Responding to my post yesterday, Open Left’s tremayne says:
Short iPhone post: there’s a simplistic meme circulating parts of left blogistan that says you’re either with President Obama or you’re against him. It’s just as stupid as when Bush said “you’re either with us or with the terrorists.” You know, it’s possible to take a number of other positions which, in the case of President Obama, include pushing him into more productive directions.
This has been another edition of “things that should be obvious.”
tremayne was also responding to recent posts in the same vein, by Nate Silver and Al Giordano. To read all of our posts collectively and come to the conclusion that we’re arguing that you are either with Obama or against him is to demonstrate a striking lack of reading comprehension. The natural defensive response that critics of Obama have to being criticized themselves is to defend their right to criticize. They resort to this defense time and time again, and rarely address the substance of the criticism they are receiving.
I used the specific example of David Sirota saying that the Obama administration is deliberately looting the treasury for the purpose of creating new millionaires on Wall Street. In a more general sense, I argued that it was unhelpful to deliberately send the AIG bonuses story into orbit (and Nate Silver demonstrated how this was done) using simplistic and faux-populist arguments. Al Giordano raised the point that this group has been gunning for the heads of Tim Geithner and Larry Summers since the day they were appointed, and that they aren’t too scrupulous about the facts as they go about their business. Giordano argues that it is unreasonable to fire someone after two months and that critics are ignoring the damage such firings would do to Obama’s efforts to pass his budget. Nate Silver has focused more on the truth about the AIG bonuses (as opposed to the hysterical hype about them) and argued that the populist furor on the left is both misplaced and self-defeating. The three of us don’t agree about everything. I am less forgiving of AIG than Silver and I am more willing to attribute good-will than Giordano, but we share a concern about the effect, accuracy, and fairness of the editorial output of much of left blogistan. None of us are saying that people should not criticize Obama or that you are either with him or against him.
As for tremayne’s point about ‘pushing Obama in a more positive direction’, I dedicated a good portion of my post to examining that argument. I talked about how Huey Long, for all his faults, helped to push FDR in a more populist direction. I also talked about Huey Long’s dishonesty and impracticality and lack of fairness and unsuitability as a political analyst. You can be wrong and still have a positive influence. Is that what tremayne is trying to say? I don’t think so.
I’m rather disappointed by what I read in the blogosphere these days when it comes to the bonus news – particularly @ dKos and Open Left. The fact that they are getting more worked up over legally binding retention fees – that were agreed upon long before AIG found itself in its current predicament – is understandable but an awful use of political capital. Why people aren’t more upset about John Thain paying out $4 billion in bonuses before Merrill Lynch officially completed its merger with Bank of America – and in a deliberate fashion that was meant to skirt any restrictions on doing so – blows my mind.
To me, this is an example of populism run completely amok. It also punishes a lot of people who had absolutely nothing to do with the current crisis. Basically, people who already had small or next-to-nothing for bonuses already are now going to have that amount taxed at 90%? It’s pretty crazy. Congress really screwed the pooch on this.
A lot of people act like executive compensation is some sort of political sideshow, as if it has virtually no impact on the actual workings of the market. But that’s ridiculous- outrageous compensation is one of the core reasons why we’re in the mess we’re in. To ignore that is to hope that this problem goes away on its own.
If a person were offered the opportunity to do things that would simultaneously A) earn him/her $10+ million a year for 5 years, but B) bankrupt his company, and destroy jobs…how many people would refuse to do that? With $50 million in the bank, how many people would be worried about the damage they did to their companies and the system? Not many, which means that if we want to curb this behavior in the future, we have to do what we can to limit the compensations for that behavior. There is nothing irrational or stupid about this.
Excessive compensation is NOT a distraction. It is a core problem that needs to be addressed in order to avoid falling into this very same trap 5-10 years from now. Ignoring the compensation problem (or even condoning excessive compensation) simply invites this to be done to us, again and again and again.
Along with all the kerfuffle about AIG, we have this from Paul Krugman today.
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Yes, indeed.
If Krugman is correct, is John Cole being hyperbolic when he says:
I am concerned about this plan, too. But I’m tired of Krugman’s whining. This plan is designed to take the shitpile off the banks books without absolutely crushing their capitalization, and to do it with less than 100% tax dollars. Krugman acts like nationalizing the banks makes the shitpile go away or takes the risk off the taxpayer. What bothers me is how he constructs his arguments. He is not presenting a balanced picture of the risks and rewards. I’m okay with raising the issue of moral hazard and complaining about another example of allowing the rich to gamble with the House’s money. But don’t present it like the other option changes things all that much.
Looks at AIG. We own it but we keep running down the company and causing it to lose value, which is now directly destroying our investment. He wants us to own Citibank and Bank of America and Wells Fargo and we wants us to buy all their shitpile for nothing, thereby wiping out their capitalization and destroying their reputations and value. Once we do that, he will howl everytime they buy soft toilet paper, renovate their offices, or pay out a retention bonus, thereby destroying their value even more.
This plan might not work, but it’s not like Krugman’s plan (combined with his behavior) is some sweet deal. We are going to be putting the taxpayer at considerable risk and unfairly propping up bankers either way we go here.
I’m getting less and less nervous about Krugman.
A year ago, I gave Krugman the benefit of the doubt on everything. Increasingly, I doubt his catastrophic predictions.
My sense is that he now has a lot invested in the failure of Obama’s economic policies. I don’t believe he is hoping for failure. But if Obama somehow manages to get us through this, then Krugman will be viewed more skeptically by many. Perhaps this is causing Krugman to “double down” on his negativity.
it’s a matter of a need to recapitalize already-insolvent banks. That’s the problem- the big banks are insolvent, but nobody (except independent economists) wants to admit that. Recapitalizing them requires a washing out of previous ownership- otherwise, why put good money at risk if there’s no proportional chance of reward?
Run down Krugman all you want for his “whining,” but then what’s Duncan Black’s motivation? Roubini’s? Galbraith’s? I’m trying to think of an independent and/or progressive economist who has praised Geithner’s plan, and I’m blanking. Surely they’re not ALL “whining” and “gunning for Geithner,” are they? Surely it’s not all a big conspiracy where we’re out to “get Obama,” right?*
Geithner’s plan isn’t good and probably won’t work. Period. Throwing feces at the people who dare to say that out loud is not a good idea. You can only cast aspersions on someone’s motivations for so long before everyone realizes that you have no credibility on this issue.
*and Giordano’s pet theory that left-leaning critics of Obama today are simply Hillary supporters hoping Obama fails is so fucking offensive it’s hard to believe anyone would approvingly link to that…as you did, Booman.
If the goal here is to take him out because we’re worse off with him than without him, who can replace him? (And bear in mind that nobody that we would wholeheartedly like — no Krugmans, Roubinis, Stiglitzes, etc. — is likely to pass a Senate confirmation hearing.)
Any suggestions?
I have no idea if any of these people would be interested in the job, but they at least have a chance of getting approval in the Senate.
Just off the top of my head. There’s no need to think that Geithner is OMG BEST POSSIBLE SECTREAS!!1!!! That’s foolish.
“You know, it’s possible to take a number of other positions which, in the case of President Obama, include pushing him into more productive directions.”
That is exactly what some of us have been trying to do. And feeling as if progressive/liberal America would rather we beat ourselves in the head with a rock.
Here is an animation I produced that is critical of President Obama’s positions in the war on drugs. It is based on a direct in context quote of the president.
While obama has made some small moves regarding medical marijuana and needle exchange his escalation and militarization plans for the overall drug war and the Mexican border mess are scary. folks who care about the social justice aspects of the war on drugs need to look deeply into the intent vs the actions of our new president.
Apparently, you’re a one issue kind of guy. You use words like escalation and militarization to refer to the drug war. Is this remotely accurate? In the two months since he’s been in office?
Al Giordano, who has been working this field for decades, is so far liking what he’s seeing. I think the one thing that could really make Giordano break with Obama would be if Obama was truly going backwards and not forwards on this issue.
I disagreed with Al during the campaign and I still disagree with him
The point of the article is that dissent have a valid place in helping Obama to move forward with a positive social justice agenda.
I could not help but notice that, of the two responses to my post, neither actually addressed the issues inherent in the direct quote from Obama.
Here is more on his escalation and militarization of the drug war on the Mexican border.
The Barack Obama Drug War Escalation and Militarization
Obama’s New Improved Drug War – Big and Stupid
Is President Obama Lying About Drug War Militariza…
will be necessary to focus on unpopular but vital national security, public safety, public health, social justice issues as long as there are people like you who cast aspersions, denigrate and personalize distracting attacks on people like me instead of addressing these vital issues.
The People like me note was directed at ishmael specifically.
I simply looked through your past comments/diaries and made a judgement based off of that. I don’t believe I denigrated you or made any personal attacks. I simply haven’t seen any evidence of escalation or militarization and wondered if that was accurate. Other than the positive change on medical marijuana raids I was not aware of any negative changes in policy.
And yes, we do need people who care about these issues and work to advance them. Good job. I hope for progress on drug policy as well as a host of other issues.
a tit for tat of my response. I think we were both over-sensitive. And we are both trying to get to the same place. Needless to say I can’t put every last piece of information I have ever based an opinion on into each and every post I write. Boy would that get pedantic quick.
I want desperately for Obama to prove me wrong about everything I fear about him. I look forward to it. But, sad to say, what I have seen does not give me optimism.
“significant law enforcement” by a politician who cast himself as a progressive really fit the definition of progressive?