Archive for July, 2008

Here they go again! Financial capitalism is crashing. So the lights are on late in Washington?s Federal Reserve, SEC and Treasury Department trying to figure out how socialism (your tax dollars and credits) can once again bail out these big time gamblers with our money.

Every cycle of casino capitalism that heads for, or goes over, the bankruptcy cliffs gets larger and larger. This year?s collapse towers over the bailout of the Savings and Loan banks in the 1980s.

This unfolding cycle of the Washington to Wall Street gravy train is not based on a huge spike in interest rates that tanked so many thrift institutions nearly twenty years ago. It is based on unbridled greed by the bosses of these big commercial banks, investment banks, brokerage giants and those two goliaths?Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

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None of this had to happen. Regulation against conflicts of interest and hyper risk taking could have stopped it, including preventing the housing mortgage crisis. Empowering investor-owners could have headed it off. But Washington-based right wing corporate funded think tanks and the banking lobbies battered down the regulatory guards and the federal cops.

So now only the American taxpayers and their creditworthiness inside a deficit-ridden government and a debt-loaded Federal Reserve stand in the way of a far bigger financial collapse than the stock market crash of 1929. Will it be done smartly this time around?

Reckless, self-enriching capitalists get on your knees and thank the rescuing Washington socialists, for without them, you would surely be in chains.

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Source: Nader.org

Barack Obama has presented himself to American voters as the candidate of change, but on a weeklong foreign trip that ends Saturday he sounded more like a traditionalist when it comes to foreign policy.

In some cases, the foreign policy middle has shifted Obama’s way. His proposal to withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq over 16 months no longer seems radical. Iraq’s prime minister endorsed it, and even President Bush now agrees that there should be a “time horizon” for some troop withdrawal. Virtually everyone now agrees that more American troops are needed in Afghanistan.

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Obama’s timeline for troop withdrawals now appears feasible because of the improvement in security brought about by the rise in Sunni Muslim opposition to Islamic extremists, a halt in activity by Shiite militias and Bush’s decision to “surge” more troops into Iraq. McCain supported the “surge” and Obama opposed it, yet Obama appears to be the political beneficiary.

While Obama was in Baghdad, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki endorsed something close to Obama’s 16-month timeline. Maliki had good domestic political reasons for doing so, but the effect was to undercut Bush’s and McCain’s criticism of Obama’s proposals.

He didn’t address Iraqis directly, and some felt he was using their plight as a stage for domestic political theater.

“If Obama is serious about (withdrawing troops), that really is the dream for all Iraqis, and I hope he’ll stick to his word. But I think all these statements are only to serve his private electoral campaign,” said Nather Ibrahim, 47, a chemist.

In other arenas, Obama’s call for negotiating with adversaries has become the order of the day. While Obama was on the road, Bush sent a senior U.S. official to join nuclear talks with Iran. Israel and Syria are holding indirect peace talks.

But Obama was careful not to push the envelope too far.

His visit to Sderot, an Israeli town that’s been a frequent target of rockets fired by the Palestinian group Hamas, was made possible by a cease-fire mediated by Egypt. Asked if Israel should talk directly with Hamas, Obama gave the standard U.S. answer that Hamas must decide if it’s a political group or a terrorist group.

In Sderot, “the situation is the best it’s ever been since anyone can remember because there’s a case-fire with Hamas,” said Daniel Levy, a former Israeli peace negotiator now at the New America Foundation. “Nobody mentioned it.”

Talev reported from Paris. Nancy Youssef in Baghdad and Dion Nissenbaum in Jerusalem contributed.

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Source: McClatchyDC.com