[Peace-discuss] Americans Would Be Worse Off If Obama Were Defeated, WAS: Why we should vote (& much more) against Obama

Mon Oct 29 17:00:19 UTC 2012

Thanks, Dave -

I appreciate your thoughtful arguments.  Sorry i didn't see it earlier in the sea of email.

It's certainly true that Obama's administration leaves a lot to be desired, has from the start, and the appointment's you mentioned were a clear sign of that in case anybody had any doubt of it.  I think the point of this is to respond to Romney-Ryan's implications that the crisis started with Obama.  It didn't.  The Great Recession started in 2007, with roots well before that. The Clinton Administration was definitely a terrible hit against working people everywhere just as you mention.

But I don't think the bailout itself is the problem, although it should have been done differently - better (strings attached to the money, big, heavy strings).   I have to agree with Chomsky AGAIN on it: it was necessary at the time, but the crime was the fact that it was made necessary.  (Plus there should have been strings attached.)  Clinton was definitely part of what made it necessary, along with all the 'free trade' hocus-pocus pushed by neoliberals of whatever party that goes back to the coup against Allende, etc.  A big part of it that Progressives do talk about, though, has also been the un-progressive-izing of the tax structure over the last 40 years or so, from when the top income bracket was over 75% to where it is now below 40%.  But I think Dean Baker and others have done a good job of explaining how the artificially strong dollar, 'free trade' and other nonsense has been the real basic problem, along with the weakening power of organized labor (which is made worse by all these monetary policy and trade policy, etc).  These economists argue pretty convincingly that the tax problem is a lot smaller than the overall policy problem.

I think we shouldn't miss seeing the forest for the trees here.  Both major parties have been in on this.  Obama-Biden's plan so far has been half-assed.  Dean Baker and other economists have pointed out that, in order to actually accomplish much, the 'stimulus' would have had to be - and would still have to be - much, much larger.  Deficit spending is precisely what we need, and lots of it.  Obama is weak on this because he tries to have his cake and eat it, too: he won't take the plunge and say, yep, we need massive deficit spending to save millions of jobs and standards of living - that's what the government is FOR, or should be (he never meant to do anything else, I'm guessing, but nevertheless it is why his plan hasn't 'worked').  Romney-Ryan's plan would make it worse by going in the opposite direction.

Is the Obama Administration all about saving the 'system' for the rich and powerful?  Sure!  that's obvious.  That's what Keynes was all about and he said so.  FDR was all about that, too.  No serious controversy there.  That's why what they do is always significantly off-base and insufficient.  But their only viable opponents would do worse - that's all this article is saying.

I agree that this article does not address the root of the problem.  Neither does voting.  But, just as an aside, I also don't think the root is corporate money controlling the parties, per se.  I think both parties serve the interests of the rich and powerful in various ways and for a wide variety of reasons/causes.  Number one in my book is this: the politicians in both parties aren't 'controlled' by the elites as much as they ARE elites.  Same with the media: they ARE multibillion dollar corporations (or in some cases private businesses) for the most part, and they do what every big business does - everything they can to make money and corner the markets.

Anyway, that's a longer discussion.  Just wanted to acknowledge your comment and respond.  Talk to you soon-

Ricky
________________________________________
From: David Johnson [dlj725 at hughes.net]
Sent: Monday, October 29, 2012 6:59 AM
To: Peace-discuss List; Ricky Baldwin
Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] Americans Would Be Worse Off If Obama Were Defeated, WAS: Why we should vote (& much more) against Obama

" economic mess that we are looking at -- he inherited it from the previous
government. Although both Democratic and Republican politicians contributed
to the $8 trillion housing bubble that caused
[http://www.cepr.net/index.php/publications/books/the-end-of-loser-liberalism]
the Great Recession, it cannot be blamed primarily on the Democrats "

Obama not only supported the initial bank bailout in the Fall of 2008,
holding hands with McCain in solidarity with the Banksters and pressuring
members of the Congressional Black Caucus and other dems to change their
initial votes against the Bailout, but he also has since given close to 12 -
Trillion dollars of OUR public tax dollars to these criminals.
Speaking of criminals NOT ONE investigation or criminal charge has been
directed by Obama's Justice Department and SEC against the Banksters.
Also don't forget that William Geitner and Larry Summers were / are part of
the Obama economic team, persuing the SAME policies as Bush and Bill
Clinton.

Speaking of Bill Clinton ( the current unofficial Viceroy of Haiti ) if my
memory serves me correctly, he was the one who pushed for and obtained ;
NAFTA, The China Trade Preference Treaty, an expansion of GATT, the repeal
of the Glass-Stiegel Banking Act, ALL of which has played a significant part
in the current economic problem we are in.
I like Mark WEissbrot's foreign policy analysis, but this statement from him
is an over simplification that does NOT addreess the root of the problem
which is corporate money controlling both major political parties and of
course the dominance of the corporate media, all in effect creating a
one-party corporate government with it's official controlled media.

David J.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Ricky Baldwin" <rbaldwin at seiu73.org>
To: "Alex Cline" <rev.a.r.cline at gmail.com>
Cc: <peace-discuss at anti-war.net>
Sent: Thursday, October 25, 2012 6:03 PM
Subject: [Peace-discuss] Americans Would Be Worse Off If Obama Were
Defeated, WAS: Why we should vote (& much more) against Obama

CENTER FOR ECONOMIC AND POLICY RESEARCH
________________________________________

Americans Would Be Worse Off If Obama Were Defeated
[http://www.cepr.net/index.php/op-eds-&-columns/op-eds-&-columns/americans-would-be-worse-off-if-obama-is-defeated]
By Mark Weisbrot
________________________________________
This article was distributed by McClatchy Tribune Information Services on
October 24, 2012 and published by The Sacramento Bee
[http://www.sacbee.com/2012/10/25/4937631/obama-is-correcting-the-massive.html]and
other newspapers. If anyone wants to reprint it, please let CEPR know, by
replying to this message.
________________________________________
It was in the 1980 presidential contest that Ronald Reagan first asked the
question, "Are you better off than you were four years ago?" It was a
fitting introduction to the Age of Greed – don't think about your fellow
citizens or your country or the world, was part of the message – and it
ushered in the most massive upward redistribution of income and wealth that
America has ever seen. Over the ensuing three decades the United States
would become a much more unequal
[http://www.cepr.net/index.php/op-eds-&-columns/op-eds-&-columns/minimum-wage-raise-is-the-least-we-can-do-to-civilize-america]
society, where the majority of people could no longer aspire to a
middle-class existence. The Reagan presidency itself was a disgrace in other
respects too, making America infamous in the hemisphere for its sponsorship
of genocide
[http://www.cepr.net/index.php/op-eds-&-columns/op-eds-&-columns/clintons-apology-to-guatemala-is-a-necessary-first-step/]
and torture in Central America
[http://files.uniteddiversity.com/More_Books_and_Reports/Noam_Chomsky-Turning_the_Tide
_US_intervention_in_Central_America_and_the_Struggle_for_Peace.pdf] [pdf]
and dictatorships
[http://articles.latimes.com/1987-01-02/local/me-1475_1_human-rights]
elsewhere.

Now comes Mitt Romney in the Reagan tradition, hoping to win the presidency
on the basis of America's weak economy over the past four years. But there
are a number of problems with his argument. First, the obvious: President
Obama didn't create the economic mess that we are looking at -- he inherited
it from the previous government. Although both Democratic and Republican
politicians contributed to the $8 trillion housing bubble that caused
[http://www.cepr.net/index.php/publications/books/the-end-of-loser-liberalism]
the Great Recession, it cannot be blamed primarily on the Democrats and
certainly not on Obama himself.

The question then is whether the Obama Administration has done enough to
turn things around in the past four years – and most importantly, whether
Romney might do better. I have criticized President Obama for not pursuing a
much larger stimulus, as have other economists
[http://www.cepr.net/index.php/publications/books/the-end-of-loser-liberalism]
such as my colleague Dean Baker, and Nobel laureates Paul Krugman and Joseph
Stiglitz. The federal stimulus only replaced about one-fifth of the private
spending lost in 2009-2010 due to the bursting of the housing bubble; and
half of this stimulus was canceled out by the budget tightening of state and
local governments.
However, the federal stimulus did create an estimated three million jobs
[http://www.frbsf.org/publications/economics/papers/2010/wp10-17bk.pdf]
[pdf] that would not otherwise have been there. The administration's rescue
of the auto industry, also opposed by Romney and his party, probably saved
another 1.5 to 2.5 million jobs
[http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/26/opinion/sunday/a-million-jobs.html]. So,
if you think that Obama didn't do enough in his first term, you would not
want Romney for the next four years, because he and his party were opposed
to the measures that actually did save millions of jobs and hundreds of
billions of dollars of income for Americans. In fact, the Congressional
Republicans cut $100 billion
[http://deanbaker.net/books/plunder-and-blunder-the-rise-and-fall-of-the-bubble-economy.htm]
out of the federal stimulus package that would have gone to state and local
governments so that they would not have pushed so many people into the
unemployment lines, including teachers and firefighters.

On the positive side, President Obama's health care reform
[http://www.cepr.net/index.php/op-eds-&-columns/op-eds-&-columns/obama-health-care-reform-is-a-step-forward-hopefully-toward-medicare-for-all]
 – which Mitt Romney wants to repeal – helps tens of millions of Americans.
The most important provisions do not kick in until 2014, when some 30
million additional Americans will have health insurance, and people who have
pre-existing health problems will not be discriminated against in obtaining
insurance. Some of the provisions have already taken effect, for example
allowing parents to keep their children on their insurance policies up to
age 26.

People might also want to take into account whether they will be better off
four years from now if President Obama loses. Perhaps most worrisome are
Romney's pledges to cut Social Security
[http://www.mittromney.com/issues/social-security], the bedrock program that
stands between most of our senior citizens and a life of poverty. He also
wants to cut other important government programs in order to raise
[http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/wp/2012/10/22/the-full-transcript-of-the-third-presidential-debate/]
military spending by $2 trillion over the next decade – while most of the
country is really sick of our involvement in pointless wars. These are not
policies that will make Americans better off four years from now.
________________________________________

Mark Weisbrot  [http://www.cepr.net/index.php/mark-weisbrot/]is co-director
of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, in Washington, D.C He is
also president of Just Foreign Policy [http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/].

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________________________________________
From: occupycu-bounces at lists.chambana.net
[occupycu-bounces at lists.chambana.net] On Behalf Of C. G. Estabrook
[cge at shout.net]
Sent: Thursday, October 25, 2012 2:32 PM
To: Alex Cline
Cc: occupycu; peace-discuss at anti-war.net
Subject: Re: [OccupyCU] Why we should vote (& much more) against Obama

Maybe it comes from the position supporters of the administration have to
assume in order not to notice its crimes.

On Oct 25, 2012, at 1:39 AM, Alex Cline <rev.a.r.cline at gmail.com> wrote:

> all this covert shilling I've been doing lately is putting my back out
>
> On Wed, Oct 24, 2012 at 10:14 PM, ya'aQov <yaaqovz at gmail.com> wrote:
> Rachel,
>
> ocCUpy's list is not moderated; Carl takes full advantage of that for his
> exploits; we each can moderate our inboxes by filtering his eMails to
> spam/delete; but he keeps coming with new eMail addresses, he's got the
> means; he also doesn't work 40 hours a week, and is not too tired to trick
> those who do and are too tired to keep creating filters.
>
> Income+health insurance-wise, Carl is not part pf the 47% and can afford
> any president; and as Shakespeare said ('Julius Caesar'), Carl is an
> honorable man.
>
>
>
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>
> _______________________________________________
> OccupyCU mailing list
> OccupyCU at lists.chambana.net
> http://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/occupycu
>
>

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