William Black Nails It: Obama, Get Rid of Bush's Wrecking Crew

[cal04]

by Badabing
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/11/23/807320/-William-Black-Nails-It:-Obama,-Get-Rid-of-Bushs-Wrecking-Crew

Thank god for a voice of sanity coming from our financial sectors these days. William K. Black has a must read article today on Huffington Post concerning the 'meme' that drives me completely insane: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/william-k-black/why-is-obama-championing_b_367540.html

That somehow Americans are suppose to believe (and be thankful) that Treasurer Timothy Geithner and Ben Bernanke of the FED 'saved our nation' from a total financial meltdown.

That is without a doubt the biggest 'lie' out there in 'Wall Street Bizarro World' that there is.... it is sort of like dressing the Foxes up in brand spanking 'New Big Red Roosters Jumpsuits' hoping that no one will notice that their 'Fox tails' are still hanging out of their 'Rooster Suits'...it just don't cut it babe. The jig is up.


For those of you unfamiliar with William K. Black, here is a bit of background:

William K. Black is an American lawyer, academic, author, and a former bank regulator.<1> Black's expertise is in white-collar crime, public finance, regulation, and other topics in law and economics. He developed the concept of "control fraud", in which a business or national executive uses the entity he or she controls as a "weapon" to commit fraud.

Black is the author of The Best Way to Rob a Bank is to Own One: How Corporate Executives and Politicians Looted the S&L Industry, 2005, University of Texas Press, ISBN 0292721390.

On April 3, 2009 Black appeared on "Bill Moyers Journal" on PBS and provided critical commentary on the U.S. banking crisis.<3> In the interview with Bill Moyers,<4> Black asserted that the banking crisis in the United States that started in late 2008 is essentially a big Ponzi scheme; that the "liar loans" and other financial tricks were essentially illegal frauds; and that the triple-A ratings given to these loans was part of a criminal cover-up. He said that the "Prompt Corrective Action Law" passed after the Savings and Loan crisis mandated that ailing banks should be put into receivership. Black also stated that trying to hide how bad the situation is will simply prolong the problem, as happened in Japan's lost decade. Black stated that Timothy Geithner is engaged in a cover-up, and that the administration does not want people to understand what went wrong or how bad the banking situation is today.

(snip)
Mr. Black talks about a new book by Tom Frank's entitled: The Wrecking Crew which explains how the Bush administration destroyed our nation, our social fabric and our economy. The short sighted decision of the Obama administration to reward two of the worst leaders of Bush's crew -- Geithner and Bernanke with not just promotions but reappointments, instead of dealing with the 'cause' of the financial meltdown by appointing 'sane' economists, has in fact damaged the economy (how much worst could it get?) and has caused a huge backlash that is now coming from every sector (the left, the right, the middle) and is increasing political fallout that is unlikely to 'go away.'

Why is Obama Championing Bush's Financial Wrecking Crew?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/william-k-black/why-is-obama-championing_b_367540.html

[kenny blankenship]

1. The Age of Reagan Rolls On

[pundaint]

35. It wasn't just Reagan, Carter and Clinton both signed contributing deregulation.

That's the problem with two Republican parties, there's no one left to protect the People. Business is supposed to maximize its profits, government determines the permitted approaches. The Congress we elected and continue to re-elect, has not done it's job, and we have not done our job of voting in our own interests. Congress allowed the Media to become merely a corporate arm by weakening FCC regs, Congress allowed radical changes in the financial industry despite, in many cases, having lived through the late 80's crisis.

Americans are willfully ignorant, and we celebrate it publicly. "We have met the enemy and he is us". Walt Kelly

[msongs]

2. kinda like GW Bush's third term in many ways. oh well nt

[dixiegrrrrl]

3. I take exception that Obama's behavior was "short-sighted".

even after all the scandal of the AIG/bank bailouts was well known by even the MSM,
Obama STILL appointed Bernanke to another term as Fed. Chairman.
There is no way to spin that behavior as anything but continuing the fraud.
None.

Good for Mr. Black.
Perhaps if enough people get out of denial, ( most are still stuck in the
wishing and hoping stage) the country can be saved.
Doesn't feel that is happening tho.

edited for structure.

[Selatius]

4. Yet, for some reason, Barack Obama appointed those stooges anyway.

It could be that Obama really is that stupid and illiterate as far as the economy goes.

[dixiegrrrrl]

5. " heckuv a job, Timmy", eh?

[divideandconquer]

6. Few knew the inside out of how all the exotic derivatives worked

Maybe the admnistration had to hire their own gangsters/banksters to fight to fight the other gangsters/banksters.

[Tansy_Gold]

8. Then they shoulda hired their "own" gangsta/bankstas. . . .

. . . .not the same ones who done the gangsta'ing.

At least if they'd hired OTHER crooks, they coulda spun it better. There ain't no spinnin' this, there never was.



TG

[Selatius]

9. I don't buy that. There were economists like Krugman and Stiglitz who were sounding warnings.

They probably could do a better job of regulating the banks and the Fed than those two idiots, and Joseph Stiglitz once ran the freaking World Bank.

[Tansy_Gold]

10. ITA n/t

[Enthusiast]

19. Stiglitz is the right choice. nt

[bertman]

28. Don't forget Roubini and Baker.

[Selatius]

34. And those two you mentioned are quite good as well. nt

[girl gone mad]

11. Bullshit.

Derivatives may be complex, but there are tens of thousands of people who understand them well enough to handle the task.

Your proposal is akin to making Bush Secretary of State since he's been involved with foreign diplomacy, or Secretary of Defense, since he started two wars.

[Tansy_Gold]

12. ITA n/t

[Tansy_Gold]

13. "Few"???? How "few"???? Three? Four? five people on the whole

fucking planet?

Obama couldn't find a single other person who understood derivatives? Only Rubin, Geithner, Summers, Bernanke, in the whole world, understand derivatives?

Then who's trading them at all the investment banks and hedge funds and whatever the fucking hell places trade in derivatives?

Are derivatives and CDOs and SIVs and CDSes and all the other toxic alphabet soup -- kinda like PCBs are to the environment -- so esoteric than ONLY CROOKS can understand them?

If so, then they oughta be illegal. And that means Summers and Geithner and Rubin and Bernanke and all their cronies are crooks and oughta be behind bars. After all, prison was good enough for Jeff Skilling and Andy Fastow.

As Elizabeth Warren said, and I'm only paraphrasing here because I don't have the exact quote up, if you can't explain it, you can't sell it.

They're all paper bets anyway. They don't really mean anything. It's gambling with pretend money and then forcing the taxpayers to cover your bets with real money, THEIR real money. It needs to stop, and putting the gamblers in charge was not the way to do it.

A good friend of mine is a recovering gambler. His addiction cost him dearly about 20 years ago. After many years away from the casino scene, he got into a bunch of silly, stupid, and increasingly costly wagers last year between World Series and Super Bowl time. By the time it was over, he'd lost waaaaaay more than he thought he'd even been betting. $20 here, $5 there, didn't seem like much. And sometimes he won. But what started out one or two bets a week became eight or ten a week, and the $20 became $50. Finally, when someone pointed the mounting losses out to him, he got away from the crowd of people who were suckering him in. After it was over, he said to me, "I know I have a problem. I mean, I *KNOW* I have a problem. And I was still able to walk into this situation and not even realize it. I thought I was making one little bet and five bucks wasn't going to hurt anything one way or the other. The problem is, I don't even realize it's happening. I'm aware of it, and yet I'm not aware of it. I just can't let myself do it even once."

Bernanke and Geithner and Rubin and Summers and all the rest of them are addicts. And Obama is becoming an enabler.


TG

[Enthusiast]

20. Oh, they should

certainly be illegal alright. Toxic alphabet soup says it right.

[Enthusiast]

17. Hard to imagine.

But President Obama has been just a tad busy since taking office. President Obama's attention could have been more focused on other important issues. Maybe the information he is receiving is strictly controlled.

[Tansy_Gold]

7. NOW, GODDESS DAMN IT, I WILL SAY IT

The thread from 24 November 2008, during "the transition."

Most emphases are mine, added at the present time


http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=132&topic_id=7922946#7922951


Tansy_Gold (1000+ posts) Mon Nov-24-08 07:55 PM
Response to Reply #23
24. Then I guess I'm batshit insane
Because except for the color of his skin, Obama is turning into just another politician, who threw out all kinds of wondrous promises to sucker the voters into electing him, and within a fortnight has already started to go back on those lovely promises. Maybe he's even worse, because he knew how desperate we were and how eager we were to put our trust in him.

His economic team is nothing but recycled Greenspan believers. Greenspan and Rubin and Phil "King of Deregulation" Gramm are the ones who got our economy into its present mess.

He's already let it be leaked that he might not roll back the tax breaks granted to the super wealthy because it might not be good for the economy. Excuse me?????????????

He's said nothing about the utter and complete and total lack of transparency in the CitiGroup bailout, while still demanding that GM kowtow. So much for Main Street over Wall Street.

Where's his outrage over the Wachovia exec severance lucre?

Where are the new faces in his cabinet? Clinton? Richardson? Geithner? Is he gonna keep Gates?

Where's the "change"? It looks like more of the same to me. More status quo. More can't change horses in midstream. More delay on the war. More delay on this. Leave don't ask, don't tell alone. More "christian" morality. What's next? Leave the Hyde amendment in place? Reverse Roe? Halt stem cell research indefinitely?

I wouldn't put any of it past him.

And we were so gullible.


Tansy Gold



Tansy_Gold (1000+ posts) Mon Nov-24-08 09:55 PM
Response to Reply #41
48. I've been flamed before, and by better flamers than present company.
If I were really a pro-Hillary, anti-Obama person, I ought to be cheering on the appointment of so many Clinton carry-overs. I'm not. I'm appalled.

And if I were anti-Obama, I'd be prefacing my criticisms with "I Told You So," which I'm also not doing. (ETA: I held off as long as I could.) I honestly believed he meant what he said during the campaign, the whole "Change" thing, which now apparently means changing the faces but not so much the policies.

While I don't think a blank check to GM is the answer to the auto industry woes, I think blank checks to the Wall Street firms is about as wrong a response as there can be. Yet I hear not a peep from the Obama economic team. not a peep. Oh, wait, they're all tied to Wall Street. Why would they peep?

And why are there leaks about not repealing the tax cuts for the aristos? Wasn't this like a cornerstone of the Obama campaign? Wasn't this is thing that made Joe the Plumber so pathetic? And isn't it starting to look like the most crass of campaign lies?

Oh, I know, there will be plenty on DU who are loyal supporters of the president elect, who will support him through thick and thin. There are those who will caution that we wait until he's actually in office and actually has the power to do things.

And I know many of them will label me a concern troll, I who have been here since 2002 as Tansy Gold and since before that under another name. I don't care. I'm going to speak out.

We supported and we voted for Barack Obama because we thought he was different. We thought he was honest and straightforward and meant what he said. We trusted in his sincerity. We looked foward to a future that would bring about change for the better. So far all we're hearing are familiar names and even more familiar broken promises.

George W. Bush is on his way out. He is effectively reduced to presidential pardons, lighting the Christmas tree, sparing a turkey or two, and signing evil little regulations into law. His cabinet is being replaced and the new team is being transitioned in. Obama is president elect but he is also president in waiting, being briefed and prepared to take over. What we're seeing now is the prelude to his presidency, and so far, it isn't living up to the billing.

Tansy Gold



Tansy_Gold (1000+ posts) Mon Nov-24-08 10:43 PM
Response to Reply #50
51. What he's doing is installing many of the people RESPONSIBLE
for the problems with the economy and charging them with fixing what they broke.

That's a real confidence booster, yep, yep, you betcha.

And I have a whole lot of interest in keeping the economy from crashing, but I don't agree with what Obama is doing toward that end. If he were bringing in people who came from a different economic tradition, I'd consider him to be sticking with his mantra of change. But he's bringing in long-time insiders with ties to the worst collapse-inducing policies.

Obviously, you have a different opinion. Maybe you're still basking in the glow of the victory and not ready to begin a hard critical analysis of what is actually being done. Not what's being SAID or what was said two weeks or two months ago.

During the confirmation hearings for Gonzalez and Alito and Roberts and a host of other boooosh appointees, we all knew what was going to happen. We screamed and screamed at the Dem "leadership" for caving in on these horrendous appointments. We saw the lies that were being said, the empty promises that were made about bi-partisanship and non-partisanship, and we knew that they were lies and we weren't afraid to say so. We watched Pelosi and Reid take impeachment off the table and we knew what was coming.

Why then are there calls to lay off any criticism of Obama? He's not jesus fucking christ, for crying out loud. He's not perfect. And if I have a problem with some of his appointees, I think I have a right to express those misgivings here on Democratic Underground. I'd prefer to do so without being labeled batshit crazy, but I can deal with that if need be.

Obama made a big deal about his tax plans regarding those who make over $250,000 a year and those who make less. So many of us have said that a progressive income tax, one that puts more of a burden on those with higher incomes, is an absolute necessity to fixing the economy. Reagan's "trickle down" economics, beloved by Grover Norquist and his anti-tax ilk, DON'T WORK. Delaying the repeal of boooosh's tax cuts will only exacerbate the current problem. We knew this during the campaign, so why are some of us suddenly going in the opposite direction? Isn't the definition of insane, doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result?

Cutting taxes on the wealthy didn't work to fix the economy for the middle class in 1980 and it won't work in 2009. So why is Obama reneging on this cornerstone of his campaign? Why? Does he all of a sudden think, in contrast to what he said a few weeks ago, that if we continue to cut taxes on the rich, the economy will miraculously recover? It didn't under Reagan. . . .so isn't Obama's policy, or at least the kind of policy promulgated by his economic team in previous lifetimes, same old, same old, and what "changed" result can we expect?

If what he's trying to do is keep the stock market from crashing, he's doing little to help the economy. The market and the economy are two different things, and they've become more and more divorced from each other as a direct result of policies implemented by Greenspan, Gramm, and their subordinates, including Robert Rubin and Larry Summers and Timothy Geithner. They're all great supporters of The Markets, but not so much The Economy.

I generally don't go around calling fellow DUers batshit crazy or abysmally uninformed. I might hint that a little bit of self-education would be a worthwhile pursuit, but I tend to avoid direct insults. I think I'll stick to that policy, at least for now.



At least for now,


Tansy Gold



Tansy_Gold (1000+ posts) Mon Nov-24-08 11:13 PM
Response to Reply #52
53. Geithner's ties are to the Fed, to Rubin, to Summers
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/22/us/politics/22policy....

there are a lot of people who have been "warning" of collapses and problems, but far more important is what they propose as solutions.

Geithner has been working with Bernanke and Paulson on the current spate of bailouts. As head of the NY Fed, he has close ties to Wall Street. As a protege of sorts to Rubin -- and Rubin himself is now an Obama appointee -- there are additional ties to Citi. Geithner also has ties to Summers. And since both were Treas Secy under Clinton, with the ties to Gramm and repeal of Glass Steagall, Geithner is hardly free of taint.

Insiders, insiders, insiders all.

Change? where? I don't see any change. . . . .

As for the 3% tax increase, it isn't so much the AMOUNT of the increase as it is that there would have been one. The mere announcement of Geithner's appointment as Treasury Sec'y is given credit for boosting the stock market two days in a row. Has to be merely psychological effect, since he hasn't proposed let alone implemented any policies. So what kind of psychological effect could the imposition of a 3% tax hike have on the millions of tax payers who see Obama following through on a big campaign promise? And likewise, what kind of psychological effect would the FAILURE to implement that hike have? What kind of ammunition will it give the opposition, regardless how weak, fractured, and demoralized the opposition may be at the present time? Obama becomes a flip-flopper, a liar. No better than booosh.

How many voters were reluctant, for whatever reasons including but not limited to simple racism, to vote for Obama but did so because they were finally persuaded that he was going to act in their best economic interest? How much support will his reneging on that promise cost him?


It has already cost him




Tansy Gold



Tansy_Gold (1000+ posts) Tue Nov-25-08 06:19 AM
Response to Reply #55
58. Having been a Clinton supporter at one time does not mean
I found no fault with her or with her husband.

I've said elsewhere that

A. I supported Obama enthusiastically and without reservation when he became the nominee.

B. That my support of Clinton included reservations about her insider status and close ties to an administration that had contributed much toward the ultimate economic chaos.


Just because I was at one time a Clinton supporter does not mean I'm a PUMA (whatever the fuck that is), and the loathing sometimes shown here toward anyone who breathes a word of support for her is occasionally overwhelming.

For all the chatter in the media, including the comments in the OP of this thread, one would think booosh had abdicated and Obama ascended to the throne twelve days ago. If that were the case, why was the Citi deal put through if Obama didn't "approve" of it with his, pardon the pun, Rubinesque economic team virtually in place? Did he or didn't he approve? Was he or wasn't he involved?

The Clinton economic prosperity was built on a solid foundation established over a period of 40 years and that had already begun to deteriorate via the policies of the REagan and booosh 1 terms: erosion of union bargaining power, lowering of upper tier taxes, etc. Clinton's economic legacy was NAFTA, WTO/GATT, and repeal of Glass-Steagall, all of which directly set the stage for the soaring Dow, Enron, massive outsourcing, easy and destructive credit, and so on. Bill Clinton did much that was not progressive, and those who turn a blind eye to it are foolish. The tech bubble was on his watch, and the houses that were built and sold in 2002 in El Mirage, Arizona, that first alerted me to the potential for a massive housing bubble were in developments planned and plotted in 1998 and 1999. Yes, these were local and state authorities, but the developers were companies that were allowed to expand and the mortgage brokers were companies that were allowed to develope BECAUSE OF Clinton era economic policies.

Obama promised much. He came into the campaign with far less experience than the other candidates and therefore far less of a political record to run on, whether good or bad. His oratory and his message carried him. That he is now assembling an administration that might have been designed by Bill and Hillary Clinton is more than a bit ironic. That he now appears to be reneging on some of his cornerstone campaign promises, and doing so even before taking the oath of office, makes those of us who were never quite blinded by his radiance perhaps a bit more easily critical.

I saw Obama's election as inspiring. I have watched the videos and looked at the compilations of photographs with a lumpin my throat and tears on my cheeks. I saw the mood in this country and around the world changed in a twinkling, and I hoped that more than just the mood would also change.

But I am a cautious person who reacts viscerally when my trust is betrayed. And my trust, once lost, is never easily regained.


Which is why I remain


Tansy Gold



Tansy_Gold (1000+ posts) Tue Nov-25-08 04:10 PM
Response to Reply #55
64. Then Bill Greider of The Nation is equally unreasonable
Edited on Tue Nov-25-08 04:13 PM by Tansy_Gold
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph...


edited to add this for those too lazy to check out the other thread:

Obama's Treasury Pick Has All the Wrong Ideas
By William Greider, TheNation.com. Posted November 25, 2008.

Timothy Geithner is an architect, and now an enabler, of the unfolding crisis.

A year ago, when Barack Obama said it was time to turn the page, his campaign declaration seemed to promise a fresh start for Washington. I, for one, failed to foresee Obama would turn the page backward. The president-elect's lineup for key governing positions has opted for continuity, not change. Virtually all of his leading appointments are restoring the Clinton presidency, only without Mr. Bill. In some important ways, Obama's selections seem designed to sustain the failing policies of George W. Bush.

This is not the last word and things are changing rapidly. But Obama's choices have begun to define him. His victory, it appears, was a triumph for the cautious center-right politics that has described the Democratic party for several decades. Those of us who expected more were duped, not so much by Obama but by our own wishful thinking.

Let us stipulate that these are all honorable people, smart and experienced veterans of Washington combat. But they represent the Democratic party that mainly sees itself as managerial -- making government work better. The long era of conservative dominance has taught them to keep their distance from big reform ideas that promise fundamental change of the system. Their operating style is incremental and cautiously practical. They conscientiously avoid (or actively block) propositions that sound too liberal or radical. Alas, Obama is coming to power at a critical moment when incrementalism is irrelevant. The system is in collapse. Financial chaos won't wait for patient deliberations.

Events have confronted Obama with a fearful symmetry between past and present, illustrated by his choice of economic advisers. On Friday, we learned that Timothy Geithner, president of the New York Federal Reserve, would become his new treasury secretary and Larry Summers, who held the same position in the Clinton administration, would be the White House overseer of economic policy. On Monday, Geithner was busy executing the government's massive rescue of Citicorp -- the very banking behemoth that Geithner and Summers helped to create back in the Clinton years, along with Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan and Robert Rubin, Clinton's economics guru. Now Rubin is himself a Citicorp executive and his bank is now being saved by his old protege (Geithner) with the taxpayers' money.

<snip>



Tansy_Gold (1000+ posts) Mon Nov-24-08 08:11 PM
Response to Reply #29
35. Rubin is a student of Greenspan and the rest
are students of Rubin.

Not everything Clinton did was good. Repeal of Glass-Steagall, orchestrated by Greenspan and Gramm while Rubin was Treasury Secy, directly led to the economic catastrophe we have now.

We do NOT need these people back at the economic helm.




******************************

I recommend reading the whole thread. You might see some familiar screen names in it, too. Some who may not be singing the same tune 364 days later.

I wasn't the only one saying this. Obviously Bill Greider at The Nation, and he's a lot more educated and experienced in these matters than yours truly. But if here are 23-26% of far right wing looney tunes out there, then there must be at least 10% Obamabots -- and yeah, DU mods, I'm usin' a word that's probably on the forbidden list -- right here in our midst. Unwilling to even consider the possibility that the man in the cool shades -- like, that's really a qualification for running the country! -- could make a mistake. Could be wrong. Could have succumbed to the siren call of power. Could be out of touch. Could be a better communicator than leader.

We're in a fucking fiscal mess and Obama has surrounded himself from Day One with people who had major roles in creating that mess. He is NOT keeping his campaign promises, he's not even making a good stab at it any more. If he's shocked at the rightwing response to his bow to Akihito, then he's not paying attention. Maybe his handlers aren't letting him pay attention. Who knows?

But this is NOT change.

There is a part of me that wants to quote Francisco Domingo Sebastián Andrés D'Anconia, but I'm not quite there. . . .yet. So I'll stick with the infamous rubber stamp




of



Tansy Gold

[DemReadingDU]

14. Perfect stamp!

Bookmarking, so I can see all your great responses in one place!

[placton]

22. amen - naysayers about Obama

have been screamed down since day one by the 'true believers"

[IrateCitizen]

27. I hate the term "naysayers" because it's not accurate. "Realists" is better.

"Naysayers" implies that people are just against everything he does. "Realists" implies that people have the capacity to take a clear look at what he's doing and judge it according to the merits.

[KoKo]

26. Thanks Tansy for putting all those together in sequence.

I've read you over at SMW and have had the same concerns since November as I watched his appointments and how he has handled or allowed to be handled the challenges facing us.

It's very depressing seeing it all come together as some feared. I wish I could find something positive to say.

[chill_wind]

15. I hope many people will read that piece from beginning to end-

powerful points and strong prescriptions.

Canning the Bush Wrecking Crew, the same that recklessly drove our nation to the edge of the cliff and left us dangling perilously by nothing but our rear wheels--is only the first step.

10 key recommendations:

http://www.newdeal20.org/?p=6560

(Bill Black-- original link- and a very informative website)

[Waiting For Everyman]

23. That's a great site link, thank you! n/t

[chill_wind]

24. My pleasure.

:thumbsup:

[midnight]

16. Isn't President Obama savvy enough to realize that Geithner is

engaged in this cover up?

[Tansy_Gold]

21. obviously not; the other option is that Obama is, too. n/t

[IrateCitizen]

25. He's just giving investment bankers a good return on their investment.

Amount of money received by Barack Obama from Securities and Investment, 2008 Presidential election, from www.opensecrets.org: $14,808,875.

[Skittles]

33. he knows it

[democracy1st]

18. K & R

[bertman]

29. These Wall Street types have their own mini-armies that they have bought with their

filthy lucre. Many of them are tied in to the the Mafia through illicit real estate deals and other dubious transactions that have been going on for decades.

The President who defies them will meet the same fate as JFK. President Obama knows this, so he plays the game. He's only "the President". Those guys are in charge.

Recommend.

[shireen]

30. has anyone read "The Wrecking Crew?"

i don't have a background in finance. will i be able to understand it?

[Tansy_Gold]

31. I'm pretty sure it's written for the "average" reader,

not for those with financial backgrounds.

I really need to order this book.


TG

[Nikki Stone1]

32. The OP is assuming that Obama appointed them and not the other way around.

:)