These ‘financial reforms’ are taking up a lot of ink (bandwidth) right now.

But a real, lingering and urgent financial situation is going on and remains
‘under-reported’.

Geithner, Summers and the President say they want ‘growth’.

The nation’s prime rate is the lowest in the nation’s history; this is supposed to
stimulate ‘growth’.

Right now, banks are borrowing money from the federal government at the
lowest rates in the nation’s history.

The gap between the banks’ borrowing rate from the federal government and
the banks’ lending rate to citizens contributes to banks’ profits (borrow low,
lend to citizens high, scrap in the difference as profit).

Already, banks borrow from the government at record low rates and lend to
citizens at high rates - several recent article have noted: higher consumer rates
are coming, banks are about to begin to charge citizens even more.

The higher rates citizens will be paying will contrast with the low rates the
government continues to give the banks; thus, bank profits will continue to
rise.

The banks will profit even more from the greater differential, as consumers pay
more and the banks pay less.

Their profits will continue to rise; rising bank profits will be called ‘growth’.

This kind of ‘growth’ in Wall Street and the lingering decline in Main Street is
evident to all who are not in DC or NYC.

When ‘really smart guys’ tell us it aint so, they’re simply validating the
perception that they’re out of touch with Main Street and in close touch with DC
and NYC.

Good for the President on ‘financial reforms’ in the making now; and, good for
the President: he has lots more good works he can accomplish in the months
before November !

Obama’s Problem #1 is simple: He has only lately begun to weave an
‘overarching narrative’ to frame and explain his actions; he hasnt established a
‘theme’ everyone can understand and use to relate his policies and practices.

Obama’s Problem #2 is using Geithner and Summers as mouth pieces.

Lately, Obama’s begun to address Problem 1 - establishing a winning theme:
advocate for the middle class, help the middle class, support the middle class,
rebuild the middle class - chose a phrase, that’s sort of what he wants to build
around.

It’s a great idea, good theme, people could respond very positively to it.

But, when it comes to articulating the theme, Obama’s stuck on stupid -
Summers, Geithner, et al have no credibility with the public and are tarred with
the residue of the largest bailout of the wealthy in the nation’s history.

So, great message; the potential to improve Obama’s standing with voters is
lost, because the messengers are not credible.

People are simply exhausted from the Bush-era lies and have little tolerance
for bs.

The voters’ inclination toward a willing suspension of disbelief is exhausted;
the Republicans and the Bushies spoiled us on that. Voters will not cut the
Geithners and Summers any slack (who can blame them).

To make the message resonate, the President is going to have to find more
credible mouthpieces.

Obama needs to find credible messengers, then he’ll have a winning package.

sign the petition to end corporate personhood:

http://action.citizen.org/t/10315/petition.jsp?petition_KEY=2190

Thanks to the Conservative appointed Supreme Court, the Wall Street Corporations will be free to spend tax payer money to purchase the votes of congress people, and influence public opinion to advance the interests of Wall Street over the interests of tax payers.

One step forward, two steps back? There will be no steps forward.

Even if 100’s of thousands demonstrated on Wall Street, little would be done to correct the injustices.

I would suggest a 0.5% tax on short term trading.  That should bring in a lot of revenue from counterproductive speculators.  It should also dramatically stop the obscene parasitic High Frequency Trading that now constitutes most volume on the exchanges.

The best way of assessing anything these politicians start touting as a success story here is to look at the actual effect any legislation has on the size of these bankster markets (e.g. HFT and most importantly the $600 trillion derivatives market).

I personally don’t expect this to happen.  The Banksters are too powerful.  But if Obama showed some guts and actually pulled some reform off rather than this just being a populist show then I will give him a lot of credit.  But the talk itself is meaningless showmanship.

Well, sounds good, which is why he is making a speech about it.  But we have learned the hard way to look at what the man Obama actually does instead.  So this is no big whoop, and is too early to talk about this being anything beyond image management.

Oh, boy, can’t hardly wait to see our ‘cream puff tussie waffle’
president go to work on this, hope he doesn’t use too much
harsh language.

The harm may already be done with his years worth of doing the
opposite of what he campaigned and being just a leaf floating
on the breeze.

The Financial Times wrote following the MA defeat that in this moment Obama
must choose one of two courses: Clinton or FDR. For the sake of the nation, let us
hope this proposal signals that he has chosen the path of FDR.

As long as the banks remain privatized, nothing will change. So they get broken up, so what? They will simply transfer ownership from one band of crooks to another.

Maybe I’m wrong, I hope I am…

but, I’ve noticed that the stock market has been going down since Obama started talking tough on bank reform.

If this continues to happen it won’t be long until the Republicans announce their opposition to bank reform.

This will force the adminstration to back track or cut back on bank reform.

The stock market will then go back up.