NEW YORK TIMES
January 10, 2010
Op-Ed Columnist
The Other Plot to Wreck America
THERE may not be a
person in America without a strong opinion about what coulda, shoulda been done
to prevent the underwear bomber from boarding that Christmas flight to Detroit.
In the years since 9/11, we’ve all become counterterrorists. But in the 16
months since that other calamity in downtown New York — the crash precipitated
by the 9/15 failure of Lehman Brothers — most of us are still ignorant about what Warren Buffett called the “financial weapons of mass destruction”
that wrecked our economy. Fluent as we are in Al Qaeda and body scanners, when
it comes to synthetic C.D.O.’s and credit-default swaps, not so much.
What we don’t know will
hurt us, and quite possibly on a more devastating scale than any Qaeda attack. Americans
must be told the full story of how Wall Street gamed and inflated the housing
bubble, made out like bandits, and then left millions of households in ruin. Without that reckoning, there will be no public
clamor for serious reform of a financial system that was as cunningly breached
as airline security at the Amsterdam airport. And without reform, another
massive attack on our economic security is guaranteed. Now that it can count on
government bailouts, Wall Street has more incentive than ever to pump up its
risks — secure that it can keep the bonanzas while we get stuck with the
losses.
The window for change is
rapidly closing. Health care, Afghanistan and the terrorism panic may have
exhausted Washington’s already limited capacity for heavy lifting, especially
in an election year. The White House’s chief economic hand, Lawrence Summers, has
repeatedly announced that “everybody agrees that the recession is
over” — which is technically true from an economist’s perspective and
certainly true on Wall Street, where bailed-out banks are reporting record
profits and bonuses. The contrary voices of Americans who have lost pay, jobs,
homes and savings are either patronized or drowned out entirely by a political
system where the banking lobby rules in both parties and the revolving door
between finance and government never stops spinning.
It’s against this
backdrop that this week’s long-awaited initial public hearings of the Financial Crisis
Inquiry Commission are so critical. This
is the bipartisan panel that Congress mandated last spring to investigate the still murky story of what
happened in the meltdown. Phil Angelides, the former California treasurer who
is the inquiry’s chairman, told me in interviews late last year that he has
been busy deploying a tough investigative staff and will not allow the
proceedings to devolve into a typical blue-ribbon Beltway exercise in toothless
bloviation.
He wants to examine the financial sector’s
“greed, stupidity, hubris and outright corruption” — from traders on the ground
to the board room. “It’s important that we
deliver new information,” he said. “We can’t just rehash what we’ve known to
date.” He understands that if he fails to make news or to tell the story in a
way that is comprehensible and compelling enough to arouse Americans to demand
action, Wall Street and Washington will both keep moving on, unchallenged and
unchastened.
Angelides gets it. But
he has a tough act to follow: Ferdinand Pecora, the legendary prosecutor who served as chief counsel to the Senate
committee that investigated the 1929 crash as F.D.R. took office. Pecora was a
master of detail and drama. He riveted America even without the aid of
television. His investigation led to indictments, jail sentences and,
ultimately, key New Deal reforms — the creation of the Securities and Exchange
Commission and the Glass-Steagall Act, designed to prevent the formation of
banks too big to fail.
As it happened, a major
Pecora target was the chief executive of National City Bank, the institution
that would grow up to be Citigroup. Among other transgressions, National City
had repackaged bad Latin
American debt as new securities that it then sold to easily suckered investors during the
frenzied 1920s boom. Once disaster struck, the bank’s executives helped
themselves to millions of dollars in interest-free loans. Yet their own
employees had to keep ponying up salary deductions for decimated National City
stock purchased at a heady precrash price.
Trade bad Latin American
debt for bad mortgage debt, and you have a partial portrait of Citigroup at the
height of the housing bubble. The reckless Citi executives of our day may not
have given themselves interest-free loans, but they often walked away with the
short-term, illusionary profits while their employees were left with shredded
jobs and 401(k)’s. Among those Citi executives was Robert Rubin, who, as the
Clinton Treasury secretary, helped repeal the last
vestiges of Glass-Steagall after
years of Wall Street assault. Somewhere Pecora is turning in his grave
Rubin has never
apologized, let alone been held accountable. But he’s hardly alone. Even after
all the country has gone through, the titans who fueled the bubble are
heedless. In last Sunday’s Times, Sandy Weill, the former chief executive who
built Citigroup (and recruited Rubin to its ranks), gave a remarkable interview
to Katrina Brooker blaming his own hand-picked successor, Charles Prince, for
his bank’s implosion. Weill said he preferred to be remembered for his
philanthropy. Good luck with that.
Among his causes is
Carnegie Hall, where he is chairman of the board. To see how far American
capitalism has fallen, contrast Weill with the giant who built Carnegie Hall. Not only is Andrew Carnegie remembered for far more epic and generous philanthropy
than Weill’s — some 1,600 public
libraries, just for starters —
but also for creating a steel empire that actually helped build America’s
industrial infrastructure in the late 19th century. At Citi, Weill built little
more than a bloated gambling casino. As Paul Volcker, the regrettably powerless chairman of
Obama’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board, said recently, there is not “one shred of neutral evidence”
that any financial innovation of the past 20 years has led to economic growth.
Citi, that “innovative” banking supermarket, destroyed far more wealth than
Weill can or will ever give away.
Even now — despite its
near-death experience, despite the departures of Weill, Prince and Rubin — Citi
remains as imperious as it was before 9/15. Its current chairman, Richard
Parsons, was one of three executives (along with Lloyd Blankfein of Goldman
Sachs and John Mack of Morgan Stanley) who failed to show up at
the mid-December White House meeting where President Obama implored bankers to increase lending. (The
trio blamed fog for forcing them to participate by speakerphone, but the
weather hadn’t grounded their peers or Amtrak.) Last week, ABC World News was
also stiffed by Citi, which refused to answer questions about its latest round
of outrageous credit card rate increases and instead e-mailed a statement blaming its customers for “not paying back their loans.” This from a
bank that still owes taxpayers $25
billion of its $45 billion handout!
If Citi, among the most
egregious of Wall Street reprobates, feels it can get away with business as
usual, it’s because it fears no retribution. And it got more good news last
week. Now that Chris Dodd is vacating the Senate, his chairmanship of the
Banking Committee may fall next year to
Tim Johnson of South Dakota, home
to Citi’s credit card operation. Johnson was the only Senate Democrat to vote
against Congress’s recent bill policing credit card abuses.
Though bad history shows
every sign of repeating itself on Wall Street, it will take a near-miracle for
Angelides to repeat Pecora’s triumph. Our zoo of financial skullduggery is far
more complex, with many more moving pieces, than that of the 1920s. The new
inquiry does have subpoena power, but its entire budget, a mere $8 million,
doesn’t even match the lobbying expenditures for just three banks (Citi, Morgan Stanley,
Bank of America) in the first nine months of 2009. The firms under scrutiny can
pay for as many lawyers as they need to stall between now and Dec. 15, deadline
day for the commission’s report.
More daunting still is
the inquiry’s duty to reach into high places in the public sector as well as
the private. The mystery of exactly what happened as TARP fell into place in
the fateful fall of 2008 thickens by the day — especially the
behind-closed-door machinations surrounding the government rescue of A.I.G. and
its counterparties. Last week, a Republican congressman, Darrell Issa of
California, released e-mail showing that officials at the New York Fed,
then led by Timothy Geithner, pressured A.I.G. to delay disclosing to the
S.E.C. and the public the details on the billions of bailout dollars it was
funneling to its trading partners. In this backdoor rescue, taxpayers
unknowingly awarded banks like Goldman 100 cents on the dollar for their bets
on mortgage-backed securities.
Why was our money used
to make these high-flying gamblers whole while ordinary Americans received no
such beneficence? Nothing less than complete transparency will connect the
dots. Among the big-name witnesses
that the Angelides commission has called for next week is Goldman’s Blankfein. Geithner, Henry
Paulson and Ben Bernanke should be next.
If they all skate away
yet again by deflecting blame or mouthing pro forma mea culpas, it will be a
sign that this inquiry, like so many other promises of reform since 9/15, is
likely to leave Wall Street’s status quo largely intact. That’s the
ticking-bomb scenario that truly imperils us all.
*
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2011/04/18/112346/obama-ran-against-bush-but-now.html
*
Posted on Mon, Apr. 18, 2011
Obama ran against Bush, but now governs like him
Steven Thomma | McClatchy Newspapers
last
updated: April 19, 2011 09:15:43 PM
WASHINGTON — He ran as the anti-Bush.
Silver-tongued, not tongue-tied. A team player on
the world stage, not a lone cowboy. A man who'd put a stop to reckless Bush
policies at home and abroad. In short, Barack Obama represented Change.
Well, that was then. Now, on one major policy after
another, President Barack Obama seems to be morphing into George W. Bush.
On the nation's finances, the man who once ripped
Bush as a failed leader for seeking to raise the nation's debt ceiling now
wants to do it himself.
On terrorism, he criticized Bush for sending
suspected terrorists to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and denying them access to U.S.
civilian courts. Now he says he'll do the same.
On taxes, he called the Bush-era tax cuts for the
wealthy wrong, and lately began calling again to end them. But in December he
signed a deal with Republicans to extend them for two years, and recently he
called the entire tax cut package good for the country.
And on war, as a candidate he said that the
president didn't have authority to unilaterally attack a country that didn't
pose an imminent threat to the U.S., and even then the president should always
seek the informed consent of Congress. Last month, without a vote in Congress,
he attacked Libya, which didn't threaten the U.S.
Big differences remain between Obama and Bush, to
be sure. His two nominees to the Supreme Court differ vastly from Bush's picks.
Obama does want to end the tax cuts for the wealthy. He also pushed through a
massive overhaul of the nation's health insurance system.
Yet even on health insurance, his stand wasn't so
much a reversal of Bush's approach as an escalation. Bush also pushed through a
massive expansion of Medicare by adding a costly prescription drug benefit — at
the time, the biggest expansion of a federal entitlement since Lyndon Johnson's
Great Society. Indeed, some of the differences between the two presidents are
measured in gray, not black and white as once seemed the case.
Some of the changes in Obama can be attributed to
the passion of campaign rhetoric giving way to the realities of governing,
analysts say.
"He is looking less like a candidate and more
like a president," said Dan Schnur, the director of the Jesse M. Unruh
Institute of Politics at the University of Southern California. "He has
discovered that it's much easier to make promises on the campaign trail than it
is to keep them as president."
At the same time, some of the surprising continuity
of Bush-era policies can be tied to the way Bush and events set the nation's
course, particularly on foreign policy.
"Morphing into Bush was not a willful
act," said Aaron David Miller, a scholar at the Woodrow Wilson
International Center for Scholars. "It was acquiescence to the policies
his predecessor shaped and the cruel realities that Obama inherited."
For example, Obama found he couldn't easily close
the prison at Guantanamo Bay because he couldn't find a place, abroad or at
home, willing to take all the terrorist suspects held there.
"Bush created, on the military and security
side, new realities from which no successor, Democrat or Republican, could
depart, "Miller said. "It's like turning around an aircraft carrier.
It cannot happen quickly."
Among the ways Obama has reversed his earlier
promises and adopted, extended or echoed Bush policies:
DEBT
In 2006, Bush had cut taxes, gone to war, and
expanded Medicare, and increased the national debt from $5.6 trillion to $8.2
trillion. He needed approval from Congress to raise the ceiling for debt to $9
trillion.
The Senate approved the increase by a narrow vote
of 52-48.
Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., voted no.
"Increasing America's debt weakens us
domestically and internationally," Obama said in 2006. "Leadership
means that 'the buck stops here.' Instead, Washington is shifting the burden of
bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren. America has
a debt problem and a failure of leadership."
Now Obama's on the other side. He's increased the
national debt to $14 trillion, and needs Congress to approve more debt.
Moreover, Obama's aides now say that congressional meddling to use that needed
vote to wrangle budget concessions from the White House would be inappropriate
and risk financial Armageddon.
What about Obama's own vote against the president
in a similar situation? A mistake, the White House said.
TAXES
As a senator and presidential candidate, Obama
opposed extending the Bush tax cuts on incomes greater than $250,000 a year
past their expiration on Dec., 31, 2009.
In 2007, he said he was for "rolling back the
Bush tax cuts on the top 1 percent of people who don't need it." In a 2008
ad, he said, "Instead of extending the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest,
I'll focus on you."
As president, Obama proposed letting those tax cuts
expire as scheduled, while also proposing to make permanent the Bush tax cuts
for incomes of less than $250,000.
But he didn't get Congress to approve that. When
the issue came to a head last December, Republicans insisted on extending all
of the tax cuts or none, and Obama went along lest the tax cuts on incomes
below $250,000 expire even briefly. His final deal with the Congress also added
a one-year cut in the payroll tax for Medicare and Social Security.
"What all of us care about is growing the
American economy and creating jobs for the American people," Obama said.
"Taken as a whole, that's what this package of tax relief is going to do.
It's a good deal for the American people."
He said again last week that he wants to let the
Bush tax cuts for the wealthy expire, this time on Dec. 31, 2012.
TERRORISTS
As a presidential candidate, Obama vowed a broad
reversal of Bush's policies toward suspected terrorists.
Most pointedly, he said he'd close the prison in
Cuba and try suspected terrorists in civilian courts, not in military
tribunals.
"I have faith in America's courts," he
said in a 2007 speech. "As president, I will close Guantanamo, reject the
Military Commissions Act, and adhere to the Geneva Conventions. Our Constitution
and our Uniform Code of Military Justice provide a framework for dealing with
the terrorists."
He ran into a torrent of opposition, however.
Members of Congress balked at transferring suspected terrorists to U.S.
prisons. New Yorkers balked when his administration said it would try accused
9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in a civilian court in lower Manhattan.
Last month, he changed course, saying he'd keep
Guantanamo Bay open, and would try Mohammed before a military court.
The reversal, said Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., the
chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security, "is yet another
vindication of President Bush's detention policies by the Obama
administration."
Echoing Bush, Obama's also asserted that he has the
power to hold suspected terrorists without charges or trial, and that he has
the power to kill U.S. citizens abroad if his government considers them a
terrorist threat.
WAR POWERS
During his campaign, Obama signaled that he'd be
far more circumspect than Bush was in using military power. He did say he'd
send more troops to Afghanistan, which he's done, and that he'd attack al Qaida
terrorists in Pakistan, which he's also done.
But he opposed the Iraq war from the start, and
said he didn't think the president should wage war for humanitarian purposes or
act without congressional approval, absent an imminent threat to the U.S.
"The president does not have power under the
Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that
does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation," he
told The Boston Globe in 2007.
"In instances of self-defense, the president
would be within his constitutional authority to act before advising Congress or
seeking its consent. History has shown us time and again, however, that
military action is most successful when it is authorized and supported by the
legislative branch. It is always preferable to have the informed consent of
Congress prior to any military action."
On March 19, the U.S. attacked Libya on humanitarian
grounds, absent any threat to the U.S. and without approval from Congress.
ORGY
OF GREED… Wall Street Celebrates Victory Over Their Crimes on Americans! AND NO
ONE SERVES THIS GREED MORE THAN BARACK OBAMA!
*
“On
the other side of the social divide is an uninhibited orgy of greed, documented
most recently by a Wednesday story in the New York Times (“Signs of
Swagger, Wallets out, Wall Street Celebrates.”
Thanksgiving
in America
US
corporations shatter profit records
25
November 2010
US corporations took
in $1.659 trillion in the third quarter, breaking records going back 60 years,
according to a Commerce Department report released Tuesday. It was the seventh
consecutive quarter of profit growth at “some of the fastest rates in history”
according to the New York Times.
If any more proof
were needed, the third quarter profit record exposes the lie promoted by
Democrats and Republicans alike that only the “free market” and private
businesses can reverse the nation’s 9.6 percent unemployment rate. The
corporations and banks are sitting on a cash horde in the trillions of dollars.
This money is not being used to hire workers, but to line the pockets of the
executives and top shareholders.
The profit bonanza
that lasted from July through September eclipsed the old record of $1.655
trillion established in the third quarter of 2006—just as the money-mad
speculation of the financial elite was hurtling the US and world economy toward
the precipice of its worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.
The resulting
financial crisis, which erupted in the autumn of 2008, threatened a total
collapse of the global financial system. In response, the governments of the
world, led by the US, used the disaster to hand over tens of trillions in
public wealth to the very finance houses that triggered the crisis. This
process continues, as demonstrated by the International Monetary Fund/European
Union-dictated rescue of the Irish banks this week.
The enormous profit
realized by US corporations in the third quarter are only the latest indication
that the Bush-Obama bailout of the financial and corporate elite has achieved
its desired aim of protecting the personal fortunes of the rich:
*Annual bonuses rose
by 11 percent for executives at the 450 largest US corporations last fiscal
year, according to a recent survey published by the Wall Street Journal.
Overall, median compensation—including salaries, bonuses, stocks, options and
other incentives—rose by three percent to $7.3 million in 2009. Shareholder
returns increased by 29 percent.
*An October survey by
the Wall Street Journal found that employees at 35 of the biggest banks,
investment banks, hedge funds, money management firms, and securities exchanges
will be paid a record $144 billion in 2010.
*According to Forbes
magazine, the net worth of the 400 richest Americans increased by 8 percent in
2010, to $1.37 trillion, more than the GDP of India, population 1.2 billion.
These vast fortunes
have been made possible through the impoverishment of the working class, the
vast majority of the population that must work in order to maintain itself.
*In 2009, 15 percent
of all US households, about 50 million people, went part or all of the year
without enough food to eat, according to a recent report from the US Department
of Agriculture (USDA). More than a third of these households, home to one
million children, went without meals on a regular basis.
*A record 49.9
million US adults went without health insurance for at least part of the past
year, up from 46 million in 2008, according to a recent report from the Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The uninsured now constitute 26.2
percent of the total adult population, more than one in four, up from 24.5
percent two years ago.
*Average annual wages
for US workers fell by $457 in 2009, and the median annual wage fell by $247 to
$26,261, according to recently updated data from the Social Security
Administration (SSA).
*The US Census Bureau
found that about 44 million Americans were living in poverty in 2009, the
highest number on record and an increase of 3.8 million in one year. Nearly 19
million Americans were living in extreme poverty in 2009, defined as half of
the official poverty level, an increase of 11 percent in one year.
This sampling—many
similar statistics could be cited—paints a portrait of a financial oligarchy
literally gorging itself at the expense of the population. Yet this reality,
which permeates every aspect of life in the US, has only whetted the appetite
of the elite and its political servants.
The holiday season
finds the lame duck 111th Congress putting the finishing touches on two years
of wealth redistribution to the rich. It is almost certain to extend Bush-era
income tax cuts for the richest Americans.
On November 30, five
days after the Thanksgiving holiday, unemployment benefits will expire for 1.2
million workers due to Congressional inaction. By Christmas and the New Year,
this figure will swell to 2 million. The fate of these workers and the several
million children who depend on them, tossed out without cash income into the
worst job market in seven decades, is of little consequence to the millionaires
and multi-millionaires who populate Congress.
One result of these
policies is that more people than ever, including those with jobs, are forced
to turn to soup kitchens, even on a day when families traditionally gather for
a holiday associated with the “bountiful harvest.” Charities across the country
are reporting record demand for help on Thanksgiving—a holiday established at a
national level by Abraham Lincoln in 1863 to honor the material abundance of
the Republic, even in the midst of the Civil War.
On the other side of
the social divide is an uninhibited orgy of greed, documented most recently by
a Wednesday story in the New York Times (“Signs of Swagger, Wallets out,
Wall Street Celebrates.”) From cosmetic plastic surgery to high-priced art
auctions, from rental properties in the Hamptons to bachelor parties that cost
tens of thousands of dollars, “Wall Street’s moneyed elite are breathing easier
again,” the article states.
The stranglehold over
society and the economy exercised by this parasitic social layer, this
modern-day aristocracy, must be broken once and for all.
Tom Eley
Wsws.org… get on their free no ads E-NEWS!
*
Lou Dobbs Tonight
Monday, November 12, 2007
Mortgage giants Wells Fargo and Banks of America are accused of slapping dubious fees on homeowners struggling to save their homes. With fewer new mortgages being written, these
companies appear to be leaning on these lucrative fees to stay profitable—with devastating consequences for homeowners. We’ll have that report.
Monday, November 12, 2007
Mortgage giants Wells Fargo and Banks of America are accused of slapping dubious fees on homeowners struggling to save their homes. With fewer new mortgages being written, these
companies appear to be leaning on these lucrative fees to stay profitable—with devastating consequences for homeowners. We’ll have that report.
“Rightly or wrongly, the
bankers seem to believe that a return to business as usual is just around the
corner.” PAUL KRUGMAN
NEW YORK TIMES
April 27, 2009
Op-Ed Columnist
Money for Nothing
On July
15, 2007, The New York Times published an article with the headline “The
Richest of the Rich, Proud of a New Gilded Age.” The most prominently featured
of the “new titans” was Sanford Weill, the former chairman of Citigroup, who
insisted that he and his peers in the financial sector had earned their immense
wealth through their contributions to society.
Soon
after that article was printed, the financial edifice Mr. Weill took credit for
helping to build collapsed, inflicting immense collateral damage in the process. Even if we manage to avoid a repeat of
the Great Depression, the world economy will take years to recover from this
crisis.
All of
which explains why we should be disturbed by an article in Sunday’s Times
reporting that pay at investment banks, after dipping last year, is soaring
again — right back up to 2007 levels.
Why is
this disturbing? Let me count the ways.
First,
there’s no longer any reason to believe that the wizards of Wall Street
actually contribute anything positive to society, let alone enough to justify
those humongous paychecks.
Remember
that the gilded Wall Street of 2007 was a fairly new phenomenon. From the 1930s
until around 1980 banking was a staid, rather boring business that paid no
better, on average, than other industries, yet kept the economy’s wheels
turning.
So why
did some bankers suddenly begin making vast fortunes? It was, we were told, a
reward for their creativity — for financial innovation. At this point, however,
it’s hard to think of any major recent financial innovations that actually
aided society, as opposed to being new, improved ways to blow bubbles, evade
regulations and implement de facto Ponzi schemes.
Consider
a recent speech by Ben Bernanke, the Federal Reserve chairman, in which he
tried to defend financial innovation. His examples of “good” financial
innovations were (1) credit cards — not exactly a new idea; (2) overdraft
protection; and (3) subprime mortgages. (I am not making this up.) These were
the things for which bankers got paid the big bucks?
Still,
you might argue that we have a free-market economy, and it’s up to the private
sector to decide how much its employees are worth. But this brings me to my
second point: Wall Street is no longer, in any real sense, part of the private
sector. It’s a ward of the state, every bit as dependent on government aid as
recipients of Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, a k a “welfare.”
I’m not
just talking about the $600 billion or so already committed under the TARP.
There are also the huge credit lines extended by the Federal Reserve;
large-scale lending by Federal Home Loan Banks; the taxpayer-financed payoffs
of A.I.G. contracts; the vast expansion of F.D.I.C. guarantees; and, more
broadly, the implicit backing provided to every financial firm considered too
big, or too strategic, to fail.
One can
argue that it’s necessary to rescue Wall Street to protect the economy as a
whole — and in fact I agree. But given all that taxpayer money on the line,
financial firms should be acting like public utilities, not returning to the
practices and paychecks of 2007.
Furthermore,
paying vast sums to wheeler-dealers isn’t just outrageous; it’s dangerous. Why,
after all, did bankers take such huge risks? Because success — or even the
temporary appearance of success — offered such gigantic rewards: even
executives who blew up their companies could and did walk away with hundreds of
millions. Now we’re seeing similar rewards offered to people who can play their
risky games with federal backing.
So what’s
going on here? Why are paychecks heading for the stratosphere again? Claims
that firms have to pay these salaries to retain their best people aren’t
plausible: with employment in the financial sector plunging, where are those
people going to go?
No, the
real reason financial firms are paying big again is simply because they can.
They’re making money again (although not as much as they claim), and why not?
After all, they can borrow cheaply, thanks to all those federal guarantees, and
lend at much higher rates. So it’s eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow you
may be regulated.
Or maybe
not. There’s a palpable sense in the financial press that the storm has passed:
stocks are up, the economy’s nose-dive may be leveling off, and the Obama
administration will probably let the bankers off with nothing more than a few
stern speeches. Rightly or wrongly, the bankers seem to believe that a return
to business as usual is just around the corner.
We can
only hope that our leaders prove them wrong, and carry through with real reform.
In 2008, overpaid bankers taking big risks with other people’s money brought
the world economy to its knees. The last thing we need is to give them a chance
to do it all over again.
GET THIS BOOK!
*
Obamanomics:
How Barack Obama Is Bankrupting You and Enriching His Wall Street Friends,
Corporate Lobbyists, and Union Bosses
BY TIMOTHY P
CARNEY
Editorial Reviews
Obama Is Making
You Poorer—But Who’s Getting Rich?
Goldman
Sachs, GE, Pfizer, the United Auto Workers—the same “special interests” Barack
Obama was supposed to chase from the temple—are profiting handsomely from
Obama’s Big Government policies that crush taxpayers, small businesses, and
consumers. In Obamanomics, investigative reporter Timothy P. Carney digs
up the dirt the mainstream media ignores and the White House wishes you
wouldn’t see. Rather than Hope and Change, Obama is delivering corporate
socialism to America, all while claiming he’s battling corporate America. It’s
corporate welfare and regulatory robbery—it’s Obamanomics.
Congressman
Ron Paul says, “Every libertarian and free-market conservative needs to read Obamanomics.”
And Johan Goldberg, columnist and bestselling author says, “Obamanomics
is conservative muckraking at its best and an indispensable field guide to the
Obama years.”
If
you’ve wondered what’s happening to America, as the federal government swallows
up the financial sector, the auto industry, and healthcare, and enacts deficit
exploding “stimulus packages,” this book makes it all clear—it’s a big scam.
Ultimately, Obamanomics boils down to this: every time government gets bigger,
somebody’s getting rich, and those somebodies are friends of Barack. This book
names the names—and it will make your blood boil.
*
Obama Is Making You Poorer—But Who’s Getting Rich?
Goldman
Sachs, GE, Pfizer, the United Auto Workers—the same “special interests” Barack
Obama was supposed to chase from the temple—are profiting handsomely from
Obama’s Big Government policies that crush taxpayers, small businesses, and
consumers.
Investigative
reporter Timothy P. Carney digs up the dirt the mainstream media ignores and
the White House wishes you wouldn’t see. Rather than Hope and Change, Obama is
delivering corporate socialism to America, all while claiming he’s battling
corporate America. It’s corporate welfare and regulatory robbery—it’s
Obamanomics. In this explosive book, Carney reveals:
* The
Great Health Care Scam—Obama’s backroom deals with drug companies spell
corporate profits and more government control
* The Global Warming Hoax—Obama has bought off industries with a pork-filled bill that will drain your wallet for Al Gore’s agenda
* Obama and Wall Street—“Change” means more bailouts and a heavy Goldman Sachs presence in the West Wing (including Rahm Emanuel)
* Stimulating K Street—The largest spending bill in history gave pork to the well-connected and created a feeding frenzy for lobbyists
* How the GOP needs to change its tune—drastically—to battle Obamanomics
* The Global Warming Hoax—Obama has bought off industries with a pork-filled bill that will drain your wallet for Al Gore’s agenda
* Obama and Wall Street—“Change” means more bailouts and a heavy Goldman Sachs presence in the West Wing (including Rahm Emanuel)
* Stimulating K Street—The largest spending bill in history gave pork to the well-connected and created a feeding frenzy for lobbyists
* How the GOP needs to change its tune—drastically—to battle Obamanomics
If
you’ve wondered what’s happening to our country, as the federal government
swallows up the financial sector, the auto industry, and healthcare, and enacts
deficit exploding “stimulus packages” that create make-work government jobs,
this book makes it all clear—it’s a big scam. Ultimately, Obamanomics boils
down to this: every time government gets bigger, somebody’s getting rich, and
those somebodies are friends of Barack. This book names the names—and it will
make your blood boil.
*
Praise for Obamanomics
Praise for Obamanomics
“The
notion that ‘big business’ is on the side of the free market is one of
progressivism’s most valuable myths. It allows them to demonize corporations by
day and get in bed with them by night. Obamanomics is conservative
muckraking at its best. It reveals how President Obama is exploiting the big
business mythology to undermine the free market and stick it to entrepreneurs,
taxpayers, and consumers. It’s an indispensable field guide to the Obama
years.”
—Jonha Goldberg, LA Times columnist and best-selling author
—Jonha Goldberg, LA Times columnist and best-selling author
“‘Every
time government gets bigger, somebody’s getting rich.’ With this astute
observation, Tim Carney begins his task of laying bare the Obama
administration’s corporatist governing strategy, hidden behind the president’s
populist veneer. This meticulously researched book is a must-read for anyone
who wants to understand how Washington really works.”
—David Freddoso, best-selling author of The Case Against Barack Obama
—David Freddoso, best-selling author of The Case Against Barack Obama
“Every
libertarian and free-market conservative who still believes that large
corporations are trusted allies in the battle for economic liberty needs to
read this book, as does every well-meaning liberal who believes that expansions
of the welfare-regulatory state are done to benefit the common people.”
—Congressman Ron Paul
—Congressman Ron Paul
“It’s
understandable for critics to condemn President Obama for his ‘socialism.’ But
as Tim Carney shows, the real situation is at once more subtle and more
sinister. Obamanomics favors big business while disproportionately punishing
everyone else. So-called progressives are too clueless to notice, as usual,
which is why we have Tim Carney and this book.”
—Thomas E. Woods, Jr., best-selling author of Meltdown and The Politically Incorrect Guide™ to American History
—Thomas E. Woods, Jr., best-selling author of Meltdown and The Politically Incorrect Guide™ to American History
*
·
Hardcover: 256 pages
·
Publisher: Regnery Press (November 30,
2009)
·
Language: English
·
ISBN-10: 1596986123
·
ISBN-13: 978-1596986121
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