Your weekly excerpt from one of my books. This week: "The Hidden History of Neoliberalism: How Reaganism Gutted America and How to Restore Its Greatness"
"Instead of ending neoliberalism, though, Obama expanded it dramatically with the Affordable Care Act, putting the nation’s healthcare needs in the hands of billion-dollar insurance companies and extending the privatization of Medicare through the Medicare Advantage scam that George W. Bush had brought to being.
He refused to regulate the nation’s monopolies, instead extending George W. Bush’s Emergency Economic Stabilization Act and the Troubled Asset Relief Program that poured ever-more money into the pockets of Wall Street banksters."
With all due respect, I think you are missing something in these comments that you acknowledge further on. Obama could not pass these ACA without the insurance company buy-in, because Citizens United (actually, "Corporations United Against Citizens") had put "big money" in the driver's seat through years of Political Action Committee contributions to their electoral wins. It sounds like Obama was supporting the neoliberalism, but I do not think that was by choice; it was by necessity if he wanted to get anything done that would actually help the non-wealthy 98% of citizens, many of whom had voted for Obama because of his populist views.
What would Obama have done differently if it had not been made very clear that Moscow Mitch and the Republicans almost to a person were committed to undermining and ultimately destroying him solely because of his racial background and their overt racism and because of the near certainty that he would be assassinated, probably along with his family if he did any of the things his supporters wanted him to do. It is one thing to be bold and another thing to be suicidal. I think he was trying to buy time, expecting the zeitgeist to change and allow more progressive actions. Instead, the reactionaries increased their power and influence. We the people are as much to blame as anyone. Most of us are much too afraid of change or stuck in naive hope and mythology about how great we are.
And an insightful analysis. One point you made that needs amplification: deposit money is not held in trust. Bank creditors can seize it. The cause of the bank failures in '29 was not the stock market crash. It was the banks speculating in the unregulated stock market and losing the customer deposit money.
The cause of the bank failures in '08, was not the crash of the housing/mortgage market. It was that the banks speculated in the derivatives market, putting deposit money at risk using naked credit default swaps. When they lost their bet with the hedge funds, they were either insolvent or, at best, zombie banks without the means to make loans and not enough cash to meet withdrawal demands.
The Canadian banks did not fail nor need a bailout because Canada puts a tight rein on the naked credit default swamp, requiring banks to set aside sufficient capital to meet the obligations. The US does not. The premiums from the sale of the naked credit default swaps go into the outsized banker bonuses. There is no fund set aside to meet claim such as with insurance.
That is why the commercial banking executives successfully opposed any attempt to curtail their ability to use deposit money to speculate in the derivative markets. That ability keeps the US banking system fragile, and why Warren Buffett warned, after the Dodd-Frank reforms, that derivatives remained on the bank statements as ticking time bombs.
Yes... And the same corporate Democrats are still trying to hold on as the anointed "opposition" to the MAGA-powered GOP grift. These Dems are fighting with all the Wall St money they can muster to stop real progressives from taking the reins. A repeat of their knee-capping Bernie to advance the dead on arrival Hillary that began the country's progressing collapse.
Calling policies 'neo" and "liberal" does not make them so. My take was that neoliberalism was Clinton's way to repackage Reaganism to get elected. It worked. The problem is structural, or as economist Dean Baker calls it "The Rigged System." If you do not understand how the system is rigged for wealth to flow up and trickle down you will never restore the middle class. It is a complex system, so fixing just one aspect will likely trigger offsets elsewhere to create a zero-sum gain. You have to retool the entire system, starting with taxing the heck out of the rich. That is not punnishment for being rich, but because they benefit most from a healthy, educated workforce, interstate highways and rail lines, a Navy that avoids piracy on the high seas, and a police force that protects all their personal and corporate properties - things we underlings do not have in abundance.
The #1 scheme of our rigged economy is that it is not taught in high school. Very few schools have a semester-long course that teaches personal financial management. It is not for lack of textbooks. Harold Pollack's "The Index Card" is perfect for high school. Baker's "Rigged: How Globalization and the Rules of the Modern Economy Were Structured to Make the Rich Richer" dives deeper, but it is free at CEPR's website. What schools do is pay lip service to the topic by including a few lectures in some other class like how to balance a checkbook, how credit cards work, and explain what a mortgage is. All three are ways people indenture themselves to financial institutions for life.
I’ve long felt that Obama undervalued and under-employed his tremendous oratorical skills throughout his presidency, and especially in the months following his inauguration. Whether with health care or the crimes of his predecessor or whatever, he unnecessarily fell short. And then he became pals with his predecessor.
“I’m from the government and I’m here to help.”-Ronald Reagan
Mayor Mamdani just rebutted Reagan's stupid remark with HIS nine most terrifying words: "I worked all day and can’t feed my family."
Time to quit the neoliberal experiment and the people who keep pushing it. No justice for workers, no peace! See you in the streets.
"Instead of ending neoliberalism, though, Obama expanded it dramatically with the Affordable Care Act, putting the nation’s healthcare needs in the hands of billion-dollar insurance companies and extending the privatization of Medicare through the Medicare Advantage scam that George W. Bush had brought to being.
He refused to regulate the nation’s monopolies, instead extending George W. Bush’s Emergency Economic Stabilization Act and the Troubled Asset Relief Program that poured ever-more money into the pockets of Wall Street banksters."
With all due respect, I think you are missing something in these comments that you acknowledge further on. Obama could not pass these ACA without the insurance company buy-in, because Citizens United (actually, "Corporations United Against Citizens") had put "big money" in the driver's seat through years of Political Action Committee contributions to their electoral wins. It sounds like Obama was supporting the neoliberalism, but I do not think that was by choice; it was by necessity if he wanted to get anything done that would actually help the non-wealthy 98% of citizens, many of whom had voted for Obama because of his populist views.
What would Obama have done differently if it had not been made very clear that Moscow Mitch and the Republicans almost to a person were committed to undermining and ultimately destroying him solely because of his racial background and their overt racism and because of the near certainty that he would be assassinated, probably along with his family if he did any of the things his supporters wanted him to do. It is one thing to be bold and another thing to be suicidal. I think he was trying to buy time, expecting the zeitgeist to change and allow more progressive actions. Instead, the reactionaries increased their power and influence. We the people are as much to blame as anyone. Most of us are much too afraid of change or stuck in naive hope and mythology about how great we are.
Here's wishing you and Louise an enjoyable Memorial Day weekend. Thanks for all you do!
And an insightful analysis. One point you made that needs amplification: deposit money is not held in trust. Bank creditors can seize it. The cause of the bank failures in '29 was not the stock market crash. It was the banks speculating in the unregulated stock market and losing the customer deposit money.
The cause of the bank failures in '08, was not the crash of the housing/mortgage market. It was that the banks speculated in the derivatives market, putting deposit money at risk using naked credit default swaps. When they lost their bet with the hedge funds, they were either insolvent or, at best, zombie banks without the means to make loans and not enough cash to meet withdrawal demands.
The Canadian banks did not fail nor need a bailout because Canada puts a tight rein on the naked credit default swamp, requiring banks to set aside sufficient capital to meet the obligations. The US does not. The premiums from the sale of the naked credit default swaps go into the outsized banker bonuses. There is no fund set aside to meet claim such as with insurance.
That is why the commercial banking executives successfully opposed any attempt to curtail their ability to use deposit money to speculate in the derivative markets. That ability keeps the US banking system fragile, and why Warren Buffett warned, after the Dodd-Frank reforms, that derivatives remained on the bank statements as ticking time bombs.
Yes... And the same corporate Democrats are still trying to hold on as the anointed "opposition" to the MAGA-powered GOP grift. These Dems are fighting with all the Wall St money they can muster to stop real progressives from taking the reins. A repeat of their knee-capping Bernie to advance the dead on arrival Hillary that began the country's progressing collapse.
D.
Calling policies 'neo" and "liberal" does not make them so. My take was that neoliberalism was Clinton's way to repackage Reaganism to get elected. It worked. The problem is structural, or as economist Dean Baker calls it "The Rigged System." If you do not understand how the system is rigged for wealth to flow up and trickle down you will never restore the middle class. It is a complex system, so fixing just one aspect will likely trigger offsets elsewhere to create a zero-sum gain. You have to retool the entire system, starting with taxing the heck out of the rich. That is not punnishment for being rich, but because they benefit most from a healthy, educated workforce, interstate highways and rail lines, a Navy that avoids piracy on the high seas, and a police force that protects all their personal and corporate properties - things we underlings do not have in abundance.
The #1 scheme of our rigged economy is that it is not taught in high school. Very few schools have a semester-long course that teaches personal financial management. It is not for lack of textbooks. Harold Pollack's "The Index Card" is perfect for high school. Baker's "Rigged: How Globalization and the Rules of the Modern Economy Were Structured to Make the Rich Richer" dives deeper, but it is free at CEPR's website. What schools do is pay lip service to the topic by including a few lectures in some other class like how to balance a checkbook, how credit cards work, and explain what a mortgage is. All three are ways people indenture themselves to financial institutions for life.
I’ve long felt that Obama undervalued and under-employed his tremendous oratorical skills throughout his presidency, and especially in the months following his inauguration. Whether with health care or the crimes of his predecessor or whatever, he unnecessarily fell short. And then he became pals with his predecessor.