Dead-on posting from "A New Way Forward"

Another rare posting I didn't create, but want to enter because it's that good:


This is the age old fight for power between large corporations and regular people

June 3rd, 2009 by tyc

People are starting to wage a battle with the financial companies, but if people don’t really start to see the battle for what it is — a fight for power between the banks who currently control Congress and the public who untimately pays for it — we’ll again lose any chance for real reform that restores our political system and economy in the interest of working families doing better than they are now.

Arianna Huffington argues that we could have had some structural reform happen after Enron, but the way politics are usually played, the fight for reform usually is assuaged by the companies for politeness’ sake and then completely dwindles:

Remember how during the 2008 campaign there came a moment when candidates hoping to win the White House realized they had to declare that, like Obama, they were all in favor of “change”? Hillary did it. McCain did it. So did Romney. Giuliani too.

In the same way, today everyone agrees that we need reform of our financial system. Even Wall Street knows it is inevitable.

So the question becomes: are we going to get real reform or are we going to get the DC version of “reform”?

The citizens who are fighting with ANWF are trying their hardest to not let that happen. We simply can’t lose our chance to create real structural reform that can ACTUALLY put large corporations back in their place. Push for breaking up the banks, please!

As Rep. Brad Miller wrote on Talking Points Memo,

It will be a fierce battle, even with the full support of the Obama Administration. “All of the signature economic reforms the President has promoted…are under siege,” The Nation reports. “Without a grassroots uprising that challenges business as usual in Washington, we aren’t likely to get the change we were promised, much less the change we need.”

We’ve won some battles. A couple of weeks ago the President signed into law the credit card reform bill that Carolyn Maloney introduced. A few weeks ago the House passed a solid bill–not perfect, but solid–to reform mortgage lending that I introduced along with Mel Watt and Barney Frank.
But we can’t possibly anticipate and prohibit every new predatory financial product that the industry claims is “innovation.” Requiring the industry to show that innovative new financial products are a positive contribution to society–and get approval before selling the products to consumers–fundamentally changes an industry desperately in need of fundamental change.

That is the kind of change that we cannot achieve without a “grassroots uprising that challenges business as usual in Washington.”

Link to original post here:
http://anewwayforward.org/blog/?p=344

Back from Mo Rage:

And folks, the foxes who raided the chicken coop--the big bankers who screwed us all, individually and nationally and got us into this financial crisis, Goldman/Sachs, etc.--are the very same foxes who are supposed to be cleaning up this banking mess, now.

And they're getting paid handsomely, now, too--again--to do it.

The fox still guarding the chicken coop

Okay, so W put Henry Paulson in charge of the 700 billion dollar boondoggle bailout they requested for all of us--keeping in mind he's a Wall Street investment banker--and what happens? Mr. Paulson slipped a 5 sentence change in tax law from the Treasury that gave these same banks what is expected to be another 140 billion dollar tax write off.

Classic, huh? Almost unbelievable.

Congress is furious. Not enough to really do anything but they're angry. And they should be since this is effectively changing tax laws, which is Congress' job (that's what THEY get bribed--er, paid--to do) and Treasury is only supposed to enforce those laws--not change or create them.

To go one step further, technically it may even be illegal. But since we're in such tenuous, new financial straits and territory--and Congress is filled with spineless, fearful jellyfish--they don't want to make too big a stink over it, for fear it will make things worse.

As things continue to go to heck and we get closer and closer to what seems to be a meltdown of our financial system, let's NEVER forget, folks, that it was President George Walker Bush who took us there.

Let's always refer to this as George W. Bush's Depression.

He's been completely irresponsible on his watch as President.

Let's not let him off the hook, like Donald Rumsfeld is now, regarding the war in Iraq.

These clowns made these messes. Let's never forget it.

"EVERYONE REMAIN CALM!!!"

You know what kills me?

For the last 2 weeks, first from "Hank" Paulson, then the White House and always from Wall Street, we've heard nothing but that, basically, we're all going to hell in a handbasket and/but "if you give us this 700 billion dollars, real fast and no questions asked, we'll be okay. But if you don't, it's going to be horrible," in a nutshell.

So they pushed through a nightmare bill and it died. Since Wall Street didn't get it's Christmas package, it got pissed off and slashed 777 points off the Dow. "We'll show you!", right?

So now, after all the threats, here we go. It looks like the House of Representatives is going to buckle and give them all this money. Sure, they put in a few little concessions--and millions of dollars of treats in the form of yet more earmarks for themselves and their friends--and they're going to get their boondoggle bailout.

Really, who can tell if this is really necessary or if this is the best way to do this? Sure, it seems we need more liquidity in the credit markets but is this the path to take? No one in power seems to be asking this or any other questions (thought we certainly hope they are, of course, and not just "what's in it for me?").

With all that going on, what we're just about to hear, then, out of Washington and from everyone who has their hands on this bill is that "There, that ought to do it." Tomorrow, once this is passed, we're going to hear everyone in Washington and government say "Okay, it's all better now. Be calm. Go back about your business. Spend money. Procreate. Do what it is you do."

Mark my words.

Again, for the past 2 weeks, we've heard nothing but how things are going straight to hell, with only a little exaggeration here, but tomorrow, once this passes, they're going to insist everything's fine and that we should all calm down.

Are you kidding me?

They've done nothing--from the President to Paulson to other government officials--but scream about everything but a 2nd Great Depression (after all, they don't wanna panic us), and all of a sudden it's going to be "okay, it's all fixed."

My point?

This whole thing has been so badly managed and mismanaged, once again, by this Bush Administration that it's almost giving the American people whiplash in it's messages.

The American people have been going about their business, going to work, paying taxes, etc., while people are almost talking about financial endtimes and then it'll be all "calm down", "take it easy".

While irresponsiblity and ineptitude has just been considered the norm for this group in the White House, it seems to me they've outdone themselves this time--this one, last time, before the Knucklehead is out of office next January.

This is just no way to run a government and country.

If you EVER voted for George W. Bush, even once, WE BLAME YOU.