"Yes We Can!" Is Harder Than Obama Realizes

Welcome back to the Big Apple Mr. President. I hope your flight up the coast was a quick and uneventful one, for the reason you came might just be as unnoticed at the end of this fiscal reform we are being promised. Heaven knows this country needs help in saving ourselves from the vicious corporatists that currently run things on Wall Street and it's appendage within the Beltway.

Now in the moment, on this day, many people are making a big deal about the President's speech at the storied Cooper Union. However, if the President actually believes that Wall Street is going to work with him and Congress to reform the system, then this speech will amount to nothing for the great majority of us that want to take back power from the titans of the financial services industry.

Here's a few snippets from the speech via Huff Post:

"Ultimately, there is no dividing line between Main Street and Wall Street. We rise or we fall together as one nation. So I urge you to join me -- to join those who are seeking to pass these commonsense reforms," according to Obama's prepared remarks for a speech in New York City. "And I urge you to do so not only because it is in the interests of your industry, but because it is in the interests of our country."

See Mr. President, the people you are trying to address do not care about their country, nor do they care about their industry. The only concern the majority of elites on Wall Street is to get as rich as possible at all costs. Perhaps you forgot about what happened at Lehman Brothers? Or maybe you didn't learn your lesson on bipartisanship and conciliation during the prolonged battle over health care reform?

The Huffington Post article linked above draws the perfect contrast in this situation. Looking at what F.D.R. did in the 1930s is above and beyond Obama's shtick in 2010. Franklin Delano Roosevelt by and large did what it took to rein in the financial abuses that brought about the Great Depression. Obama's effectiveness at cleaning up the abuses seen in the last thirty years starting with Reagan is yet to be seen.

Now I agreed with Obama in 2008 that we needed change, and that "Yes We Can" make it happen. Yet, no matter how good your slogans are, it takes political will, strength and fortitude to make things happen in Washington and on Wall Street. The best reforms possible are going to be pushed back upon with the greatest ferocity by those that it seeks to place limits on. However, if Obama seeks to work with Citibanks, Wells Fargos and Bank of Americas then not only will the President look foolish when he either passes a tempered and weak reform bill or fails to pass a bill entirely.

So Mr. President, I hope you enjoy the great media hoopla surrounding you here in the city today. Just remember that it won't amount to a hill of beans if the big bankers running things now continue their pillaging of our country, even after a cooperative "reform" bill is passed.

President Obama Touts Pay-Go

This isn't a Monopoly game we're talking about, President Obama is serious about real reform and he is urging Congress to enact "pay-go" so we start reining in the out of control spending:

One in Ten Americans On Food Stamps

The debate between this fiscal crisis being a recession and a depression has been increasing as do the length of the rolls displaying the recently unemployed. Nobody wants the economy to be in bad shape, but acknowledging the extent of the damage is the first step in dealing with it. For the unrealistic optimists still out there, take heed of this sobering fact, one in ten Americans are now on food stamps. Yes, one in ten.

From Yahoo News:

A record 32.2 million people -- one in every 10 Americans -- received food stamps at latest count, the government said on Thursday, a reflection of the recession now in its 16th month.

Food stamps are the major U.S. antihunger program and help poor people buy groceries. The average benefit was $112.82 per person in January.

The January figure marks the third time in five months that enrollment set a record.[...]

Food stamp enrollment rose in all but four of the 50 states during January, said Agriculture Department figures. Vermont, Alaska and South Dakota had increases of more than 5 percent. Texas had the largest enrollment, 2.984 million, down 65,000, followed by California at 2.545 million, up 43,000, and New York with 2.211 million, up 37,000.

Here in New York, a figure of 2.211 million means that even more than one in ten residents receives food stamps. Those numbers only reflect the people that actually go out and seek assistance. Thousands, if not millions more across the nation make much tougher decisions, such as going hungry because they have to pay rent or for overly-expensive prescriptions.

Imagine now if the GOP would have gone through with their attempt to eliminate the food stamp program. It is good to know Obama won't let that happen on his watch.

Gov. Sanford Has A Severe Case Of GOP Insanity

Sanford's delusions were on full display yesterday as he tried claiming that accepting federal money to fund South Carolina's public school system is some sort of child abuse:



And the craziest thing? This man wants to run for President in three years.

G.O.P. Pulls A Hit And Run On America

From the DSCC:

The 21st Century Schizoid Men

Dennis Trainor Jr does a "slam poetry" session for the economy and slams Obama for allowing Geithner to follow policies that mirror that of Bush. Not only that, he goes after war and the health care crisis problems and their failed "solutions."

Scrubbing The Name "A.I.G." Off The Building Doesn't Make The Damage Go Away

Like anything in life, looks can be deceiving. For example, it is widely known that A.I.G. is now synonymous with greed, corruption and a degree of callousness towards the American people (who bailed them out) that personifies the relationship between Wall Street and the rest of the country. So when you are within that organization that is A.I.G., do you atone for your sins? Give the money back? Do whatever it takes to win back the trust of the people you lied to and cheated on?

Or do you scrub the name "A.I.G." from your building and pretend nothing's wrong?:

Reader Dan Albanese sent us photographs of the anonymous-looking exterior of 175 Water Street. The building formerly had "American International Group" prominently over the front doors, along with "AIG" etched in the windows and doors. According to the Post, AIG spokespeople explained that "the company had decided to replace the large AIG sign -- outside the entrance to its property-casualty offices -- as part of its plan to change that operation's name to AIU Holdings Ltd"—to "distinguish these well-capitalized businesses from AIG." Is the subtext, then, that the employees here are not the ones protesters should be harassing?

So just pretend nothing happened, or that A.I.G. even exists. It isn't even a question of pride for these people, it is that protesters look bad for business and confusing them into doing something else is best for A.I.G.'s profitability. It is much cheaper for them to pay a maintenance worker to take their name off the glass in the lobby than actually reform themselves into being ethical and morally upstanding people in society. If anything, it would take a jail cell for many of these corporate crooks to turn themselves around.

Hey Paul Krugman!

Paul Krugman has a column today about how concerned he is about Tim Geithner's latest plan to bailout the banks by recycling old Bush fiscal policies. Perhaps he should listen to this guy, and take over at Treasury so that we get a more progressive fiscal policy from the Obama Administration.

Congressman Sherman Takes On CNBC

The more I watch Brad Sherman go up against Wall Street's apologists the better I like him:

How Bad Are These Economic Times For New York?

A few less Starbucks stores in the neighborhood, a few more "For Sale" signs and landlords offering a free first month upon signing are all indicators in Manhattan at least that times have gotten tough. Seriously though, unemployment has skyrocketed in the city and across the country and life in NYC has gotten harder. The boom times of Wall Street's excess had the poor barely getting by and the affluent loving every moment, but hardly anyone expected it could get this bad, this quickly. Well, economists that have been paying attention knew about it, and now that the recession is upon us their portend for the future does not look so bright.

From The NY Times:

John Tepper Marlin

Former Chief Economist

City Comptroller’s Office

Some people have compared this recession to the Great Depression. Mr. Marlin’s view? It could turn out to be worse.

He is troubled that this time, the crisis is more global in nature, given the interconnectedness of the world economy. That means it affects more people, and it also means there are more people to blame: the aggressive peddlers of subprime mortgages in California; the proponents of deregulation, led by two powerful former members of Congress from Texas, Dick Armey and Phil Gramm; and the people he sardonically calls the “geniuses” on Wall Street.

“We’ve had the verdict — Wall Street is guilty — but what’s playing out here is the sentencing, and it’s not just Wall Street that’s being sentenced; it’s the rest of the world,” Mr. Marlin said.

And that is just one person the Times talked to. Others did not have much better news. Nicole Gelinas at the conservative-leaning Manhattan Institute predicts that even though property taxes are helping the city stem the bleeding, reassessments will lead to even further reduced revenues. Ronnie Lowenstein of the Independent Budget Office in NYC says for us to forget about those boom years if Obama follows through with re-regulating Wall Street (a good thing from a macro perspective, that's for sure). Still others suggest things aren't as bad or will not get as bad as the Great Depression or even the recession of 1982. Precautions have been put in place so that the city won't go bankrupt like it has.

Of course as the article says in the title, we should expect change. That means we need to not rely on Wall Street like we have and in my view, diversify our economy. Long before Bloomberg's ramped up gentrification plan, the city had a booming cultural economy that has been stymied by the Mayor and others like him in the past. We need to stop begging and pleading the large banks to solve all our fiscal woes because more often than not, they dig our holes bigger than we started out with.

Behind The Scenes With Barack Obama

Nightline's Terry Moran interviews the President yesterday as he goes to Florida to talk about the economic stimulus bill:

We Came So Close To Complete Economic Ruin

Questions and concerns surrounded the $700 billion that was requested by Hank Paulson in the waning days of George Bush. The number was not explained well at all and now we are starting to get a picture of what was going on between Congress and the markets at the time. I give credit to Congressman Kanjorski for telling this story below, but where was this information back in September when we needed to know it?

Bernie Sanders Wants A Real Investigation Of The Economy

Fixing the fiscal crisis we are in is extremely important and we have to stimulate the economy so that it actually moves again. That is not good enough though, because if we do not take a good look at what is going wrong with the system, then it will eventually fail us again. Senator Sanders (I-VT) wants to see that happens and tells Rachel all about it last night.

President Obama's Weekly Address

Here he is, our President:

Could The Yankees Be Bloomberg's Undoing?

There are a lot of things that get me going about Mayor Bloomberg. Being out of touch with people who make less than a billion dollars a year, his undemocratic means of extending term limits, how he's gone about raising property taxes and a whole host of other things. I would like nothing better than to see him lose his re-election bid this year. Despite all those grievances, it might just be the storied New York Yankees that bring him down in the end.

From The Gothamist:

It appears that various members of local and state government have lost their cool with the Yankees and their struggles to finance their soon to open new stadium without the additional financial assistance. City Comptroller William Thompson came out swinging with the harshest rhetoric yesterday when discussing the ongoing state of the project stating, "Costs don't go up that dramatically in that period of time. Either someone did that intentionally or it is the worst job of management that I have ever seen." [...]

The Times questions whether the city's dealings with the Yankees could become an Achilles heel for the mayor's reelection campaign. They compare the situation to the mayor's attempts push for a West Side stadium before the '05 campaign, but with higher stakes given the current economic state. One Quinnipiac pollster speculates that close ties with the Yankees might do more harm than good just due to the fact that "people are being told we’ve got to economize, we’ve got to tighten our belts, and the Yankees are blowing money by the carload for players.”

Earlier this week, another Bloomberg opponent in the mayoral race Anthony Weiner took a jab at the Yankees fundraising efforts saying, “Maybe CC Sabathia can buy the big-screen TVs.” Comments like that have made it easier for Bloomberg aides to brush off the criticisms as nothing more than "political theater." Yankees President Randy Levine added, “Surprise, surprise — Billy Thompson is running for mayor. Billy voted for this deal in the beginning, I continually briefed him, and only after the term-limits law does he now decide to criticize the deal. What a coincidence.”

Bloomberg and his people may think that this is all merely theater and they are entitled to that. However, this botched public funding of a deal that only benefits the players involved at the expense of the taxpayers is indicative of the Mayor's entire Administration. He's been touted as this economic guru because of his wealth, but for the last eight years middle class New Yorkers have fared worse while the rich have done very well thanks to zoning policies, eminent domain issues, property tax rates and those that have a stake in Citi Field and the new Yankee Stadium.

His supporters in and out of the Council during the battle for term limits extensions were eager to say what a great financial manager he has been, but really, voters should be asking who's fiscal solvency does he have at heart?

Job Numbers Continue To Get Worse....And Worse

No one has to tell you that things are getting bad out there in our economy, but there is plenty of information to prove it. The Bush Administration and John McCain tried to tell us that the fundamentals of the economy were strong, but thankfully most of us saw beyond their obfuscation of the truth. Now that Wall Street has been erratically swinging (mostly down) for two or three months, we are beginning to see how it affects everyone outside of the Financial District.

From CNBC:

U.S. employers axed payrolls by a shocking 533,000 in November for the weakest performance in 34 years, government data on Friday showed, as the recession inflicted a mounting toll on the U.S. labor market.

The Labor Department said the unemployment rate rose to 6.7 percent last month in the highest reading since 1993, compared with 6.5 percent in October, after widespread losses across the country's major industry sectors.[...]

That meant 199,000 more jobs were lost in September and October than previously thought and the total reduction in U.S. nonfarm payrolls for last three months was 1.256 million, with almost 2 million shed in the year so far.

Service-providing businesses alone shed 370,000 jobs in November, following a loss of 153,000 jobs the month before.

Yeah you read that right, over 1.25 million jobs lost in three months. Republicans in power avoided these brewing problems for years (as did neo-liberal Democrats) and now it is time to begin to repair the damage. Barack Obama can't possibly take the helm soon enough. The time for change can barely wait for January 20th, if only he could have started on November 5th.

W. Blames H.W. For Our Economic Mess

Oliver Stone's movie "W." purports that a lot of conflict occurred between George H.W. Bush and his miserable failure of a son. A lot of that takes place in our President's earlier years, but as we can clearly tell today, there's still something between the two. The outgoing Executive is doing a round of interviews and is spreading the blame for his mess as fast as he can, including a little mud set aside for dear old Dad.

From ABC News:

"I think when the history of this period is written, people will realize a lot of the decisions that were made on Wall Street took place over a decade or so, before I arrived," he said.

Karl Rove likes his fuzzy math, but a third grader can tell me that a decade or so (eight to ten years) minus the year Bush was elected (2000) equals approximately 1988 to 1992. When that kid studies social sciences later this year, he or she can tell you who was President at that time.

Obama To Jolt The Economy With Investments And Jobs

Ah, if only we could get Chief Justice Roberts to swear this man into office already....so that we can kick out the petulant little child that sits in the Oval Office now.

Obama's Weekly Address: Jobs, Here We Come!

The President-Elect comes through with his second weekly address and in this one, he means business about growing our economy with jobs for the middle class. If the Republicans are smart enough, they'll take him up on his offer and not choose the role of an obstructionist minority that only cares about the wealthy and not the unemployed...or underemployed.

The Bailout Is Bigger Than You Think And No One Is Paying Attention

If you think the $700 billion given to Secretary Paulson by the Congress was a lot of cash, then you'll be shocked to know how much our government is really coming up to bat for corporations with. The actual tab, when combined with loans, guarantees and other set ups is closer to five trillion, or to put it in long form, $5,000,000,000,000.00. That my friends (sorry for the McCain reference) is a incredible amount of money. Especially because the people who pay most of the taxes really do not see much of it. The way it breaks down is pretty simple.

From Forbes:

The Fed has taken on much of that total, including lending a cumulative $1 trillion in overnight or short-term loans since March to primary dealers through its emergency discount window and making a cumulative $1.8 trillion available through its term auction facility, a series of short-term transactions it began making available twice a month in January. It should be noted that a portion of the funds lent in these programs has been repaid and that the totals represent what has been made available.

The Fed also took on tens of billions in debt, including $29 billion in debt of Bear Stearns, and made $60 billion of credit available to American International Group (nyse: AIG - news - people ). It is committing $22.5 billion to set up a special purpose vehicle to manage some of AIG's residential mortgage-backed securities, and it is financing $30 billion of a second fund to hold $70 billion of multi-sector collaterized debt obligations on which AIG wrote credit default swaps.

The Treasury, in addition to the $700 billion raised in the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act, agreed to guarantee money market funds against losses up to $50 billion, will inject $40 billion of capital into AIG and is backing the conservatorship of Fannie Mae (nyse: FNM - news - people ) and Freddie Mac (nyse: FRE - news - people ), to the tune of $200 billion.

The FDIC, meanwhile, is guaranteeing $1.5 trillion of senior unsecured bank debt.

And there's more to that as well, but you can start by digesting those numbers. The truth is we are dropping ridiculous sums of money in these institutions and have very little to show for it. The markets are still unhappy and fears of a long recession just make things worse. The way Wall Street has fiscally managed itself (basically no management to be seen) has had a detrimental effect on us all and what is worst of all is that Congress is doing next to nothing to make sure what they have given Paulson has worked.

Literally speaking, no oversight positions have been filled and $290 billion has already been spent out of the bailout. Many of us on the left (and yes, the conservative right too) screamed and shouted to take it easy and not act in such a brash manner that gave Paulson and Bush everything he wanted. The conditions that precipitated this collapse have been formed over many years and taking a few extra weeks would have been just fine. Now we are still in a large mess with nothing to show for the billions spent. Soon we'll be wishing for this to only cost five trillion dollars and not whatever astronomical figure it eventually ends up being.