Alleged financial reform

Regarding the recently announced "financial reform," Dylan Ratigan asks us to consider what has not been fixed.

- The Cops (regulators and ratings agencies) working for the crooks. - Banks still Too Big To Fail. - Banks gambling with your deposits. - Banks allowed to "mark to myth" and use off-balance sheet accounting to bonus themselves into the atmosphere, with the taxpayer taking the fall. - Banks getting trillions from the Fed, Fannie and Freddie -- AKA you, the future and present taxpayer. What does it mean for us? It means that the same people who brought you these horrible changes -- rising wealth discrepancy, massive unemployment and a crumbling infrastructure -- have now further institutionalized the policies that will keep the causes of these problems firmly in place.
This is Orwellian, indeed, yet the Democrats are celebrating. What's going on? Kevin Baker takes a crack at it in a Harper's article titled "The Vanishing Liberal: How the Left Learned to be Helpless."
Coming to power when he did, with the political skills and the majorities he possesses, Barack Obama squandered an almost unprecedented opportunity But it is increasingly clear that he never intended to challenge the power structure he had so skillfully penetrated. With the recent Supreme Court ruling that corporations are, once more, people, American democracy has snapped shut again--the great, forced opening of the past 130 years has ended. There is no longer any meaningful reformist impulse left in or politics. The idea of modern American liberalism has vanished among our elite, and simply voting for one man or supporting one of the two major parties will not restore it. The work will have to be done from the ground up, and it will have to be done by us.

Continue ReadingAlleged financial reform

Dylan Ratigan’s three strikes against the pending financial services legislation

Dylan Ratigan put on a "Family Fued Show" to illustrate the three major failures of the pending financial services legislation. Seems like this bill is not for any meaningful reform. It's only a dog and pony show.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Continue ReadingDylan Ratigan’s three strikes against the pending financial services legislation

Medicare for anyone who wants it

Representative Alan Grayson is pushing hard for Medicare for anyone who wants to buy into the program. It's a four page bill. It's understandable. The framework is already set up for implementing it. It is cost-effective. Grayson sent me this mass-distributed email for further explanation.

Dear Erich,

72 hours. 66 cosponsors in the House. 21,254 citizen cosponsors at WeWantMedicare.com.

The Public Option Act. It's simple. It's popular. 82% of Scott Brown voters favor it. It lets anyone buy into Medicare at cost. You want it, you pay for it, and you're in.

You know and I know that it's a winner.

Private insurers make money denying us the care we need, when we need it most. Medicare doesn't. So we want Medicare. And we want it now.

Ask your Member of Congress to stand up for us. Call your member of Congress now, and ask him or her to cosponsor HR 4789, the Public Option Act.

Call the switchboard: (202) 224-3121

After you call, please let me know how it went. I need to know if your Representative is with us or against us. Tell me how it goes.

This is the week to act. We are likely to vote on a healthcare bill without a public option. We should get a vote on the Public Option Act as well. The four-page bill opens Medicare to all. It's that simple.

Call your member of Congress now, and ask if he or she has the guts to stand up for you.

Call the switchboard: (202) 224-3121

Courage,

Alan

Why do we need the public option program Grayson suggests? Because we currently and needlessly have a for-profit health insurance industry that provides the insureds no benefit for a big chunk of the premiums they pay. Grayson recently explained at Huffpo:

Health insurance companies charge as much money as possible, and they provide as little care as possible. The difference is called profit. You can't blame them for it; that's what a corporation does. Birds got to fly, fish got to swim, health insurers got to rip you off. And if you get really expensive, they've got to pull the plug on you. So for those of us who would like to stay alive, we need a public option. In many areas of the country, one or two insurers have over 80% of the market. They can charge anything they want. And when you get sick, they can flip the bird at you. So we need a public option.

Continue ReadingMedicare for anyone who wants it

Finally, a politician talks straight about the need for Wall Street Reform

In an impassioned speech this morning, Sen. Ted Kaufman (D-Del.) called for the break-up of megabanks and a firmer separation between Main Street banking and Wall Street trading. At the above link video excerpts are available. OK, now we need 99 more senators and hundreds of representatives to get on board.

Continue ReadingFinally, a politician talks straight about the need for Wall Street Reform

Wall Street Journal commentator: Greed is not good.

Princeton economist Alan S. Blinder recently wrote a notable op-ed at the Wall Street Journal. It was notable because Blinder's theme runs counter to the mantra of the many free market fundamentalists who got us into the big mess we are in. In his hard-hitting piece, Blinder argues that greed is not necessarily good:

When economists first heard Gekko's now-famous dictum, "Greed is good," they thought it a crude expression of Adam Smith's "Invisible Hand"—which is one of history's great ideas. But in Smith's vision, greed is socially beneficial only when properly harnessed and channeled. The necessary conditions include, among other things: appropriate incentives (for risk taking, etc.), effective competition, safeguards against exploitation of what economists call "asymmetric information" (as when a deceitful seller unloads junk on an unsuspecting buyer), regulators to enforce the rules and keep participants honest, and—when relevant—protection of taxpayers against pilferage or malfeasance by others. When these conditions fail to hold, greed is not good.
Blinder's article is not optimistic that we will be able to seize the moment by "slamming the door on the lobbyists" and enacting strong financial reform.

Continue ReadingWall Street Journal commentator: Greed is not good.