YOU CAN’T UNRING THE BELL . . .

A top executive and economic analyst at mega-bank JP Morgan Chase trashed U.S. senators in a company memo to the bank’s clients - stating that they showed “an unnerving ignorance of fundamental principles of market economics” regarding the Goldman Sachs hearings, and said “it’s time for the grownups to step in” regarding financial reform.

Interesting . . .

These same banks showed an unnerving ignorance of fundamental principles of market economics when coming to the taxpayers for bailouts;  which suggests that it’s time for the grownups to step in, and teach them a lesson about what happens when you demonstrate an unnerving ignorance of fundamental principles of market economics – you lose the privilege to have such a powerful influence over OUR economy.

The grownups need to make TBTF (Too Big To Fail) = TSTM (Too Small To Matter) – break up these childish Big Banks.

P.S.  After a spokesperson for JP Morgan Chase issued an apology for the memorandum – stating that it “does not reflect the views of our firm” – you could here the collective chant from JP Morgan headquarters as they covered their ears . . . “THE BELLS, THE BELLS, THE BELLS.”

President Obama has been beyond a huge disappointment. 

The reasons for his significant failure in the first year of his Presidency are varied, and yesterday I read a very insightful essay on MSN Money by Paul B. Farrell of the Wall Street Journal’s Market Watch   that hones in on a number of opportunities Obama could have seized upon as a result of the financial collapse that would have allowed him to increase the already significant political capital that he possessed on the day of his inauguration.   

In the simplest parlance - he blew it!

This writer will have more to say on the specifics of those issues, but that is for another entry posted here on this blog.  More importantly for purposes of today’s entry, I offer a humble mea culpa for my idealistic beliefs that this man was really different from all the others.  I pride myself on being intellectually honest enough to admit that I was wrong about Obama’s willingness to effectuate any substantial change in this country with acumen and finesse.  How stupid of me to believe that he would really first focus on the one issue that was at the forefront of every voter’s mind since November, 2007 - one year before the 2008 election – and has continuously been the leading issue for the past two years.

In the words of James Carville’s famous political mantra for the 1992 Clinton campaign, “It’s The Economy Stupid!”

Suddenly this week, the President finally has this incredible revelation that he needs to place the issue of the economy, as well as attend to financial system reform, at the top if his agenda?  President Obama – how could you and all of these ostensibly intelligent people you surrounded yourself with have possibly missed that most salient and readily available information?  Why did you not immediately address the failure of our economic system in it’s present form to serve the interests of its citizens, and redress the ongoing transgressions by the men who were responsible for single-handedly wrecking the underpinnings of American Capitalism?  Why did you not implement substantial changes in how our economy is managed by imposing strict accountability, transparency and limitations on how the banking industry operated?  Why did you trust that these financial terrorists would not not rob the national treasury for their own personal gain, instead turning a blind eye to their obvious avarice and indifference to the economic welfare of the country?   Why did you not instruct Tim Geithner and the Treasury Department to direct the lending institutions to focus all of that available financial capital at shoring-up businesses and home values in order to preserve the essential assets so critical to the future of the American people, instead of bailing out these corrupt and incompetent financial giants?  Why did you not utilize the available “bully pulpit” to chastise both your party and the Republicans for their unwillingness to use their legislative powers to immediately reign in these predatory financial giants, because of the “river of dirty money” (campaign contributions) running through Washington, D.C.?

Instead, you choose to ignore the over-arching importance of these matters, and wasted all of your hard-earned political capital by rubber-stamping the bailouts, and then embarking on an agenda of reforming an equally complex and failed health care system – a pathway that was historically fraught with political pitfalls and epic battles against powerful wealthy corporate interests.   Anyone studying the history of American health care reform would know that simple fact.

Now, before any of you Conservatives start hooting and hollering in celebration of my criticism of the President, or my ”concession” regarding his obvious failures, let me inform you that your intellectual dishonesty for the past decade has been nothing short of shameful.  Lest you think you are blameless, your willful ignorance of, as well as refusal to admit, the abysmal failure of your leaders, party, spokespersons, and Conservative media to improve the status of this country and its people - particularly Bush, Cheney, Palin, McCain, Mitch McConnell, John Boehner, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Fox News, etc. - is completely reprehensible, and gives you no standing to believe that you have something to crow about.

You don’t.

In fact, part and parcel of Obama’s inability to effectuate change has been due to the ”political noise” you either countenenced or participated in during the election campaign in the Fall of 2008 as a substitute for reasoned and measured dialogue about what was wrong with this country.  Labeling him a Muslim – when nothing is further from the truth, and cheering on those who claimed that he was “palling around with terrorists“, willfully distracted the American public from what was really at stake for the future of our country.  Many of you continued to increase the sound of that chorus to a deafening roar after he was elected with the most utter nonsense – first claiming he was not a citizen in spite of the overwhelming evidence to the contrary, as well as charging that he is a Socialist, hellbent on destroying the foundations of this nation, when in fact his predecessors that you supported, as well as their corrupt political business cronies, had already virtually accomplished that objective. 

In so much as you have fostered and perpetuated these opinions by either expressed belief or passive silence as to the truth, you are partially responsible for the demise of this republic.  Your behavior is utterly Un-American.  It is an absolute certainty that history will be far less kind to you than it will be to President Obama.

Shame on you.

And if you happen to choke to death on your teabags, oh well . . .

The sector of our economy that is treated like a step-child in comparison to Big Business is finally getting it’s just due.  Small businesses in America generate over 65% of the jobs in an economy that has recently been hit with an unemployment rate of 10%.  President Obama announced today that the bailout will be “refocused” on this segment of the U.S. economy. 

One question Mr. President?  What took you so long?  Guess Tim Geithner and Larry Summers first had to take care of their old buddies at Goldman Sachs, et. al., just like Henry Paulson and Alan Greenspan did with the Bush Administration during the global economic collapse these greedy animals created.  Meanwhile, the real heroes of the American economy who are still in business keep on shoveling coal down in the engine room, while those businesses that could not go on quietly close their doors in the vacuum of unavailable lending capital being horded by the rapacious bankers.

 Makes one wonder how many of those unemployed people Goldman Sachs is going to hire after announcing this week its record-breaking $16 Billion employee compensation package for the first nine months of 2009?   It is a safe bet that any money the Mammoth Financial Institutions are going to “put back into the economy” is going straight into the campaign coffers of the Democrats and Republicans who are currently sitting on the House and Senate sub-committees that will protect them from proposed regulatory legislation.

You can take that bet straight to the bank – just don’t deposit your winnings, because they will piss it all away.

Too bad we cannot “refocus” that money towards small businesses in America.  The impact of even that ”modest” amount of capital directed towards a few thousand struggling small business would truly have a stimulative impact on our economy, and specifically abate the rising unemployment in this country.

But, remember. 

“It’s all about Wall Street, Stupid.”

In a just-released web ad, Chairman Michael Steele and the Republican National Committee have declared the Obama Presidency “a failed experiment in just 200 days”, citing declining poll numbers and rising unemployment.   As their de facto spokesman, Rush Limbaugh, said six months ago, “I hope they fail.”  And now the Republicans have officially declared “victory”.

Only one problem?

Remember, the economy was already in a free-fall in late September of last year long before Obama was elected.  Bush and the Republicans had been in control for eight years, and they passed every economic and deregulatory bill they wanted with impunity – including generous tax cuts for the ultra-wealthy. 

Then an election took place in November which vanquished the Republicans’ platform of an unwarranted war, record deficit spending, complete deregulation of business which directly led to the economic meltdown, and special treatment for the rich. 

The American people spoke.  Obama responded with a stimulus package.  The worst economic downturn in modern history appears to be turning around, albeit slowly – which is to be expected under the circumstances.  And health care reform is going to happen, as was necessary to the future of this country.

Just one comment to the RNC: If  you are going to determine a Presidency’s success or failure predicated on what they accomplish in the first 200 days, you best be reminded that history provides the best lessons. 

When President Franklin D. Roosevelt took office in 1933, he inherited the legacy of Herbert Hoover – a staunch Republican President who thought that cutting taxes would turn the economy around after the stock market crashed 90% in 1929 .  Hoover’s unwaivering belief in Capitalism blinded him to the realities of the times.  Instead, an even deeper economic disaster ensued.  Unemployment rose to over 25%.  Business failures and mortgage defaults were so severe that today’s statistics pale in comparison.  The pictures of that era that best depicted the gravity of the problems were the hopeless faces of men standing in breadlines.

For a significant time after his election, FDR faced an American public whose patience for something better was running thin.  Just like today, Americans wanted everything “yesterday”.  So FDR’s poll numbers dropped and the Republicans saw an opportunity to exploit this perceived weakness; they  attacked him by trying to instill fear into Americans regarding his economic policies.  They labeled him a Socialist, a Communist, UnAmerican. 

 FDR stood firm, extolling the the virtues of hope in his now famous words, “We have nothing to fear but fear itself.”

Thereafter, FDR was elected to an all-time historic four consecutive terms in office.  The American economy turned around.  By the time he died, his economic policies were the sine qua non of how to jump-start a severely ailing economy.

More to the point, Republicans in Congress were exiled into the political wilderness for almost sixty years.   Michale Steele and the RNC best go back to school and learn from the Republican mistakes of the past, lest they fail themselves, condemning their party right back into political irrelevance for decades to come.

To paraphrase an old adage, “Those that fail to learn from history are destined to repeat it.”