A tag search of "Third Way" shows an alarming single entry for this organization, a piece re. their slamming of Wikileaks, as well, also on January 6th FP'er McJoan gave a heads up in her Bill Daley piece ....
http://www.dailykos.com/...
http://www.dailykos.com/...
The Third Way also released a much heralded paper on the need for Congress to grow more civil, boldly echoed in Barack Obama's speech yesterday. They pitched the idea of members of Congress sitting together during the State of the Union, a noble yet silly effort.
There's a second, more insidious paper out from Third Way that proposes to sweep the foreclosure mess under the carpet to the complete benefit of the TBTF banks, while in the process eliminating centuries of established law, as well as the principles of state's rights and homeowner property protection.
Begs the question, who and what is the Third Way?
As described on their website:
Third Way is an innovative and influential think-tank that creates and advances moderate policy and political ideas. We advocate for private-sector economic growth, a tough and smart security strategy, a clean energy revolution, bold education and anti-poverty reforms, and progress on divisive culture issues.
Our senior team is comprised of a former Clinton White House deputy and Department of Housing and Urban Development chief of staff, former senior Senate and House policy aides, non-profit issue advocates and experts and campaign veterans. We are governed by a prominent private-sector Board of Trustees, including former top government officials and leaders from business, finance, academia, and non-profits
http://www.thirdway.org/...
There are some very prominent names featured as honorary-chairs of the organization, I'll leave it to others to come up with info on the principals of the group who are spearheading their mission...
Jane Harman, Ron Kind, Joseph Crowley, Gabrielle Giffords, Thomas Carper, Claire McCaskill, Mark Udall, Kathleen Sebelius, Ken Salazar, Ellen Tauscher, Blanche Lambert Lincoln, Evan Bayh, Mark Pryor, Melissa Bean, Artur Davis
What caught my attention today on this group, and what I hope will lead others to pay attention, is an article by Yves Smith on Naked Capitalism today, which highlighted the fact that Bill Daley was and is heavily invested in this organization. This is a must read article.
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/...
We’ll analyze a proposal to fix the foreclosure mess put out by a DC think tank known as Third Way. Normally this blog steers clear of delving into random policy documents. In this case, though, it is likely that Third Way is speaking for the administration.
Third Way is an influential think tank whose board is composed of a special Wall Street-type – the Rubin Democrat. These people sit at the nexus of politics and finance, and are conduits for big bank friendly information flow into the administration and Congress. The President of the think tank, Jonathan Cowan, was the Chief of Staff for Andrew Cuomo at HUD in the 1990s, and Third Way is well known in policy circles for delivering ‘politically safe’ and well-packaged conventional wisdom. Oh, and one more thing – the new White House Chief of Staff Bill Daley, who just left the most senior operating committee of JP Morgan, was on their Board of Directors.
The original white paper from Third Way is here: http://content.thirdway.org/...
Most alarming:
Their proposal, not surprisingly, is yet another bailout.
The big difference between the original and the new, improved version of the bailout model is that the payouts to the banks were at least in part visible the first time around. This is an effort yet again to spare the banks any pain, not only at the cost of the rule of law but also of investor rights.
This proposal guts state control of their own real estate law when the Supreme Court has repeatedly found that "dirt law" is not a Federal matter. It strips homeowners of their right to their day in court to preserve their contractual rights, namely, that only the proven mortgagee, and not a gangster, or in this case, bankster, can take possession of their home.
This sort of protection is fundamental to the operation of capitalism, so it’s astonishing to see neoliberals so willing to throw it under the bus to preserve the balance sheets of the TBTF banks. Readers may recall how we came to have this sort of legal protection in the first place. England learned the hard way in the 17th century what happens with low documentation requirements: abuse of court procedures, perjury and corruption become the norm. Parliament enacted the 1677 Statute of Fraudsto establish higher standards for contracts, such as witnessing by a third party, to stop the widespread theft of property that was underway.
I thought it necessary to send up a flare on this development and am eager to see the comments regarding this highly suspicious "Democratic" think-tank. Caveat emptor.