Why did Barack Obama win the presidency in 2008? Silly question. It was the economy, stupid! Wall Street greed and arrogance over a period of years finally brought about its inevitable economic (and political) consequences. The economy sank like a stone, and Americans elected a black Democratic president.
Why, then, after just a year-and-a-half in office, after the country had so obviously become disgusted with the Republicans who had so flagrantly buddied up to the Wall Street crowd that brought about our present Great Recession, are Republicans more popular than Democrats and the Democratic president? Silly question. It’s the economy, stupid!
What has been the Obama approach to economics since he got into office? He bought into the Clinton way of running the economy, the Robert Rubin way, operated by the Rubin team, the exact same people who were every bit as responsible for America’s economic woes as the Bush Republicans. And the approach of this economic team? They gave huge amounts of public money to the folks who had caused the crash with virtually no strings attached!
It’s amazing. Imagine you going to bank for a loan. What’s the first question the bank asks? “What will you do with the money,” of course. And if they don’t like what you’ll do with the money, they don’t give you the money.
But the Obama economic team, whose public front is Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, didn’t take that step when it funneled trillions of public money through divers means to the same people who lost trillions before, the view of Geithner and company being that if we just give them enough it would somehow trickle down to the rest of us and bail out the economy and recoup tax dollars used in Wall Street’s own bail out. Rubinomics.
Instead, however, the “beasts of the Bourse,” as poet William Auden described them, pretty much kept the cash for themselves. They used it to ran up huge profits trading stocks in markets they pretty much control. They passed along pennies on our tax dollar back to us while paying themselves a giant share as personal bonuses.
Now the Obama economic team is trying to play the part of market reformers. But surprise, surprise, most Americans don’t buy it because even if the attempt is sincere, the same people who did the dirty are purporting to clean up the mess.
Someone has to take the fall now for this gaming. Someone who clearly represents to everyone what is being discarded. And Tim Geithner is the obvious candidate.
Mr. Geithner: You have sat too long in a policy making position for any good you have been doing. Depart, I say, and be done with you and your Wall Street boosterism. To preserve your President and his party, go!
(For more financial commentary (much of it in verse): http://www.wallstreetpoet.com)