Will President Obama's Economic Team Lead Him Off a Cliff?

[brentspeak]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-kuttner/lifting-the-tarp-will-pre_b_175149.html

by Robert Kuttner

In the past two weeks, political support for the Tim Geithner/Larry Summers approach to solving the banking crisis has been unraveling in Congress, with blistering criticism from legislators of both parties.

The financial danger is that the Treasury will burn through the money approved by Congress without fixing the system. The political danger is that Republicans will posture as the populists, expressing faux-indignation that so much taxpayer money has gone to Wall Street. The overarching risk to Obama's presidency is that the plan won't work, and his political capital will evaporate along with the financial capital.

There is a whole other path to repairing the banking system, and a whole other set of experts, equally brilliant and better in touch with financial realities. But their unfiltered views are not reaching the president. This loyal opposition, of which more shortly, is not limited to lefties; it spans the ideological spectrum.

Though the details are numbingly technical (and deliberately mystified both by the investment bankers and their allies at the Treasury), the basics of what's wrong with the banking system and how to fix it are, at bottom, very simple...

[Donnachaidh]

1. it already has.

Half a million jobs lost EACH month - and Obama's team is STILL funneling money to companies that are either giving bonuses or sending the money off to european companies?

He'd better do a reality check soon. Warm weather is coming and the banks will have a field day tossing people out of their homes. Non-profits that are trying to help the under-employed are running OUT of money. The States aren't going to be able to cover the thousands upon thousands out there NOW.

WAIT till the tent cities start showing up on the East Coast. And wait till the cities start trying to force those tent cities out, because those out of work families are an eyesore to the wealthy who live there.

Keep pushing the money to the wealthy. Keep acting like there aren't any others out there with a much more DIRE need of help than Merrill Lynch employees.

This is NOT the thirties -- people won't just *go away* when it gets hot and they have no homes. They are going to really start looking for the *HOPE* they were promised. And if they can't FIND it - because it's been given to bank executives?

????

[Triana]

2. Send this to whitehouse.gov. I'm going to

Obama better grok some damned CLUES and fast.

[Igel]

3. "Owners of bank stocks are not really relevant."

What a humorous statement. In other words, if the bank stocks go to zero, nobody's really out any more money.

One problem, though. A lot of entities are holding those stocks and really counting on them going back to being worth more. Retirees, insurance companies, other banks, pensions.

Odd for Kuttner to say they're not really relevant. Unless, of course, he just wants to get to his goal.

[Grinchie]

4. The US Government is in the first half second of free-fall and is accelerating

The was planned by Bush and the real powers that be in order to cause disruption and chaos.

We see the repug media megaphone enlisting idiots like Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh and other to coax the Paxil and Zoloft stupified and borderline psychotic over medicated brain zombies into "Fighting" mode. They either cooperate, or they turn off the Meds for 30 million americans that are now addicted to these medications to function, cause panic, chaos and despair for them and all those near them.

Obama can do nothing about it, and the U.S. Goverment is as probably medicated as the rest of the population.

[BlueDogMizzou]

5. Nope, Obama was pushed

We need to look no further than Reid and Pelosi.

That's correct, these are the same fools that criticized Bush's handling of the bail out money to the banks, then opposed any controls over bonuses and salaries for the second half of the bailout money. Duh! These are the same guys that are in Bush's pocket and misused the money the first time.

Who gets the blame? Obama and the Treasury.

Thanks for buying the ammunition, loading the gun and pulling the trigger for the Repubs, Harry and Nancy.

Personally, I find it hard to believe they are that stupid, I think this was a setup and Obama is the fall guy.