Eliot Spitzer: $7.8 Trillion In Government Guarantees May Simply Perpetuate Flawed System

Posted on December 4, 2008 by Mike Bock

In a thoughtful article appearing in Slate, Eliot Spitzer says that the “$7.8 trillion in equity, loans, and guarantees so far — may merely perpetuate a fundamentally flawed status quo.”.

Spitzer says, “So far, at least, we are simply rebuilding the same edifice that just collapsed. None of the investments has even begun to address the underlying structural problems that are causing economic power to shift away from the United States, sector by sector”

Indicators of structural problems, according to Spitzer, include our $700 billion yearly trade deficit, our zero savings rate, our deteriorating intellectual advantage.

Spitzer advocates that the government encourage the breakup of institutions “too big to fail,” and, instead, stimulate more competition. He writes, “Imagine if we had never placed ourselves in a position in which so many institutions were too big to fail. The bailouts might have been unnecessary.”

He says, “It is time we permitted the market to work: This means true competition with winners and losers; companies that disappear; shareholders and CEOs who can lose as well as win; and government investment in the long-range competitiveness of our nation, not in a failed business model of financial concentration and failed risk management that holds nobody accountable.”


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Michael Moore Says No Bailout To Detroit; Wants The Government To Buy and Run Detroit Auto Industry

Posted on December 3, 2008 by Mike Bock

Rather than providing a bailout, Michael Moore wants the government to buy up the Detroit auto makers outright, and hire effective managers to restructure the industry. Moore writes, “These idiots don’t deserve a dime. Fire all of them, and take over the industry for the good of the workers, the country and the planet.”

Moore claims that the government could buy all of GM stock for less than $3 billion. Moore writes, “This proposal is not radical or rocket science. … What I’m proposing has worked before. The national rail system was in shambles in the ’70s. The government took it over. A decade later it was turning a profit, so the government returned it to private/public hands, and got a couple billion dollars put back in the treasury.”

Moore says, “This proposal will save our industrial infrastructure — and millions of jobs. More importantly, it will create millions more. It literally could pull us out of this recession.”

Moore says, “I care about what happens with the Big 3 because they are more responsible than almost anyone for the destruction of our fragile atmosphere and the daily melting of our polar ice caps.

“Congress must save the industrial infrastructure that these companies control and the jobs they create. And it must save the world from the internal combustion engine. This great, vast manufacturing network can redeem itself by building mass transit and electric/hybrid cars, and the kind of transportation we need for the 21st century.”

Moore says that any bailout money given to Detroit at this point would simply be wasted. He says, “Let me just state the obvious: Every single dollar Congress gives these three companies will be flushed right down the toilet. There is nothing the management teams of the Big 3 are going to do to convince people to go out during a recession and buy their big, gas-guzzling, inferior products. Just forget it. And, as sure as I am that the Ford family-owned Detroit Lions are not going to the Super Bowl — ever — I can guarantee you, after they burn through this $34 billion, they’ll be back for another $34 billion next summer.”


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George W. Bush Denies Any Responsibility; Charlie Gibson’s Craven Interview Gives President A Free Pass

Posted on December 2, 2008 by Mike Bock

Last night on ABC News, President George W. Bush denied any responsibility for the financial crisis the country is now going through.  He was interviewed by Charlie Gibson, and was given a free pass to say whatever he wanted without being challenged even a smidgen.  (See interview here.)

Gibson asked: “Do you feel in any way responsible for what is happening (in the economy)?”

What a question — “In any way responsible” — for crying out loud, Bush has been president for eight years and for six of those years he has had complete control of the federal government.  Is he in any way, maybe, just maybe, just a tiny bit responsible?   What a goofy question.

Gibson’s question should have been something like:  “How in the world could you have allowed this to happen on your watch?”

But in response to the softball pitch he was given, Bush answered:  “When history of this period is written people will realize that a lot of the decisions made on wall street took place over a decade or so before I arrived as president.”

Huh?  Amazingly, Gibson let the whole thing slide.  Does ABC or anybody paying attention think this is journalism?  Compared to mush headed Gibson, Katie Couric is a tiger.

Bush has been president for the last eight years and, evidently, he would like for us to believe that the important factors causing the present degradation of our economy happened when Bill Clinton was president.  The absurdity of Bush’s arrogance and the gull of his fantasy thinking is astounding.  But more astounding is Charlie Gibson’s role in allowing such nonsense to go unchallenged.  Evidently, Gibson thinks it’s his job, in these latter days of Bush, to sanction and give respectability to whatever propaganda fantasy nonsense Bush wants to lay out.

Gibson should have asked any number of questions.  Here are a few:  “Do you think that fighting two expensive wars, while giving tax breaks worth hundreds of billions to the most wealthy, has anything to do with the destruction of today’s economy?  Do you think that taking us over three trillion dollars in additional debt just might have had some negative impact on the economy?  Do you think that this crisis of confidence in the market is somehow happening detached from the crisis of confidence in your administration?  Do you think you deregulation that allowed your rich cronies, corrupt lobbyist, powerful corporations have free rein in the market had anything to do with the plight in which we find ourselves in today?”

,P.

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