This past weekend I started to think that 125 posts was plenty and that I should just start listening to a mellow music station when I’m driving around in my car and stop watching and reading the news in order to stop being so upset by what our leaders are doing. Then, it was like a strike from heaven, I remembered my granddaughter, thought about my grandson who’s invitro, thought about my beautiful daughters and my son who is soon to graduate from Marine boot camp, and I remembered that is what I did from about 1970 until my first granddaughter was born. I just looked the other way as one US administration after another was purging this nation of the very values that most of us had come to take for granted. And they’ve been doing it in such a way as to make it almost unnoticeable. Kind of like as winter comes on each day gets a degree or so colder until when the dead of winter finally hits, it’s not pleasant, but you’ve been prepared and you don’t notice the cold as much. You’re kind of used to it. As you can see, I’m going to continue writing!
The one thing that is very clear to me is that the government problems have been created in a bipartisan manner. I am no fan of Bill Clinton, I often think that if it was my daughter that was an intern and ………… well, I won’t go there, but let me just say that I don’t appreciate the guy. The last President that I have any respect for was Jimmy Carter, and if you’re like some of the people I know who get their information from Rush Limbaugh and those of his ilk, you probably think Carter was a terrible President. I believe he was a good President among a bunch of terribly greedy self-serving people. And Washington hasn’t changed much since then. Carter was followed by Reagan and I could go on and on about Reagan, but the point for tonight is that, in my view, the tremendous “stripping” of government regulation began under Reagan. And, don’t forget, Reagan needed a lot of Democratic votes to get his agenda passed. I don’t believe he was the staunch “conservative” today’s Republicans would like to remember him as, but he instituted the philososphy that “government is the problem.” George HW Bush followed him and didn’t change much – at least in the sense that he pushed us farther into debt and participated in the deregulation of government “movement” albeit, at least as I remember it, to a lesser degree.
Then came Clinton, and while I was happy to see the federal government reach a place of surplus during his years, the stripping of government regulation accelerated during his term in the 1990’s. This included the incredibly stupid move of reversing the Glass-Stegall act of 1933. The result of the Clinton years – in conjunction with the height of Alan Greenspan’s term as head of the Federal Reserve – was a nation that was finding creative ways to lead its people into debt, both publically and privately. Many of the credit schemes that brought us down during the past couple of years were spawned during the late 90’s and early 2000’s. You couple that with a government that was cutting taxes while sending American troops into “harms way” in multiple places and the table was “set” for what could still become the worst financial disaster in our history. I know that many people think we’ve hit the “bottom,” and I surely hope they are correct, but I have grave concerns about this. And, if we go into another tailspin on Wall Street, it could be like someone not taking enough anti-biotics to cure a virus. When it comes back the second time it comes back much fiercer than the original “version.”
On top of all that George W Bush put one person after another into leadership roles of government agencies with the clear agenda to undermine the very agency they were heading. The result was one disaster piled on top of another, one failure after another, until the system essentially was coming apart at the seems when President Obama stepped in. I, for one, have great hope that President Obama succeeds and ends up one of our great Presidents. When he took office I felt fairly confident that he would. It was apparent that the opportunity was (is) there and he has the intellectual capacity to do so. And I’m still hoping and I still believe it may happen. However, (OK, I know what you’re thinking – here comes more whining) – I can’t think of a better way to say this but, here comes more whining! I’m very concerned for President Obama and I don’t see his first 100 days as such a success as his staunchest supporters. I believe it is important that we don’t fall into the same trap that Republicans did under GW Bush and just rubber stamp everything – in an attempt to make it look like they didn’t make any mistakes. At least with Obama, I’ve already heard him say that he makes mistakes – refreshing – but there are some directions he’s leading the government that look too much like “deja vu all over again” to me, that is of major concern.
Let me take the economy, for example. I’m VERY CONCERNED that we’re going back to “business as usual” already. First of all, I’m very skeptical that the same banks that led us into this financial “meltdown” are now reporting record profits – in the face of an economy that is still clearly in the “tank.” These financial institutions have been allowed to get way too big, way too powerful, and WAY TOO “IMPORTANT” for the good of all of us. And to think that the executives of these corporations are worth multi-million dollar salaries on top of multi-million dollar bonuses is just clear evidence of what the deregulation of the past 25 years has done to our economy and our nation. I fully realize that some Republicans think that anyone who doesn’t believe these guys should get “whatever they can” are “socialists.” In fact, a couple posts ago, I mentioned that I have a good friend who I can’t even talk to anymore who listens to Limbaugh everyday, is a true “blue collar” guy, and who will defend these excessive, greedy, salaries at the expense of a friendship – because he’s “sick of the liberals who believe in class warfare!” The Republicans have brainwashed the very people who are damaged by this agenda of greed to support it – passionately.
When I listen to these Republicans who believe that people like me are socialists (I might be, haven’t thought about it that much) two things strike me as very interesting. First, they HATE Barrack Obama (I suspect because he’s Black, but I can’t prove that) and second, they don’t see his policies as anything resembling those of George W Bush. Well, in some ways I guess that’s obvious, but in regards to Wall Street and the financial markets, I’m not sure I’m seeing that much difference. Timothy Geithner, as I understand it, was right in the middle of the Wall Street collapse as the head of the New York Fed during the last five years of GW Bush’s administration. And Larry Summers, Obama’s “economic advisor” was right in the middle of the Clinton deregulation policy and has some serious “baggage” regarding the very financial markets that they’re trying to return to “health.” What I’m trying to get to here is that I don’t feel too good about the Obama economic policies vis-a’-vis the Wall Street institutions which have led us to the brink of national bankruptcy. My fear is that the government “bailouts” will prop up Wall Street allowing the very people who created this crisis to continue as if nothing happened (I understand that the bailouts were originated via Bush/Paulsen, but I don’t see much difference with Obama/Geithner).
It has been reported that many of the banks are raising the salaries of their executives already. These are people who produce one scheme after another as to how to make money by gambling with other people’s money. They figure out how to take borrowed money and use it to borrow more money, and it gets into a cycle that has produced one “bubble” after another for the bulk of my adult life – basically the past 25-30 years. I can tell you that when I was a young man in the 60’s and 70’s it was not uncommon for the President of the local bank to live on the same street as the guy who worked at the Paper Mill. Banks loaned money to people for the purpose of running a business, buying a car, or buying a home – among other things. People actually paid off their homes and put money in the bank when they got paid. I don’t remember credit cards. Now, I’m kind of backward, but the credit card phenomenom seems to me to have “mushroomed” in the past 10-15 years. I got my first credit card when I was 45 years old and now I have several cards that I haven’t even called the number which is required to activate them because I’ve figured out that I got “sucked in” to the 0% scams of the past 8 or 10 years which has left me with at least a half a dozen credit card accounts (this is a bit embarrassing, but fortunately I can say that they all have zero balances) which I have no intention of using. My point is that these banks have used the deregulated markets to “push” their products into many places where they don’t belong. I’m very fortunate to have paid off all of the cards I got before this crisis hit, but I know people who had balances which went to 30% interest at the whim of the credit card company. And with the blessing of the government.
Credit Card companies make about a third of their profits from late fees and penalties and the federal government, during the Bush years and with the blessing of Democrats, passed a bankruptcy bill that prevents consumers from being able to “zero out” their debts when declaring bankruptcy. Now, I’m not supporting the idea that people should be able to run up huge credit card debt and then just declare bankruptcy and it is all wiped away – but I can tell you, if they could, you’d see a lot more discipline on the part of the credit card companies when they issue the cards. I’M STRAYING FROM MY POINT – so I’ll try to gather myself. What I’m trying to say is that I fear that Obama is leading us right back to where we were. Like maybe trying to relive the “Clinton years” – from an economic perspective. I, FOR ONE, DON’T WANT TO GO BACK THERE! I would much prefer that we “buck up” and work our way out of this mess without allowing these Wall Street firms to escape accountability for their excesses and without trying to return to the “Clinton economy.”
Keep in mind, Robert Rubin was Clinton’s treasury secretary – he led CitiCorp right into the tank – Geithner, as mentioned above, was right in the middle of the Wall Street meltdown, as was Summers. Hiring these guys to “fix” Wall Street’s problems is like hiring the Fox to fix the henhouse or hiring a druglord to keep watch over the evidence room at the police station. It’s looking like people are starting down the “slippery slope” of measuring our economy’s health by the Dow Jones Industrial average AGAIN – and, we’re not hearing nearly enough about the travails of the middle class working families which are the true backbone of this nation. I have stated in previous posts my disagreement with President Obama regarding his continuance of Bush’s warrantless wiretapping, his reluctance to prosecute clear violations of our laws by members of the Bush administration, his hesitancy in bringing troops home from Iraq (it’s 100 days and I haven’t heard of one troop reduction yet), his apparent continuation of the Bush policies in Afganistan, and now, I’m disagreeing with his continued “propping up” of the Wall Street banks (while apparently leading Chrysler and General Motors into bankruptcy). As I said earlier, I believe President Obama has the opportunity to be a great president, but at the same time, if a lot of this stuff “blows up in his face” the opposite could be true. Make no mistake, Osama bin Laden is not hoping for Obama’s success. If he see’s an opportunity to further destroy America he will jump on it. We have responded to him for seven years in the stupidest way possible and it will take courageous leadership to get us going on what all the polls I’m asked to give my opinion to call “the right track.” I don’t believe we are yet on the “right track” and I believe this country is EXTREMELY fragile and vulnerable at this point in time. Our best interest will not be served by continuing the policies that got us to this place. I don’t know how President Obama can change course at this point, but it feels like to me that “Business as usual” on Wall Street, would be a HUGE mistake!