the point, republicans haven't held power throughout this congress -- filibustering in the senate was their ONLY weapon.

yet a TON of corporate and uber-rich money went to republicans. not because they held power, but because of the potential selfish rewards if and when they eventually regain power.

[truedelphi]

4. Those of us who have been influenced by the other fabulous economic minds here at DU

Like Autorank, like GirlGoneMad, like Dixiegrrl, could care less what the newspaper of record for the Big Financial Firms has to say about the "saving" of our economy.

It ain't been saved on Main Street, and could that have anything to do with the non-productive redemption of the gamblers ensconced in the Halls of Finance? Over eleven trillion and counting.

And please don't offer me up that statement that we "had to do something."

Yes, we did have to do something. The "right" something to do would have involved dusting off the laws already on the books, that established the use of state chartered banks in every region of the nation, putting the money into those banks with the stipulations that the money had to be loaned out to the consumers and the small and big businesses in those areas.

As this has unfolded, we have saved only the Top One Percent of the economy to the detriment of everyone that is not that Top One Percent or who doesn't work for them.

[dennis4868]

5. THE BEST EDITORIAL I HAVE EVER READ...

describing the last 2 years of Obama....really sad that most people who voted for the repubs last Tuesday voted against their own interest and voted based on lies they believed were "facts."

[Make7]

6. Not what I expected from a Marxist. ( n/t )

[T Wolf]

7. Perhaps SAVING CAPITALISM was the problem in the first place. Perhaps it would have been better

to let it crash completely and then, once the dust cleared, try and create something that actually worked for the population instead of the rulers.

[Dawson Leery]

10. +1

[Ozymanithrax]

8. The did it to FDR in 1938 for Saving Capitalism...

Man, they hate it when They save Capitalism.

[JackRiddler]

11. A third term of Bush would have made the same moves, but at least liberals wouldn't be praising him.