This is a diary that writes itself pretty much - all you have to do is connect the dots and look at the headlines. Griftopia is everywhere you look. I've already done a couple of shots on Matt Taibbi's thesis that our government is of, by and for the financial sector that owns it (here and here), but the news over the last few days is a tsunami of corroboration. Follow me over the jump, and I'll pile it up in one place. With luck, those of us in the Northeast will get hot enough to help melt some of that snow away today - but that's about the only good from the ill wind sweeping through our politics.
Let's do a little Compare and Contrast with Bob Herbert and Digby; Herbert today:
Consider the extremes. President Obama is redesigning his administration to make it even friendlier toward big business and the megabanks, which is to say the rich, who flourish no matter what is going on with the economy in this country. (They flourish even when they’re hard at work destroying the economy.) Meanwhile, we hear not a word — not so much as a peep — about the poor, whose ranks are spreading like a wildfire in a drought.
The politicians and the media behave as if the poor don’t exist. But with jobs still absurdly scarce and the bottom falling out of the middle class, the poor are becoming an ever more significant and increasingly desperate segment of the population.
Digby yesterday, on Obama's citing of the 'sacrifices' Robert Gibbs has been making to serve as his press secretary, and the reaction in the press.
And evidently, they truly believe regular people don't eat lunch at their desks and work long hours and have huge responsibilities. Or if they do, they are in very important jobs like media and investment banking where people are paid what they are worth. Indeed, they seem to believe it's actually a huge sacrifice that someone should have to work for a mere 172k (plus BIG perks) a year even for just a few years until they can cash out like Gibbs is about to do and start making a decent salary of five million dollars a year or more.
emphasis added
Money Makes the World Go Round
Over at Salon, Glenn Greenwald points out that the appointment of an investment banker to run the White House staff is surprising only in that he's not from Goldman Sachs.
There's a section of my forthcoming book about the rule of law which examines the direct causal line between the vast number of Wall Street officials in key administration positions and the full-scale exemption from accountability which financial elites enjoy even for the most egregious lawbreaking. When you compile all of those appointments in one place, the absolute stranglehold large-scale corporate interests exert over virtually all realms of government policy is quite striking. But it's nothing more than what the economist Nouriel Roubini meant when he told the makers of the 2010 documentary "Inside Job" that Wall Street has "captured the political system" on "the Democratic and the Republican side" alike, or what Simon Johnson describes as "The Quiet Coup": "The government seems helpless, or unwilling, to act against" elite business interests.
David Sirota comments on the cognitive dissonance of the money paradox that is positively embraced by the political class that acclaims the power of money while simultaneously denying it affects them. (Also at Salon)
Exhibit A is the December fight on Capitol Hill over spending and tax cuts. A standard back and forth over macroeconomics, the debate saw politicians of both parties assert that different ways of deploying taxpayer resources would guarantee different results from economic actors. Pass more tax cuts, said Republicans, and profit-seeking small-business owners would be motivated to hire more workers. Provide more unemployment benefits, said Democrats, and the jobless would be moved to spend more on consumer goods.
These messages, unflinchingly transcribed by a servile press corps, all echoed the basic assumption that money is the prime motivator of human action. The underlying theory is simple: Cash goes in, actions automatically come out. It makes basic mechanical sense ... until you listen to what else is being said at the same time.
A week after the tax cut bill passed, the Washington Post reported that Montana Sen. Max Baucus, a Democrat, had held a big fundraiser on the day the Senate was voting on the legislation. Since the measure disproportionately benefited Baucus' rich donors, the question was simple: Did the campaign cash influence his "yes" vote in the same decisive way that his Senate colleagues said tax-cut cash would affirmatively influence employer hiring?
"Money has no influence on how Sen. Baucus makes his decisions," said the senator's spokesperson.
Not that the GOP isn't way over the top on all of this too. The difference between Democratic and Republican subservience to money is largely the degree of enthusiasm the two display about it. Another great catch at Salon by Alex Pareene is the marvelous Catch-22 in the recent violation of the Constitution by two Republican Congressmen who skipped their swearing in to hold a fund raiser on the Capitol grounds.
(There is also the fact that the reason Fitzpatrick and Sessions weren't sworn in is because they were attending a fundraiser on the grounds of the Capitol, which is a direct violation of House ethics rules. But, as MSNBC points out: "if he technically wasn't a member when the event was happening, it's unclear if the Ethics Committee has any jurisdiction." A brilliant loophole! And here I thought Sessions and Fitzpatrick were just stupid, for thinking you could get sworn in by pledging to a television.)
That Was Then; This Is Now:
Once upon a time there was a vague hope that the Federal government or the states might pursue the wide spread mortgage fraud perpetrated by the biggest banks in the country. Instead, they have pretty much done their best to facilitate sweeping it under the rug. The best the Feds can do is a Potemkin Village sham crack down on the Financial Sector.
There were big hopes Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller might lead a coordinated effort to send bankers to jail.
We don’t know who would be going to jail in this scenario, of course. Miller could be talking about Jeffrey Stephan and the other robo-signers whose names are attached to the fraudulent documents. They are the Lynndie Englands of this scandal. They were the dupes who did the work, not the bigwigs who designed and authorized the scheme. The AGs need to go up the ladder and take out the heads of these servicers; they’re the ones whose judgments are leading to the fraud.
Still, it is very refreshing – and unusual – to hear about criminal prosecutions in this context. I don’t think I’ve heard as strong a line as “we will put people in jail” from anyone in a position to do it since the discovery of foreclosure fraud. Too often the focus is on getting the banks to listen to reason, or preventing this from happening again. That just eliminates the rule of law as a governing concern in the United States. Crimes were committed – are still being committed – and law enforcement must enter the picture. That’s how you prevent an eternal recurrence of these crimes. So good for Tom Miller.
Alas, looks like it's no longer on the table for anyone;the banks are going to buy their way out of it.
Miller said the attorney-general group has had at least one face-to-face meeting with representatives from all five of the largest banks, along with “follow-up phone calls.”
The group will reach individual settlements rather than a global agreement with the servicers, he said.
“It won’t be the same document for everybody,” he said. “There are differences in the companies and in performances.”
‘Not Criminal’
The group isn’t pursuing a criminal investigation, Miller said. “Our focus is to reform the servicing process and that’s inherently civil, not criminal,” he said.
In an interview last week, Miller said the group might consider matters including whether servicers are charging borrowers appropriate fees.
(If you're interested in seeing any consequences for the banksters at all, you might join in this effort to encourage New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman to put jail time in their future.
Mandatory Pop-Culture References
While there's definitely class warfare going on in America, it's largely out of sight in the lamestream media (like Iraq and Afghanistan). Entertainment is a mixed bag - you have shows featuring big money prizes, Celebrity business sociopaths like Donald Trump, bosses going undercover, etc. Still, the industry is still largely tone-deaf to the issues of class Jane Austen knew all about. But that may be changing....
Shameless is a remake of an English series which according to Matt Zoller Zeiss, demonstrates how American television can't quite get a handle on how class works in this country, though they have their moments.
At least "Shameless" doesn't reassure us that there's no class system in America, that genetics and culture have no effect on destiny, and that we can lift ourselves up by our own bootstraps any old time we want. It's about feeling a great weight on your shoulders every day but resolving to carry it around anyhow, drinking, screwing and cracking wise to take the edge off.
And even would-be super heroes are starting to take note of the fault-lines running through America today.
Palm City, the fictional metropolis at the center of “The Cape,” is similarly blighted, but you would never know it from the panoramic shots supplied. The skies are sunny; the tall buildings gleam against the waterfront. There is a culture of food bloggers. You are in San Diego, you say to yourself, or Vancouver, or Orlando relocated to a coast.
This unusual visual rendering of a city in crisis, one meant to suggest that terrible things still happen in prosperous environs, is one of the more distinctive elements of a series (beginning Sunday on NBC) that operates energetically within the conventions of the superhero story.
SNIP
The chief enemy in town is both a personified villain — Peter Fleming, whose alter ego is the even more pernicious Chess — and an idea: privatization. Fleming (portrayed by the wonderfully squirrely looking British actor James Frain) runs a dubious conglomerate known as the Ark Corporation, which has meted out private security in Iraq and Afghanistan to very unsettling results and now aspires to take over Palm City’s Police Department and penal system. Should Fleming succeed in capitalizing on the corruption already fomented within the ranks of the city’s law enforcement, the outcome will certainly not be good, and police benevolent association dances will be hard to come by.
emphasis added
Not to say consciousness is being raised all that far yet. The last word goes back to Bob Herbert.
Welfare, even for the poorest of the poor, is not much help. More than 17 million people may be living in extreme poverty, but welfare, for most of the people who need it, was “reformed” right out of existence. TANF (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families), which is what welfare is called now, helps far fewer people than welfare used to, even though the poor have been laid low by the worst economy since the Depression.
Hardly anyone cares. Hardly anyone even notices.
With the tax cuts for the rich saved and William Daley coming on board, the atmosphere is being readied for Obama & Co. to tap the fat cats for the zillions necessary for next year’s re-election run. And that, of course, is the only thing that really matters.
...Money changes everything
Money, money changes everything
We think we know what we're doin'
That don't mean a thing
It's all in the past now
Money changes everything
They shake your hand and they smile
And they buy you a drink
They say we'll be your friends
We'll stick with you till the end
Ah but everybody's only
Making plans for themselves
And you say well who can you trust
I'll tell you it's just
Nobody else but money -