Obama really got off in the weeds when he tried to explain the financial crisis ......

[Stinky The Clown]

That is not a criticism. It is an observation. This whole thing is so complicated that even a skilled communicator was unable to communicate it.

We were watching this at dinner. Sparkly observed that he needed to consult with a teacher on how to answer this question. Teachers are trained to teach. That was a teaching moment for him.

I'm a pretty smart guy and I can't explain this whole thing to myself, let alone try to explain it to someone else. Obama's way smarter than me, and he couldn't explain it.

It seemed that, when he finished trying to explain it, the crowd's applause was that his answer was over.

This is not a criticism of Obama. It is a commentary on the incredibly arcane nature of the crimes perpetrated upon us by the monied set.

Credit Default Swaps.

Ya......

[natrat]

1. hard to explain complete and total fraud, isn't it?

[Pirate Smile]

2. I thought the description of the AIG & big banks as suicide bombers holding us hostage with their

hands on the trigger was pretty accurate. As he said, we are talking them down so they don't blow us all to hell.

Obama Town Hall: A lesson on banking and how AIG is like a suicide bomber



We grant you that the whole AIG bailout and bonus debacle -- the credit default swap mess, the mortgage-backed securities swamp -- are very difficult concepts to grasp in detail. Which is why we hope in the future that when President Obama gets a notion to explain them to folks in town hall meetings, he polishes his spiel.

Or maybe a nice PowerPoint presentation would help.

We were with him when he began by saying, "Let me talk about the larger issue -- banks -- for just a second. I am so frustrated with this banking situation."

Then, he went pretty wonky about over-leveraging and the weakened housing market and we just thought, OK, fine, let's see if he can describe the mess in a way that makes sense and doesn't make people want to go to sleep. Our on-the-scene colleague, Tony Barboza, reports that people sat still, listened and fanned themselves with paper. No one but us fell to the floor in a swoon.

Obama tried to localize the issue and summed up the reason the Feds had to step in to save the banks.

"If you just got one small bank, take the community bank -- what was the name of your community bank?" he asked the woman who had posed a question earlier. "If Fullerton Community Bank fails, we've got something called the FDIC -- the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. -- that would take it over, guarantee the deposits and it would be able to kind of sort things out and sell the bank fairly quickly and it doesn't threaten the system as a whole.

"When you've got big big banks -- Citicorp or Bank of America or Wells Fargo -- that control 70% of the banking system and all of them are weakening, you can't afford to have all those banks going under, even though the deposits might be guaranteed. We had to step in, it was the right thing to do, even though it's infuriating. ..."

Well, OK, that all made sense, but then he compared AIG to a suicide bomber, and at that, we really perked up.

"Same thing with AIG," Obama said. "It was the right thing to do to step in. Like they've got a bomb strapped to them and they've got their hand on the trigger, you don't want them to blow up, but you've got to ease them off the trigger."

And the president held out his arm and pantomimed a hand on a trigger, and we were rapt, waiting for what would happen next.

But then he called for a final question from the crowd.

-- Robin Abcarian

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2009/03/obama-town-ha-5.html

[skooooo]

4. Yep that part was pretty effective, I thought. nt

[Pirate Smile]

5. I saw some freepers complaining about his using that explanation but I think that is

exactly what they are doing. They will complain about whatever he says. I liked it. :)

[DJ13]

8. I liked this

"If Fullerton Community Bank fails, we've got something called the FDIC -- the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. -- that would take it over, guarantee the deposits and it would be able to kind of sort things out and sell the bank fairly quickly and it doesn't threaten the system as a whole."

But this part shows why his current efforts are a failure......

"When you've got big big banks -- Citicorp or Bank of America or Wells Fargo -- that control 70% of the banking system and all of them are weakening, you can't afford to have all those banks going under, even though the deposits might be guaranteed."


At that point the correct answer towards solving the banking crisis should be apparent, you nationalize those big banks and break them up into smaller entities that cannot take our entire economy down with them.

Obama, Geithner, and Summers need to stop trying to protect the wealthy people who might get hurt by taking over the big banks.

They will never solve this economic crisis with that kind of mindset.

[aquart]

11. He called them terrorists?

You mean someone finally told the truth about those bastards?

[SemiCharmedQuark]

3. He could take a lesson from Rachel on this.

She explained it nicely on Letterman.

[havocmom]

6. Interesting whimsey of thread placement: right under the case for domestic marijuana...

Now there's a keeper of a screen shot! :rofl:

[babylonsister]

7. My sister in Orange County loved him. And then...

My opinion, he did fine. As you said, it's a complex subject that would probably take longer than he had, or with more info than some could absorb, but at least he talked about it, and anything anyone else wanted to talk about, coherently. He doesn't even have to 'vet' his audience. :D


http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x8270715

[Stinky The Clown]

9. No argument on that

He's like a spring zephyr. Then when you compare him to that moron we had for eight years, there's no words to describe it.

[VPStoltz]

10. It's simple. I can be explained in one word - GREED!