Naomi Klein is complaining about the president:
Obama, it’s worth remembering, also came to office with the big banks on their knees — it took real effort not to nationalize them. Once again, if Obama had dared to use the power that was handed to him by history, he could have mandated the banks to provide the loans for factories to be retrofitted and new green infrastructure to be built. Instead he declared that the government shouldn’t tell the failed banks how to run their businesses. Green businesses report that it’s harder than ever to get a loan.
Imagine if these three huge economic engines — the banks, the auto companies, the stimulus bill — had been harnessed to a common green vision. If that had happened, demand for a complementary energy bill would have been part of a coherent transformative agenda.
Imagine. It’s easy if you try.
Why not? Liberty–it’s just so overrated. Right, Jim?
Really interesting to hear these people say such things, when they were not too long ago talking about the previous president’s “unprecendented expansion of executive power.”
What a crock. That’s what they’ve been doing since the ’70’s, CRA anyone? It’s why the crisis occurred in the first place.
Naomi, one of the stupidest, shrillest people on the planet, neglects to mention that ALL businesses are finding it harder than ever to get a loan, not just the “green” fairy-dust projects which can only survive on the promise of massive government subsidies.
Obama passes on opportunities to increase state power, despite cries of protest from the left. Is it time for the right to admit that their conspiracy theories about Obama as a stealth socialist were overblown?
There’s nothing stealthy about President SpreadTheWealth’s socialism at all.
Bank robbers pass up liquor stores on their way to the bank.
Except the “bank robber” Obama passed up the banks to – well, do what?
The big banks were on their knees – and they should have been allowed to stay there, or preferably to go bankrupt. And then the people responsible for the economic collapse of the last year or so should have been prosecuted for fraud and embezzlement, at the very least. And also sued for everything they owned. After all, some of the victims of this mess have lost everything – surely it is reasonable for the people responsible to do likewise?
Banking is esentially a clerical function – transferring money from savers to borrowers, with the borrowers getting interest to compensate for risk and the bankers getting paid for arranging the transaction. In no way should this be deemed deserving of seven-figure bonuses.
There’s this thing called Obamacare . . . you might have heard about it, maybe.
Except the “bank robber” Obama passed up the banks to – well, do what?
Nationalize health care and regulate CO2, obviously. Duh. I would leave the banks alone, too. They are nice, stodgy, predictable entities. One of the asininities of Klein’s piece is the notion that banks have any serious control over economic activities. That’s a laugh. They just launder the money from saver to borrower. There’s very little to be squeezed out there in terms of raw political power.
No, clearly you get much sweeter leverage by inserting yourself into the most critical decisions people can make, and the most precious goods and services they can buy with their labor: their own health and well-being.
Think about it. What better place to be than poised with a knife above the rope dangling over the cliff, on which all 300 million of us are clinging? If you think the government can mess with you just a little more than is quite comfortable, because the IRS can prise open your bankbooks and hold your own money hostage, or because the NSA can record your cell phone calls, or the TSA can scan your laptop hard drive at the border — just wait until you need to beg the Federal Department of Health for the scan, operation, or medicine you need to stay alive.
Of course, you’re not worried, Chris, because you think Good Democrats will always run the government, right? You’re not worried about, say, Dick Cheney convening a task force that redirects whether or not your semi-nationalized health-care plan pays for your stay in the ICU or assigns you to the organ transplant donor list, based on your political activity over the last ten years. Heh.
Dam, had I not ninja’s Carl, that would have been perfect — I had the prestige, he the reveal.
I would leave the banks alone, too. They are nice, stodgy, predictable entities.
Have you been asleep for the last two years?
OK, Jim, instead of being a smartass, how about you come up with an actual example of a bank having an interesting and substantial political or economic influence on the world?
Banks have certainly been canaries in the coal mine, to be sure; the ills of a bubble-based economy showing up there first, and some cynical and absurd government manipulation of both the finances and money supply of the United States resulting in some appalling explosions in the banking industry. But they’re just a symptom, not a cause. AIG and Lehman Brothers did not cause the financial meltdown, they were simply the first and most visible victims of it.
> And then the people responsible for the economic collapse of the last year or so should have been prosecuted for fraud and embezzlement, at the very least. And also sued for everything they owned.
Umm, they didn’t embezzle anything.
However, I wonder if Fletcher knows who is actually “responsible”. I’m all for prosecuting the folks involved, but almost all of them will be able to invoke soverign immunity.
Yes FC, this was yet another govt fiasco.
Carl Pham – Medicare was “held hostage” to political will, including one Ronald Reagan who famously called it socialism, and Cheney had his crack at it too. I am not worried about people using health care to hold Americans hostage.
I don’t know what planet you live on, but here on Earth banks have their fingers in every economic pie. Try running any business larger than a kid’s lemonade stand without the ability to get credit, or a reliable payments system. It won’t work.
“…conspiracy theories about Obama as a stealth socialist were overblown…”
As are the intimations that Josef Stalin was really a Communist, the inuendo that Mussolini was somehow a Fascist, and the supposition that the Enola Gay’s visit to Hiroshima was an “attack.”
How laughable…
I am not worried about people using health care to hold Americans hostage.
You know, I believe you. Which really exposes the true feelings of the modern American Left. Despite all their shrieking of black helicopters and Bush Halliburton Cheney secret Guantanamo torture squads, they actually do trust in their secret hearts that the Right in power will obey its principles, and not cynically abuse its power the way the Left does. And, of course, when the Left is in power, you fantasize you’ll always be on their priority list, instead of on the list of “rich” and “privileged” pigs who need to be stuck for the necessary blood sacrifice. Good luck with that, man.
I suppose this follows historical precedent. Stalinists have always had the most to fear from other Stalinists, people with an equal lack of principle and excess of amoral zeal.
Try running any business larger than a kid’s lemonade stand without the ability to get credit, or a reliable payments system. It won’t work.
Geez, don’t be dense, Chris. You might as well say that a city can’t function without garbage collection and argue that therefore all cities are run by their garbagemen. I don’t have space to educate you here, and probably too many layers of sloganizing pseudo-education to crack through anyway, but think about this: power in a relationship exists only when there is an imbalance of needs, when A needs B far more than B needs A. If both need each other, then neither has substantial power over the other. (If it helps, think about your last romantic relationship: the power lies with the partner who cares less, right?)
The problem with banks as a source of power is that they need their borrowers at least as much, and usually more, than the borrowers need them. Without borrowers, a bank can’t make any money and goes out of business. Without a bank, people can indeed start and run businesses large and small. It’s just a little harder, because you have to go directly to large concentrations of capital (i.e. rich patrons) instead of having a bank collect and concentrate many small streams of capital for you.
Banks are, in essence, complete whores. They need borrowers so much, they will lend to anyone who can pay them good interest. (Indeed, this “amorality” of banking is often held in contempt by the older Left, but perhaps you are too young to remember Disinvest From Apartheid Now! rallies in the 80s.) And that’s why they do not function as centers of social, economic or political power.
What does function as such a power center? Typically an institution that functions on a pay me now, you get your reward later basis. Unions. Retirement pension funds. Government. Political parties. Investment funds. Insurance companies, and scams. These folks all collect their fees up front, and promise bright and lovely things by and by. But between the time when they collect your dough and when (or rather if) they deliver the goods, they are cemters of immense power, because they have your cash (or vote, whatever) but their obligation to you is still in the future. In that time period you need them — to deliver on your investment! — far more than they need you (because you’ve already paid your fees).
Uh, Naomi, dear…the banks and (domestic) auto companies aren’t huge economic engines. Not anymore. As long as the UAW exists, Detroit auto companies cannot meet efficiencies of scale. Banks are being drowned by predatory private borrowing, predatory government borrowing (which incrementally reduces the availability of the world’s money supply to the private sector), and byzantine regulations that would insult the Byzantines.
Stimulus packages are not economic engines. They cost commerce by reducing the availability of capital, and since they are debt-financed they cost the taxpayer in inflation. Read Economics in One Lesson.
On the other hand, I’m all for green capital. Let’s reduce pollution and replace coal plants with clean nuclear energy. Have enough MOX plants to make perfect use of the recyclable portion of our nuke waste. Pebble-bed reactors for smaller communities.
Carl Pham – I am not and never have been a black helicopter person. Actually, those are usually right-wing survivalists and militia types, but be that as it may.
Regarding power, flying down to Washington and getting a blank check for $750 billion certainly looks like power to me. (Remember TARP?) Actually, considering the ongoing tightness in the credit market, banks aren’t whores. They can and do have other investments (bonds) which can carry them along.
You also don’t seem to understand what working capital is. This is the money used to buy inventory, raw supplies and the like. Not only is that usually a bank function, your prospective customers tend to use banks for their working capital (to buy your stuff), regardless of your source of capital.
A bond is just another type of loan given to a borrower. So when Carl says, banks need borrowers, pointing out that banks have others means such as bonds to raise money seems to prove Carl’s point.
You also don’t seem to understand what working capital is. This is the money used to buy inventory, raw supplies and the like. Not only is that usually a bank function, your prospective customers tend to use banks for their working capital (to buy your stuff), regardless of your source of capital.
The Carl Pham on your planet, who doesn’t understand economics, is not posting in this thread.