Finacial Warfare and the Obama Disaster

[prole]

Giddyup.

[olyclimber]

[billcoe]

What a remarkable link Prole. Thank you so much. I suspect that a lot of that could be successfully argued against, but very prescient.

 

The downside of betting against interest rates staying low and stocks staying strong is that you feel bad when making $ on days like today when the economy hits the doldrums. Dow falls 150 points and T-bill rates rise.

[Jim]

This NYT article from last week was very interesting and a good metaphor for the Obama approach - which leans towards Wall Street.

 

Last weekend’s New York Times magazine had an interview with Sheila Bair, whose five-year term heading the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC) expired last week. Now she can begin to tell what happened. She said that Mr. Obama promised her that he would try to prevent the mortgage frauds that were occurring, especially in subprime mortgages, and support better bank regulation. But then she would learn, just an hour before he gave a speech, that he would have changed the draft that she had seen, and took out what he’d promised her. The rewrites apparently were done mainly by Tim Geithner, who acts as a lobby for the big bank contributors. Instead of running the Treasury to benefit the U.S. economy, he’s benefiting his Wall Street constituency. Significantly, he was a protégé of Clinton Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, who gave the name “Rubinomics” to pro-Wall Street opposition to bank regulation and a dismantling of public control over the banking system.

 

Ms. Bair said that that when she opposed giveaways to banks, Obama’s officials would say that there would be a meltdown if they didn’t save Citibank, AIG and other financial institutions that had acted recklessly. She pointed out that the FDIC had successfully wound down Washington Mutual and other insolvent institutions. This was the FDIC’s business, after all. Even Citibank had enough assets to cover insured depositors. The problem was its gambles on derivatives and junk mortgages. The government could have taken it over and made normal insured depositors whole. But there weren’t enough assets in Citibank and AIG to pay the gamblers and the big players. She complained that in every case she was told the big gambling institutions – basically, the nation’s wealthiest one percent – couldn’t lose a penny

[tvashtarkatena]

Well, at least we've got Obama's human rights record to fall back on....

[tvashtarkatena]

Election 2012: Who's Cock's up YOUR Ass?

 

Will it come down to a choice between an incumbent with a Wall Street cock up his ass or a crazy chick whose sole agenda is to to keep cock and ass separated?

[prole]

Yes, there is a lot here to take issue with, however the main points and contours of the argument are quite clear:

 

"The game is over". The post-WWII consumer capitalist order is done. Not only has the Fordist age of mass employment come and gone, but the reliance on one unsustainable bubble economy after another both to maintain growth rates and the illusion of "keeping up" is giving way to open asset-stripping, debt farming, and scamscape. What comes after that?

 

The illusion of partisanship is an open joke on a global scale. It took a Nixon to go to China, it took an Obama to give us austerity and structural adjustment, devaluation and wage-depression. Given that FIRE has and will continue to hold the reins of the State for some time, the Republican/Democrat dichotomy is just a good cop/bad cop routine played for the theatrics of legitimacy. What does politics look like when power over policy is effectively concentrated (like the US) or entirely absentee (like Greece)?

 

It is becoming harder and harder for the system to reform itself. Unlike economies of producer/consumers, asset-strippers and tollbooth economies have no constituencies beyond the accounts where the money is deposited. "Full employment", "war on poverty", etc. were born of a time of power sharing when business, labor, and government actually needed each other. It's not clear that that remains the case.

 

 

 

[prole]

Election 2012: Who's Cock's up YOUR Ass?

 

Will it come down to a choice between an incumbent with a Wall Street cock up his ass or a crazy chick whose sole agenda is to to keep cock and ass separated?

 

There's also the "stay at home silver lining" approach. I'm not pulling the lever for these vampires.

 

[Obama]’s hoping that people will vote for him just because he’s not as extreme as the Tea Party. But the reality is that there is another alternative. People can “vote with their backsides” and stay home. There may not be many people showing up to vote on the Democratic side. So it’s possible for the Republicans to get in, now that there is so little real difference between their position and that of Mr. Obama. What’s the point of voting?

 

The silver lining for the Republicans winning in 2012 would be that the Democratic Congress would find its backbone again, once it’s in opposition. It would say “No” to the Republicans trying to push the policy that Mr. Obama is now trying to push. But it can’t say no to Mr. Obama. That’s why his presidency is turning out to be such a disaster.

[Hugh Conway]

[ JayB ] It's actually wonderful out there right now < img > distortionary graph < /img > [ / JayB ]

[rob]

 

Just add about 5 paragraphs to that.

Edited July 18, 2011 by rob

[KaskadskyjKozak]

The post-WWII consumer capitalist order is done.

 

are you looking at Lenin-corpse spank material again, Prole?

[kevbone]

Election 2012: Who's Cock's up YOUR Ass?

 

Will it come down to a choice between an incumbent with a Wall Street cock up his ass or a crazy chick whose sole agenda is to to keep cock and ass separated?

 

[prole]

The post-WWII consumer capitalist order is done.

 

are you looking at Lenin-corpse spank material again, Prole?

 

No, the New York Times ...

 

German companies, instead of concentrating their investment overwhelmingly on countries like France and Italy, are sending a growing proportion of their euros to places like Poland, Russia, Brazil and especially China, which is already the largest market for Volkswagen and could soon be for Mercedes and BMW...

 

“We are not producing in China to be less expensive or to export to Europe,” said Nicola Leibinger-Kammüller, the president of Trumpf, who is married to Mr. Kammüller. “We are producing for the Chinese market.”

 

Trumpf is by no means alone. China is by far the biggest market for Germany’s crucial machine-tool industry, as manufacturers abroad equip their factories with precision technology from Bavaria or the Ruhr Valley.

 

The success of German exports in emerging markets reflects its manufacturers’ strength in making things that go into the kinds of products that a modernizing economy needs, like trains, steel factories, and electronics assembly lines.

 

“Our newest plants are in Russia, China and India,” said Heinrich Weiss, chief executive of SMS Group, a company in Düsseldorf that builds and equips steel and aluminum plants. “Western Europe and the United States are very quiet — very quiet.”

[murraysovereign]

The post-WWII consumer capitalist order is done.

 

are you looking at Lenin-corpse spank material again, Prole?

 

No, the New York Times ...

 

German companies, instead of concentrating their investment overwhelmingly on countries like France and Italy, are sending a growing proportion of their euros to places like Poland, Russia, Brazil and especially China, which is already the largest market for Volkswagen and could soon be for Mercedes and BMW...

 

“We are not producing in China to be less expensive or to export to Europe,” said Nicola Leibinger-Kammüller, the president of Trumpf, who is married to Mr. Kammüller. “We are producing for the Chinese market.”

 

Trumpf is by no means alone. China is by far the biggest market for Germany’s crucial machine-tool industry, as manufacturers abroad equip their factories with precision technology from Bavaria or the Ruhr Valley.

 

The success of German exports in emerging markets reflects its manufacturers’ strength in making things that go into the kinds of products that a modernizing economy needs, like trains, steel factories, and electronics assembly lines.

 

“Our newest plants are in Russia, China and India,” said Heinrich Weiss, chief executive of SMS Group, a company in Düsseldorf that builds and equips steel and aluminum plants. “Western Europe and the United States are very quiet — very quiet.”

 

So to support your thesis that "the post-WWII consumer capitalist order is done" you cite an article that talks about a massive population of new consumer-capitalists emerging in Russia, China and India? Pretty funny-sounding death rattle, that.

[prole]

Capitalism is, by its nature, defined by uneven growth. But that isn't to say that China, et al. are simply "catching up" and that they'll follow a similar path of development. The kinds of structures that are emerging there, the manner of their integration into the global economy, and authoritarian features are quite different from the ones that defined the advanced economies emerging from WWII: Keynesian underpinnings, the compromise between labor and capital, liberal democracy, and the welfare state. The transitions have been going on for decades but the financialization of our economies, the bursting of the unsustainable bubbles designed to keep the party going a bit longer, and the disaster-style capitalism practiced in the aftermath have all by consigned that order to the dustbin "over here". Whatever modes of organization, ideology (Confucianism, so hot), and social control emerge "over there" as they articulate with movements and structures at the macro and micro level, it doesn't, nor is it ever, going to look like the US or Europe over the last 60 years. That's what I meant.

[billcoe]

... to support your thesis that "the post-WWII consumer capitalist order is done" you cite an article that talks about a massive population of new consumer-capitalists emerging in Russia, China and India? Pretty funny-sounding death rattle, that.

Prole is saying that we need a Reagan style trickle down theory style theory revival or we will have a fucked up economy. Don't you read? Right Prole:-) LMAO. In fact, think of China Murray. They use to totally be 100 percent devoted to pulling up the bottom of society and forcing everyone else to pay to support social programs for them. The net result was that everyone remained poor. Only AFTER they have started to go all progressive republican style and get the trickle down going have they truly been able to start to help the poor.

 

So - get rich (first)

 

help poor.

 

That way, not reverse. Can't help the poor if you are going broke. That's what Prole is suggesting here.

 

Thanks Prole!

[prole]

 

 

 

 

[G-spotter]

Capitalism is, by its nature, defined by uneven growth. But that isn't to say that China, et al. are simply "catching up" and that they'll follow a similar path of development. The kinds of structures that are emerging there,

 

[Hugh Conway]

[video:youtube]qpMHJstJwD8

 

I couldn't fit the Cartier boutique into my picture of Mao saluting his loyal phalanx of skyscrapers receding into the Chengdu chemical fog but relax, it's there.

 

It's a new world over there, and an ugly one, but theres definitely capitalism (why the businessmen in the west cream their pants) but its not all as they know it (why the gweilo get scammed)

[tvashtarkatena]

I remember a buddy of mine coming out of Harvard School of Govt infused with a new religion: "Shareholder Value".

 

He got a great job...at Enron.

 

Hence, the quarterly circle jerk we now call 'The Private Sector', where long term anything, most particularly stewardship (of anything), means nothing.

[JayB]

Yes, there is a lot here to take issue with, however the main points and contours of the argument are quite clear:

 

"The game is over". The post-WWII consumer capitalist order is done. Not only has the Fordist age of mass employment come and gone, but the reliance on one unsustainable bubble economy after another both to maintain growth rates and the illusion of "keeping up" is giving way to open asset-stripping, debt farming, and scamscape. What comes after that?

 

The illusion of partisanship is an open joke on a global scale. It took a Nixon to go to China, it took an Obama to give us austerity and structural adjustment, devaluation and wage-depression. Given that FIRE has and will continue to hold the reins of the State for some time, the Republican/Democrat dichotomy is just a good cop/bad cop routine played for the theatrics of legitimacy. What does politics look like when power over policy is effectively concentrated (like the US) or entirely absentee (like Greece)?

 

It is becoming harder and harder for the system to reform itself. Unlike economies of producer/consumers, asset-strippers and tollbooth economies have no constituencies beyond the accounts where the money is deposited. "Full employment", "war on poverty", etc. were born of a time of power sharing when business, labor, and government actually needed each other. It's not clear that that remains the case.

 

 

 

"Conservatives want everyone to live in the 1950's, liberals want everyone to work there."

 

 

[Hugh Conway]

Rapidly rising standard of living, increasing qol, cheap healthcare, rapidly rising life expectancy and a fixed benefit retirement scheme coupled with substantial job security?

 

Sounds shitty, I agree.