I’m with Simon Johnson here: how is it possible, at this late date, for Obama to be this clueless?
Obama doesn’t even make a pretense of thinking the general public might be angry at these bloated bonuses for bailed-out banksters. Apparently it doesn’t even occur to him. Rather he panders to the banksters ever more.
The point is that these bank executives are not free agents who are earning big bucks in fair competition; they run companies that are essentially wards of the state. There’s good reason to feel outraged at the growing appearance that we’re running a system of lemon socialism, in which losses are public but gains are private. And at the very least, you would think that Obama would understand the importance of acknowledging public anger over what’s happening.
But no. If the Bloomberg story is to be believed, Obama thinks his key to electoral success is to trumpet “the influence corporate leaders have had on his economic policies.”
We’re doomed.
This from a Nobel Prize winner in Economics.
Our democracy has been hijacked and Obama is complicit. No politician is as tone-deaf as Obama appears. What he is doing is quite deliberate.
While I am in no way a fan of the big banks and also think Obama is listening to the wrong people, I have a question? At what point are the Banks no longer wards of the state? Once they’ve paid back the money with interest? I believe all but Citibank has done that. At least of the big banks that sat before Congress. Of course, Goldman Sachs is another story. They are up to their eyebrows in some stinky deals and need to be thoroughly investigated and punished.
Have you heard Fineberg (pay czar) or whatever his name is talk about the bonuses that AIG is handing out? Worthwhile listening to as there is more to the story than what you get on the news.
They talk about how bad the bonuses are. But never do anything. The plunder of the taypayers continues unabated too.
Plus they were supposed to lend and help homeowners in trouble. Instead, they mostly borrow money ultra cheap from the Fed and then but treasuries with it, making a guaranteed no-brainer profit. the government does nothing about this.
Contrast that with Teddy Roosevelt, who broke up Standard Oil and took no crap from JP Morgan.