By Dave Anderson:
John Robb has an interesting thesis (that I mostly agree with, as the past week or two has amply demonstrated) on why Obama's ratings are cratering among his supporters:
The rapidity of the slide is due to the Wall Street bailout.
Instead of punishment of the perps, we are getting bonuses. Instead
of reform to prevent gambling, we get more of the same (even worse, it
is being done with an explicit government backstop). Instead of relief
for the middle class we get profiteering as the financial industry
extracts everything they can from a tapped populace.
Nothing could have eroded trust faster than this. All agenda items after this fiasco are/were forfeit.
The pitchforks should have been sharpened, the chickens plucked, and the tar warmed. Instead, we've gotten pablum and Max Baucus ruling our world.
Paul Krugman suspect as much in either a column or his blog a complete of weeks ago before he went off biking. I think he say that people he spoke to were mad at the stimulus package but once pressed with clear questions it was the Wall Street shenanigans they were really pissed about. I wonder if this will get worst for Obama with Moore's new movie just now premiering in Venice. Should be a fun Fall.
ReplyDeleteAll agenda items after this fiasco are/were forfeit.Good one, Mr. Systems Disruption.
ReplyDeleteAnd this, from the NY Times today, beats all, doesn't it? Wall Street Pursues Profit in Bundles of Life Insurance
Excerpt:After the mortgage business imploded last year, Wall Street investment banks began searching for another big idea to make money. They think they may have found one.
The bankers plan to buy �life settlements,� life insurance policies that ill and elderly people sell for cash � $400,000 for a $1 million policy, say, depending on the life expectancy of the insured person. Then they plan to �securitize� these policies, in Wall Street jargon, by packaging hundreds or thousands together into bonds. They will then resell those bonds to investors, like big pension funds, who will receive the payouts when people with the insurance die.Nothing like that good, old American ingenuity.