This was just posted on James Howard Kunstler’s site:
A creepy feeling ushers in President’s Day this year as the suspicion grows that nobody in charge of anything knows what to do next. The usual yin-yang consensus has solidified in congress along party lines, both equally idiotic. In the White House, Mr. Obama is under excruciating pressure to “do something” as systems unravel and economies augur into darkness. Amid all the anxiety and raging cluelessness, one thing is clear: we’re doing everything possible to evade reality.
Actually, reality has never entered the picture, the issue is competence. Great leaders transcend their circumstances, they lead. The new president has been in public life for over a decade, during that time he has nover taken the initiative in any direction. Believe it or not a Congressman, Senator or State Legislator has power, He can call hearings or investigations, he has a staff … he can kick some ass.
The economic crisis did not materialize out of nowhere, It has been a- building for a decade. During that time, what effort did the soon- to- be president Obama do address the situation?
What Obama did was exercise his ambition. Politicians’ relationship to their ambition is identical to their relationship with their penises,. They obsess … and to hell with everything else!
Here are a few quick fixes the Gummint could make use of and would shake things up and not cost the taxpayers much in the way of coin.
– First, is to hire a good prosecutor as Attorney General. Obama needs to discharge that Clinton hack Holder, then he should finger Andrew Cuomo. He needs to ask Cuomo what resources he needs to root out corruption in government AND big business: “twenty thousand more attorneys? Fifty thousand? Whatever you need, you will have!” The order of the day wil be, “Prosecute, prosecute, prosecute! Whatever, whoever and wherever. Prosecute the stealing of one nickel, of any corruption by anyone; whether that is a former president or cabinet secretary; prosecute! Long prison terms will serve to warn others.” There will be NO confidence in the financial system until all the crooks are behind bars.
– Accountability; Obama needs to fire Bernanke, Summers, Goolsbee, Geithner; prosecute Paulson, Snow, Bush, Cheney, Rove, Greenspan, Rubin, Gramm, Clinton … the list is endless!
– Decentralize! The economy is choking on itself; break up the big business – and government – entities. Small is beautiful and flexible, too. If Citigroup is badly managed, it fails completely. If there are fifty Citigroups and ten of them fail, the other forty will learn what not to do!
– Tax the livid shit out of derivates! I don’t know why Obama hasn’t thought of this, it free money, taxing gamblers and cheats. The credit, currency and credit default swap portfolios are unbelievably huge. The BIS reports notational values for all over the counter swap @ notational $700 Trillon US. Taxing this – which MIGHT require legislation, but MIGHT also be allowable under existing tax laws – would be a first step toward balancing the government balance sheet and also serve to simultaneously shrink the derivatives markets!
– Taxation would be a step along the path to these monstrosities being taxed and regulated out of existence.
– The president needs to announce that the US government will not accept any downstream liabilites; such as from derivatives or swaps that include bits and pieces of government guaranteed bank deposits. This would set a reasonable limit to taxpayer exposure without putting the most vulnerable at risk. It would also end the ad hoc partnership between the Treasury and speculators which continues to this very MINUTE.
– The country has no safety net to speak of; the savings rate is near zero, most people spend their days in ‘Lordly isolation’ within automobiles or in front of the boob tube. There are no communities within which a vulnerable individual can find comfort, there is no community in sprawl. There is little to keep the millions of new unemployed from freezing or starving in the streets; Obama needs to set up a program that will ensure food, shelter, clothes and some work for all citizens. I repeat, ‘CITIZENS’. The president needs to get on the tube and assure Americans that they have a real safety net.
– Take some bailout money and hire a million new farmers. The TARP funds would buy outright every acre of productive farmland in America and give it to as many as are interested in agriculture … and allow them multi- thousand dollar ‘bonuses’ to allow them to farm that free land! An intended consequence of this would be greater food security.
– Take some more bailout money and hire several million other workers directly and put them to the obvious needed tasks; burying overhead electric wires, tearing down and recycling abandoned buildings, and building new transit and rail lines.
– Specifically allow local currencies to be ‘legal tender’.
Roosevelt ended the Depression in two ways; enslaving five million unemployed men and putting them in uniform. He also caused the lifting of wages; wartime production needed a contented and productive workforce. The Depression- prewar wage levels were unfair and counterproductive, they did not leave enough earnings in workers’ pockets to become savings and investment capital. Increasing wages – and reducing the earnings of management relative to workers – elevated overall prosperity for many years afterward.
C’mon Gummint, get with it!
–