Testicular Politics: Obama and the Big Dogs

[depakid]

Is Obama Tough Enough to Stand Up to the Titans of Finance?

The big dogs of banking and finance are playing a rough game of bump-and-run with our president, trying to knock him off balance and demonstrate their dominance. The best names in Wall Street--Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase--pumped out happy talk about quarterly earnings, then announced that they intend to give back the government's money (more than $50 billion, if counted honestly). The crisis, they announce, is over for them. They want to be free of official meddling in their private affairs. The arrogance is breathtaking, even for Wall Street bankers.

Forget the financial numbers. What we are witnessing is a high-stakes melodrama of glandular politics. This rival power center, though gravely weakened, is contesting for control with the president. Think of dogs circling one another to establish who will be leader of the pack. For three decades, the Wall Street guys in good suits have ruled the economy, demanding deference from the political system and from corporate managements, too. Those who failed to follow them were punished, either through stock prices or election financing. Despite their catastrophic failure, the surviving bankers and financiers are trying to hold on to their thrones.

For the last couple of weeks, they have poked the kid in the chest and mocked his economic advisors with condescending gestures. Jamie Dimon of the Morgan bank handed Treasury Secretary Geithner a fake check for $25 billion. They threw complicating wrenches into the government's financial rescue plan. Their essential message, crudely colloquial, was intended for Barack Obama: "You don't have the balls to take charge of us."

The question is: Are they right? Obama seems cowed by their bluster. He certainly looks reluctant to take them on in a public way or refute their version of reality. This president wants to govern through public-spirited cooperation. The financial titans play hardball in return. I say "seems" because we do not yet know about Obama and how he will resolve this mess. The administration has been stalling action on the troubled banks, as if it believes in its own wishful forecasts about an early recovery for the economy. The bankers trumped him by announcing, hey, things are already better for us. So back off.

<snip>

The moral dilemma in the financial crisis is oddly parallel to Obama's reluctant approach on the torture issue. The president bravely made public the sickening documents from the Bush administration that reveal how CIA and Justice Department officials rationalized their illegalities and authorized crimes against humanity. Yet the president said it would be wrong to prosecute (or even investigate) any of the CIA agents or military officers who committed these crimes. Likewise, we are told it would be wrong to punish the financial malefactors or look too closely into how they engineered the gross fraud and false valuations that destroyed trillions of dollars in American wealth. Let's not dwell on the past, the president says, let's look forward.

<snip>

I do not doubt the president's good intentions, but if he is not vigilant, the "Obama precedent" could prove to be an ugly legacy. His name might someday be linked to wilful evasion of misdeeds and the degradation of law and moral principle. When great crimes are committed in the future by government or by powerful private interests, people in authority might decide to let them go by, citing the national interest and recalling how Barack Obama dealt with similar events.

More: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/04/23-8

[MadBadger]

1. DUPE

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x8366096

[depakid]

2. If the poster had used the actual title of the article- instead of adding their own spin

I might have seen that....

[Life Long Dem]

3. They are just shakey.

Every time one bank releases bad news the others panic as well.

Tech is going to drive the economy and not the banks.

[AtomicKitten]

4. I don't know how much influence the Blue Dogs have on Obama

but I'd sure like to muzzle Evan Bayh and neuter him.

I am not qualified to even comment on the economy other than knowing it's bullshit to bail out the upper echelon when ordinary people are drowning in debt, but I believe President Obama has a conscience and will be unable to let the war crime of torture slide even if pressured to do so.

[depakid]

5. My take home message is that there's a contrast in styles

and a certain arrogance from force of habit among the banksters- who have yet to be held accountable for much of anything.

At the moment, they (among others in similar situations- like peanut corp) seem to think that it'll mostly be business as usual. They'll all walk- only to abuse and scam the system (and all of us) yet another day.

In this respect, the dog/dominance analogy is apropos.

[AtomicKitten]

7. Pres. Obama knows he needs to re-regulate

and he needs to do it soon while the threat of pitchforks and torches still lingers. The Masters of the Universe will balk, but there is no way Pres. Obama can get around it even if he wanted to or feels pressured.

While he's at it, I hope he gets insurance companies out of the healthcare business as well. No good has come from healthcare from profit.

[depakid]

9. He (and some- but not all) in the adminstration know that re-regulation's an imperative

The trouble is, that Obama tends to be a consensus builder- whereas the banksters see that as weakness and take it as consent to continue their abusive dictatorial ways.

You can see this sort of deal in primate troops- a classic instance happened here:

Sometimes it takes the great Dustbuster of fate to clear the room of bullies and bad habits. Freak cyclones helped destroy Kublai Khan's brutal Mongolian empire, for example, while the Black Death of the 14th century capsized the medieval theocracy and gave the Renaissance a chance to shine.

Among a troop of savanna baboons in Kenya, a terrible outbreak of tuberculosis 20 years ago selectively killed off the biggest, nastiest and most despotic males, setting the stage for a social and behavioral transformation unlike any seen in this notoriously truculent primate.

In a study appearing today in the journal PloS Biology (online at www.plosbiology.org), researchers describe the drastic temperamental and tonal shift that occurred in a troop of 62 baboons when its most belligerent members vanished from the scene. The victims were all dominant adult males that had been strong and snarly enough to fight with a neighboring baboon troop over the spoils at a tourist lodge garbage dump, and were exposed there to meat tainted with bovine tuberculosis, which soon killed them.

Left behind in the troop, designated the Forest Troop, were the 50 percent of males that had been too subordinate to try dump brawling, as well as all the females and their young. With that change in demographics came a cultural swing toward pacifism, a relaxing of the usually parlous baboon hierarchy, and a willingness to use affection and mutual grooming rather than threats, swipes and bites to foster a patriotic spirit.

Remarkably, the Forest Troop has maintained its genial style over two decades, even though the male survivors of the epidemic have since died or disappeared and been replaced by males from the outside. (As is the case for most primates, baboon females spend their lives in their natal home, while the males leave at puberty to seek their fortunes elsewhere.) The persistence of communal comity suggests that the resident baboons must somehow be instructing the immigrants in the unusual customs of the tribe.

...in the baboon study, the culture being conveyed is less a specific behavior or skill than a global code of conduct. "You can more accurately describe it as the social ethos of group," said Dr. Andrew Whiten, a professor of evolutionary and developmental psychology at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland who has studied chimpanzee culture. "It's an attitude that's being transmitted.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/13/science/13BABO.html?ex=1082433600&en=e3bdce92e080f4b7&ei=5062&partner=GOOGLE

[AtomicKitten]

11. He needs to put his big shoes on.

:thumbsup:

[Life Long Dem]

6. Who knows where this is going.

I'll follow the Presidents lead like I did with some SOS choices.

[AtomicKitten]

8. That's right. I boarded the ride a long time ago early in the

campaign. I've kept my arms and legs inside the ride at all times. I'm trusting the car not to jump the tracks.

[Reterr]

10. "I'd sure like to muzzle Evan Bayh and neuter him."

You and me both.

[AnnieBW]

12. They're having Bo neutered?

That was my first thought upon seeing this headline.

[Honeycombe8]

13. LOL! nt