Monday's NY Times is certainly a poignant reminder of some very harsh truths still ravaging our society, today. As Eric Dash's and Nelson Schwartz's lede, "
As Reform Takes Shape, Some Relief on Wall St.," reminds us that the snickering Wall Street fatcats are all about the high fives now, but even Paul Krugman is to the point where he's virtually begging the President, in "
The Old Enemies," to step up to the plate when it comes to taking on the corporatists.
(Diarist's Note: There's another diary up--and it's currently on the Rec List--about Krugman's column, today. And, frankly, taken in sum and substance with the rest of the day's news in the NY Times--and given Krugman's own words on the subject--I would say that there's such a significant difference between what Krugman's saying and what's in the headline of the other diary, that I decided to continue to post this...for a variety of what I believe are quite obvious reasons.)
The Old Enemies
By PAUL KRUGMAN
New York Times
May 24, 2010
...Many Obama supporters have been disappointed by what they see as the administration's mildness on regulatory issues -- its embrace of limited financial reform that doesn't break up the biggest banks, its support for offshore drilling, and so on. Yet corporate interests are balking at even modest changes from the permissiveness of the Bush era.
--SNIP--
Mr. Obama wanted to transcend partisanship. Instead, however, he finds himself very much in the position Franklin Roosevelt described in a famous 1936 speech, struggling with "the old enemies of peace -- business and financial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, sectionalism, war profiteering."
And that's not necessarily a bad thing. Roosevelt turned corporate opposition into a badge of honor: "I welcome their hatred," he declared. It's time for President Obama to find his inner F.D.R., and do the same.
Yes, we've all been punk'd by that captured D.C. kabuki once again, and Wall Street's breathing a sigh of relief. Business as usual...
As Reform Takes Shape, Some Relief on Wall St.
By ERIC DASH and NELSON D. SCHWARTZ
New York Times
May 24, 2010
The financial reform legislation making its way through Congress has Wall Street executives privately relieved that the bill does not do more to fundamentally change how the industry does business.
Despite the outcry from lobbyists and warnings from conservative Republicans that the legislation will choke economic growth, bankers and many analysts think that the bill approved by the Senate last week will reduce Wall Street's profits but leave its size and power largely intact. Industry officials are also hopeful that several of the most punitive provisions can be softened before it is signed into law.
--SNIP--
"If you talk to anyone privately, there's a sigh of relief," said one veteran investment banker who insisted on anonymity because of the delicacy of the issue.
--SNIP--
Richard Ramsden, an analyst for Goldman Sachs, estimated that the bill passed by the Senate on Thursday would initially cut profits by as much as 20 percent, a sizable bite, but hardly catastrophic given the sharp rebound in earnings since the depth of the financial crisis. Big banks and brokerage firms, experts said, will adjust to the changes, creating new revenue streams to make up for reduced profits, and find ways to work around the new regulations.
--SNIP--
Some experts predict that Wall Street, like water overcoming a dam, will easily adapt to the new regulations, or at least exploit what loopholes do remain and thrive again.
Bold type is diarist's emphasis.
Also in the article, former Clinton administration deputy Treasury Secretary Roger Altman compared the recently-passed health care bill to the regulatory reform legislation in the Senate and said...
"The health care bill is going to transform the structure of health care exponentially more than this legislation on financial regulation is going to change Wall Street..."
"...It's not even close."
But, as Leo Hindery, Jr., reminded us just 11 weeks ago...
Our Dirty Little Secret: Who's Really Poor in America?
Huffington Post / By Leo Hindery Jr.
March 9, 2010
* At least 50 million people are ill-fed -- up from 37 million just a year ago -- including 17 million children. Hunger in America is now at an all-time high...
--SNIP--
* 30% of the nation's 50 million homeowners own a home whose value is below its mortgage balance, and this number could rise to an almost unbelievable 50% by year-end 2011...
--SNIP--
* Despite the truly dismal 'real unemployment' figures with which most everyone now agrees -- a staggering 30 million workers and 19% of the labor force -- very little attention is being paid to the particularly adverse effects the recession is having on people of color, recent immigrants, and out-of school youth. And almost no one is acknowledging the sad reality that even the nation's 130 million full-time workers have had an average economic loss of 15% just since December 2007 -- an average effective work week of 34 hours rather than 40 -- which means that the number of unemployed workers, measured economically, is actually as high as 50 million.
* The overwhelming problem today for most workers isn't this recession, as horrible as it is -- it's the fact that for every earned income level except the top 10%, average household income hasn't changed a bit for 10 years, and that for the bottom 60% of wage earners it hasn't changed for more than 20 years. Through economic expansions and recessions -- and bull and bear markets -- alike, 90% of workers in America have been standing still earnings-wise.
* And 100 million people, fully one-third of the entire U.S. population, are at or below "200% of the federal poverty line of $21,834 for a family of four", which is a needs-measure made lame by the fact that no family of four can actually comfortably live on such a low annual income.
Bold type is diarist's emphasis.
Hindery reminds us that "...overall income inequality in America is now the greatest since 1928, when we first began to measure it."
But, as we also learn in today's New York Times in, "Cuts to Child Care Subsidy Thwart More Job Seekers," we're witnessing what I would call a cascading, negative effect which is exacerbating ongoing, high unemployment, and it's due to draconian cuts and budget shortfalls at the state level.
Cuts to Child Care Subsidy Thwart More Job Seekers
By PETER S. GOODMAN
New York Times
May 24, 2010
TUCSON -- Able-bodied, outgoing and accustomed to working, Alexandria Wallace wants to earn a paycheck. But that requires someone to look after her 3-year-old daughter, and Ms. Wallace, a 22-year-old single mother, cannot afford child care.
--SNIP--
As the American social safety net absorbs its greatest challenge since the Great Depression, state budget cuts are weakening crucial components. Subsidized child care -- financed by federal and state governments -- is a conspicuous example.
And, while the Obama administration has rushed in to attempt to address at least some of this gaping hole in our nation's social safety net, as the article notes, the demand is greatly outstripping the resources of the states; still.
So, as the Times' piece also notes it, nine states have used increased federal aid to expand the case loads of these types of programs; but, another "...nine states, including, Arizona, Michigan, Massachusetts and North Carolina, have cut access to subsidized child care programs or the amounts they pay."
New Hampshire, Nevada and New Mexico resorted to waiting lists. Ohio reduced its income eligibility from twice the poverty line to 150 percent -- $33,075 annually for a family of four.
"The social safety net was always in patches, and now it's more frayed," said Helen Blank, director of leadership and public policy at the National Women's Law Center. "For a single mom, it's a lottery in many states whether she gets child care or not."
Meanwhile, California has already cut "...$215 million from child care financing given to counties and allowing families with young children to draw aid without looking for work."
As the article states the obvious, this consigns folks to the old welfare system where they're "...receiving monthly checks without support like child care."
Last week, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger proposed scrapping California's entire welfare-to-work program, including child care and cash assistance, as the state grapples with a $19 billion budget shortfall -- an action that would eliminate aid for roughly a million children.
The Obama administration is throwing increased amounts of federal funds at this problem (the article notes that the Bush administration kept funding levels stagnant for these programs for eight years), but it just can't keep up with the demand.
"To say that we are in a difficult environment in terms of state budgets would be the understatement of the century," said Sharon Parrott, an adviser to Kathleen Sebelius, the secretary of health and human services, which administers federal grants to states for child care.
And, folks that's just in today's paper!
Over the past few days, we've learned that:
PUBLIC HOUSING--
The administration is exploring ways to sell-off public housing, courtesy of George Lakoff, "Below the Radar: HUD is Trying to Privatize and Mortgage Off All of America's Public Housing." And, as the piece notes it, this will increase the costs of public housing to those that need it (most).
FOOD STAMPS--
The "Food-stamp tally nears 40 million, sets record."
UNEMPLOYMENT BENEFITS--
STATE BUDGETS: 32 states have, literally, gone broke trying to keep up with burgeoning, long-term unemployment benefits.
COMPLETE LOSS OF BENEFITS: 400,000 Americans, per month (on average throughout the balance of 2010), may lose their unemployment benefits, in their entirety.
These are the "new poor" in our "new normal," and the social safety net is not enabling sufficient numbers of them to climb out of this rut that those Wall Street pigs, "doing god's work," drove them into after three decades of unbridled corporate greed-gone-wild.
Everyday, just like TODAY, we're reminded of these travesties playing out before us; and, it's to the point where matters have come so full-circle and have become so blatantly obvious (as far as all of this is concerned), that it only takes a quick read of one edition of one major newspaper to reaffirm these "new normal" truths, too.
And, some folks want talk of a recovery?
For whom, exactly?
Tell that to the 100,000,000 Americans living in poverty, and see what they have to say about all of this.
To them, as Ms. Huffington spelled it out a few weeks ago, it's just business as usual.
Shorting The Middle Class: The Real Wall Street Crime
Arianna Huffington
Huffington Post
Posted: April 19, 2010 06:46 PM
...The urgent need for the reorganization of our financial system goes far beyond the......debate on new financial regulations. And it goes far beyond the media's right versus left framing. It's a question about the future of our country, and whether we are going to stop the slide toward a Third World system in which there are just two classes: those at the bottom and those at the top.
A lot of people at the top of the economic food chain have done very well shorting the middle class. But the losers in those bets weren't Goldman Sachs investors -- they were millions of hard working Americans who had heard the pitch and bought into the American Dream, only to find it had been replaced by a sophisticated scam.
Yes, amidst today's high-fives and pats-on-the-back in lower Manhattan, it's not only time to stand up TO our corporate overlords. It's time to stand up FOR 100,000,000 impoverished Americans on Main Street stuck on the wrong track of our "Two-Track Economy," as well.