The Reckoning, Barack Obama: Between a Rock and a Hard Place
Sunday, November 09, 2008
How will He Transform an Economy In Free-Fall After.
Barack Obama’s inspirational address to the adoring minions in Sweet Home Chicago, the loudspeakers erupted with Bruce Springsteen’s prayerful post-911 anthem, “The Rising.”
Yes, he had risen, but now he has to steer clear of a threatening cruxifiction on the cross of an economy in free fall.
The sound track to this chapter might be called “The Reckoning.”
It must be said that both parties had denied the primacy of the financial tsunami. Neither political party’s convention or platform took much note of our imploding financial system until it could no longer be ignored.
All the talk of tax cuts was a sideshow to the real elephant in the room---falling markets, growing unemployment, rising inflation, disappearing retirement funds, frozen credit and the crash in consumer demand which is bringing down the auto industry and so many others.
The failures of the Bush Administration, along with, it must be said, both houses of Congress, had enabled this disaster driven by Wall Street greed, regulatory inaction and media avoidance
It gave the Obamacrats the issue they needed to triumph. A campaign that started with a debate over ending the war in Iraq morphed into a referendum on a cataclysmic war on our economic well-being. In the end, once again, it was the economy stupid.
There is no doubt that our next President realizes he must turn this around. There is no doubt that he also recognizes that unless he does, many of his other goals including tax cuts and healthcare reforms (not to mention a second term) will go by the wayside. He said as much in his first post-election press conference.
Coming as he does from the Land of Lincoln, his message was initially to be one of healing and hope. Honest Abe may be his spiritual grandfather, but now FDR has to become his practical role model. Aspire as he does to the Tao of change, he now has to confront the Dow of reality.
And be, and the government has been trying, oh, have they ever. with monetary changes, interest rate cuts and massive infusions of capital. However you regard these “stimulus” measures—as sincere or a scam—we know they are not working. Certainly not working for the people who need help the most. Strengthening big banks is not the same as helping the unemployed or millions facing the loss of their homes.
The reckoning that he faces was not one of his making, It is structural, systemic, a product of decades of policies that undermined the social safety net, deepened inequality, kept wages in check and lived on debt. The Economic Policy Institute noted:
For roughly thirty years, with the exception of thelate 1990s expansion, there has been little wage growthfor the vast majority and increased economicinsecurity, primarily related to health care andretirement security. The last business cycle from 2000to 2007 failed to generate any growth for middle classworking families - on average, they lost over $2,000 ayear in inflation-adjusted income. …. Our economyhas been a huge skimming operation for the well-to-do”
Reversing this may not be easy especially because much of our growth and prosperity was funded with trillions in debt.
As a website in Australian called the Daily Reckoning explained, “eternal verities still apply; Barack Obama is not going to change them.?And that means that a slump caused by too much debt cannot be made to disappear. You can disguise it. You can delay it. You can push the losses onto someone else. But you can’t escape it.”
But that doesn’t mean he won’t try, and try he is, with an elite team of economic advisors, many from the very industry that caused the problem. Sure you need knowledgable economists and experienced businessmen and financiers on your side, but you need more than that.
On Friday, he met with this high-powered group even as journalist Doug Ireland observed:
You will note that it is composed entirely of current or former government officials and bureaucrats and corporate types. There is not a single representative of the labor movement, not a single labor economist, not a single representative of progressive or economic watchdog groups, not a single representative of consumers…..guess what kind of economic policies and appointments we’ll get out of this crowd!?”
Let’s also not forget that many of these wise men and experts did not foresee the crisis as economist James Galbraith (son of the late/great John Kenneth Galbraith who wrote the Great Crash about the depression of the l930’s.) revealed in an interview was reported on Greg Mankiw's blog:
But there are at least 15,000 professional economists in this country, and you're saying only two or three of them foresaw the mortgage crisis?Ten or 12 would be closer than two or three.What does that say about the field of economics, which claims to be a science?It's an enormous blot on the reputation of the profession. There are thousands of economists. Most of them teach. And most of them teach a theoretical framework that has been shown to be fundamentally useless.
What will Obama do.? For starters, he’s moving in a conventional way. a centrist way, surrounding himself with big names to build a consensus for more engaged government intervention ism.
Fortune already calls him a CEO-in chief. (Clearly he’s not “paling around with terrorists.) Even McCain’s economic advisor says he’s impressed. But Fortune wonders as should we, about this all star big-name team asking, “Do they have the answers?
So far the “conventional wisdom” a phrase coined by Galbraith years ago and favored by these hot shots is not working . We need to know how they will they stop foreclosures and create fairness in a lop-sided economy. Is there a plan for debt-relief and a moratorium on excess profiteering and foreclosures? Will they prosecute the subprime criminals?
The American people can’t trust the business leaders who enabled this crisis. Clearly, if “real change” is to come, there will need to be more grass roots, bottom up activism for economic justice. If you like Obama, if you want him to succeed, make some noise and push him from below because his advisors and all the special interests they represent are, sho’ nuff, pushing him from above.
News Dissector Danny Schechter, directed the film IN DEBT WE TRUST and wrote PLUNDER: Investigating Our Economic Calamity (Cosimo Books) and available at online bookstores. Comments to Dissector@mediachannel.org
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Most important, what will WE do?
By Davidson, Carl at Nov 09, 2008 08:37 AM
Exactly right Danny, organize and push from below, but focused: Green Jobs and Schools, Not War Jobs and Prisons, Healthcare for All, Not Warfare, Bailout our Infrastructure, no Golden Parachutes, and so on. Here\'s a note I just wrote to an old Trotskyist freind in Madison, WI:
"If America doesn\'t turn left, DW, it\'s not Obama\'s fault. Look in the mirror. There you see the real problem. The ball\'s now in our court. It\'s not a spectator sport, sitting back like a sportscaster or a fan or even a cheerleader.
You don\'t win at the top what you haven\'t organized and won at the base, not just in opinion polls, but in actual independent mass organizations and coaltions that know how to work and win local elections as well as put people in the streets. There we need both local and national deep structural reform platforms and organizers. Obama has fired up 3-to-6 million of them, now returning to their schools and workplaces.
My trend is well-positioned and charging full-speed ahead organizing them and doing just this. See http://beavercountyblue.org for examples. Obama\'s opened the door for participartory democracy and \'change from below. He\'s even invited us to lend a hand. Naturally, he\'s surrounded by ruling class elements, most of whom would rather not see this, and will work against it, but so what?
Our job is to organize and build the strengthen of the left pole, and its own platform, in the newly emerging counter-hegemonic historic bloc against neoliberalism, still the most dangerous and along with the corporate liberals, pulling Obama in the opposite direction. Shame on us if we\'re not imaginative enough to seize the time and move forward.
Don\'t worry so much about what Obama\'s is doing or who his staff picks are, what are YOU doing and WHO are YOUR local partners? That is question of the day that decides whether we turn left, and how much. So get on the stick."
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