Jon,
While not differing with your analysis at all, you don't really expect us to believe that you had an illusion about Obama in the first place, do you? "Benefit of the doubt," perhaps. But not hope leading to disillusion, really.
I could even give Obama a benefit-of-the-doubt on his handling of the financial crisis so far: It could conceivably be that--and this would be a stretch--that he is letting Geithner, Summers, and the rest of the Wall Street pack have their heads in order to draw them far out of their lairs. Caesar Augustus and others used this trick. When this current solution fails, as I believe is inevitable, he'll then have all the justification and popular approval he needs to give them the heave-ho and make another major move toward socialism, confirming your nefarious suspicions about him. I believe that as step one in the process, a full scale and necessarily secret process might yet be under way to take over the (at least the 20-40 biggest) banks some coming weekend. That is a big step, it has to be done all at once to avoid runs on banks that are left outside the fold. And it could be done under the cover of this temporary prop known as the bail out. Any way, you can bet on some historic moments ahead, perhaps as early as next week if there is another significant deleveraging event on Wall Street as some predict there will be.
Returning to what I think is an order of magnitude more important failure of US leadership --including but well beyond the President, to Congress, media and other elites-- in the face of the worst global financial (and ultimately political and social) crisis of our lifetimes -- and in our case that is a whale of a lot of years -- I give you below a comment from ZeroHedge, the best insider financial blog I have yet found
a comment from ZeroHedge (see Anonymous @ 3:55 a.m.). I could not have expressed it so well:
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1) The current global crisis is the end result of at least 20 years of economic and political rule-changing and greedy overreaching by the financial and government elite. Look at a multi-decade chart of the S&P: it went ballistic in the late 1980's when financial laws were changed to benefit Wall Street.
2) A 20-year global asset bubble has burst, and it cannot be re-inflated in this short a time, by these pathetic methods.
3) This crisis is steadily revealing to more & more people what some (like Tyler & Jonny already knew): just how deceitful, criminal, and co-conspiring the financial industry & the government are.
4) The derivative mortgage-backed securities "time-bombs" are more extensive, widespread, and dangerous than most people know or are willing to admit. All the banks, the FED, the Treasury, the White House, Congress, & mainstream media are covering up the banks' insolvency.
5) Financially dependent on Wall Street, and fearing a global financial crash, depression, and social violence, the government is trying desperately to "prop up" the banks, the stock market, and the economy, via Japan-style methods instead of by the smarter-but-harder Sweden style methods.
6) These efforts will cause bear-market rallies temporarily, but these rallies will all fail, and the bear market will resume until the deleveraging and deflationary problems work themselves out fully, over years not months.
7) The corporate-state elite are betraying the common people for generations to come. By protecting the likes of AIG and Citigroup from receivership and dismantling, our national debt will grow by tens of trillions of dollars by the time this crisis is over. How long will $20-40 trillion take to pay off?
8) As Anonymous said above, taxes will rise and the dollar will fall. As a result, the standard of living of average Americans will suffer and stay depressed for decades. We will have less after-taxes dollars & those dollars will buy far less.
9) Eventually, China, Japan, Russia, and Saudi Arabia, etc. will buy less of our debt, and even start selling our Treasuries. Facing default, a credit downgrade (and national disgrace), the government will be forced to pay down its astronomical debt & deficits by severely cutting Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, other safety nets, and military spending.
10) Economic suffering and social tensions will cause crime, violence, and civil unrest to increase. There will be political upheavals. Our democratic processes and our constitutional rights will be severely tested.
How the balance of power and the sharing of wealth between the elites and the common people in America turn out will depend upon how active the people become in demanding the kind of life & future we desire & deserve.
It usually takes a Great Depression or a war before average people organize to demand justice & greater equality with the rich & powerful.
This is clearly a historic crisis: not just financial or economic, but political, social, ethical, and very personal.
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IMHO the only questions worth discussing at this time are where and how sensible, decent people will be able to weather decades of very hard economic and political times. I don't know if there is an answer, but I do know that it is time to take our collective heads out of the sand before we are buried up to our collective asses, as realism is a good tonic for denial, and that other questions, like the last mistaken election, are of lesser interest to me, and soon to you. I honestly think it would be most constructive use of our limited times and attention spans, if it is not too late. I think that i personally will just keep working on step one, needed intervention to break the syndrome of denial.
And, in contradiction to one of my previous agnostic posts, and not inconsistent with it I might add, I went to the Easter Services at Echmiadzin, the seat of the Armenian (apostolic) church, this morning. I will be posting some of the pictures of this inspiring rite dating back to the fourth century AD or so.
Dave
On Apr 12, 2009, at 3:00 PM, Jon wrote:
The evolution of a disillusion.
At first, I thought Obama should have the benefit of a doubt in general...
As he began to corporatize the state and seize control of the economy, I said he should be given the benefit of a doubt on foreign policy at least...
He did seem to be following the Bush polices in Iraq and Afghanistan...
But then, he gave up missile defense to the Russians, and got nadda...
He vowed to end our long nuclear winter, and the North Koreans laughed...
He bowed to the Saudi King and got nadda...
He bashed his own country endlessly to the Europeans, as they liked, asked for troops for Afghanistan and got nadda...
Inside Somalia, we learn Obama's crack team thinks the al-Shabab organization requires "a more patient, nonmilitary approach" -- in order to get what you KNOW will be nadda...
Now his Navy has told us it is "waiting out the pirates," so as to get, I assume, nadda...
Barak Obama vs. Johnny Depp. Millions for tribute, perhaps, not one cent for defense.
My disillusionment is nearly complete.
Jon
