But he was evasive, and quite obviously and squirmily so, at many other times during that conference, and often fell to speechifying and particularly verbose and complex circumlocution in an rather blatant attempt to deflect attention away from the actual question that the questioners asked. This makes me very uncomfortable. I had so deeply hoped for better. I had hoped for actual openness, and it seems that it ain't happening.
Mr. Obama is getting some very bad advice, bad advice that decries open partisanship at need, bad advice that denies the value of punishing Bush administration wrongdoing, bad advice regarding openness and honesty to the public, and some VERY bad advice on the nature of the economic recovery programs that we need. I believe that the Dow went into the dumpster yesterday because this bailout is looking increasingly like Obama is planning to follow some very Bushian policies (in return for the illusion of bipartisanship) and that Tim Geithner looks an awful lot like a weasel and talks like one, too. Picking him was a terrible blunder. Why not Robert Reich, or even Paul Krugman?
Nobody except fatcat robber barons wants to further enrich fatcat robber barons, but the immense Treasury plan, and to a slightly lesser extent the Senate version of the recovery package, seem to have this aspect to them as their chief features. Speculators do not deserve rescue, nor do those whose subterfuges in crafting opaque investment instruments led us into this mess. They are the ones who have earned the right to sleep in refrigerator boxes under bridges, not American wage earners and office workers whether in the private sector or the public.
I thought that this past election was supposed to bring us hope. I'm having a very hard time feeling any at all. Indeed, I am getting the awful feeling that we have no hope at all, and even our victories are defeats as America falls deeper and deeper into plutocracy and two-class feudalism. This was supposed to be different. Dammit, this was SUPPOSED to be different!
Understand how the Nazis oozed out from the muddy ashes of the Weimar Republic. It all started with the printing of mountains of worthless greenbacks during a period of economic distress, briefly masking the pain of that distress without addressing its underlying causes.
Be afraid. Be very afraid. One thing we have decidedly not done or even discussed: It is wrong to allow any private enterprise to become "too big to fail." We once understood this, and that's why we passed the Sherman Act, which had a scope too limited to deal with the conditions that prevail today. We need to return to the days of really ROBUST anti-trust, and if the rightwing courts try to block it, we need to find a way to screw the rightwing judges, many of whom got their jobs precisely for the purpose of obstructing such anti-trust action.
The WSWS criticizes the administration's plan to expand the bank bailout.
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