Perspective: Two great essays

Here are two excellent essays that place our current economic tug of war - Wall Street vs. The American Taxpayer - into an interesting, pre-historical perspective.

Always on the lookout for a glimpse of what historians might one day say about us, I find each of these stories interesting in different ways, for different reasons.

The first essay places our anger and defiance into a historical perspective before it has (likely) even reached its peak. The second discusses the 'why' behind the fact that Clinton seemed so strangely like each of his Republican predecessors; and perhaps explains why Democrats have completely forgotten their traditional party platform.

From Talking Points Memo: Robert Reich discusses angry populism:

The Almost-Done Deal, and the Era of Angry Populism, by Robert Reich:

Angry populism has always been a potent force in American politics. And now, with wages dropping, jobs insecure, fuel and food and health-insurance costs soaring, and millions of homes in jeopardy -- and what's perceived to be a massive tax-payer bailout of some of the richest people in the land -- angry populism is about to explode. McCain has already tried to cast himself as an angry populist, even though he still wants to give the very rich a bigger tax cut than George W. gave them, and cut taxes on big corporations (oil companies alone would reap $1.2 billion a year under McCain's plan). Barack Obama, whose plans for middle-class tax relief and affordable health care will genuinely help America's middle and working classes, has been expressing more indignation lately on behalf of them. But anger doesn't come as easily to Obama as it does to McCain -- even though McCain seems quite ready to aim his anger anywhere and everywhere.

Democrats should be angry populists, given their traditional role of protecting and championing the underdogs in American politics, and especially considering the absurdly wide gap that's opened up between the rich and everyone else. But in recent years Democrats have ceded the mantle to Republicans, who now mimic the faux populism of Sean Hannity and other right-wing talk show demagogues. (The recent maneuvering in the House over the bailout bill is really over this. House Democrats are getting the same angry mail that House Republicans are receiving, and don't want to be seen as lending their support to this ugly bill without Republicans signing on.)

Continued...

And in this excellent commentary in McClatchy News, by Michael D. MacDonald, we are introduced the 'Neoliberal Era;' just in time to watch it crash and burn:

Commentary: Government by Goldman Sachs comes to end

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — As we watch market values plummet and politicians debate — at last — the proper relationship between government and finance, an era in American history is ending. It wasn't understood as an era during its time, and it never had a name. Its name, though, was on the tip of our tongues: It was the Neoliberal Era.

Neoliberalism began with Ronald Reagan and continued for 27 years through George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton to George W. Bush, and it rested on one fundamental principle: Financial markets, which are knowing, efficient and flexible, should have more power to decide public policy than democratic governments do.

Neoliberals disagree with one another on numerous issues. They even differ on the particulars of the role that government should play in making public policy. But they agree on the primacy of financial power over government.

Continued...

Excellent Essay: The Power of 'No'

An excellent essay, "The Power of No," has been posted to Common Dreams by Dave Lindorff. Without any more yapping from me (I've ranted enough today,) here is an excerpt:

As Nobelist economist Joseph Stiglitz has written of this outrageous rip-off, there are four problems facing the financial system, and the bailout proposal only addresses one--getting the toxic mortgages off the banks' books and onto taxpayers' hands. Left unsolved is the gaping hole in banks' balance sheets in the form of loans made to people and companies which cannot be repaid, which will mean they still won't start lending money again. Left unaddressed too is the continuing collapse of housing prices, which will inevitably lead to more bank collapses even after the bailout. Finally, Stiglitz says there is the general loss of faith in the financial system--a major crisis which the bailout will also not solve.

Stiglitz doesn't even address a fifth problem which is that this trillion-plus-dollar boondoggle (and when you add in the bailouts of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, AIG, Bear Stearns, the multiple mega-bank failures and the pending auto-industry bailout, you're already talking $1.5 trillion and counting), all of it with borrowed money, the stage is being set for a collapse in the US dollar, with consequences that will reverberate through the economy. Consider: if the dollar collapses, as many experts say is almost inevitable with this kind of huge addition to the national debt, oil prices (which are set in dollars) will soar to compensate, the price of all the other goods that Americans import--more than half of everything we use in daily life thanks to the decimation of American manufacturing--will rise dramatically, and ultimately, in an effort to stem the bleeding, interest rates will have to be raised, thus bringing what's left of the economy to a grinding halt.

All of this is readily predictable--and indeed a group of over 200 prominent economists has written Congress joining Stiglitz in opposing the bailout plan--but that doesn't matter to the proponents of the bailout in Washington. What they want is to get past Election Day, and the bailout may do that, unless the public gets really aroused.

The tsunami of calls and emails to Congress, and last week's nationwide demonstrations against the bailout suggest that the public is waking up to this looming disaster and to the fact that they are being sold a bill of goods.

Ron Paul mentioned (quite heatedly) the impending collapse of the dollar. Lindorff goes into much greater detail about the fallout of such a collapse, in our manufacturing-free US economy. Think the price of gas is high right now? Imagine struggling even to afford food.

And yet good ol Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid were up there on the stage again last night, grinning and hugging each other (and that jackal Paulson;) as though they had just saved the world. Once again, to no one's surprise, they sold us out to the Neocons. (It is my fondest wish for our nation that they both find themselves without jobs after election day this November. Traitors... both of them. Its not like they need the employment; they can each live out their days in luxury on their lobbyist kickbacks alone.)

Could it really be true, that this time... congress is actually listening to us?