That’s funny, and typical, and tells me something about myself, again. The socialist in Congress is the only commentator I’ve heard so far who tied the banks to the oil companies as I did this morning.
Nice how MSNBC now lets you clip a clip to show just the part you’re talking about. And nice how they expose their text promo in the embed code so you can strip it off if you can read plain HTML.
There is nothing new to us about this. Haven’t we just seen how the giant financial firms almost destroyed the American economy? Wasn’t it just a few weeks before this hideous Deepwater Horizon disaster that a devastating mine explosion in West Virginia — at a mine run by a company with its own hideous safety record — killed 29 coal miners and ripped the heart out of yet another hard-working local community?
BP’s recklessness is just the latest variation on a story we know by heart. The company’s heedless disregard of risk and lack of safeguards at Deepwater Horizon are all too reminiscent of the failures at Lehman Brothers, Citigroup and A.I.G., where the richly rewarded top executives often didn’t even understand the toxic financial products that would pollute and nearly topple the nation’s economy. BP’s reliance on bought-off politicians and lax, industry-captured regulators at the M.M.S. mirrors Wall Street’s cozy relationship with its indulgent overseers at the S.E.C., Federal Reserve and New York Fed — not to mention Massey Energy’s dependence on somnolent supervision from the Mine Safety and Health Administration.
I flatter myself that I think I understand the way Barack Obama must think.
People want to hear big indignant statements from him about the Gulf oil gusher because we’re indignant about it and we want him to represent us. But it’s posturing; we know that and he knows it. If he’s like me, he rolls his eyes when he encounters posturing by other people and he would rather not do the thing he scorns.
What he will do, because he’s expected to, is rail against the delay and fret about the damage. A better approach would be what Dan Froomkin suggests: seize the moment to talk about regulation, but not just about oil. He could chance it and be brave, generalize it—tying in mining and the banks, maybe even the Citizens United case, not minding what opponents might say about bashing business. It’s been building to this point since the Reagan years and now big business has run fully amuck.
I think I’ve finally exhausted myself with obsessing over outrages by the right wing. So much resentment poisons you, makes you bitter about everything. I still disagree with Republicans and especially its Tea Party wing, but I’m going to try not to let it run my life, try not to spend my mornings before leaving for work searching for something to be peeved about, try to avoid media outlets that make the divide their guiding principle. It might be a good pledge for a lot of us to take.
Fox and MSNBC shows: you might think about swearing off basing your story lineups on “Can you believe what they tried to pull off today?” Yes, even Rachel Maddow, who I think is great and with whom I almost always agree, aren’t you getting to be a more thoughtful flip side of Sarah Palin? Smiling through the jibes, cheerfully sniping, looking for outrages—hoping for them, even?
Newspaper columnists and bloggers: try talking as much about your own agendas as you do about the other team’s positions. I’d like to hear more about what the camps really stand for, less about what they’re against. Crazy when you have to learn about party positions by reading the other side.
I might not succeed. I’m going to find another channel; I’m outlining some fiction about a small-town conservative politician who has some redeeming qualities. The obsession started during the presidential campaign and it’s hard to break free. Probably a good thing, though, if we could…
But… but… but… Governor Palin says too much regulation caused the 2008 financial meltdown. And I think I need to believe her story, because… she’s just like me, and… socialism… and take our guns… and ivy league elitism… and… and… freedom!
I am sarah-palin-ignorant when it comes to the economy. So are most media talkers and politicians.
The talkers and politicians pretend to know; you can tell how hard they are trying to sound schooled and certain by the way they thrust out their chins. TV talkers have to sound confident if they want to be invited back to the show. Politicians have to sound confident if they hope to take advantage of the crisis so they can trot out longheld political ideologies and try to get them implemented. Both parties are doing this.
Few are admitting we’re through the looking glass now, and I’d like to see a little more of what the philosphers union was calling for in Hitchhikers: some admission that there are broad areas of doubt and uncertainty. I’d trust them all more.
The president and the treasury secretary are allowed one measure of over-confidence each, because it’s actually part of their job descriptions to boost consumer confidence—“only thing we have to fear is fear…” and all that rot.
Think about it. Even the real experts have to question whether it’s possible to predict the outcome of any given countermeasure when there’s no exact case study to draw from.
I picture the policymakers as engineers seated before a giant economy console. The main big fader in the center is the Federal Reserve interest rate control and it’s already been slid all the way to zero. They might as well just snap the knob off so they can concentrate on blindly fiddling with the other controls, see if one of them has some interesting effect one way or another.
I think that’s what’s happening, and I’d actually feel a little more confident if the experts would admit it. As for the cock-sure amateurs, I’ve resolved to chalk them up as trolls, especially those still holding on to deregulation after all that’s happened.
Afterthought:Jay Rosen said something on Bill Moyers’ show two weeks ago about how the media prides itself above all on savviness. Knowing the score is the currency of pundits and politicians, too, especially if it’s predictive. Watching everybody claiming to know What Will Work when it comes to the economy reminds me of everybody knowing for sure What Would Work concerning the surge in Iraq, too. Nobody really knew that either.
After that: Robert Reich doesn’t think anybody knows what to do either.
The Wall Street Journal columnist Steven Pearlstein tears into Wall Street, saying it refuses to be pleased until the government sends tractor trailers full of cash to their loading docks.
I think it is about time to stop watching the ticker as politicians are talking. We’re relying on it, thinking of it as that CNN audience pulsometer shown during campaign debates and it won’t do.
Full clip at MSNBC.com (If your patience will hold out past the 30-second ad. Why don’t advertisers see that the difference between a 10-second and a 30-second pre-roll is an eternity to an online video viewer?)
Loved the last part of this story in The New York Times about the new climate in the White House.
The rug is still there, as are the presidential portraits Mr. Bush selected—one of Washington, one of Lincoln—and a collection of decorative green and white plates. During a meeting last week with retired military officials, before he signed an executive order shutting down the prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, Mr. Obama surveyed his new environs with a critical eye.
“He looked around,” said one of his guests, retired Rear Adm. John D. Hutson, “and said, ‘I’ve got to do something about these plates. I’m not really a plates kind of guy.’ ”
In an odd sort of way I think a lot of us feel the same way about the president that Sarah Palin supporters felt about her. We identify with his vibe. I know exactly what he meant by not being a plate person. I might have said it myself, and I’d hazard a guess he doesn’t care for pillows embroidered with homilies either.
I am sarah-palin-ignorant when it comes to the economy. So are most media talkers and politicians.