Susan's Views
International writer Susan Trevelyan-Syke on politics, media and economics.
BLOG.SUSANSVIEWS.COM

Thantos Speaks "The Gulf of Mexico is a very big ocean."

In the wake of one of earth's worst man-made environmental disasters, I cannot express my view better than Chris Hedges does for Truthdig in "BP and the 'Little Eichmanns'" (below). 


BP and the 'Little Eichmanns' By Chris Hedges for
Truthdig

Cultures that do not recognize that human life and the natural world have a sacred dimension, an intrinsic value beyond monetary value, cannibalize themselves until they die. They ruthlessly exploit the natural world and the members of their society in the name of progress until exhaustion or collapse, blind to the fury of their own self-destruction. The oil pouring into the Gulf of Mexico, estimated to be perhaps as much as 100,000 barrels a day, is part of our foolish death march. It is one more blow delivered by the corporate state, the trade of life for gold. But this time collapse, when it comes, will not be confined to the geography of a decayed civilization. It will be global.

Those who carry out this global genocide—men like BP’s Chief Executive Tony Hayward, who assures us that “The Gulf of Mexico is a very big ocean. The amount of oil and dispersant we are putting into it is tiny in relation to the total water volume’’—are, to steal a line from Ward Churchill, “little Eichmanns.” They serve Thanatos, the forces of death, the dark instinct Sigmund Freud identified within human beings that propels us to annihilate all living things, including ourselves. These deformed individuals lack the capacity for empathy. They are at once banal and dangerous. They possess the peculiar ability to organize vast, destructive bureaucracies and yet remain blind to the ramifications. The death they dispense, whether in the pollutants and carcinogens that have made cancer an epidemic, the dead zone rapidly being created in the Gulf of Mexico, the melting polar ice caps or the deaths last year of 45,000 Americans who could not afford proper medical care, is part of the cold and rational exchange of life for money.

The corporations, and those who run them, consume, pollute, oppress and kill. The little Eichmanns who manage them reside in a parallel universe of staggering wealth, luxury and splendid isolation that rivals that of the closed court of Versailles. The elite, sheltered and enriched, continue to prosper even as the rest of us and the natural world start to die. They are numb. They will drain the last drop of profit from us until there is nothing left. And our business schools and elite universities churn out tens of thousands of these deaf, dumb and blind systems managers who are endowed with sophisticated skills of management and the incapacity for common sense, compassion or remorse. These technocrats mistake the art of manipulation with knowledge. 

“The longer one listened to him, the more obvious it became that his inability to speak was closely connected with an inability to think, namely, to think from the standpoint of somebody else,” Hannah Arendt wrote of “Eichmann in Jerusalem.” “No communication was possible with him, not because he lied but because he was surrounded by the most reliable of all safeguards against words and the presence of others, and hence against reality as such.”

Our ruling class of technocrats, as John Ralston Saul points out, is effectively illiterate. “One of the reasons that he is unable to recognize the necessary relationship between power and morality is that moral traditions are the product of civilization and he has little knowledge of his own civilization,” Saul writes of the technocrat. Saul calls these technocrats “hedonists of power,” and warns that their “obsession with structures and their inability or unwillingness to link these to the public good make this power an abstract force—a force that works, more often than not, at cross-purposes to the real needs of a painfully real world.”

BP, which made $6.1 billion in profits in the first quarter of this year, never obtained permits from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The protection of the ecosystem did not matter. But BP is hardly alone. Drilling with utter disregard to the ecosystem is common practice among oil companies, according to a report in The New York Times. Our corporate state has gutted environmental regulation as tenaciously as it has gutted financial regulation and habeas corpus. Corporations make no distinction between our personal impoverishment and the impoverishment of the ecosystem that sustains the human species. And the abuse, of us and the natural world, is as rampant under Barack Obama as it was under George W. Bush. The branded figure who sits in the White House is a puppet, a face used to mask an insidious system under which we as citizens have been disempowered and under which we become, along with the natural world, collateral damage. As Karl Marx understood, unfettered capitalism is a revolutionary force. And this force is consuming us.

Karl Polanyi in his book “The Great Transformation,” written in 1944, laid out the devastating consequences—the depressions, wars and totalitarianism—that grow out of a so-called self-regulated free market. He grasped that “fascism, like socialism, was rooted in a market society that refused to function.” He warned that a financial system always devolved, without heavy government control, into a Mafia capitalism—and a Mafia political system—which is a good description of our corporate government. Polanyi warned that when nature and human beings are objects whose worth is determined by the market, then human beings and nature are destroyed. Speculative excesses and growing inequality, he wrote, always dynamite the foundation for a continued prosperity and ensure “the demolition of society.”

 “In disposing of a man’s labor power the system would, incidentally, dispose of the physical, psychological, and moral entity ‘man’ attached to that tag,” Polanyi wrote. “Robbed of the protective covering of cultural institutions, human beings would perish from the effects of social exposure; they would die as victims of acute social dislocation through vice, perversion, crime, and starvation. Nature would be reduced to its elements, neighborhoods and landscapes defiled, rivers polluted, military safety jeopardized, the power to produce food and raw materials destroyed. Finally, the market administration of purchasing power would periodically liquidate business enterprise, for shortages and surfeits of money would prove as disastrous to business as floods and droughts in primitive society. Undoubtedly, labor, land, and money markets are essential to a market economy. But no society could stand the effects of such a system of crude fictions even for the shortest stretch of time unless its human and natural substance as well as its business organizations was protected against the ravages of this satanic mill.”

The corporate state is a runaway freight train. It shreds the Kyoto Accords in Copenhagen. It plunders the U.S. Treasury so speculators can continue to gamble with billions in taxpayer subsidies in our perverted system of casino capitalism. It disenfranchises our working class, decimates our manufacturing sector and denies us funds to sustain our infrastructure, our public schools and our social services. It poisons the planet. We are losing, every year across the globe, an area of farmland greater than Scotland to erosion and urban sprawl. There are an estimated 25,000 people who die every day somewhere in the world because of contaminated water. And some 20 million children are mentally impaired each year by malnourishment.

America is dying in the manner in which all imperial projects die. Joseph Tainter, in his book “The Collapse of Complex Societies,” argues that the costs of running and defending an empire eventually become so burdensome, and the elite becomes so calcified, that it becomes more efficient to dismantle the imperial superstructures and return to local forms of organization. At that point the great monuments to empire, from the Sumer and Mayan temples to the Roman bath complexes, are abandoned, fall into disuse and are overgrown. But this time around, Tainter warns, because we have nowhere left to migrate and expand, “world civilization will disintegrate as a whole.” This time around we will take the planet down with us.

“We in the lucky countries of the West now regard our two-century bubble of freedom and affluence as normal and inevitable; it has even been called the ‘end’ of history, in both a temporal and teleological sense,” writes Ronald Wright in “A Short History of Progress.” “Yet this new order is an anomaly: the opposite of what usually happens as civilizations grow. Our age was bankrolled by the seizing of half the planet, extended by taking over most of the remaining half, and has been sustained by spending down new forms of natural capital, especially fossil fuels. In the New World, the West hit the biggest bonanza of all time. And there won’t be another like it—not unless we find the civilized Martians of H.G. Wells, complete with the vulnerability to our germs that undid them in his War of the Worlds.” 

The moral and physical contamination is matched by a cultural contamination. Our political and civil discourse has become gibberish. It is dominated by elaborate spectacles, celebrity gossip, the lies of advertising and scandal. The tawdry and the salacious occupy our time and energy. We do not see the walls falling around us. We invest our intellectual and emotional energy in the inane and the absurd, the empty amusements that preoccupy a degenerate culture, so that when the final collapse arrives we can be herded, uncomprehending and fearful, into the inferno.


Right, Left and Center (Independents) vs Our Corporatist Ruling Class

   
Talk to ordinary citizens of the USA and they will tell you how unhappy they are with the way national decisions are made in America and with policies they do not nor have ever supported.

It does not matter if the unhappy are Republicans, Democrats, Independents, Centrists, whatever.  They may not like policies of the opposition, but America has reached a point when many are deeply unhappy with their own choices of elected officials. 

We elect Presidents, Senators and Representatives based on the policies they put forward in their election campaigns not just for their party label. 

The largest percentage of Americans are Independents if we can believe the polls:  about 45% depending on the variable 22-28% tending Republican and the variable 33-38% tending Democratic.  Today, both parties are at their lowest levels.

True Independents tend toward one of the two main parties, but vote for policies and individuals who are more likely to represent their views.

Americans share the same fate with every country:  often voting for the lesser of two or more evils.

The elected win, because the majority of voters trust or, at least, take a chance that the elected will carry out their preferences and will or do the right thing for the country.  They don't. 

The elected always have many excuses for not supporting what the American people, especially their own supporters, want.

What most Americans want is a properly managed, safe and fiscally sound country with equal opportunities, jobs, homes, food, education, health care and some sort of security for their current lifestyles and future.

The most powerful country in history should be able to provide for every American with so much left over that they can help other less fortunate countries.

Yet we have record numbers of Americans with no jobs, losing their homes, living rough, not enough food or heat, children and animals abandoned and no hope that things will get better. 

We are in a Depression or Recession or what ever you want to call it with a record deficit.

How did we get there?  Why are we there?  Why have our elected representatives and officials done so little for ordinary people when they (actually the taxpayers) can bail out the very rich companies which caused the crash?  Why do they refuse to write new, stiffer regulations or enforce current law to prevent further crashes?

Why are we running wars all over the planet?  Why do we need over 800 military installations throughout the world?  Why are we the policemen of the world?

Why do the terrorists hate us so much?

The health-care-bill battle has exposed more than our Establishment realizes.  Senators especially showed us why nothing gets done that We the People want.

Senators are members of a privileged club constantly raising money for their next elections and cutting deals with each other to satisfy their contributors.  They are even too indebted to lobbyists to hire independent researchers; they hire specialists from the lobbies and spout lobbyist-prepared policy statements without attribution.  

So who are the real deciders of policy?  With such a setup, how could independent thinking survive?  And how could we get decisions that benefit ordinary citizens or the country?

In the end, the taxpayers (otherwise known as suckers) will pay the bills.  

Only citizen taxpayers could be on the verge of a grand revolt and they could succeed in time if they unite--unite and fight. 

Republicans already are in the process of redefining their party to reflect its more Conservative base.  They claim they will choose candidates who reflect the views of its base and will purge the party of those who do not--even currently elected officials.

This is their response to the Bush years of disillusionment ending in false Conservatism, wars, corporate bailouts, a record deficit, loss of power and fractured policies.  Bush just opened the kitty jar and let the neocons and corporates plunder.

Tea Parties and FreedomWorks, i.e., have grown from Conservatives' disillusionment with Bush's big government in an attempt to take the country back to basic values.

Democrats, on the other hand, thought they had taken the country and its government back to democratic, liberal and progressive principles and policies in the 2008 election.

Instead they got the brushoff from the President who prefers a new breed of politician--the New Dems (corporatists, neo-liberals and Democratic Leadership Council followers who were thought to have been defeated with Hillary Clinton).  He also likes Joe Lieberman (Independent) more than he likes regular Democrats, Progressives and Liberals.

The health-care bill debacle in the Senate has shown that the President is only interested in pleasing these few New Dems like Senators Bayh, Landrieu, Nelson along with Lieberman who claim to be moderate centrists. 

He has given up working with Republicans like Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins.

If the President had wanted a public option or a Medicare buy in, he would have put the bill through Congress by reconciliation when a simple majority of Democrats would pass the legislation. 

What the President wants is a deal, any deal. 

Though there are some benefits for the public in the Senate health-care bill which will probably pass, it is a massive giveaway to the health care industry corporations (20-30 million new, mandated customers and no cost controls).

Republicans are not the only ones furious about this bill.

The President himself has received almost $40 million in contributions from the health care industry as have all the New Dems and most of Congress.  

They are voting their pockets and not for the common good.  

We are not getting strong banking controls, because 14 freshman New Dems have been given unheard of privileged membership on the powerful House Finance Committee.  Why?  They vote with the Republicans to defeat every effort to control the wayward finance industry.

These New Dems are reaping the corporate contribution harvest that has been the preserve of corporatist Republicans.  The DNC under Obama's leadership prefers them.  

As far as raising campaign money, the New Dems and Obama have it made.  Since they are in power, they will outstrip the Republicans and drown the regular Democrats whom they see as useless wimps except when it comes to voting.

Progressives, Liberals, unions among a few are furious and could find the guts to revolt on the health care bill.  

Many of the great centrist moderates like Michael M Daley, Chairman of the Midwest Board of J P Morgan Chase/Bank One, have accused the "balky" of wrecking the Democratic party, splitting its majority (no mention of Bayh, Landrieu, Nelson or Lieberman of doing the same to benefit corporations), undermining the President and undermining his health care bill. 

Daley is the brother of Chicago's mayor Richard J Daley, a member of the boards of Boeing (defense), Merck (drugs) and Boston Properties.   He served as Secretary of Commerce under Clinton, managed Albert Gore's unsuccessful Presidential campaign and was Special Counsel in the formation of NAFTA (dear to union hearts). 

Yes, the Establishment is worried that the majority of the Democratic Party will stop being toadies.  They could even defeat the health care bill and make Obama's term even more difficult than the Republicans are.

And one of these days, the 99.99% of Americans who are not part of the Establishment or Ruling Class will realize that they are getting nothing back from the politicians they elect except more grief, death and taxes.

The country is almost completely socialized now to benefit big corporations at taxpayer expense.

What happened to the common good?

Political activists who are Republicans, Democrats, Centrists and Independents have decided that it is time to talk and perhaps pool resources to get power back to the people.  A good example is below:  



Libertarians on Establishment Demonization
by Jane Hamsher, Tuesday December 29, 2009, 1:15 PM, www.firedoglake.com

 

 

Libertarian Michael Ostralenk of the Campaign for Liberty helped put together the coalition that signed the December 2 CAF letter opposing the Bernanke reappointment until the Federal Reserve had been audited. It was signed by myself, Robert Borosage, Dean Baker, Chris Bowers, Adam Green, James Galbraith, Tyler Durden and Tiffiniy Cheng (who blogs over at the Seminal today).

It was also signed by Matt Kibbe of FreedomWorks, Duane Parde of the National Taxpayers Union, Larry Greenley of the The John Birch Society and yes, Grover Norquist.

He writes today of the hostility that greeted my letter with Norquist that called for an investigation before more funds were allocated to Freddie Mac (which happened the following day), and compares it to the response on the right that greeted anti-war libertarians:

At least the attacks on Jane from the left, which I will call the Establishment left are for the most part not as bad (yet) as the attacks by the establishment right against the libertarian and paleo-conservative right during the second gulf war. I have not seen her called a traitor or unpatriotic but its interesting to note that the establishment on both sides of the aisle share mostly the same perspectives on the ‘how’ of politics and they both have similar means of either dismissing voices outside of their mainstream or of attempting to co-op them.

>
The Obama Administration and their allies in Congress are not socialists as they are commonly derided as being by the right wing press. At least not in terms of the policies they have been promoting to date. If the medical reform bill that just passed the Senate is any indication of their political preferences, I would have to use the word ‘corporatists’ with a liberal bent to better describe them. They don’t call for State control of the means of production, and they obviously do not take kindly to a free market or even a freer market, but they support establishing significant government control over business and labor in collusion with labor and big business interests. It’s nothing new, it’s pretty much a continuation and expansion of the policies under Bush the Younger.

He’s right that the corporatist politicians who dominate both parties are equally hostile to grassroots activists on both sides who challenge the money train. But I would argue that Robert Cruickshank’s response to Glenn Greenwald was correct: the right, whose numbers are relatively small and whose views are generally far outside of the main stream, has dominated politics for the past 30 years because they made an alliance with the corporations. It’s only natural that Democrats have sought power by replicating that model, even at the price of destroying the illusion that they’re the “party of the people” and fracturing the support that put Obama in office.

The Democrats are trying to secure their political ascendance by tying up the money, no different than Tom DeLay did. But whereas the Democratic Party represented a net to collect and unite those disaffected with the kleptocracy of George Bush, the actions of the Democrats since securing the White House this time around have dimmed the hopes that the Democrats present a real alternative.

The Bush Republicans flogged social issues in order to obviate the need for populist economic measures. They satisfied the base by treating them to a banquet of God, guns and gays while they looted the taxpayer trough. The Democrats, however, are making a sacrifice play on social issues and enabling corporatism by triangulating against their own base. Thus, so-called “fiscally conservative” Blue Dogs can justify a radical vote forcing people to pay almost as much to private insurance companies as they do in federal taxes because it strikes a blow against pro-choice women. Likewise, the White House positioned themselves as “centrist” after the widely popular public option was dispensed with, simply because it was something “liberals” seemed to want too.

What they’re forcing, however, is a situation where there is no place for populist liberal discontent to rationally go. The Democrats assume that the “base” will stay with them because the President is popular and the GOP is worse, but the GOP was never able to achieve the kind of raid on the public sphere that the Democrats are enabling in the health care bill. Social Security privatization was defeated because the Democrats joined with unions, blogs and other liberal institutions to oppose it. The Republicans were never successful in channeling Social Security taxes into the coffers of Wall Street.

The annual individual contribution to Social Security is 6.2%, to a maximum of $6,621 per year for someone making $106,800. But the health care bill passed by the Senate mandates that 8% of your annual income be channeled to private insurance companies, and the cap is the cost someone is willing to pay for a policy. Thus, as Marcy notes, a family of 4 making $66,800 per year will be mandated to pay $5,243 for a policy that only covers 70% of their medical expenses. But the average cost of an insurance policy for a family of four right now is $13,375 per year.

The cost of that plan is not going to go down if the Senate bill passes — in fact, it will continue to increase at an average rate of $1,000 per year. The only difference this bill will make is that people from 130% to 400% of poverty level on the individual market (12% of the population) will get some assistance from the government in buying those policies in the form of subsidies. But that money will still go straight to insurance companies.

As Marcy noted the other day:

I understand the temptation to offer 30 million people health care. What I don’t understand is the nonchalance with which we’re about to fundamentally shift the relationships of governance in doing so.

George Bush couldn’t pull off the great Social Security robbery because of opposition from the left. But Obama has neutralized liberal institutional pushback by locking them in the veal pen, holding EFCA hostage to sideline the unions and relying on his own personal magnetism to keep member organizations like MoveOn or the Sierra Club from making a strong move without fracturing their own ranks.

With no place to go for refuge from corporatist entrenchment, populist opposition from the left and right will continue to have no choice but to work together in order to oppose it.

No doubt the demonization for doing so from party loyalists on both sides who don’t want their control of the kleptocracy to be challenged will only get more fierce.

 

Why the Public Option (or Medicare buy-in) Was Always Dead in the Water


Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D, ND) announced that he had 60 votes to prevent a filibuster on the ObamaCare health care bill and will call a Senate vote before Christmas--unless someone like Senator Joseph Lieberman (I, CT) changes his or her mind about supporting it.

Reid is optimistic that no one will defect from cloture as generous deals were cut with rebels like Senator Mary Landrieu (D, LA) who received $300 million in Medicaid funds for Louisiana in exchange for her vote and she is now a prime defender of ObamaCare.

Senator Ben Nelson (D, NV) will receive undisclosed millions in Medicaid subsidies for Nevada and he was allowed to further restrict women's access to abortions through insurance in the bill.
 
Pennsylvania, New York and Vermont were also big winners in receiving awards of undisclosed millions of Medicaid subsidies which explains their Senators' vehemence in attacking anyone who questions ObamaCare.

It appears that supporters of ObamaCare have made support for ObamaCare a "sanity" test leaving most Americans branded as "insane". 

That cannot surprise anyone given Landrieu's incoherent attack on America's majority who support the public option--as not being smart enough to know the public option is not free.

Medicaid benefits for only certain States could well become a very serious issue for the States that do not benefit. 

Accommodation to the current winners will cut into Medicaid's shaky budget.  Giving the same benefits to all States could well destabilize Medicaid or bankrupt it and the poorest of Americans depend on Medicaid.

Since most of the deals are secret, there are no accurate budget numbers yet. 

The bill mandates that, from 2014, 30 million Americans must buy health care insurance from private insurers or a limited non-profit policy managed by private insurance companies.  The latter option will only be available in States which permit it since States negotiate and award operation franchises to insurance companies for their States.

The standard argument for the admittedly-flawed bill is that 30 million uninsured will have health insurance.  No mention that they will pay for it or of the 20 million who will not be covered. 

Defenders of ObamaCare claim any problems can be tweaked later.

ObamaCare advocates (New Dems/Conservatives) and apologists (Progressives/Liberals) refuse to answer why they cannot or will not produce a good bill or pass the best parts in increments. 

They insist on an all-or-nothing NOW doomsday scenario.

Undeserving Republicans, who have contributed nothing positive to the debate, have been given a gift that will keep giving.  They expect to claim many Congressional seats and Governorships because of ObamaCare.

Whatever happens, Americans will have to pay for the bill with or without tweaking.  Americans are smart enough to understand that.

Americans are also smart enough to be angry.  They were asked to support health care reform and lured by the possibilities of a single-payer option, a public option or a Medicare buy-in with the qualifying age lowered to 55.

Many are still stunned by the exclusions and/or hope that the House will reinstate them.  That is not possible. 

They are smart enough to know there is NO REFORM in ObamaCare, but now 30 million citizens will be forced to buy insurance from private companies or be fined or go to jail.  Over 20 million are left uninsured.

Creator of the House's Stupak Amendment, Rep Bart Stupak (D, MI), has said he will NOT accept Nelson's cave in on abortions.  Planned Parenthood opposes both parts of the House and Senate versions and the Catholic Church want stronger anti-abortion legislation. 

The list of disputees grows.

Unions are unhappy, because the rich or health care industry companies will not be taxed (as in the Baucus bill); however their members will be taxed if they have the so-called "cadillac" insurance policies which include their families.

The rich and corporations avoid tax; workers and the middle class (if it still exists) pay it.

ObamaCare assures that no one with a pre-existing condition can be refused health care insurance or be dropped, but they and older Americans can be charged up to 300% of standard policies (3 to 1 or, i.e., $30,000 instead of $10,000). 

How much of an insurance gift is a 300% limit if there are no cost controls on base prices?  Prices will be set by an insurance industry committee.  

Senator Kent Conrad (D, ND) has already threatened that the House "had better return" the Senate version of ObamaCare after their joint negotiating conference committee meets or the Senate will NOT approve the final version. 

Then what is the point of negotiating the two bills?  Oh, I forgot.  Stupak wants more restrictions on women.

Evidently, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi will be wasting her time conferencing especially since there are four members on the committee, beholden to the insurance industry, and they have vetoes. 

Two things that are obvious to all from the Senate debacle is that our system is a mess and we are ruled by an indescribable lot of clowns in both parties.

Why was the public option (or Medicare buy-in) always dead in the water?

A clue might be in the fact that President Barack Obama has raised more health care contributions for himself than any other member of the 111th Congress, 1989-2009 (according to Jane Hamsher's research,
www.firedoglake.com). 

His grand total is $39,064,681.  His wife is a former Vice President of Community Affairs at the University of Chicago Hospitals and Clinics.  

Senator John McCain is second highest in health care contributions with a paltry $17,803,644; Senators John Kerry third and Arlen Specter fourth. 
 
The best write up on "How health lobbyists influenced reform bill (Former staffers of lawmakers from Harry Reid to Mitch McConnell push clients' agenda)" can be read on my 
Health Care page or at
www.chicagotribune.com/health/chi-health-lobbyists_bddec20,0,4862599.story.

Our rulers, the lobbyists and the health care providers have made out like bandits and the taxpayers will pay.

Taxpayers have no advocates in government.  We are on our own.

Unless the Tea Party and protest movements grow to include ALL Americans. 


Susan's Views http://www.susansviews.com  

ObamaCare: "the plan the President wanted all along", Senator Russ Feingold (D, WI)

All the recent independent polls taken show the American public does NOT favour the current (section changes yet to be written) Senate bill since it dropped both single-payer or public option and Medicare buy-in.  The public opposes mandated insurance purchases from private insurers.  Failure to buy is punished by a fine or jail.

The bill delivers a bonanza of 30 million mandated clients to the insurance industry and contains no cost controls.

The Brian J Dorgan (D, NV) bill, which would have allowed Americans to re-import drugs bought by the Canadian government under their lower negotiated rates, was defeated 51-49 after a vigorous White House campaign to prevent it reaching 60 which would have avoided filibuster. 

It is alleged that the White House was trying to protect the deal it negotiated in private with PhRMA to maintain pharmaceutical prices in return for its not opposing the health care bill.

Congressman Michael Burgess (R, TX), who is a doctor and founder/chairman of the House Health Care Caucus, has demanded the White House turn over any written contracts or data on its deal with PhRMA. 

Democrat Henry Waxman (CA), chairman of the House Committee of Oversight and Government Reform, also demanded to see any such documents.

Republican threats of time-consuming procedural moves and filibuster forced Senator Bernard Sanders (I, VT) to withdraw his single-payer bill from having a vote. 

The Republican Senators have opposed all health care reform in a solid block assisted by Senators Joseph Lieberman (I, CT) and Ben Nelson (D, NE).  Nelson demands absolute prevention of any funding for abortions.

Respected Progressive Dr Howard Dean, former Chairman of the Democratic National Committee, called for the bill to be killed or stripped down to its good parts and sent back to the House for conference revision.  He noted that the bill was in no way health care reform.

Representatives of the White House made serious mistakes in calling Dean "insane", "irrational" and a "spoiler" among other things.  Their strategy backfired among Democrats, the public and the media.

Unhappy Progressives who had fought hard for a single-payer or public option with a Medicare buy-in and without a mandate were galvanized into fighting the current bill which they feel conceded too much to the corporate New Dems and Conservative Democrats.

Two of America's largest unions concur with Dean and told President Obama to live up to his campaign promises and send the bill back to the House "or else".

The Senate health care battle has publicly broken open the Democratic Party disputes between the Progressives and the White House over multiple issues including the economy, healthcare, jobs, the Afghanistan war surge, etc.

Game playing and grandstanding in the Senate has soured voters on health care reform and lowered public respect for it to a new low--hard to believe it could have gone lower. 

People across the spectrum believe the system is broken and this Administration is not doing enough to fix it.

The public sees only corporations prospering and gaming the system.  Individuals are suffering without help.

The majority of Americans polled now say they want the current Senate bill killed and, since it is identified in the public mind as ObamaCare, Obama's ratings are suffering badly. 

Three other factors affecting Obama's plummeting ratings are the economy, budget deficit and no jobs--the very issues Obama promised to improve in his Presidential campaign.  

Progressives want solutions that help citizens and do not only benefit large corporations--the crux of their argument against the health care bill and Obama's policies.

It was interesting to see the amount of pressure put on all Senate Democrats to support the bill despite admissions that it is flawed by former President Clinton, the Democratic Leadership Council wing, New Dems, Conservative Dems and the White House spokespersons.

They urge passing it flaws and all as it is our last chance to get health care reform; the flaws can be tweaked later.

Even one of the major stumbling blockers Senator Mary Landrieu (D, LA), who opposed health care reform and received $300 million for her state from the White House to support the new bill, defended the bill by attacking the public. 

She claims that high poll ratings for the public option is simply that "They don't understand they have to pay for it.  They think is free."

In other words, the public is stupid and venal.

She could not explain why insurance and pharmaceutical stocks are skyrocketing since the ObamaCare modifications were leaked to the public since she claims the two industries are still battling against health care reform with a war chest of $600 million.

They are not still battling.  Both industries have exactly what they want with Obamacare--30 million new mandated clients and no cost controls.  Future billions of dollars for $600 million is a really good deal.   

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D, NV) plans on having a vote Christmas Eve on the bill, but lacks 60 Senators at this point to prevent a filibuster.  Lieberman and Nelson are still "no" voters and no Republican will support it.

White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel boasts that all Liberals are on board as they would not dare risk this last chance at health care reform.

If Reid does get the votes to pass the Senate bill, ObamaCare will be sent to the House of Representatives for Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D, CA) to meld it into the House bill early next year.  

The House bill is thought to be better by Dean, the unions and Progressives.  

At this point, Pelosi is the only person who can get an acceptable health care bill passed.  

She has also put the President on notice that he will have to "convince" her to support his requests for money to pay for the Afghanistan war surge. 

All Democrats are relying on Pelosi to get their programs through and Progressives/Liberals hope she will exact a price on their behalf. 

Fortunately, her political skills are growing and may match those of the sorely-needed late Speaker and President Lyndon Baines Johnson. 

The honeymoon is over for President Obama.



Susan's Views http://www.susansviews.com/

Lieberman, 'de facto' President of the USA

Living in London, I have clearly missed a critical national election or several extraordinary interim appointments of individuals empowered to act as President of the USA in his absence. 

Many reliable sources have verified that the White House (muscleman Rahm Emanuel) has ordered the Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (NV) to give Independent Senator Joseph Lieberman (CT) whatever he wants in the health care bill to get it passed. 

Giving Lieberman what he wants means removing any link to Medicare, a public option or, in fact, any health care bill which does not significantly increase the profits of the insurance industry which he represents.

This shameless senator and his wife openly tout their lobbying and contributions from the CT insurance industry.

Evidently, the Senate ethics rules do not apply to this Senator who gives "corruption" a new meaning. 

The Connecticutt Democratic Party purged Lieberman for not representing their state and party.  He ran as an Independent and was elected. 

Over 80% of 'polled' national Democrats want Lieberman removed from the Democratic Caucus and disciplined for his wrecking tactics.

The President has refused.  In fact, he appears to have appointed Lieberman the 'de facto' President of the USA.

And I thought Sarah Palin was our only "Being There"*.

Susan's Views http://www.susansviews.com

Abu Dhabi Relents and Loans Dubai World $10 Billion

During the weeks of uncertainty, Godolphin and Dubai representatives of Sheikh Mohammed assured the racing community that the problems of Nakeel (a subsidiary corporation of Dubai World) would not affect his racing operation nor would it affect MGM's bid to run Aqueduct's racino

It will not affect  the Emirates National Oil Company takeover of Dragon Oil, London-listed £2.3 billion Caspian Sea producer.

Citizens of Dubai and the UAE have been hurt and shocked at the media frenzy which exaggerated the liquidity problems of Dubai World and portrayed the country as being in free fall.

Much of that frenzy appears to have been generated by Rupert Murdoch's various international media operations.  The Times of London in particular skewed their reports to exclude positive reports from official international financial services organisations. 

Instead it published comments from dissident British former Dubai residents and Durham University professors who called for Sheikh Mohammed's removal from office.

Murdoch has several country leaders on his hit list and he is using his media against Barach Obama, Gordon Brown, Silvio Berlusconi and now Sheikh Mohammed. 

He published Sarah Palin's book and is financing her sales/political-campaign tour through his media enterprises, i.e., Fox News, and employees.

Dubai World had the $4.1 billion on hand which was due today for payment and is meeting with bank creditors to negotiate a standstill on debt.  It will eventually sell some of its foreign assets.

Abu Dhabi loaned Dubai World a further $10 billion to cover Dubai World's business needs until the end of April and bills owed to creditors and contractors.  

Confidence had returned to the Middle Eastern markets last week, but they jumped 10% yesterday after Abu Dhabi's announcement. 

The delay in making the loan and an odd, early announcement that Abu Dhabi would not temporarily cover the debt has damaged both Dubai's and the UAE's credit worthiness. 

One has to wonder why it took the oil-rich Emirate so long to change its mind. 
 

Susan's Views http://www.susansviews.com

"Obama's Chore"*

Worldwide coverage of President Obama's speech outlining his policy decisions on Afghanistan, Pakistan and terrorist movements in the Middle and Near East has almost-universally claimed that he now owned "Obama's War". 

*Bob Cesca, writing in the Huffington Post, disagreed and quite rightly called it "Obama's Chore".

How anyone could think the grey-faced Obama wanted to claim a war and set time lines for withdrawal to coincide with U.S. elections just so that he could be re-elected is beyond comprehension. 

Also beyond comprehension are Republican charges that Obama's announcing a targeted time line for withdrawal would both endanger U.S. forces and/or simply prompt the Taliban (they seem to have forgotten Al-Qaida and Osama Bin Laden in their attacks) to lay low and then move to Somalia or Yeman once the U.S. troops left the area.

Either U.S. troops will be endangered by a revitalized Taliban or they will have an easy time until they train Afghani police and militia before they depart.

As to the Taliban, they will not leave their homeland.  The departure of Al-Qaida and Bin Laden anywhere far away from the nuclear weapons in Pakistan would be very good news indeed.

Yeman is not a likely option for refuge given the pasting the Saudi forces just gave the Yemenis who invaded their southern borders.  Further, it has been rumoured that Bin Laden has an agreement with the Wahhabis to stay away from Saudi Arabia.

Another ridiculous charge is that a very inexperienced and naive Obama dangerously delayed his decisions so that the enemy would have the advantage to build up forces and U.S. troops would not be ready to depart for months.

Those of us Americans who live in Europe have heard for months of increased unmanned drone attacks in the border area of AfPak (Pashtun territory), 500 or more CIA agents arriving in Afghanistan and secret Blackwater "black opps" apparently doing or preparing for something.

Today, the Marines landed in operation "Cobra Anger" to support the beleagured British troops in Helmand province which is the Taliban's southern base.   

According to Lt. Col. Martin Wetterauer, their purpose is to "cut off enemy supply and communication lines to the north".
 
The President kept his election promises to escalate U.S. troop departures from Iraq and to do something about Afghanistan. 

It appears that the inexperienced and naive Obama has played a very successful game of cat and mouse with both the enemy in AfPak and the neocons of the Republican Party and New Dems who were so critical of his "dithering".

It appears that the "dithering" was actually fine tuning a surge with the support of 7,000 NATO troops (and more after the January NATO meeting).

Now he has to deal with those in his own Party who want the U.S. out of Afghanistan and those Democrats will have to deal with his cunning fait accompli.

Respected journalist Dan Rather, recently returned from Afghanistan which he visited many times, summed it up to the BBC:  "It's a gambol; it can work, but it's a gambol".  

If it can work, you can bet the Marines will make sure it does. 

Susan's Views http://www.susansviews.com

"The Wrecking Crew"

I fully endorse Mr Black's view of the Wrecking Crew in the following article and agree with his advice. 

I have the dubious honour of having had Milton Freidman as an advisor at the University of Chicago.  He fully explained his market-based model to me. 

My objection to the model, as I explained to him, was that there was no place for people except for the predators at the top of the market.  He did not deny it, but instead suggested I was a Keynesian. 

We have seen country after country brought to near destruction by supply-side economics, Freidmanomics, Reaganomics, Thatcheromics and the Clinton/Bush globalomics. 

George Herbert Walker Bush rightly called it "voo-doo economics" and he lived to see his son destroy America's economy and international standing with it. 

Is there any wonder that China will not pick up any more of U.S. debt?

William K. Black

Assoc. Professor, Univ. of Missouri, Kansas City; Sr. regulator during S&L debacle
Posted: November 23, 2009 10:43 AM on Huffington Post

Tom Frank's book, The Wrecking Crew explains how the Bush administration destroyed effective government and damaged our social fabric and our economy. The Obama administration has chosen to reward two of the worst leaders of Bush's crew -- Geithner and Bernanke -- with promotion and reappointment. Embracing the Wrecking Crew's most destructive members has further damaged the economy and caused increasing political and moral injury to the administration.

Last week was a bad one for Geithner and Bernanke. Senator Dodd said that Bernanke's confirmation was no longer a done deal. The House Financial Services Committee revolted against the administration, the Fed, and Chairman Barney Frank. It voted for a strong bill to audit the Fed. Senate Banking Chairman Schumer went to a conference at Columbia University -- where a generation of students salivated at the prospects of Wall Street wealth -- and was overwhelmed by an audience denouncing the continuing stranglehold of the finance industry over successive administrations and the Congress. Neither Barney's blarney nor Schumer's schmooze was any avail before an outraged public.

The administration promptly secured a column in the Washington Post claiming that the effort to fire Geithner "buoy[ed]" him because, as the subtitle to the article explained: "Even ex-Bush aides sympathetic, sources say." The article didn't note that Geithner is an "ex-Bush" senior official who, with his fellow "ex-Bush aides" (particularly Bernanke and Paulson) produced a chain of disasters: the bubble, an "epidemic of mortgage fraud" by lenders, the Great Recession, and the scandalous TARP and AIG bailouts. Of course they're "sympathetic" to a fellow member of the Wrecking Crew that destroyed effective regulation and turned the nation over to Wall Street. The craziest part of the story is that the anonymous Obama administration flack that spread this anecdote believes that we should support Geithner because his fellow members of the Bush Wrecking Crew empathize with him because they, too, have been criticized for wrecking the economy.

The Washington Post article then offers a metaphor that serves as an apology for the Bush Wrecking Crew. The metaphor is driving over a cliff: "'Secretary Geithner has helped steer the American economy back from the brink, and is now leading the effort on financial reform,' White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki said." Geithner pushed back against Republicans who questioned his performance, telling them, "you gave this president an economy falling off the cliff."

You? How about we? Bush's financial Wrecking Crew "gave this president an economy falling off the cliff." Geithner was President of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York from October 23, 2003 until President Obama chose him as his Treasury Secretary. He was supposed to be the lead regulator of many of the largest bank holding companies. His failures as a regulator were a major cause of the "economy falling off the cliff." Bernanke held prominent positions in the Bush administration from 2002 to the end of the administration and failed as a regulator an economist. Geithner and Bernanke failed to regulate even after the FBI publicly warned in September 2004 that (1) there was an "epidemic" of mortgage fraud and (2) it would lead to a financial crisis if it were not contained. Their refusal to take responsibility for the harm they inflicted on our nation as leaders of Bush's financial Wrecking Crew adds to their unsuitability. Rewarding their perennial failures with a promotion and reappointment represents a dereliction of duty by the Obama administration.

The administration apologists praise Geithner and Bernanke for "steer[ing] the American economy back from the brink." Greenspan, Paulson, Bernanke, and Geithner were the leaders of Bush's financial Wrecking Crew. They were the guys blinded by their pro-Wall Street ideology that drove the car 120 mph down an icy mountain road and lost control of it. They took us to the "brink" of running "off the cliff" and creating the Second Great Depression. The bizarre claim is that we should praise them because they, and Wall Street, only wrecked the economy -- they haven't (yet) utterly destroyed it. Under their metaphor, we're supposed to cheer Geithner and Bernanke because once they finally figured out that they were careening toward the cliff, they decided to sideswipe a row of trees in order to avoid going over the edge. They wrecked the car but they walked away from the crash without a scratch. If your teenager gets drunk, speeds, crashes into a school bus (injuring dozens of kids), and flips the Ford Focus -- but walks away from the crash -- you don't praise him, give him the keys to the family minivan, and have him drive the soccer team to practices. You take all the keys away from him and ground him.

The Obama administration promoted Bush's architects of the financial disaster and demands that we hail them as heroes. President Bush was ridiculed for saying: "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job." FEMA administrator Michael Brown stood by while Hurricane Katrina reduced a single large city to ruin. Geithner and Bernanke stood by while scores of large cities were devastated. 

I suggest that we will build on the momentum we've achieved on the Fed audit by making the following issues our near term financial priorities:

Can the Wrecking Crew. Fire the senior leaders of Bush's and Clinton's financial Wrecking Crews and stopping treating them as financial experts. President Obama should not reappoint Bernanke as Fed Chairman. He should dismiss Geithner and Summers and cease to take any advise from Rubin. Replace them with the Reconstruction Crew -- people with a track record of getting things right and being effective economists, regulators, and prosecutors. Members of Bush's financial Wrecking Crew run far too many regulatory agencies, often as "Actings." They can, and should, be replaced promptly.

  1. End "too big to fail." These banks are "systemically dangerous institutions" (SDIs). They should not be allowed to grow. They should be shrunk to the point that they no longer pose systemic risk, and they should be subject to vigorous regulation while shrinking. They are too big to manage and too big to regulate. They are ticking time bombs that will cause recurrent global crises as long as they are SDIs.
  2. More white-collar watchdogs. Adopt Representative Kaptur's proposal to provide the FBI with at least 1000 additional white-collar specialists. Senator Durbin and (then) Senator Obama made a similar proposal several years ago.
  3. No more executive compensation looting. End the perverse executive compensation systems that reward failure and fraud. The private sector has made compensation worse since the crisis. Modern executive compensation creates a virtually perfect crime -- "accounting control fraud" (looting a company for personal profit). Until we fix the perverse incentives of executive compensation we will have recurrent epidemics of fraud and global financial crises.
  4. Kill TARP and PPIP. Use the funds to help honest homeowners that would otherwise lose their homes because of predatory loan terms.
  5. Make the Federal Reserve System public. It is a largely private structure that creates intense conflicts of interest and ensures that it is controlled by the systemically dangerous institutions. We have already decided that such a structure is inherently improper. The Federal Home Loan Bank System was set up along the same institutional lines and suffered from the same conflicts of interest. Congress ordered an end to these conflicts in the 1989 FIRREA legislation. It should end private control of the Fed.
  6. Defeat any proposal to make the Fed the "Uberregulator." The Fed, for inherent institutional reasons, is unsuited to be the "systemic risk regulator." The Fed has never cared about regulation. The Fed cares about monetary policy and (theoclassical) economic theory and research. Regulation is, at best, a tertiary concern. Its economists wrote frequently about systemic risk -- but missed the obvious, massive systemic risk of the financial bubble and the epidemic of accounting control fraud. Its policies intensified rather than restricting systemic risk. Theoclassical economists have no effective theories (or policies) to deal with bubbles or epidemics of accounting control fraud. Greenspan, Bernanke, and Geithner epitomize the Fed's inability to recognize or reduce systemic risk. Their policies consistently increased systemic risk. Greenspan didn't believe that the Fed should act against fraud. Geithner testified before Congress that he had never been a regulator (a true statement - but one that should have gotten him fired rather than promoted). Bernanke praised the subprime loans that caused the crisis and were so often fraudulent.
  7. Ensure a robust CFPA. Sever the Consumer Financial Product Agency portion from the broader (and deeply flawed) regulatory reform bills in the House and Senate and adopt it into law. Revise the broader bill to strip out its many anti-reform provisions.
  8. End the waste of long-term unemployment. Anyone able and willing to work should be employed by the government as an employer of last resort and should help repair our crumbling infrastructure. Paying people to do nothing or allowing them to become homeless (the status quo) is an insane system.
  9. Adopt a 250 billion revenue sharing program. American state and local governments are in economic crisis. They are slashing spending at the worst possible time when their services are most vital and when cutting spending is pro-cyclical and will delay our recovery from the Great Recession. Revenue sharing was a Republican initiative. Republicans and "Blue Dog" Democrats killed the revenue sharing provisions of the administration's proposed Stimulus bill. That was an enormous mistake. The federal government is not like a state government (or a household). It is a sovereign government with its own currency and a central bank. It can - and should - run large deficits during deep recessions, but the states and local governments cannot. Revenue sharing is the ideal answer to the crisis and it is an answer with an impeccable conservative pedigree. State and local governments should come together and demand a program to offset the state and local cutbacks - roughly250 billion. (The Obama administration's claim that reducing the deficit should be a priority - at a time when unemployment has reached tragic levels - is economically illiterate. It repeats the error that FDR made when he listened to conservative economic advisors and slashed the budget deficit during the Great Depression - causing a surge in unemployment and the extension of the depression. The large federal deficits of World War II reversed the policies of his conservative economic advisors and ended the Great Depression. 
    This piece originally appeared on
    New Deal 2.0.

Susan's Views http://www.susansviews.com


Updates on Dubai Debt

SECOND UPDATE:  The International Monetary Fund will monitor the financial negotiations which started November 30 and will help stabilise Dubai's debt situation. 

Surprising that no expert or journalist has mentioned that two of the multiple causes of Dubai's plight is that Arab countries are pegged to the much-devalued US$ and fluctuating oil/gas prices.

The Gulf Council considered changing from US$ to Euros, but did not after considerable pressure from the IMF.  They have all lost a lot of money

.

UPDATE:  Dubai World has lined up Deloitte and Rothschild to represent them next week in renegotiating loan contract payment terms with its lending banks. 

KPMG will represent the lead banks including HSBC, Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), Lloyd's Banking Group and Standard Chartered.  They expect to form a steering committee of five to six banks to represent the lenders.

Since most of the exposed banks are British, the Financial Services Authority is requesting assurances that UK banks will not suffer huge losses.

The Central Bank of the UAE will monitor progress and has offered emergency aid to any bank needing it so that the nation's financial reputation is protected (which means Abu Dhabi will be involved).

Dubai World has steadfastly refused to be pressured into asset sales of their more valuable properties in the world's current low value climate to pay for the troubled Nakeel (latest word is that Nakeel will meet their December $3.5 billion bond payment).

UK banks have a poor case in some instances in that they made loans on properties which were government-related projects, but not guaranteed by the Dubai governement. 

Again, the banks expect to be bailed out for their greed, failure of due diligence and poor management.

Legally, Sheikh Mohammed or the Dubai government cannot be forced to pay them.  Nor can the National government.

Dubai and the UAE governments are proceeding in good faith to buy time and work out payment problems.

Susan's Views
http://www.susansviews.com

Abu Dhabi: NO Dubai Debt Bailout (Big UK Problem)

ANNOUNCEMENT:  The UAE's richest Emirate Abu Dhabi just announced that it would only back the Sovereign debt of its cousins in Dubai on a case-by-case basis.  This announcement has caused unnecessary panic.


Dubai has just lost the understood 'implicit guarantee' for its Sovereign debt by Abu Dhabi and that damages its credit worthiness as an Emirate.  Why has Abu Dhabi pulled the plug?    

Rumours that Dubai's debt was overextended, rampant over the last few years, have been confirmed by Dubai during the Thanksgiving and Eid holidays (US and Middle Eastern markets closed).

Dubai has asked for a debt moratorium on $50+ billion credit loans for Dubai World which is the government-owned holding company founded in March 2006 to manage four main arms of investment:  transport and logistics, drydocks and maritime, urban development, investment and financial services.

Economists say the first two categories are advanced in structure and in excellent financial condition.  They form the basis of a renewal of and support to Dubai's stature as an international trading hub.

Dubai, like much of the world, expanded its urban development and local financial investment at a time just before the international financial services' industry melted down.

Their debt is not high compared to other countries, but they could be forced to default at a time when many countries' Sovereign funds are under scrutiny.  The Ukraine is the top of the suspect list and the State of California (USA) is number 10.

Complicating matters is that the Ruler of Dubai, Sheikh Mohammed, holds a majority stake in Dubai World.  His personal (business-related) debt added on is said to extend the Dubai debt to $80+ billion.

Dubai has been criticised for a lack of transparency in not revealing the debt situation sooner.  Markets lost billions of dollars over the holiday with the 'shock' news.

'Shock' is disingenuous; it is just more mismanagement of international financial markets.

RBS, HSBC and the Standard Bank hold most of the debt which will mean that British taxpayers will be stung for the losses in these bailed-out banks if a solution is not found. 

Many of the top executives of Dubai-based companies are British and could lose their jobs.

Thousands of British jobs, especially in the racing industry, and a huge chunk of British gross national product are dependent on Dubai and its Royal Family.

In the end, Britain needs to be smart, agree to a moratorium and work with Sheikh Mohammed to sort the mess. 

Part of Dubai's problem is simply timing.  Prime Minister Gordon Brown is smart enough to understand that.  

Dubai is one of the most exciting country developments in the world engineered by a marketing genius.  It should NOT be allowed to fail. 

Susan's Views http://www.susansviews.com