Obama points to what got us in this mess -- because that's the first step in figuring the way out
By David Neiwert Tuesday Apr 14, 2009 1:00pm
Ever notice how the wingnuts all clutch their pearls and collapse on the fainting couches whenever President Obama talks about the miserable failure that has been conservative rule?
Of course, they really don't want to own up to this failure, because otherwise their fading movement will collapse altogether. But the harsh fact is that we can't solve the problems, and prevent their repeat, without understanding the nature of the mistakes that caused them.
Obama gets this, of course. So today in his speech on the economy, he tackled it head on:
It is simply not sustainable to have a 21st-century financial system that is governed by 20th-century rules and regulations that allowed the recklessness of a few to threaten the entire economy. It is not sustainable to have an economy where in one year, 40 percent of our corporate profits came from a financial sector that was based on inflated home prices, maxed-out credit cards, over-leveraged banks and overvalued assets. It's not sustainable to have an economy where the incomes of the top 1 percent has skyrocketed while the typical working household has seen their incomes decline by nearly $2,000. That's just not a sustainable model for long-term prosperity.
For even as too many were out there chasing ever-bigger bonuses and short-term profits over the last decade, we continued to neglect the long-term threats to our prosperity: the crushing burden that the rising cost of health care is placing on families and businesses; the failure of our education system to prepare our workers for a new age; the progress that other nations are making on clean energy industries and technologies while we -- we remain addicted to foreign oil; the growing debt that we're passing on to our children. Even after we emerge from the current recession, these challenges will still represent major obstacles that stand in the way of our success in the 21st century. So we've got a lot of work to do.
Now, there's a parable at the end of the Sermon on the Mount that tells the story of two men. The first built his house on a pile of sand, and it was soon destroyed when a storm hit. But the second is known as the wise man, for when "the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house, it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock."
It was founded upon a rock. We cannot rebuild this economy on the same pile of sand. We must build our house upon a rock. We must lay a new foundation for growth and prosperity -- a foundation that will move us from an era of borrow and spend to one where we save and invest; where we consume less at home and send more exports abroad.
It's a foundation built upon five pillars that will grow our economy and make this new century another American century: Number one, new rules for Wall Street that will reward drive and innovation, not reckless risk-taking -- (applause); number two, new investments in education that will make our workforce more skilled and competitive -- (applause); number three, new investments in renewable energy and technology that will create new jobs and new industries -- (applause); number four, new investments in health care that will cut costs for families and businesses; and number five, new savings in our federal budget that will bring down the debt for future generations. (Applause.)
That's the new foundation we must build. That's our house built upon a rock. That must be our future -- and my administration's policies are designed to achieve that future.
I love it when Obama pulls out the biblical references, because it makes the wingnuts triply apoplectic.
Almost as much as being reminded of how "conservative ideology" now equals "economic disaster."
Login or Register to post comments.
going to spin the Biblical reference? This is going to be interesting.
away why we're building our house on a pile of foreign debt sand? Give it whatever name you like it, infrastructure investment, recovery package, etc. No matter how you cut it, it's still deficit spending that is adding to our massive national debt.
There is no rock in Obama's Keynesian plan. You don't get into trouble by borrowing up to eyeballs and then use the same approach in some strange hope to punch through the problem. It's called digging a deeper sand pit from which you cannot climb out of, eventually the sand hole will destabalize and cave in on us.
They're planing on building it on a carpet of bombs
As I'v heard several preachers say-"War is good for the economy"
I just now got around to watching the Apr 8th episode of the Daily Show with Nancy Pelosi on it. Holy crap was she nervous, her expressions and body language said everything!
Jon Stewart asked her “is China our bank?” The stark expression of fear on her face screamed yes! She might as well have just said yes because the warm fuzzy sound bite answer was pathetic and naive. You could here a pin drop for the next 3 seconds until Stewart asked "are we broke?" She quickly nervously laughed it off and follows it up with one of the most asinine statements I can recall being made by a politician. “We were broke, but we’re coming back”.
Watch the interview here
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gsB2vDa_Ne8
you could not be more right. it makes no sense. Both of the parties have let us all down. Obama is no better than Bush on the ecomomy. Maybe worse.
Spend more to get out of debt, yea that will work?!!
And amen on the quoting the bible to 'em makes their heads explode!
It's pretty difficult to find a phony christian repig who could distinguish a biblical reference from "Green Eggs and Ham".
drift to the right. He could have used the Three Little Pigs.
Oink.
How about using The One Little Troll?
Phil Specter??
http://video.google.com/videosearch?sourceid=...
And possibly even a REAL Christian, unlike phony Bush who couldn't quote the Bible if his life depended on it, despite claiming to be "born again" to win the Christian vote.
I learned much about Islam from TE Lawrence's book of the same name.
As with the biblical reference in this speech, he has flawless ways of deflating the opposition's message in the process of sending a strong positive message of his own. I'd be trembling now if I did not support what he's trying to do.
is fond of the Sermon on the Mount, I'd like to see him quote the part about the "hypocrites" who like to pray in public instead of keeping their religion between themselves and their God.
I don't think we'll be hearing about that one from Rev. O. anytime soon.
No need for him to bash Republicans so explicitly with Jesus's words.
Jesus's teachings.
a prayer service. Uh?
I always associate Obama with Lincoln. My sense, I might be completely wrong, is that Obama is not that deeply religious, but like Lincoln, he will use a biblical reference when he has the need to inspire people.
Obama might be the new Lincoln who was quite possibly the most anti-constitutional president this country has ever had.
Suspended writ of habeus corpus, warrantless wiretapping on all telegraphic communication, had a arrest warrant issued for the Chief Justus of the Supreme court, had a congressman arrested on the floor of the house, detained him and then shipped him to the south for speaking against him, and also had newspaper owners arrested and their printing presses demolished for the same crime and unconstitutionally created W. Virginia. Not to mention the little matter of a unconstitutional war against the confederate states.
And what is kinda ironic for the man declared to be the Great Emancipator didn't really care about the slaves in his "official view".
A quote from a letter written by him to Horace Greenly
"My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that."
Obama hasn't proven to be in the least "anti-constitutional". Good luck with that. The anti-constitutional one was BUSH.
been proven to be, but he now seems to be in favor of the illegal wiretaps, or is at least using the same excuses that Bush did along with at least one new one "Sovereign Immunity" in the lawsuits. And wasn't there something about habeus corpus and one of the prison camps in the news not too long ago what was its name? Ah yes Bagram AB, and yes Bush did unconstitutional things not denying it. And what historic revisionism?
absolutely.
Pure right-wing pandering.
Still warming up to Rick Warren and his ilk.
Do you really think he needed to refer to the Bible to make the point about sand and rocks and wind? What a load of crap.
and I'm an atheist.
also an atheist.
True, but I thought The Three Little Pigs was pretty educational, too. Thanks, ricky. :-)
I don't think you get it. There's no appeasement here. It's a purely rhetorical move to deflate the opposition by speaking their language. It has no political significance, it does not result in any power-sharing. It's brilliant and refreshing, a new strain of teflon.
I am as atheist as the next guy and I relish this rhetoric...
He's so fu*king sensible that it really will drive the republicans nuts. He speaks so that you and I can understand and he makes his points at the same time.
Funny he mentions the rock and sand foundations because that's exactly the way it seems to me too. The last years were built on sand and now that time has been washed away. Time to begin on firmer ground with firmer minds and regulations.
I got to see the intro of Bo on tv a little while ago. Bo appears he could use some obediance work, but otherwise, he's a cutie.
{Deleted, Off Topic. SiteMonitor}
call in the dog whisperer
Can he pass the background check? Will his appointment need congressional approval? Will the repugs stall and stymie in the hearings?
not to mention that lou dobbs would implode in a jingoistic-xenophobic meltdown...
i would actually watch cnn to see that... maybe
Forget all that....
Is he in this country LEGALLY??? (He has an accent, after all.)
....and is he taking away the job of an out-of-work American dog whisperer?
Or did the dog whisperer union price themselves out of the market?
why not the dog shouter then the dog barker?
know the foundations of the Reagan Revolution remain strong.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=odcJ-vS22rI&eu...
Reagan's influence is finally waning as the general population recognizes that he was a just a tool, and so were they. The've all been used and abused.
while they're fighting the good fight against government/TAXes capitalism reduces wages,workers ability to bargain and allows "cheap labor" to undercut. they also seek out subsides and TAX havens.
yup it's all the governments fault.
where the obviously well off person was ranting about taxes. I love how Reaganites can't make the connection that an unfair concentration of wealth, makes for an unfair concentration of taxes. The self absorbed surrounded by the self possessed pandering aimlessly to the clueless insane.
a unfair concentration of wealth, makes for an unfair concentration of taxes. Since what is it 5% of the population pays 99% of the income taxes? Perhaps there should be a flat tax, where everyone pays a set percentage of their income, that would be fair wouldn't it?
is supposed to be from the Sermon on the Mount...
One guy built his house on sand. The other on a rock. The wind blew... etc.
Actually - the correct source is "The Three Little Pigs". It was one house of straw, one of sticks and the last of stone. And it wasn't the wind, it was the big bad wolf.
And let us remember, brothers and sisters, that a rolling stone saves nine and a stitch in time gathers no moss.
Let us prey.
Reagan would have used a bear but the wolf works just as well.
You can lead a troll to the facts but they're too stupid to understand them?
but I had to give up strong drink.
We got ample warning during the considerably smaller real estate blow out in the early 1990s - and no one went away for mortgage fraud or underwriting fraud. Time to use the law and make it dangerous to commit these kinds of crimes - for the perpetrators - for once.
but I wholeheartedly agree. What I want to see is a trail of people heading to prison. I know it is just my blood thirsty nature, but the fact that these people can manipulate our economy, our politics, our taxes, our judicial system, and our lives.... Ugh, I want to see some hangings.
Is that so wrong?!
that would be a very long trail of people because you just described voters.
LOOK, the parties over, everyone's going to have to produce something tangible-real whatever it takes we can't sit around day dreaming while stuffing cheese doodles in our mouths we are the wealthiest Nation on earth anymore.
Those who invested in the market rather than Social SEcurity beg to differ.
http://www.humorhour.com/pictures/h201.jpg
the republicans are absolutely scared to death that their complacent mob is no longer swaying contently in the winds of wealth. The fact that people are having to struggle will be reflected at the polls, meaning rich white men paid for by corporate funds will be replaced by honest hard working Americans. Gawd?! Can you feel it, lobbyists days are numbered.
I think the most important thing about this speech, and the thing that needs to be discusses and analyzed the most, was that Obama was using a teleprompter. ;)
At least he can read it without stumbling
Yes, that subject should always take priority. ;)
wow don't sweat the small stuff. this guy is busy as hell. big contrast from that yale cheerleader who stumbled and bumbled his way through speech(s).
if he wasn't already employing the architects of yesterday's sand castle.
reminds me of the police/authorities hiring criminals to help fight crime. maybe it takes one to know one.
When the author of "House of Cards" was talking, he said sometimes the only one who can defuse the bomb is the person who made it.
that's how i've chosen to look at these appointments. could i be wrong sure. obama is trying to bring "the people" back into the process. it's NOT easy because people get in their own way.
the relationship of government and capitalism(corporations) has left people behind. some of these people/elites could care less if there was a democracy as long as they're in POWER with money. that's why ALICE X is correct as was the gentleman on bill moyers the journal this last friday.
Another nice sounding speech, no doubt, but his Secretary of the
TreasuryKleptocracy is set to hand over more hundreds of billions to the Oligarchs.The Chairman of the Fed continues to ramp up extreme mission creep and hands over even greater sums.
The speeches need to manifest themselves into facts that are not so diametrically opposed to the present and future interests of the vast majority of citizens.
Reinstate Glass Steagall, break up the banks and disgorge the Oligarchs.
Send the ones to jail that deserve that destination, there are more than just a few.
Then I will be a believer.
Update
Henry Blodget/Business Insider here: Great Speech, Obama! But Still Wrong About The Problem
Say something like . . Somewhere along the way, you figure out that your value as a human being is independent of how much money or paper you have and is really defined by your ability to live a good life, in concert with Universe and able to pursue whatever your version of happiness is.
Whats so hard about that?
Maybe because if you are out of work, lost your house, lost your health insurance and are wondering how the hell you are gonna get the credit card company off your back, those thoughtful words fly right over your head.
the system to just drop everyone's debts so they can start fresh.
Hell will freeze over before that happens.
I know. I know. I was just making a comment. At a time like this the sensible things you said in your comment probably wouldn't translate for some people.
Though the Scalliwags and Heathens doth bursteth at the seameths
And sell in a Short Manner,
Verily I say unto you that thou shouldest investeth not
But in thy Mattress placeth thy stash
With thy Gun of the Hand readily poised nither to thee.
is not picking up where it left off eighteen months ago and resuming an orgy of spending based upon future claims on wealth unlikely to accrue, then what the hell is our destiny?
If what gets you off is stuff.
having a lot of "stuff" will NOT be in vogue anymore. a garage full of shit and duplicates of disposable crap is going to become less common. we have subsidized our avoidance of TAXes and the cost of living through china(currency/trade). their lifestyle/economy is making big changes that will affect us for some time.
I thought it was a good speech. I hope some of the things he is doing will help. Unfortunately, I am anxiously waiting for Thursday. If Obama doesn't allow the release of OLC torture memos (unredacted, please) then we can pack our bags and go home. Game over.
...kick thy enemy in the nuts before he has a chance to kick thou in the nuts.
With the weather we are having here in Florida today it doesn't much matter what you built your house on. Our area was under a tornado warning for an hour today and I was freaking. Thank goodness nothing happened.
The president knows he is talking to some simple minds out there who don't know much about a lot of things, but they do know their bible stories. They can relate to that and hopefully, they will.
Hey, p.o.p.
Where I'm sitting now (high Sierras) it's snowing. I do still have a mobile home in Key Largo, which WAS hit by a tornado in 1998 (T.S. Mitch.)
Thank god for insurance.
the insurance companies could pay out back then.
Our insurance people were wonderful to us and I think a lot of it was we didn't bs with them. We had pictures of the damage and we didn't claim to have lost stuff that we never had.
The whole state of Florida has had mean weather for the last couple of days. Today was our turn since the panhandle had theirs yesterday.
My house was hit by hurricanes Frances and Jean in the same year. Tore the hell out of it. And you are right, thank goodness for insurance.
and everyone who's lost their honestly earned wealth and pensions and savings what have you as a result of these scoundrels will be reimbursed in full with interest.
Dream on
Keep religion the Hell out of it!
If you can't make a point without using religion as a crutch, you can't a point at all.
That story is more about using common sense than about religion. But as far as I know, that's where that comparison of foundations originally comes from.
I don't think he was using it as a crutch, but as a means to tweak neocons' noses.
When I was little and went to (was sent) to Sunday school, we learned about Jesus kicking the money changers out of the temple. There was a picture in the bible of Jesus looking pissed and knocking money off the table. The first time I went to adult church with my parents and they passed around the collection plate, I was afraid Jesus was going to burst through the door and throw a fit.
haven't been back.
and the blood of Jesus didn't dribble down my chinny chin chin like Sister Oblagata said it would.
As an altar boy (the unmolested kind)I could tell which priests were alcoholics - they were the ones who, when you started to add water to the wine, usually only let a tiny drop in.
And I do know it was wine, not whiskey, 'cos I'd sneak sips if I got to the sacristy before the priest did!
Our methodist church used Welch's grape juice. Once they left the cap to a bottle on the communion tray. Stuff like that can confuse the hell out of a kid....I know of what I speak.
In the third grade I went to church with a neighbor and her family. It was communion sunday so I took communion and sat back down. The minister of the church stood up and said if you had taken communion without confessing all your sins you would burn forever in hell. By the time the neighbor got me back to my house, I had cried until I was just about sick. My mom had to do some fast talking to settle me down.
inflicting fear and GUILT on the subjects.
They don't teach that mistakes are to be corrected you get stoned and flogged in some manner as punishment.
the real "Water" is the great cosmic current.
Dogma can't relate to anything but "meat" and flesh.
Did anyone else notice that they paddy caked after each pillar, except the one that mentioned universal healthcare?
Sure is nice to have a president who doesn't make me want to retch when he speaks.
Good. Now how do we stay afloat in the meantime? The bastards jacked the cost of living up two to four times, etc, etc.
I understand there will be lots of free tea flying around tomorrow......
I'll be wearing my bag helmet (with faceplate)
get snickers and guffaws during coffee talk at Ivy League firms the rest of the week.
are cooking up all kinds of ways to rip us off even more, etc. And we're still bailing out the bastards.
for mininum wage.That's where we're headed
this speech was as impressive as it was surprising, with the likes of summer, geithner and rubins whispering in his ear.
it doesn't necessarily jibe with the economic ideology his chosen economic advisers adhere to.
so, i wish the president all the luck in pushing through his 5 pillars.
i would add more pillars to our shaky economic structure:
6) overturn GLBA/FSMA
7) raise the taxes on the uber-rich/hedge funders A LOT
8) revisit and toss out CFMA
9) out source = increased taxes on corporations that out source
10) add labor and enviro protection to trade deals
11) help pass the employee free choice act
That Man knows how too communicate.
.
Wait for the wingnuts to cite Obama's "Five Pillars" reference as further "evidence" that he is a sekrit Mussulman.
I thought Obama was looking to the future, so he wouldn't dwell on the past. What happened to that?
Oh, what is he saying? That if we learn from our mistakes, we won't make them again in the future? Wow. That's amazing.
So I guess he's going to prosecute Bush and Cheney now?
that you count on it.
when Obama pulls out the biblical references.
Church and State.
Together Forever.
Well, for most of the 20th century that didn't happen because of 20th century regulations. Then in the last year of the 20th century, they changed all the rules to let it happen. So maybe it would be a good idea to go back to 20th century regulations.
They did it mostly through fraud. Ponzi schemes, crap assets rated as AAA, complex leveraging schemes. This is how they did it and most of it is illegal. But the regulators looked (and are still looking) the other way.
It's not about a new way of doing things. It's about enforcing the law.
This new era of regulation is code for the G20 "global new deal" or the "harmonization of regulation."
What he's saying is that the Federal Reserve and the US Treasury will now be regulated by the IMF. That's what the G20 was all about and that's what the elite bankers of the world want.
I completely agree. :)
AN ILLEGAL and PERPETUAL war on 'terror' in order to feed the military industrial complex and our gross dependency on foreign oil.
But maybe that's just me.
/snark
The sad part is, it is both, what you said and what he said. How's that for up a river?
.
but i already knew president obama could give a lovely speech -he's given hundreds of them.
where's the beef?
WHERE IS THE F*CKING BEEF?
nope thiers glimmers of hope!!!!50 dollar phrase!
perhaps he should have quoted some Klingon: "Drink NOW, for tomorrow we may all DIE!!!!" ... ok ok ... the beer's talking. Great speech, Obama!
Deficit spending, exactly what we're doing now which is supposed to be our solution! I want to go hit my head against a wall now. LUV the pile of sand analogy, we're building our house on a pile of foreign debt sand. Great words, sadly the words don't match the actions.
Bernanke Bet on Keynes Has Meltzer Seeing 1970s-Style Inflation
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=206012...
David - you have SUCH a way with words -- I just love it.
*
flaws in our economic system. Anybody notice that he's basically said that housing price spirals are a bad thing? I think he's laying the groundwork for a lot more fiscal restraint, while, unfortunately for all of us , he's had to take over the captaincy of a ship that is holed below the waterline, and now he's doing whatever's available to plug the hole.
There is no way out, except for the bust to run its course. 100% of booms end in a bust.
Japan has run its government balance sheet to 170% of GDP and it has not stopped the bust from running its course. Japan is back in deflation again, after having first been there in 1995.
The math cannot be beat. The process can be distorted, but the math will prevail.
Anybody notice that he's basically said that housing price spirals are a bad thing? I think he's laying the groundwork for a lot more fiscal restraint, while, unfortunately for all of us , he's had to take over the captaincy of a ship that is holed below the waterline, and now he's doing whatever's available to plug the hole.
-------------------
You can't plug a hole by building a bigger hole. You can't lay the groundwork for fiscal restraint by more fiscal recklessness.
100% of booms end in a bust. 100%. There is no plugging the holes.
All that is being done is an attempt to kick the can further down the road, before it hits an immovable wall. Then the can stops, dead.
The government can no more turn itself into a successful bubble, anymore than the stock and housing markets could.
Take the liars and criminals who ran us into the iceburgs loot (i.e.money they stole) away and put them in prison where they belong
It is simply not sustainable to have a 21st-century financial system that is governed by 20th-century rules and regulations that allowed the recklessness of a few to threaten the entire economy.
-------------------
1+1 ALWAYS = 2. It does not matter what century it is.
Leverage above 12 to 1 is unsafe, no matter what century it is.
100% of the Big 5 Investment banks recklessly leveraged up, after being given leverage waivers by the SEC.
Glass Steagall was not dismantled because it was archaic, 20th century regulation. It was dismantled, so that the financial fraud which just occurred, could.
Experts appeared before congress and warned them not to dismantle Glass Steagall. They knew exactly what they were talking about.
10,000 appraisers petitioned congress in 2001, to complain about appraisal fraud. That is more than a few people.
20th century rules and regulations did not allow the recklessness, the dismantling or ignoring of those rules did.
April 13 (Bloomberg) -- Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke is siding with John Maynard Keynes against Milton Friedman by flooding the financial system with money.
If history is any guide, says Allan Meltzer, the effort will end in tears. Inflation “will get higher than it was in the 1970s,” says Meltzer, the Fed historian and professor of political economy at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. At the end of that decade, consumer prices rose at a year-over- year rate of 13.3 percent.
-----------------------------
Japan has run its government balance sheet to 170% of GDP. It is once again in DEFLATION.
Login or Register to post comments.