Obama vs Merkel

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Saturday December 10, 2011 · 4:17 PM PST

2011/12/10 · 16:17

The New York Times has an article about the U.S. view of how to handle the financial crisis and German Chancellor Angela Merkel's approach. The whole article is
here.

jazzbuff

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Wednesday July 13, 2011 · 2:41 PM PDT

2011/07/13 · 14:41

I wanted to share this broadcast from KPFA (Pacifica) Guns and Butter broadcast.

http://www.kpfa.org/...

This is a great analysis of the economy and what is really going on. This is one of the more realistic explanations of our current situation. The Obama believers here may get upset by this analysis but there are a lot of things to be upset about.

Obama's Economic Thinking

jazzbuff

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Monday June 06, 2011 · 9:00 AM PDT

2011/06/06 · 09:00

There is an excellent article on Naked Capitalism about the Greek economic crisis but it applies to the U.S. situation as well. The text I put in bold seems to reflect Obama's thinking and the reason he has done little or nothing for Main Street.

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/...

Technological determinists believe that technology drives. If this were so, rising productivity would have made everybody in Europe and the United States wealthy by now, rich enough to be out of debt. But there is a Chicago School inquisition insisting that today’s needless suffering is perfectly natural and even necessary to rescue economies by saving their banks and debt overhead – as if all this is the economic core, not wrapped around the core.
Meanwhile, economies are falling deeper into debt, despite rising productivity measures. The seeming riddle has been explained many times, but is so counter-intuitive that it elicits a wall of cognitive dissonance. The natural view is to think that the world shouldn’t be this way, letting credit creation load down economies with debt without financing the means to pay it off. But this imbalance is the key dynamic defining whether economies will grow or shrink.

John Kenneth Galbraith explained that banking and credit creation is so simple a principle that the mind rejects it – because it is something for nothing, the proverbial free lunch stemming from the principle of banks creating deposits by making loans. Just as nature abhors a vacuum, so most people abhor the idea that there is such a thing as a free lunch. But the financial free lunchers have taken over the political system.

Seymour Hersh Interview

jazzbuff

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Saturday June 04, 2011 · 9:18 AM PDT

2011/06/04 · 09:18

The following comments were made by Hersh in an interview on Amy Goodman's show. Hersh's sources are always reliable so I don't doubt what he reports.The bold text is mine.

And I’ll tell you the biggest problem he has, as awful as those things are, as counterproductive, and as much as he’s following, oh, yes, Bush and Cheney in those policies—and I think the President—I’ll be writing about this—I think he was really sandbagged by the Pentagon after he got into office, when he was new and innocent. And I still think—I think right now—I would almost use the word "cult" to describe what’s going on in the White House. Everything is political. He’s isolated. Very good people say they’ve never seen a president this isolated, in terms of being unable to get to him with different opinions, etc. So here’s really captive of a few people there. I know this may sound strange, but I know what I’m talking about. You can’t get to the guy—and even, for example, Pickering, as competent as he is. And Pickering has done some wonderful stuff for the United States intelligence community undercover, and so he’s known as a trusted guy. Those guys who have been involved in talking to Iran off the record, Track II policy talks, for years can’t get to the President. He may not even know they’re looking for him. I just don’t know.
And so, here we have this very bright guy continuing insane policies that are counterproductive, do nothing for the United States, ....

Hersh's comment was made in reference to Middle East policy but given Obama's economic policies I would bet the isolation and limits to alternative opinions extends to this and other areas. The comment from his recently resigned economic adviser was that an FDR type works program was never, and is still not, on the table. I admit I was shocked by that statement. My opinion is that Obama is a captive of his backers on Wall Street and a believer in the Chicago School economic theories of "free markets." But given the success of FDR's programs it is disheartening to think that putting people to work rebuilding infrastructure was not and is not being considered.

Obama = Clinton

jazzbuff

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Thursday May 14, 2009 · 11:11 PM PDT

2009/05/14 · 23:11

Against my own sense of resignation to the disaster that is our corrupt political system I had hope that Obama might accomplish some significant good when he got in office. When he appointed Summers and Geithner I knew we were screwed on the economic front but at least I though we had a President with some integrity who would come through on other issues especially war crimes, corruption, and health care. I was wrong again. What we seem to have is another round of Bill Clinton, a person with no principles who sells out his friends, the people who got him there. We have another charming, well spoken, ineffectual Democrat unwilling to fight for anything, on his way to a failed presidency. The rip-off of working people goes on without missing a beat. Clinton left office with a minimal net worth and three years later was worth $130 million. Obama should do even better.

Obama The Savior - Obama the Reality

jazzbuff

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Thursday March 19, 2009 · 12:51 AM PDT

2009/03/19 · 00:51

"This is a great country. You can say anything you want -- except Change The System" -- Dick Gregory

It's easy to see why so much hope has invested in Obama. People are desperate for a change from the last 30 years of progressive greed and the deterioration of their economic and psychological well being. The progressive community is, as usual, dropping the ball.

RSS

Obama vs Merkel

Dr. Michael Hudson's Analysis of the Economy

Obama's Economic Thinking

Seymour Hersh Interview

Obama = Clinton

Obama The Savior - Obama the Reality