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Guest Post: Deaf To History’s Rhyme: Why President Obama Is Failing
Submitted by Thomas Palley
Deaf To History’s Rhyme: Why President Obama Is Failing
The great American novelist Mark Twain observed “history does not
repeat itself but it rhymes.” Today the rhyme is with the 1930s, and if
you don’t hear it read FDR’s great Madison Square Garden speech of
October 1936:
“For twelve years this nation was afflicted with hear-nothing,
see-nothing, do-nothing government. The nation looked to government but
the government looked away. Nine mocking years with the golden calf and
three long years with the scourge! Nine crazy years at the ticker and
three long years in the breadlines! Nine mad years of mirage and three
long years of despair! Powerful influences strive today to restore that
kind of government with its doctrine that that government is best which
is most indifferent.”
Despite this clarity, the Obama administration insists on hearing a
rhyme with the 1990s. That tone deafness has its roots in political
choices made at the administration’s outset and explains why the
administration has stumbled so badly in its first years. If continued,
the economic and social consequences will be grave.
In 2008 President Obama captured the nation with a message of change,
yet in office he has chosen to deliver change of style rather than
change of substance. At the headline level this choice was reflected in
his call for bi-partisanship that looked to split the difference with
Republicans. In economic policy, it was reflected in the wholesale
reappointment of the Clinton administration team led by Larry Summers
and Timothy Geithner, a case of continuity not change.
Now, the administration is sinking under failure of its economic
policy. That failure is due to its attempt to revive a 1990s paradigm
that never worked as advertised and can only deliver stagnation. Painful
though it is for Democrats to acknowledge, the reality is the economic
policies of President Clinton were largely the same as those of
President Bush. On this the record is clear for those willing to see.
The Clinton administration pushed financial deregulation; twice
reappointed Alan Greenspan; promoted corporate globalization through
NAFTA and China PNTR; initiated the strong dollar policy; spoke of the
“end of the era of big government”; contemplated privatization of Social
Security; and struck down a core element of the New Deal by ending the
right to welfare.
The main difference between the Clinton and Bush administrations was
the former’s willingness to offer some helping-hand policies to cushion
the harsh effects of the invisible hand. Differences in outcomes were
not policy driven but reflect the fact the Clinton administration
enjoyed the good fortune of the Internet investment bubble. It also
benefitted from the beginning of the housing bubble when American
families had plenty of untapped home equity and credit.
President Obama’s fateful decision to go with Clintonomics meant the
recession was interpreted as an extremely deep downturn rather than a
crisis signaling the bankruptcy of the neoliberal paradigm that has
ruled both Republicans and Democrats for thirty years. That implied the
recession could be fully addressed with stimulus, which was the same
response as the Bush administration to the recession of 2001.
The current recession is the deepest economic downturn since the
Great Depression of the 1930s, inviting comparisons with President
Franklin Delano Roosevelt. FDR had the advantage of taking office three
years into the Depression when the unemployment rate was near 25
percent. The verdict was in: the system needed change. President Obama
took office as the crisis was deepening. Those who had designed the
system could still argue it could be revived and as establishment
insiders they had the upper hand. But that argument is done and today
the prospect is of long stagnation.
The New Deal was a break with both the politics and economic policies
of the past. Its economic policy innovations like Social Security, the
Securities and Exchange Commission, the Fair Labor Standards Act, and
the Wagner Act granting the right to organize, are still celebrated.
However, it was FDR’s new politics of solidarity and compassion that
created the necessary political space: solidarity that recognized the
country was in the Depression together and compassion that recognized
many were suffering through no fault of their own. That is the political
rhyme President Obama must hear, while the New Deal is the policy
rhyme.
The President’s failure to deliver on the country’s desire for change
of substance has left a vacuum that is being filled by dangerous
unstable forces. This is the tale of the Tea Party, which is a tale that
has resonance for Europe. The economic risk, already more advanced in
Europe, is a doubling-down of disastrously failed hardcore neoliberal
economic policies. The political risk is a rise of intolerance and
xenophobia.
These are not normal times. If the administration persists with its
deafness to history it will surely hit the rocks and an historical
opportunity for progressive change will be squandered. Worse yet, its
deafness will leave the field open to the extreme right whose
“blame-the-victim” social message and “liquidationist-austerity”
economic policies clearly confirm today’s rhyme is with the history of
the 1930s.
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Wha? I see change. Change I can believe in.
I now believe our free market is gone.
I now believe capitalism is just a theory.
I now believe our freedom of speech is being stolen.
I now believe our liberties lie in the hands of a few elite white collar thug banksters.
I now believe we are destined for real failure, one that has to come to an apathetic, over weight, over indulgent society.
I now believe what Obama meant when he said he would instill "change".
This country once was something great when it was run by the people, for the people, of the people. Now it's just a manipulated, propagandized debt slug.
High 5 bro!
And you call the Tea Party dangerous?
Ragnarok I guess ZH is going for fair and unbalanced.
I didn't call the Tea Party dangerous, I'm a big Tea Party supporter. However, I don't support Michele Bachmann and Palin, they are co-opted frauds.
No I was referring to the "progressive change" statement the author made. Sorry for the confusion!
Co opted or not them girls is dumb and crazy. Palin the more than Bachman. Woman looks like a moose dressed in Prada and Chanel.
right on Ragnarok
This article is great - words that should be said and listened to.
Obama would have it easier if the gov printed numbers with some resemblence to reality vis-a-vis unemployment. But he's still a wus with no backbone and no direction.
He promised change if elected. The banks never noticed the difference.
I believe the Banks were the greatest contributors to his campaign.
I wonder that there is something known about his past that is used to pull his strings.
Possibly the worst Prez in my lifetime.
he and bush, given the parties they come from, are approaching a dead even tie for worst president that i personally would like to see settled in a texas cage death match.
Obama is a teleprompter president, with authoritas. Kind of like Lester Holt, except he pretends to pilot the country. When in fact, this country is under the complete control of the bankster/corpro/military complex.
Agreed.
And if you want to criticize the agenda you must be racist, tea-bagging, Palin-lover.
Brilliant.
have you been listening to the obama administration? they don't get half as pissed at republicans as they do at their own left wing who aren't buying their pap anymore.
Its all Bush's fault on why Mao Obama is failing.
/sarcasm off
obama is as far from mao as one can get. he is anti revolutionary, undaring, callow, gutless, ruthful, and a total oreo. far from being able to take over the most populous nation in the world with a band of peasant warriors, he couldn't whip the totally discredited republicans with huge congressional majorities and a nation cheering him on.
+1000
We here only give away our liberties a little bit at a time. Requires less KY.
well said Jeff
Right wing extremist here... we're all responsible.
I'll take Fascist Puppets for $200 Alex.
Oh fantastic! Thanks
"I'll take Fascist Puppets for $200 Alex."
Alex: "And the answer is...
At the end of Jamie Dimon's strings."
The Tea Party is a dangerous unstable force? LOL!
The Tea Party just wants a return to sanity. The Tea Party wants people to be responsible for their own actions...ie NO bailouts of anyone.
Depends on the definition of sanity.
So they say. If they had stayed independent of the Repubs
I would have given them a chance, not so sure now.
No one doubts that Tea Party people have a right to be angry. I'm angry too. My problem with the Tea Party is that their solution is to elect more Republicans so we can return to the same policies that got us into this mess.
One can hope they will stand their ground and not be assimilated by the corruption now
in office and maybe at a later date be able to form a third party.
Preferably a constitutionalist type to uphold the constitution.
Reality has shown that a steady diet of Hopium leads to some real soul-crushing depression.
Collapsing veins; choked arteries.
Their solution is to enter candidates into the R primaries, then elect whomever wins. Longview politics.
When they first started, it seemed, electing Republicans was not on their list of things to do. Somehow in the time of a year or two, their goals were changed. The people said it was good. It is so easy to follow and listen and be a good little slave.
The R's were the least of the worst to work with. They've been put on notice. If the Country Club/Mayo & Cucumber crowd does not get with the program, then the TP will split. Far better to try to repair a leaky vessel than construct a new ship on troubled seas.
Palin, who some love and some love to hate, has clearly expressed this point of view. And Babs does not get it. Probably never did. H.W.'s NWO or Clinton's 'multipolarism' both have buggered the middle class. Which wouldn't be bad if one desired a turd world country.
I like the Tea Party because they are people I identify with who are becoming more aware. We all started further up the rabbit hole, once we have every diner table talking about debt-free money, gold as a store of wealth, free floating competing currencies and destruction of the Fed, we win.
You're the same guy who often posts links to commercial free Glenn Beck episodes, right?
That being known, there is no doubt in my mind that you identify with the hypocritical Tea Party freaks.
Remember the $300 or $600 that Bush mailed you in the Spring of 2008, shortly before elections? Did you return it to the Treasury, or did you cash it?
Tea Party = angry (mostly bigoted) hypocrites who want government benefits for themselves but not others.
I'm not America and you are a well known troll.
RNR...it's too bad you have your head so far up your ass that you can't even see in the shade.
Repubnicant:
There is a common medical procedure for individuals of your condition. It is well known, but evidently you are unaware. It is called the "plasectomy" and it is, well, simplifying, the replacement of your navel for a plastic insert. In this manner, you will have limited view of the outside world. But it will permit you to avoid at least a portion of the brown that colors your view.
- Ned
Bill Clinton did not understand the meaning of "is". His supporters argued that oral sex was not sex and Hillary never said anything. I wonder how Chelsea felt. If her father and mother lack an understanding of "is" while holding the belief that oral sex was not sex she must have been very afraid. I bet she spent many nights hoping they did no hold this rather peculiar belief when they saw or read the word incest.
The tea party understands that incest is wrong. Does the DNC or it's members?
WTF was that post?
Utter nonsense!
Glial cells provide nutrients to the neurons in your brain; they basically feed the neurons and give them energy to survive.
Knowing that, what is the similarity between your glial cells and Friday afternoon at the Department of Motor Vehicles?
Both are on work furlough.
In the future, before you post anything, please ensure that you revoke any work furloughs that your pituitary gland might have issued to save energy. It will add much needed coherence and relevance to your posts.
Dude, first: cure your inversion. Here's help.
#773754
- Ned
You mean the $300-$600 that was expropriated from me in the first place? It is wrong to ask for it back, there short bus?
Now, can we cease and de-fucking-sist the personal attacks?
Interesting... they're bankrolled by corporations and banks... you (and your friends) are being used by the authors of the policies you object to most... why can't you see this?
Let's hope their good intent isn't co-opted, they are trying. They already have infiltrators, Michele Bachmann voted for the Patriot Act.
SRV- (is that a Safety Relief Valve?), we all would appreciate data on Tea Party Funding. Who? Which organizations? What purpose?
Ditto the funding for other rallies. Were there rallies on the e.g. Washington Mall by anyone recently? Who sponsored them, and what was the funding for all concerned.
Let's build a list of all of the above. Then we'll understand.
n'est ce pas?
- Ned
And what happened to those millions of handwritten envelopes to the WH with teabags inside...that's the burning question I need answered.
Lipton & Tetley made a fortune!...damned capitalist pigs playing on the emotions of the populace...I knew they were behind it all...LOL.
nmewn-lmao.
First "political" event I ever went to (ever, was serving and well...) was Tea Party gathering on Boston Common this spring. Went with my son, first event for him as well. Talked to the BPD event commander, asked him what his worries were. He said "You're kidding me, right? What we need is one of these events across the whole town, they will leave the place picked up better than DPW could do in 100 years."
Didn't see any funding, didn't see any busses or printing press signs, did go past the Tea Party Ship and museum, (did hit the Computer Museum). Did go to the best pizza joint in the city at Haymarket.
But really? Lipton? Tetley? This WH crowd doesn't do that; only "fair trade" coffee and Teavana I wonder how the mail room handles Lipton and Tetley HazMat?
http://www.teavana.com/
Probably "Monkey-Picked" tea would fit in to their mugs. ;-)
- Ned
"I wonder how the mail room handles Lipton and Tetley HazMat?"
Wondered the same...might have been the first jobs "saved or created" on his watch...LOL.
My first was in Ocala.
It was the same deal...the locals gathering...it has grown to more than anyone could have imagined...and it is not co-opted...it is supported by many flavors.
I think many of our "liberal" friends would feel at home...there is anti-this & pro-that regarding social issues, but none of that gets in the way of the overriding issue...fiscal sanity.
Anyone jumping up on a soapbox regarding "social issues" is told to STFU by just about everyone...it's not what this is about.
The boy's are home from football...time to get the scoop on the game.
SeeYa
My old bud Sam is around Ocala, growing grass (OK, the eating kind) and building show horses.
And I think as well that any normal person, non-political but interested, (like my Dept. secretary, who I met at the event, who knew?) would be welcome. Kinda' why I laugh at the idiots who try to characterize TP as "xxx".
We wish your lads well. Football, boxing (I went through CYO, then met some really serious misguided children who had been saved by same), controlled combat is good training for the real thing. Romans had the right of it. Bought "Decline and Fall" at Borders with a 50% off coupon (as they go BK). Sign up for free, routine -3% or 40% off. Stiff reading along with actually working ;-)
- Ned
"Rise & Fall"
It seems we must forever make the same mistakes, while never learning from them, until we shuffle off this mortal coil...LOL.
"A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear. The traitor is the plague."
Cicero
You need not worry about them. DHS is on it. They have a list, and are checkking it twice.
This interview by Peter Schiff is absolutely bonkers.
"Peter interviews Kelli Space, the 23-year old woman behind the blog twoHUNDREDthou.com, who will explain her attempt to escape $200,000 in student-loan debt." - http://schiffradio.com/pg/jsp/charts/audioMaster.jsp?dispid=301&pid=51185
Just click on the 'Kelli Space Interview' link. Wait until you hear what type of degree she got!
Wow. What a scam ...
Securitizing student loan debtAug 28, 2007
Aug 27 (Reuters) - The multi-billion-dollar market for securitized student loan debt, a financial mainstay supporting U.S. higher education, is facing new stresses as Congress moves to reshape the troubled student loan industry.
If they lose my note, does it mean I don't have to pay? That would be awesome!
nyet-pay accelerated schedule
Barry S is about two steps away from a full-blown sociopath. And his handlers knew it well before he was wushed through that cell-pool chicago machine as a one-term state senator, put up at the democratic national convention to spout out about his experience with the American dream, leaving the part out about Heinz Kissingers assistance after Columbia. The entire product is as yesterday as the first generation Ipod
Wow! I didn't expect something so evenhanded on ZH.
ReaganReaganBushIClintonClintonBushIIBushIIBarryO puppet show.
Just buy the fucking dips.
Um, who really believes at this point is was a problem Obama or any president, (McCain? Lol!) could fix. Give me a break, the only fixing that will happen is when the whole thing comes crashing on the American peoples heads. Its clear to me that no modern day president has ever been in charge so to try and say Obama is failing is kinda stupid in my opinion.
or..why not say he's failing like the rest of them
It cracks me up when I hear the likes of Robert Reich talk about how great the Clinton years were thus we should go back to the tax rates of those times and yet not one of the talking heads ever turn to him and say "look douchebag the Clinton years were built on a facade of thousands of new "internet" companies and hundreds of billions spent on Y2K and taking billions from tobacco companies which all together created trillions of "short term" wealth, jobs and economic growth. Then as Clinton was leaving office the house of cards came crashing in that had the nasdaq retreat by 50%. Unless you want to create another bogus industry like the dotcom to create more short term wealth then shut your fucking pie hole about the great Clinton years" I'm sick and tired of the liberals harkening back to how great the Clinton years were totally ignoring the facts. Those folks somehow believe that raising the tax rates to Clinton era rates are somehow magical for the economy to grow and everyone living happily ever after. If it were only that simple...
+100
Nice to read someone say it so clearly!
Short people got, no reason...
Well said.
Isn't that precisely what the growth in the finance industry was?
I believe ETF's vehicles can parallel the old trust companies that led to the panic of 1907. That panic too was a "liquidity" panic that had bankers not doing business with other bankers as no one trusted the capitalization of one another. Gold was the standard and JP Morgan actually did as much as anyone to save the day (I know we all hate JP Morgan corp) as he worked tirelessly to ensure that all the banks had enough gold to remain capitalized. In this instance I believe he was a hero. The economy and markets were frozen for about a year until a gradual thaw took hold. I suppose my point is that the ETF game will probably end very badly.
Its obvious this guy is a Left Wing Progressive.(HuffPo writer?)
Anything he has to say, is more logs on the bonfire of America.
Obamas policies are a failure,as they have been anywhere they have been tried.
The end result is Americans suffer.And the type of change he is bringing is not on any patriotic Americans list of wants.
Dos, we need to understand what "success" and "failure" are in this discussion.
I'll grant all day long that Our Dear President (and entourage) are really, really, smart. And that they know what they are doing. They are smart, after all.
So they know what the results of their actions always have been and will be. And, as a result of their being so smart, well, they want those results. Which are the desired "success" condition.
Of course, some will point at the methods and disagree with the prospective outcome. But they are obstructionists to "change".
So be it.
- Ned
it's no doubt that obama is a failure but he is also a liar the likes of which we have never seen in the white house....obama is the same as bush1, bush2, fdr, johnson, ad nauseum....there was never a problem which couldn't be solved with trillions...never a tax he didn't like, never a lie he refused to tell even if the truth would benefit him.
the asshole was born in kenya and is an indonesian citizen. obama was not about change - he simply co-opted desire for genuine change but he is just as much a rockefeller bankster man as any other president - until the winds of impeachment blew to put him back on the reservation.
www.obamacrimes.com
After reading your comments, I'm even more convinced America's time as a world leader is quickly drawing to a close :-(
+1
Until I see different, I can only conclude that the Tea Party are a group of people who demonstrate their anger in the form their bosses tell them is acceptable.
You think anybody in Corporate America is afraid of the Tea Party? Corporate America LAUGHS at the Tea Party, as far as I can see. Hell, the Tea Party was started on CNBC and FOX.
It may be that there are those among the Tea Party who have the mettle to do actual politics - to find common ground and forge new alliances - but so far they're a RepubliKeynesian "reality" show.
There are gaping difference between what the self/media proclaimed leaders of the Tea Party say and do, and what actually is happening at the ground level. Michele Bacmann and Palin are frauds, but the men and women at the rallies aren't.
I guess we'll see come the Presidential primaries.
I'm sure there are honest people in the Tea Party who are actually open-minded and actually want positive change.
But, so far, as a movement they add up to more of the same RepubliKeynesianism - Deficit Tax Cuts Forever and cut government aid to all the imaginary programs they think the money goes to.
I'll tell you what: I'll believe one word of Tea Party rhetoric when they challenge farming subsidies. Until then, they are just the "Real Housewives of the American Right".
I'll believe one word of Tea Party rhetoric when they challenge farming subsidies.
+100, How about all subsidies? Also we'll see who throws down the gauntlet on the debt ceiling.
How about $1 of federal tax money in to a state for every $1 of federal tax money out?
Propose that and you'll soon see what red state politics really means.
Couldn't agree more. I'm a libertarian fighting Neo-cons, because if I can pull conservative votes (which is the majority of the country) away from Neo-con canidates, one would hope the result would be libertarian leadership.
Why try and convert liberals? The gains would be small. Go to where the votes are, independents/conservatives.
Without challenging your ideals, I'll just say that I profoundly doubt your odds. On one hand, a sweep of libertarians into office is going to do f*(k all for policy; two "wave" elections for Dems didn't change much. What do the tea party rank and file do when their reps don't toe the party line and get co-opted into the system?
On the other, the concept of "libertarian leadership" is a bit of an oxymoron.
No worries, I'm not betting the farm on it.
hmm....what is this "leadership?" Why is it "required?" I certainly don't need anyone telling me when to eat, sleep, or piss. Is leadership really required to maintain the law? Based on recent experience I think not. Leaders are for the battlefield, or for business. What we need are public servants that are statesmen, not unproductive leeches trying to convince the collective that we need fight the latest stra-man over there, so they do not attack us here.
This is not possible. Like electricity, some is lost in transmission (there and back). Let the states, counties, and communities keep their effing money. Send to the Feds what is required for defense and maintaining the rule of law.
Bingo. Although I would also add in cuts to the military. Come on, people, 173 military bases around the world is as much a fricken waste of your tax money as Medicare and Social Security (each accounts for about 25% of our budget). Cut one, cut 'em all. Otherwise, the Tea Party is no different than the Republican Party, which only wants to cut Medicare and Social Security.
Read more: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_many_US_military_bases_are_there_worldwide#ixzz170hnUDeY
Bingo. Although I would also add in cuts to the military. Come on, people, 173 military bases around the world is as much a fricken waste of your tax money as Medicare and Social Security (each accounts for about 25% of our budget). Cut one, cut 'em all. Otherwise, the Tea Party is no different than the Republican Party, which only wants to cut Medicare and Social Security.
Obama is failing because he's too marxist and too anti-business. Big Chill effect.
I guess you'd like to see guys like this back in "government":
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_M._Reich
Obama fails at nothing (other than fooling a large enough percentage of the herd).
The destruction is proceeding as planned.
I forgot to address the... Clintonomics? Clinton was just like Obama when he was first elected. But the 1995 conservative congressional wave made him address the fiscal issues. It was Gingrich and the Republican congress in both houses that balanced the budget.
Clinton owes Newt an entire wing in his presidential library. Clinton vetoed welfare reform 2x before he finally passed it, vowing to overturn it. Now, Slick Willy brags that it was his greatest achievement.
@not app's correct .. the headline is flawed. Obama's not failing at all if one is part of the Top 1% ruling class that ran and runs him and the congress. He might not get a second term, but it doesn't matter ... The game ended a long time ago here; if you're not a Wall Street banker or war /security materials manufacturer then your choice is "damned if you do" or "damned if you don't." It's a free country, so choose something already.
I heard this said in the 1970s about our society's proclivity for the superficial.
"Magnifying trifles and trifling with magnitudes."
And after four decades, the expression can be attributed to almost every facet of our daily existence, providing seemingly endless possibilities of fortune and failure.
FDR fake hated the bankers. He talked alot of shit and did get some valuable legislation passed in his day. But the bankers today are so insane they won't even allow pretend outrage and half hearted legislation. Instead we get Dodd Frank and Barry O... godamn we are in trouble.
Save the small government or regulation is not useful argumnets for banker shills.
Obama is total white trash.
I'm asking ..... hope someone answers .... why aren't President Clinton & Robert Rubin villified more ? The average person doesn't have a clue; they still love Bill Clinton ! Everyone saw the media coverage of his daughter's marriage ......... how did Bill Clinton go from a $35,000 job as a governor in the early 90's to being able to pay for a multi-million $$$ wedding ? I would think that CLINTON & RUBIN would be strung up by their fingers for the damage that they've personally caused ! THE TWO MOST DESTRUCTIVE PEOPLE in our government & they just walk ! I'm just exasperated.
Worst President ever. Even Bush was better.
Twice nothing?
Clinton=Bush=Obama
Ahhh, you hurt Larry Summers feelings...he wants to be know as the most destructive man in the history of our economy!
ya, and he can't even use the word "hysterical" ever again in Cambridge.
Dang,
- Ned
Wow Barry O did all that, what an amazingly powerful evil genius.
Seems to me this shit has been going on for hundreds of years.
Get some perspective.
Do you not consider the banks a business.
Or are you just retarded?
The historic definition of a governmental bankruptcy is a Revolution. I can see from reading all the above no one is ready for it. I hope to have a guide book out by early next year to pre-empt what everyone seems to be waiting around for. I will try to be complete in analysis and direction. Not that its easy getting your hands around this thing, its been something I've prepared over a life time as it was obvious that this was going to happen a long long time ago.
More change.
People line up in the cold to try and get help for heating bills. What a country we live in.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2010/12/02/hundreds_line_up_in_fr...
All hail the great one: FDR!
(On your knees bitches, or else)
There seems to be a great misidentification of Coolidge, Hoover, and FDR. The great depression was caused by a massive increase in credit expansion during the Coolidge administration (the roaring 20s if you will), which lead to a bank run in early party of the Hoover administration that last almost continously for 4 years. The Hoover administration attempted to bailout many organizations, raised minimum wage, created massive public works projects, and cartelized dozens of industries and strong-armed many corporations from firing or lowering wages. The FDR platform in the 1932 election was liquidationist, flushing out "waste", and abmonishinh Hoover for the public works programs. FDR ran on a platform that sounds a lot like the current iteration of the Tea Party. It was only after FDR took over that he kept all of the Hoover policies and rebranded them in his New Deal. No one noticed because FDR did the wildly popular thing of ending prohibition.
Obama is not FDR. He is Hoover. Your monster FDR is lurking in the unprincipled shadows of the rejuvinated right wing. Personally, and as libertarian, I'd prefer the elitist leftist bumblings of the Obama administration. I find the right to be much more statist and dangerous (the Julian assanage contract killing requests being the perfect example).
Thomas Palley is a graduate of Oxford, the university from which KGB officers began aggressively recruiting agents (most famously the "Three Musketeers" Philby, Burgess, and Maclean) in the 1930's. Having great success, the recruitment never stopped.
Thomas Palley was formerly the director of the Open Society Institute's Globalization Reform Project. The OSI is a communist front that was created by George soros.
Thomas Palley was Assistant Director for Public Policy at the AFL-CIO, a union which has long been under KGB control and transformed into a communist front.
Thomas Palley walks like a duck. Thomas Palley quacks like a duck. Need Thomas Palley lay an egg to prove he is a duck?
We must expose and confront communists--not promote their work.
http://thefinalphaseforum.invisionzone.com/index.php?showtopic=44
You are correct.
The monetarist brainwashing has everyone thinking that the Fed not flooding the market with liquidity caused the crisis. I see this everywhere.
On its face that is fucking stupid.
The flood of liquidity CAUSED THE CRISIS in the first place.
The ineffectiveness of QE proves that FRIEDMAN was full of shit.
Pumping liquidty allows the fraud to continue, plain and simple.
Ivar, please expand on "monetarist brainwashing". I might need to get new shampoo or something.
I'm kinda' fond of Miltie and some of the Chi-town gang. Fama, nyet. Niederhoffer is entertaining.
Well, I'd say that Lord Keynes was packing...
But we are in full agreement that QE^(n:0..n) is, well, ineffectual.
- Ned
HL Shancken
is a proven Cold Warrior.
Should I therefore dismiss anything you have to say automatically.
Funny, the shit-heeled author of this article forgot to mention those amaaazing innovative policies that created the FDIC and Fannie & Freddie under ol' FDR. Both of which being two of the biggest problems that led us to where we are today.
Equally funny is how these new dealers never include flattening your top two economic rivals (Germany & Japan) as being somewhat responsible for America's post-WW2 boom.
Both of the programs worked great for DECADES.
It ain't FDR's fault that WE fucked them up.
Our President is an illustration that high IQ does not mean good leadership, or comon sense or without real world backgound--the ability to understand. .It only means high IQ.
Obama overestimated himself and so did the nation. Now it is time to not hate him just get rid of him. He tried and failed.
Agreed, he's in way over his head and I cannot help but think that, ignorant as he's proven to be, he knows it himself. It was palpable in his Address following the midterms. He's shown none of the transcendental oratory of his campaign days since taking office. He can no longer even work magic with the teleprompter. He doesn't see a happy guy in the mirror each morning--he sees an empty failure of earlier promise.
He probably still doesn't fully appreciate that he was pwned by the banksters, but I think he would feel relieved by a serious challenge from within his own party in 2012. He could then pull an LBJ . . . which would clearly be in his best interests from a simple electability perspective.
"Obama overestimated himself and so did the nation."
Speak for yourself.
There were many voices who said he is a junior senator from CHICAGO!!!...of all places.
Negative liberties?...bitter clingers?...a social worker?...57 states?...healthcare is a right? (there is only one profession where a right to someone else's labor is provided for under our Constitution)...250k is "rich"?...taxpayer subsidized solar & tire gauges?...civilian trials for selected international terrorists while pursuing drone attacks internationally?
What was your first clue?...when he picked Biden as his VP?...LOL.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2mzbuRgnI4
Nice vetting job dims.
The reality of the situation is that when you become president or a senior member of congress, no matter who you are, it is like putting on a straight jacket and pressure suit and being squeezed by an unfathomable amount of symmetrical outside forces. Those myriad forces are fully arrayed and run the gamut.
For the most part its the system not the people.
The author forgot to mention that the FDR quote was nothing more than sleazy campaign lie. The New Deal was little more than an expansion of Hoover's interventionist policies. But knowing that would require reading about what actually happened rather than accepting received myth as truth. In fact, Obama is repeating many of the mistakes of the Hoover administration (spending lotsa dough, big deficits, intervening to prop up prices and collapsing markets), no doubt because he was miseducated at Harvard to believe the post-Roosevelt lies about what actually happened in 1929-32.
Free version:
http://mises.org/rothbard/agd/contents.asp
Or buy it:
http://www.amazon.com/Americas-Great-Depression-Murray-Rothbard/dp/0945466056
+1
such common knowledge has to be mentioned? Perhaps in the year 2010, but older folks knew that when FDR's lips were moving ...
- Ned
The claim is that most did not know he could not walk.
Chicks for Free-
Polio had nothing to do with my comment.
His policies as he expressed with his "fireside chats" have everything to do with my comment.
Probably why Our Dear President is everywhere on the media (except when he's on a road trip).
- Ned
(I hope that your chicks are for free, my gilt-not so much).
100% of my liberal friends think Hoover was some kind of libertarian.
What a crap article by someone that can't even make a sum.
So "neoliberal" is increasing the size of State every decade?!
"neoliberal" is is having the Political class, FED and other Federal agencies engineer low rates for an housing bubble?
WTF is "neoliberal," anyway? It appears to be a pejorative term left to the mercy of its user--like Tea Bagger.
I could not have said this better myself. You idiots who think FDR ruined capitalism are hilarious. FDR was elected four times in economic hell in a center right country for a reason. People had FDR's picture hung up in their homes (ones that actually had houses) for a reason too. Americans thought Roosevelt was on their side. And he was.
People that think FDR ruined this country need to check themselves. If Mr. Roosevelt never came long the federal government would have been toppled and what would have risen would have been something much to the left of FDR.
So for all of you that say Roosevelt ruined capitalism...you should be thanking him for saving it.
Obama is a total fraud, to the extent that he can't even acknowledge that his father is Frank M. Davis.
"Obama is a total fraud, to the extent that he can't even acknowledge that his father is Frank M. Davis."
We have a winner!
In every sense except biological...the communist, Frank Marshall Davis, is his father.
No wonder the kid grew up to be what he is today...completely clueless.
FDR was very bright and smart enough with long experience [e.g.years in Navy Dept.] in dealing with varied personalities, that he surrounded himself with competent associates.
But IMO his real strength in evaluating data came from his quiet secret selection of trusted friends in the field who had firsthand on-the-scene, realtime experience, and getting their confidential reports in quiet personal visits.
That way, he could effectively crosscheck much of the intelligence reports that a wartime president had to digest.
[Cf.,BO, who is a prisoner of the intell he is given in that he has no personal, under his owncontrol, independant sources to cross-check.]
I know a of few matters of import: China-Chiang-Mao, Stalingrad battles' end when German FieldMarshall vonPaulus was taken [which in Jan/Feb 1943! clinched the end of WW2 in Europe], India-Ghandi-Nehru, [+ more that I now forget] His semi-secret sources included Edgar Snow, Col.Carlson of Carlson' Raiders, at least a few media foreign correspondents inter alia.
At 7 I watched his funeral procession in NY and knew nothing of this. The info above came to me in the 1970-80-90s...and made sense of suspicions FDR's death was artificially hastened.
Not my granddad (who died a few weeks ago). He knew Roosevelt was a fraud, and that the promise that big government could conjure wealth out of thin air and make everyone prosperous again was a lie.