Today marking the much applauded (in "Democratic" circles, anyways)
"100th Day of the Obama administration,"
Bob Herbert's op-ed not only knocks-it-out-of-the-park... but is also a well-timed home run that salvages some much needed HONESTY from WHAT HAS BEEN a MAJOR MEDIA WHITEWASH of Obama's POTENTIALLY CATASTROPHIC FAILURE:
- the FAILURE to make a more positive impact on RISING UNEMPLOYMENT, & INCREASING LAYOFFS and job losses.
Should we point out that "Hitler looked good... in the early (WWII) war years, IF you did not look at his millions of victims," too?
Clearly, up until now, President Obama has been Riding the Wave... he has BENEFITED from the CORPORATE MEDIA PROPAGANDA machine that spent the past 8 years WHITEWASHING and COVERING-UP major scandal, failure, and abject, in-your-face CORRUPTION stories for the Bush White House, from Bush's CLOSE TIES to ENRON FRAUD, to Dick Cheney CONTINUING TO HOLD HALLIBURTON defered stock options - which went up in value with every NO-BID, NO OVERSIGHT contract that Cheney handed his "former" company.
For example, the Washington Post became famous during the Nixon impeachment days for RELENTLESSLY INVESTIGATING the LINKS between President Nixon and his ILLEGAL, "spy on the Democratic Party" Watergate burglers and (ex-) CIA "plumbers," among many other Dirty Tricks sponsored by and commissioned by President Nixon's re-election campaign. (Which of course was given the nickname "Committee to Re-Elect the President," or C.R.E.E.P. by determined Nixon critics.)
But, fast forward to George W. Bush's presidency, the Washington Post COULD NOT BOTHER to ask about - much less relentlessly investigate - "WHAT was it that CONVICTED BRIBER OF CONGRESS _JACK ABRAMOFF_ discussed with President Bush and the Bush White House, on his MANY VISITS and CALLS to the Bush White House?"
You can hardly ask for a better example of the WASHINGTON POST's INSTITUTIONAL CORRUPTION, than that it REFUSED to inquire what CONVICTED FELON Jack Abramoff was asking of the Bush White House, in the months and weeks before he was indicted and convicted for BRIBERY !!
THAT is the INSTITUTIONAL BIAS that is making Mr. Obama look good in his "First 100 Days" - the Corporate Media notion that the LITTLE PEOPLE who are FIRED, LAID OFF, and run out of unemployment insurance, JUST DON'T COUNT !!
Here's the NEW YORK TIMES joining GOLDMAN SACHS in GLOATING about "BILLION DOLLAR BONUSES!" the Christmas of 2006 - as BOTH the Times, and Goldman-Sachs, IGNORE the looming and building FORECLOSURE Crisis, that ALREADY by December 2006 was seeing THOUSANDS of American families EVICTED FROM THEIR HOMES, "Huge Profit at Goldman Brings Big Bonuses"
BUT! Even by December 2006, Goldman-Sachs "PROFITS" were NOT as "profitable" as it appeared, for even by early 2007, Goldman-Sachs and the other New York mega-banksters were PROPPING UP their balance sheets - and ARTIFICIALLY INFLATING their "assets," executive bonuses, and fraudulent "profits" - by a process that we call "back door bailouts" - the FED BANKS pumping HUNDREDS of BILLIONS of dollars of money into the Big NY banks, by the process of LIQUIDITY INJECTIONS and other "newly created mechanisms."
http://finance.yahoo.com/tech-ticker/article/7483/Fed-Heads-Back-to-the-Well-Will-It-Run-Dry
THIS is EXACTLY what TIMMY GEITHNER was doing when he was Director of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York - he was dishing out TENS upon HUNDREDS OF BILLIONS of created-out-of-thin-air "dollars" into the bank vaults of those large banks which own the _PRIVATE_ Federal Reserve banks - a magic creation and disbursement of HUNDREDS of BILLIONS of dollars to the electronic bank vaults of Citi bank and Goldman-Sachs and Chase and Bank of America, that MADE their profits look solid, but were in fact CREATED by FED RESERVE FIAT out of thin air!
And it is PRECISELY for this reason - that Timmy Geithner was GOOD at GIVING AWAY FREE MONEY - that President Obama's top advisors - ROBERT RUBIN, LAWRENCE SUMMERS, and RAHM EMANUEL (ALL "investment bankers," if you consider 'mergers & acquistions' takeovers using insane LEVERAGE levels, and other forms of casino gambling, to be "investments") - insisted that President Obama select Tim Geithner to be his Treasury Secretary - Since the days that Geithner was first Rubin's, and then Summers', protege when Geithner worked at Treasury under then Treasury Secretaries Rubin & Summers, Geithner's REAL job has been to do WHATEVER MAKES GOLDMAN-SACHS, CITI, and the Big Banks happy.
While the above linked, exceptionally informative article talks about:
"the Fed Reserve has 'injected' ONE TRILLION DOLLARS in [to] the financial system" in just the 9 months preceeding March 2008
(i.e. long after the Goldman-Sachs BONUS BILLIONS of Christmas 2006),
it also notes the "'Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God' crowd believes the Fed is merely postponing and prolonging the pain by delaying the inevitable comeuppance for Wall Street's debt and derivatives binge."
The Big Bankers' "DEBT and DERIVATIVES BINGE" under President George W. Bush has been replaced by a Wall Street
"BAILOUTS and SOCIALIZED WELFARE BINGE"
since President Obama took office 100 days ago!
All the above just the back-story to Mr. Herbert's KNOCKOUT PUNCH conclusion of his today's op-ed marking THE SINGULAR, DISMAL FAILURE of the Obama administration: IF President Obama had spent HALF as much time, energy, and money propping up EMPLOYMENT, with REAL, IMMEDIATE JOBS SPENDING, instead of pouring TRILLIONS of taxpayer dollars down the WALL STREET BANKSTERS black hole of "DEBT, DERIVATIVES, & BONUS BINGES" - THOUSANDS of American families NOW FACING CATASTROPHE would still be employed, and adding to the economic numbers, instead of detracting from them.
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WORKERS FORCED TO WALK the PLANK by PRESIDENT OBAMA and his GOLDMAN-SACHS BANKSTER team: RAHM EMANUEL, Robt. RUBIN, LAWRENCE SUMMERS, Gary Gensler, Neal Wolin, Mark Patterson, former "Senator from the credit-card state" (and current VP) Joe Biden, et al:
Workers Walk the Plank
by BOB HERBERT, NYTimes op-ed columnist
April 27, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/28/opinion/28herbert.html
The EMPLOYMENT ISSUE is _NOT_ BEING ADDRESSED with the LEVEL OF URGENCY that is warranted. [by PRESIDENT OBAMA's finance-"economics" team]
For all the TALK of green jobs, there is NO LARGE-SCALE creative EFFORT to turn this employment debacle around. There is no crash program on anything like the scale needed, for example, to rebuild the rotting infrastructure — a big-time potential source of jobs.
The FINANCIAL INDUSTRY IS SEEN AS ESSENTIAL, but MILLIONS of AMERICAN WORKERS ARE NOT. THEY are EXPENDABLE.
IF as MUCH ATTENTION, energy and resources [MONEY!] were given to the effort to put Americans back to work as has been given to putting the banking industry back on its feet, you’d have fewer Champagne toasts on Wall Street but a lot more high-fiving in family homes across the country.
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Note: Sam Stein, at HuffingtonPost.com in his "Top 10 Least Known Obama 100-Day Achievements," credits the Obama administration with getting the transportation sector infrastructure (roads, highways, bridges) spending out-the-door and on the way swiftly:
Obama's First 100 Days: 10 Achievements You Didn't Know About
by Sam Stein, HuffingtonPost.com, Apr. 29, 2009a
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/04/29/obamas-first-100-days-10_n_192603.html
1. Obama administration has... appropriated $19 billion in the stimulus package to help implement an electronic medical record system.
3. Transportation: Since the passage of the economic stimulus package in mid-February, the Obama Department of Transportation has approved 2,500 highway projects. The movement of stimulus money out the door has been as swift as it has been effective: $9.3 billion has been spent in all 50 states. Touting its impact, DOT officials say 260,000 jobs are expected from this investment. And with competition for contracts fierce, the department is set to approve even more projects than previously envisioned. "There will be more money for additional transportation projects," said the official.
4. Education: Maligned for its handling of the financial and banking crises, the Obama Treasury Department has nevertheless implemented policies with real qualitative and quantitative impact on debt-burdened families. Chief among those was a $2,500 tax credit to help offset the cost of tuition (among other expenses) for those seeking a college education. Nearly five million families are expected to save $9 billion, according to Treasury officials
7. Cities: Through the Recovery Act, DOJ secured $2 billion for Byrne Grants, which funds anti-gang and anti-gun task forces. The money, cut during the Bush years, is expected to have massive ramifications on inner-city crime and violence.
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BUT! Mr. Stein inadvertently seconds our own criticism of Obama's first 100 days , writing: < The money is PALTRY compared to the HUNDREDS of BILLIONS set aside for an overhaul of the health care system in the budget. >
Not only are the above monies "PALTRY" compared with the HUNDEDS of BILLIONS poured in to prop up the FRAUDULENT, NO audit balance sheets of the Big Banks, but here, too, Mr. Obama's "INVESTMENT BANKER" team defers to the BIG MONEY operators - the Obama "Health Care 'reform' plan does NOT focus on SINGLE PAYER, which means it will be GIVING BILLIONS of TAXPAYER dollars to the VERY INSURANCE COMPANIES and HMOs who have created DOUBLE-DIGIT health-care INFLATION, and "FOR PROFIT" DENIAL OF COVERAGE to patients when they face catastrophic illness, over the past decades.
