What part of my citation from this story is dripping with irony? Take your time, but it should be easy to spot without too much hard work.
The president will announce a series of measures to cut down on excessive risk-taking as part of a revamp of the country’s financial regulatory system, a senior Obama official said on Wednesday.
The move could also help the White House tap into public rage over Wall Street excess after Obama’s Democratic Party was rebuffed by voters in Massachusetts, who elected Republican Scott Brown to the U.S. senate.
“The proposal will include size and complexity limits specifically on proprietary trading and the White House will work closely with the House and Senate to work this into legislation,” the official said.
Did you see it? I’m sure you did, but being the incurable know-it-all that I am, let me point it out for you anyway:
“[T]he White House will work closely with the House and Senate to work this into legislation.”
I hope this doesn’t mean that they will go about this the same way they “worked closely with the House and Senate” to get a workable health care reform bill passed. Because if that’s the case all I can see is another looming failure where certain Senators and Blue Dog Democrats hijack the process and turn the financial reforms the administration proposes into the same bowl of thin gruel that health care reform ended up as, thanks to people like Bart Stupak, Joe Lieberman, Olympia Snowe and Ben Nelson.
And that came after months of allowing the Republicans to sabotage the reform effort with endless and fruitless attempts by Obama administration officials to “work with Republicans” in a “bipartisan fashion.” Obama’s team talked a good game early on (remember Rahm insisting he would never sacrifice the public option?) but in the end they allowed the health insurance and Big Pharma lobbyists to derail any hope of even a halfway decent reform bill.
To put it mildly, they lost the ground game early and often, something I certainly didn’t expect after they way Obama ran his campaign. They alienated their base of support among the progressives, failed to corral the off message Democrats in the House and Senate, raised Ben Nelson’s Q rating, allowed Joe Lieberman to continue to back stab them (again) and let the Republicans control the message in the media.
So count me as one of the cynics who can foresee a huge manure pile of problems down the road after they get down to the real work of getting real and effective regulation of Wall Street through Congress. To say I have severe doubts as to how effective the administration will be in reeling in the banksters in light of the way they “handled” health care is an understatement of monumental proportions.
Hey, maybe they will succeed. No one (except the people profiting, of course) likes the hubris of Goldman Sachs, et alia with their billions of dollars of bonuses, and the arrogant statements from senior executives they keep spouting for public consumption like these by Goldman’s CEO, Lloyd Blankfein:
“I know I could slit my wrists and people would cheer,” he says. But then, he slowly begins to argue the case for modern banking. “We’re very important,” he says, abandoning self-flagellation. “We help companies to grow by helping them to raise capital. Companies that grow create wealth. This, in turn, allows people to have jobs that create more growth and more wealth. It’s a virtuous cycle.” To drive home his point, he makes a remarkably bold claim. “We have a social purpose.” […]
Does Blankfein not acknowledge that it is maddening for most of us to watch Goldman gobble up so much cash while we struggle? Quite the opposite. He insists we should be celebrating his bank’s success, not condemning it. “Everybody should be, frankly, happy,” he says.[…]
No calls to meet in the basement to club baby seals to death first thing in the morning to get in the mood for a hard day’s banking? “God, no,” one staffer says wryly. “We don’t club baby seals. We club babies.”
Goldman Sachs, this pillar of the free market, breeder of super-citizens, object of envy and awe will go on raking it in, getting richer than God? An impish grin spreads across Blankfein’s face. Call him a fat cat who mocks the public. Call him wicked. Call him what you will. He is, he says, just a banker “doing God’s work.”
One would think with an easy target like these guys, people who are more or less legalized criminals and con artists, it would be a simple matter to pass financial reforms that reinstate the regulatory scheme FDR and the New Dealers set in place over 70 years ago and which served us well until the Reagan Revolution began the process of dismantling it. One would think that … until you remember how many people with connections to Wall Street worked for the government, including many in the Obama administration’s economic team. Tim Geithner’s name ring a bell? Larry Summers?
But there are lesser lights also. Michael Froman is the deputy national security adviser for international economic affairs. Citigroup paid him $7.4 million in 2008. Thomas E. Donilon, who is the deputy national security advisor? He made $3.9 million for a law firm that counts Goldman Sachs as one of its clients. Neil Woilin, Deputy Secretary of the Treasury? Former senior executive of The Hartford insurance Group, and a man instrumental in drafting the legislation which deregulated the banks as the Treasury Department’s General Counsel under Bill Clinton.
So pardon me if I think this bold new announcement promising to reel in our out of control, casino style financial institutions is just another half-assed rushed effort to reform Wall Street which is doomed to fall far short of its goals, at best, or a cynical public relations ploy, at worst. As I always say, I hope to be proven wrong.
Hey, what about “Hope?” Wasn’t that a campaign theme back in 2008 for a certain charismatic Presidential candidate? It’s so hard to recall anymore, what with my advancing age, health problems, and suddenly bitter disposition. Maybe someone here can help me out. Who was that guy promising a new dawning of hope for America, and where did he go?
