Obama's Achievement

[midcan5]

There are always interesting and paradoxical ironies to ideological stances, conservatives claim a free market will eventually mean utopia, but then they criticize liberals for claiming those same free individuals who run those markets are basically good people. Oddly it was liberals who started individual freedom as a primary constituent of a just society (still do).

So today according to conservatives, remove any constraint from the marketplace and great things will happen. Does anyone still believe that after the GD, Enron, Madoff, and the recent near collapse of the Banking industry? But conservatives hold tight to this ideological stance, corporations pay well to keep the idea wholesome. Give the corporations freedom and Disneyland follows. Sure. Maybe the outsourcing of conservatism isn't such a bad idea after all. After they are outsourced, they may, just may wake up. You think.


'In "The Quiet Revolution," John B. Judis argues that President Obama’s greatest achievement may be rebuilding the regulatory apparatus that Republican presidents since Reagan have worked so hard to dismantle.'

"Yet there is one extremely consequential area where Obama has done just about everything a liberal could ask for--but done it so quietly that almost no one, including most liberals, has noticed. Obama’s three Republican predecessors were all committed to weakening or even destroying the country’s regulatory apparatus: the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and the other agencies that are supposed to protect workers and consumers by regulating business practices. Now Obama is seeking to rebuild these battered institutions. In doing so, he isn’t simply improving the effectiveness of various government offices or making scattered progress on a few issues; he is resuscitating an entire philosophy of government with roots in the Progressive era of the early twentieth century. Taken as a whole, Obama’s revival of these agencies is arguably the most significant accomplishment of his first year in office."

The Quiet Revolution | The New Republic

Essential Summer Reading, Domestic Politics | Politeia | Big Think

 

[Mad Scientist]

Conservatives don't believe anything on this earth will bring "utopia", that's a liberal construct. Free markets have demonstrated to be the best system so far in generating and distributing wealth.

Until liberals step in and fuck it all up that is.

 

[Pepe]

On October 3, 2008, Congress passed a bill, Approved by a Democrat Congress and Signed by a Repulican President, The Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008, that gave total control of the US Government to two unelected bodies, the Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve. Today, the head of the Treasury Department is none other than the former President of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. In other words, the Federal Reserve, a private bank, now totally controls the US Government.

So the Fed saves itself, its Wall Street Pals, spreads enough money around to beat back Ron Paul's Audit the Fed Bill and continues to loot the Treasury daily while indebting future generations with a massive Debt that can never be repaid.

My grandchildren and their grandchildren are so effed.

The Imperial Mandarins have done an excellent job of "dumbing down" the electorate over the last 45 years.

Sad.

 

[Firstteam]

Interesting article....

I couldn't help but notice that contained in the authors quote "Obama’s three Republican predecessors were all committed to weakening or even destroying the country’s regulatory apparatus" that he failed to mention the repeal of Glass Steagall by none other than Bill Clinton....Certainly you're aware that Glass Steagall kept seperate the commercial banking, investment banking, brokerage and insurance industries...Just as certainly you must be aware that with it's repeal, Wall Street became dodge city....Without question, the Republicans spent nearly a hundred million dollars and many decades pecking away at Glass Staegall, but ultimately it was a socialist that repealed it..(and hence brought us to this point in economic time)

Because you posted this article, I would assume you subscribe to the authors belief, and that being the case I'd be interested in hearing your impression (in your own words, not a cut and paste) of exactly how the new "regulations" will benefits the people and the country and how it will "prevent" a repeat performance of the melt down....I'd also be interested in your take on why Feddie and Fraudie we omitted from the new bill...(I''d also be real interested in your take on Goldman Sachs)....