Obama's bozos, Geithner and Summers, were bringin' it as only they can last week.
The brain trust was front and center with their usual prescription for recovery and restoration of economic security: turn over the treasury to the lords of Wall Street, put it on the taxpayers' credit card, and lie, lie, lie, (with statistics of course.)
Speaking Thursday, Geithner insisted "if the bank rescue of 2008-09 had been handled in any other way – for example, being tougher on bankers – the costs to the real economy would have been substantially higher." (Hey, this guy knows where he'll be working next!)
MIT Professor and former chief economist for the IMF, Simon Johnson, found it impossible to believe that the government could not have been tougher on banks and bankers in spring 2009.
Johnson wrote, "The idea that every failed top banker needed to keep his job – and that every director of a failed bank needed to stay in place – is simply preposterous."
"All those people should have had their contracts broken and their bonuses clawed back to the full extent possible. Losing personal money is the only thing that modern American financial executives ultimately understand."
Mr. Johnson recalled Larry Summers, in a lecture to the American Economic Association in 2000, saying, “It is certain that a healthy financial system cannot be built on the expectation of bailouts.”
Nonetheless, Geithner is quietly pushing Bailout, The Sequel; trading these banks' worthless paper (even second mortgages on properties underwater on their firsts) for government guaranteed (that would be us taxpayers) instruments.
And what of the prospects for meaningful reform of the banking system that brought us to our knees, and wreaked havoc on the lives of countless Americans?
Like the prospects of a bill that would have addressed the real issues in health-care, the administration, and the Democrats, will turn a mountain into a mole hill. Do you really think Chris Dodd is going to jeopardize a seat on Goldman-Sach's board?
The problem is, these same bankers were critical and influential contributors to Obama's campaign. Money gets honey! So when you hear their boy Timmy tell us, "The president’s not gonna sign a bill that doesn’t have strong enough teeth." understand, it's a lullaby. Go to sleep, go to sleep, your interests we'll keep.
Again, Simon Johnson offers a more objective view, "Geithner is completely wrong if he thinks it has teeth. There is simply nothing there that will rein in our largest financial institutions – and you can see this in the financial markets. The biggest and most dangerous elements of Wall Street have taken over Washington." (No job for you with Jamie Dimon, Mr. Simon!)
But for me, the capper is this clown Summers. After decades of prostituting himself where he might, and enjoying a position to easily see the steady, downward drift of our economic health, he's still willing to just keep bullshitting us. But not just run of the mill bullshit; really great bullshit!
On Sunday Larry provided a real lesson in what is wrong with these people. They are not interested in dealing with the problems, it is all about obscuring them to perpetuate their temporary grasp on power and the privileges with which these fat cats are blessed .
Asked why, with alleged growth in jobs recently, there is no related decline in unemployment, he actually gave up the statistical fraud being run on the electorate.
He actually allowed that those whose unemployment had run out, the under-employed, and others who have given up trying to find work, are not counted in the almost 10% "official" unemployment rate.
This is in keeping with economist Paul Craig Roberts' recent appraisal that, if we applied the same measure used in 1981, actual unemployment would be above 20%; approaching levels seen during the Great Depression.
No, Summers explained, if people who are not working begin to look for work, we can not expect unemployment numbers to fall any time soon.
Yes, that's right. If these people would just not look for work, we will eventually reach 0% unemployment without having to create any jobs.
You gotta love statistics. Problem, what problem? Here, let me show you why you haven't got a problem.
So, who are the clowns? Well, these two aren't missing any meals. Their bank accounts continue to swell. Their friends are doing fine, no matter how much they lose. And their friends will take care of them when the time comes.
No, we are the clowns. We might as well paint on a smile and go out on the street with a tin cup.
We have come to a point where there is just one political party, the Plutocrats. Sure they have two denominations, sort of like the Episcopalians and Presbyterians.
Big deal, they worship the same god.
