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If passed as it is, the financial reform bill winding its way through Congress will create a "permanent bailout mechanism," and will give complete control over future bailouts to the White House, says columnist Matt Taibbi.
In a video preview of an upcoming Rolling Stone article, Taibbi explained how the Obama administration started selling out to Wall Street interests almost as soon as the 2008 election was over.
"The really big thing that's in these bills that's really, really scary is that it kind of outlines a permanent bailout mechanism," Taibbi said. "If it survives in the way that it was originally conceived, it's basically going to formalize an arrangement whereby the government is expected to bail out the top 20 to 25 largest financial companies. ... It will be entirely up to the White House to determine whether or not these companies are in trouble in the future, so there won't be any congressional role in deciding when and when not to give a bailout."
Taibbi's words echoed the concerns of some in Congress that, far from ensuring that America's financial system will be healthy, the financial reform being proposed will make Wall Street more dependent on taxpayers than it is already.
US House Rep. Spencer Bachus, the ranking Republican on the House Financial Services Committee, said in October that the financial reform plan would create a "permanent bailout authority." And Paul Volcker, the Jimmy Carter-appointed former head of the Federal Reserve who is widely credited with successfully fighting off inflation in the 1980s, said the Obama administration's proposed financial reform would maintain the "too-big-to-fail" mentality and could lead to further bailouts.
Taibbi also said that President Barack Obama gave key economic positions away to Wall Street insiders instead of keeping on progressive voices from his presidential campaign.
During the campaign, Obama was primarily advised by people like Austan Goolsbee from University of Chicago and Karen Kornbluh who is a well known progressive economist. Obama gets elected, the very day he gets elected those people are basically off the team and he brings in a whole bunch of people from Wall Street.
Primarily he brings in his former college buddy Michael Froman who is a Harvard classmate of Obama's. Froman was a high-ranking Citigroup executive. He puts Froman in charge on November 5th of running the economic transition team. He was in charge of hiring people for the White House to run economic policy.
Froman also brought in Jamie Rubin to be his number two. Rubin is the son of Bob Rubin who is a big Citigroup executive as well.
...
Rubin probably more than any other person -- single person -- was responsible for the financial crisis by deregulating the economy in the White House. He also had a major role in helping to destroy one of the world's biggest companies. You know, Citigroup. He has like one of the worst track records you can possible find in the country and yet he was the guy who was basically the architect of the entire Obama policy. Obama put him in charge of everything. The crew that's running the policy in the White House is basically all tied to Bob Rubin.
A couple of weeks after he hires these Citigroup people to run all those hires, they announced the Citigroup bailout which is a massive $300 billion giveaway to Citigroup...
Watch all of Matt Taibbi's comments below. His full story is expected in the January edition of Rolling Stone.
This video is from Rolling Stone, broadcast Dec. 1, 2009.
Download video via RawReplay.com
dumb asses voted for this clown expecting change and this is what you get. more of the same. That just shows how dumb, uneducated and naive the american public truely is when it comes to the power structure and who really runs the country and politics in general.
im not at all surprised. as long as the federal reserve exists, wall street will own the government and the president.
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by greychampion, LoveU. LoveU said: RT @rawstory Taibbi: Obama’s sellout to Wall Street creates ‘permanent bailout’ http://bit.ly/8VftBJ [...]
A no fee, no overdraft, never-ending account balance, ATM for Wall Street’s International Banks and Corporations, to be paid for by taxpayers (while depleting all funds for “unnecessary social” entitlements, and giving more tax breaks to Wall Street, cutting workers wages to where they should be…competitive with the rest of the world…about $5.00 A DAY!)..but for those same taxpayers, not even an affordable single payer medi-care for all Health Care plan..(to expensive, and to “good” for taxpayers) but DO send your unemployed workers into your/the military, we will give them a job!…(we need cannon fodder)…I mean….YOUR Uncle Sam needs you..(and so does the for-profit Corporate military industrial complex)
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U.S. ACHIEVES GOAL OF PERMANENTLY FAILED FOREIGN AND DOMESTIC POLICIES
– Permanent War, Occupation, Illegal Spying, Torture, Imprisonment Sited —
– Permanent Deficits, Recession, Jobless, Bailouts, Crumbling Infrastructure —
– Indentured Service Of Middle Class To Ruling Corporate Plutocracy To Long Endure —
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This is a test.
Well, we that are versed in the bullshit know what we need to do if this passes. We’ll need to take it to the streets and start a revolution if need be. We need to do something NOW. As Kucinich stated, we are in the fight for our lives right here at home.
silly comment section.. Where’s disqus and why did you remove it?
yeah RAW, what are you doing with the comment system? Is there even a human working for RAW anymore? I signed up with Disqus to keep participating because I couldn’t figure out another way to comment. So, I gave my info to yet another hole out there. Now you’re not using it? How about communicating with your audience once in a while?
All the greedy people are ready to just put debt on all the future unborn generations.
#1 AT THE TOP: “dumb asses voted for this clown expecting change and this is what you get. more of the same. That just shows how dumb, uneducated and naive the american public truely is when it comes to the power structure and who really runs the country and politics in general. ”
DURRRR TWO PARTIES, SAME GOAL: PROJECT ***ILLUSION*** OF DEMOCRACY.
Calling everyone names doesn’t really make you look like a scholar.
Why don’t you froth at the mouth to your elected rep instead of people who have no (little) control over the situation?
Disqus is a big pile of fucked up shit. I’m praying for the first time since I was 10 that I’ll never see that crap here again.
I even enjoyed this article, probably because Disqus is not present.
Break up the banks, don’t allow them to take on so much risk, don’t allow them to get too big to fail. Bring back Glassman-Steagall depression-era type protections – it was no coincidence that we had no major financial disasters during the 60+ years those were in place. Send form letters to your congress people at http://www.banksterusa.org/
The moment I heard Larry Summers was on Obama’s transition team, I knew we were doomed.
Eventually we’ll have a form of government in which we pay our taxes directly to the bank industry.
Although i certainly don’t understand enough…my understanding today of economics and world events and policies is better than say, 20 years ago.
yet I recall that 20 years ago – i used to tell friends, from my own limited understanding view :
“The USA has become almost completely a SERVICE economy..one consisting of paper pushers..bean counters..glorified domestic servants of all definitions: “customer representative”, nurses, health aides, doctors, accountants, “managers”, “supervisors”, “dispatchers”, drivers, “hosts”, “event planners”, lifestyle designes, “leaders”, “presidents of boards”, “board members”, “service staff”, house cleaners, gardeners, etc….and above all:
FINANCIERS, Finance Planners and managers, brokers, sellers of houses, “agents”,
but everything is about “SERVICE ECONOMY” – nothing produced that is actual material commodities ..
or at least they are services that are quite normal and needed BUT do not correspond to a society that actually produces wealth of “growth” ..and yet the United States emphasises “Growth” — -but must do so by borrowing , and “creating” wealth based on phantom “creations”…
But one problem of course is that MOST of the population in this service economy ALSO does not really get the wages or earnings in keeping with its MAJORITY in the population.
Its value as “service” is diminished and the resulting “wealth” this “service economy” produces is eaten UPWARDS and nothing “trickles down” or as it should have begun with – spread more equitably among the majority of the “service economy”.
And when that service economy has gained very little out of its “service” in its majority – it is forced to go into debt – reflected in government debt, corporate debt, business debt…because it has no REAL consumers that can REALLY afford what it “produces” or “services”.
I thought, then, long ago – although just from that limited view that the USA had become nothing more than a glorified “servant” economy – serving an elite of “masters”…
That it would all collapse on itself – or come to a disastrous point.
“Wealth” can not be sustained forever through the PRETENSE of “wealth” that is not REALLY there but only in the accounting books that are made out of thin air.
I also thought that the american system will become largely a system of redundancies…full of paper work , each step of the way , “creating” a new “profit” level or “product”
But really achieving no real wealth – and just exists for its own sake – just to push paper.
“the Obama administration started selling out to Wall Street interests almost as soon as the 2008 election was over”
Obama became a republican on the day after the election, so that’s only to be expected.
Has anyone even checked? everything everyone here says here is speculation. None of us have read the bill. This is just some guy’s take on it.
He reminds me of the mass-forwarded emails/bulletins you see everywhere saying ‘FACEBOOK/MYSPACE/TWITTER/ETC IS GOING TO START CHARGING UNLESS YOU SEND THIS MESSAGE TO 20 OF YOUR FRIENDS’
And you know what? I’m suckin’ Uncle Sam’s tit on disability, he crippled me with his ‘war on (some) drugs’ lies, i couldn’t give a shit less about the future generations, I gotta take care of myself.
Nobody reads this shit anyway.
Figure your shit out, RAW. Get consistent with your comment section.
We are so fucked. Gore Vidal has it right. We will be living in a Military Dictatorship in 5 years.