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Owning the Debate
OWNING THE DEBATE....Ezra Klein on the Paulson rescue package:
One point Paul Krugman makes here is that the terms of the bailout were sharply constrained by the political strategy chosen by the Democrats. When Pelosi and Reid decided that this bill would not go through without Republican votes because Democrats would not be demagogued for cleaning up the mess caused by deregulation, they took more sharply liberal options like nationalization off the table.
That's true, but I think I'd make a different political point. Henry Paulson unveiled his plan on Friday the 19th, and that was when the frame of the debate was set. And that frame was: purchase of troubled assets. At that point, virtually no one had so much as mentioned large scale nationalizations as a potential solution to the banking crisis. It just wasn't on the public radar screen.
Now, maybe that wouldn't have mattered. Maybe our current political coalition wouldn't have been willing to consider it regardless. But virtually everyone agreed that action needed to be taken quickly to prop up the financial markets, and under circumstances like that there's simply no chance of popping up at the last minute with a huge new proposal and thinking it has any chance of passing. If large-scale nationalization was really the preferred solution among liberal activists, the time to start pushing it was before Paulson and Bernanke introduced their bill. Doing it in the middle of last week, and then complaining that it didn't get seriously considered, displays a failure of vision on the left, not from its congressional leadership.
displays a failure of vision on the left, not from its congressional leadership.
Dear Kevin, please define "leadership."
When people can be startled with information, like Paulson did with his bailout proposal, it makes them susceptible to post hypnotic suggestions. The suggestion was "action needed to be taken quickly to prop up the financial markets" or the economy would seize up and lead to a catastrophe. Because of they way the news and solution was delivered, "virtually everyone agreed," with a plan they knew nothing about. Those virtual everyone's are not leftists. Leftists do not have the pulpit of the Sec. of Treasury with which to frame debates and deliver post hypnotic suggestions. Leftists have been making warnings and proposing solutions about this coming crisis for years. Leftists were the only ones aware of what the past seven years was doing to the economy, yet they have no power to inform, let alone to propose solutions, because the American mind is unconscious to them. Call it hemisphere neglect.
Paulson laid out a bait: his "no questions asked, not now, not later". Evereone jumped on that - instead of just laughing - and by the time they had that off the table, everybody had mre or less accepted the framing.
The House of Representatives just defeated the bailout proposal. I think this just about puts the icing on the cake for this being the most failed President in our history. I say let's wait and let a new Congress and a different President figure this whole debacle out. I never did like the idea that no one examined Paulson's premise that this was the only way to save the economy. Maybe this economy shouldn't be saved. Maybe it's time for some revolutionary change.
Maybe this economy shouldn't be saved. Maybe it's time for some revolutionary change.
So what then? Riots in the streets? Let them eat cake? I agree that the bailout is definitely not the way to deal with this but to say we should just let the system fail is a pretty drastic statement. I hope you have savings in the form of non-perishable tangible assets and a gun to protect those assets with...
...displays a failure of vision on the left...
Well thank goodness for that.
Everyone who is out of a job, hungry and has no place to sleep should begin walking to Crawford, TX. Bring a pitch fork.
Houston >"...Maybe it's time for some revolutionary change."
Precisely
And I am NOT suggesting guns and all that juvenile crap. What needs to happen is a financial/monetary system needs to come into existance that is built on reality instead of Mumbo Jumbo delusions of what is valuable and what isn`t.
Not built on gold, not built on silver, not built on any other single thing BUT built on reality. Built on the laws of the real world so that "profit" accrues to those that actually improve the planet & people`s lives and NOT according to who is one`s frat brother, political kin or some "magical fairy dust" paper shuffling.
Start here with the work of Eugene & Howard T. & be sure and ignore Looneybury when he shows up ranting and spewing his ignorance.
HK
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