christian96, July 6 at 7:24 am #
So, now I
vote for the lesser of two evils. 
...................................

Our resident religious admits to voting for evil…You are obviously doomed to the dark and fiery pit for sure.

Doris—-I use to also be an independent voter until
I realized my vote wasn’t accomplishing anything.  Like
it or not the way the system is structured(indep.
canidates can’t get media coverage, ect.) our so
called democracy is a two party system.  So, now I
vote for the lesser of two evils.  They
all speak honestly before the election.  It’s after
the election they forget to practice what they
preached.  How do we correct our system?  It will
take greater minds than mine to figure that out.

Geithner and Summers have a free hand…it is deep in our pocket.
“Just see what the boys in the back room will have and tell them I’m having the same,” as Marlene DeDeitrich sang in an old movie, could well be their theme song.  It is a real sing-a-long with the Wall Street and banker hob-nobs.  They are not like us, they have rights and needs that must be met, “Your money or ours” they say, “What’s the difference, we have it and you don’t, so fork up your taxes and let those in the know be the deciders.” 
Will this lone Bair lady come riding in on a white horse to save the day, rescue damsels in distress and toss the hooded villains out the door?
Rest assured, there will be more in the next episode, unfortunately probably more of the same.

ocjim, June 12 at 5:47 pm #

I don’t understand how Geithner continues with Obama support. He has proven that he is totally on the side of plutocracy.
..........................

Perhaps you lack of understanding stems from a lack of understanding of our President’s true position. He did appoint Geithner and Summers, did he not? Was he lured into such appointments in a weak moment?

No, Obama raised 700 million dollars in his two year run at the White House, much of that money from the very folks he has now given our children’s future away to benefit.

Obama may be a social liberal but he is an economic conservative wedded to the same sick system in which he prospered. I might add that the social liberal thingie is unproven as yet….

I don’t understand how Geithner continues with Obama support. He has proven that he is totally on the side of plutocracy.

I see American top executives as criminals in the category of armed robbers: armed with power they take money they haven’t earned. Geithner has supported them in their greed.

Let’s compare American executives to Japanese executives, for example.

Japanese executives of Toyota earn pennies compared to American executives, but brought their company to the position of number one seller of cars in the world, replacing GM whose executives pulled in hundreds of millions of dollars per year, this while dragging GM to bankruptcy.

Meanwhile American titans of finance, after a rapacious greed-fest of dragging us through the muck of relentless risk-taking, are still paying themselves millions for their failures, this while collecting a taxpayer bail-out of billions.

If American business leaders are more than 20 times better than foreign chief executive officers (they make that much more), would you not expect much superior leadership and intelligence, including leading their companies into the realm of advanced technology and innovative techniques of management?

And why do other countries enjoy superior and cheaper internet access, better and more cost-effective health care services and seemingly better educated citizens? Does the American economic pie only cover excess executive pay and corporate bailouts?

I think we will find that more unbridled greed, narcissism, and a short-term myopia is all that we bought in skills from our overpaid executives.

Certainly while they continue to rake in personal fortunes, the current evidence has brought this home to us: recession, bankrupt state treasuries, lost jobs, debt, unfunded human investment, and worn-out infrastructure.

And Geithner has supported this unbridled greed.

Article quote:

“Bair is the Republican whom President Obama reappointed to head the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., but she is protecting the interest of taxpayers as no Democrat has in this administration, and she needs your support. Huge financial decisions are being made by this government, involving trillions in future obligations of U.S. taxpayers, and Bair has been a rare effective voice for the interests of ordinary folk.”

Thank you Mr. Scheer.  I admonish, very beseechingly, that others entertain your summation more closely and understand that saving America and all her errant and inerrant tentacles be left outside of specific ideologies and use COMMON SENSE.  Ms. Bair is our friend.  She is the friend of ALL who wish to see fairness brought back into the equation, as well as the spirit of law.

When we make law, there is a premise…. an overriding purpose, meant to be interpreted in the SPIRIT of justice, justice itself IMPLIES fairness and equality.  It has to, because without these justice is meaningless.

To attempt to paint or rather TAINT Ms. Bair as supposedly undeserving of our thanks and appreciation is to give little creedence to justice, but is also to say that she doesn’t have a right to choose her political party.  She does.  It bothers me NOT ONE IOTA that she is republican, what matters to me (and should for the most of us) is her ACTIONS.

I live in a republican dominated area.  If I were to speak for several of our city leaders, as republicans…. they bite.  However, there are others in this area who have chosen to be republicans (politically) and they do care, some ignorantly, but others because it is who they are…..and good or bad, (as far as the label goes)....what is MOST important is their adherence to justice.

We can ALL live with that.  In this, I thank Sheila Bair, but also Robert Scheer for bringing to light the MEANING of justice.

thebeerdr—good point about the “Nukes!” being analagous to “drill, baby drill!”. I see “Yes we can!”, when used to drown out others, as much the same as the ole “U.S.A.!” chant…I remember, during Obama’s campaign, when a couple of young Af Am males stood up with a sign, “Obama what about the ghetto”. A (very)young (maybe 14?)white male “volunteer” (?), who looked right out of a white, suburban “rap” video, stood up and proceeded to entice the crowd behind him to chant, “Yes we Can!” with , almost, desparate, arm motions.. Obama asked him to stop, but, I wanted to strangle the little idiot.

As one of Obama’s campaign mangers said at the “Campaign for America’s Future” conference (or America’s Future NOw, or whatever the talking points are this week), they will send out 1000s of “message machines” to “infiltrate” at the workplace, “on a smoke break” ,at lunch, etc.

Beware! Obama bots at work!

re: daveco

“The right question to ask is why would they tell us the truth…”
Exactly. This is how population control is maintained. Narrow the perspective on nearly any issue, so that if anyone asks questions from a different viewpoint they are either banned or ridiculed. Remember what happened to congressmen Kucinich and Paul during the presidential debates? They were verbally attacked for bringing up subjects the status quo (i.e; mainstream) did not want to hear, or simply banned from participating in the forum.
Independent thinking is considered a threat to governments, the military and religious organizations. Those who do question authority are deemed to be “conspiracy nuts” or worse. Take the 9-11 attack nonsense. You are told not to question, and just simply get over it, when architectural engineers have pointed out that it is in defiance of the laws of physics for 2 jet plane explosions, even with completely full fuel tanks, to produce a temperature hot enough to actually melt all that steel. This is probably the greatest mythological lie of this century, but let’s not concern ourselves with this. In the words of our new cool President: “it is time to look forward.”
There is no need for the ministers of propaganda that are known as the mainstream news, to rarely if ever, speak the truth. Look at how Iran continues to be propped up as the latest villain of concern. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is the Iranian equivalent of Governor Sarah Palin: all hat and no cattle, who uses the senseless attacks from the United States as a wedge to refortify his hapless base (like much of our own hapless base) while his “people” whom he claims to love, just like our Ms. Palin, suffer the consequences of their misinformed stupidity. Watching an Iranian rally where the citizens sing out the praises of Iran’s nuclear power program, sounds eerily familiar to the “drill baby drill” chant of last autumn.
Even during those rare moments when discrepancies are discovered in the official narrative, such as why does Citibank get to keep all that money? This warrants a few words of outrage from industry reporters, a few political announcements of shock that such a situation occurred, and that is about it.

AOL reports that Newsweek has ranked the top 150
US Public High Schools.  I would like to know what
criteria was used to make the rankings.  I would
also like to know how many of our current congress
members are graduates from those schools.  Of course,
those schools may not have held there ranking when
the congress members graduated.  I would still like
to know.  I guess the question I am asking is “Does
a quality education produce a congress member who
serves the needs of all Americans?”

Sheila Bair.  A light in the darkness covering
Washington.  I am also thankful for Robert Scheer
for making us aware of that light.  I will add to
David Weidner’s comment on Marketwatch, “By threatening the THINGS most precious to bank
executives-their pay and job.” As a counseling
psychologist, I can assure you that the ATTENTION
they receive from family, friends, and peers is
also a very important THING to bank executives.

Can anyone find anything about her, other than her complaint letter, on Yolanda C. Gibson-Michaels?

The petition for Bair is taken down, too…I like to check this stuff out…I’d like to get rid of Geithner , first. Then, Summers. get rid of then all.

Please. You say she need our support but what to you want us to do? HOW do we show that support?

Did she stop Wall Street….....NO!
We already have a Republican that will look out for “We The People”.His name is “Ron Paul”..“Ron Paul” will be more than happy to lay his records on the table for all to see.
Ron Paul has been so - Right - now everyone is acting like “Ron Paul”...too late.
We The People can spot them a mile away.
Ron Paul….All The Way!

Prole is correct when pointing out that it is downright silly to boil down this financial mess into a conflict of personalities. Sheila Bair operated from certain old school economic fundamentals that came into conflict with the loose motives of the wheelers and dealers higher up on the corporate food chain. She is neither a revolutionary nor savior, she simply adhered to certain time honored, operating business principles that her better connected colleagues have completely abandoned.

Every once in a while a prfessional like Blair with exhibit some integrity and try to do the job she is supposed to.  Surpirsingly, even Gops.  But Prole is right; it is the system that must be changed, integrity within a corrupt system doesn’t change anything significantly.  Prole loathes the two party system with the same passion that he hates paragraphs.  And we should join him in the former case.

“The current point of conflict between Bair and the hacks who got us into this mess…is financial industry accountability”  - which is exactly the point, that’s as far as it goes, not to overturn the corporate ‘new world order’ of her imperialist patrons like the Bush’s & Clinton, but to fine tune it and restrain it from some of it’s worst excesses. Like the aristocratic coeporate lawyer Born, Bair is another leige of the elites steeped in the establishment culture of class rule. Bair and Born join such other radical egalitarians who have won the establishment’s “Profile in Courage” Award. as Gerald Ford, John McCain and Ted Kennedy. Bizarrely enough, Scheer would have it that this is the essence of progressivism, to remain trapped in the narrow confines of the venal two-party power sharing system, and champion the proponents of prudence i.e. to help save the whole rotten system from itself and preserve intact the very concentrated power and privilege it embodies.  Bair has repeatedly rebuffed suggestions for the major banks to be nationalised, saying she would be “very surprised” if that were to happen, even though that would effectively close the door to dodgy investors such as leveraged buyout firms and hedge funds. Instead Bair and the rest of the Fed’s labyrinth bureaucracy are continuing with their ordinary mission, even in these extraordinary times -the goal, as always, is not to socialize the political economy, but to facilitate getting everything back in the hands of private capital. The same goal that Robert Scheer, like Bair and Born, usually promotes. Dithering over individual bank personalities barely even nibbles at the edges of the corporate-controlled economy and only serves to throw the hounds off the scent. Even surface claims that Bair is “threatening the things most precious to bank executives—their pay and jobs” are probably greatly exaggerated. A couple of weeks ago, the FDIC issued a clarifying statement asserting: “Chairman Bair said that management changes could happen based on the capital plans that an institution must submit to the government. She did not refer to CEOs specifically and the comment was in the context of capital plans submitted by the institutions. Chairman Bair also did not suggest the federal government will remove the bank CEOs.” There are some however, besides - allegedly - Geithner who might like to see Bair removed, too. In a recent letter to the White House to the new Obama executive regime, former FDIC employee and federal Whistleblower, Yolanda C. Gibson-Michaels, urged: “This serves as an official request that your Administration initiate an immediate investigation of reported fraud at the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC); to and including the immediate removal of Chairman Sheila C. Bair and other reported officials engaged into RICO (Racketeering), inside trading, money laundering, receivership fraud, bank fraud and unregistered Securities Exchange Commission Financial fraud…FDIC Chairman Bair willfully and knowingly ignored reported fraud”. Gibson-Michaels has compiled a 539 page dossier, available on lulu.com., documenting her claims of FDIC malfeasance. “Rest assured, if Bair loses out and Geithner has his way, Citigroup’s CEO and the other Wall Street moguls will be thrilled.” - along with a few Whistleblowers, but either way, Bair’s or Geithner’s, “rest assured” - Wall St. moguls and the System will be preserved - and “the public will have lost” - again.

Kudos to Mr. S he is finally writing some truths he had another very good piece on the nation.

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20090615/scheer

Reagan Didn’t Do It

As did Mr. Greider…

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20090622/greider/3

The Trouble With Democrats (Page 3)

By the way The Fed Is Dead!  However since the obamageddon is in the pockets of the banks and thus the Fed they will do nothing expect hire the big guns to stop the Audit of the Fed.

http://bluelori.blogspot.com/2009/06/fed-is-dead.html

You know, Obama broke records with the amount of money he had contributed by the small donor- but no one EVER mentions that anymore. People talk about the money he got from Wall Street all the time, but they never mention all the money Obama got from the people. The people he now ignores while he serves Wall Street.

I have a lot more confidence in Sheila Bair than Timothy Giethner, whom I consider the real weak link in Obama’s economic team. He is way too close to Wall Street and should have recused himself in the dealings over Citibank’s future.  I wish Obama had gone in a much different direction with his Treasury pick, someone like Robert Reich. Thank God, for public servants like Bair. They seem to be few and far between which is a key reason we are in such poor economic shape today.

We most certainly need more people in government like this but I’m afraid Republicans like Ms Baird disappeared when Goldwater took over the party in 1964 and began its march toward fascism.  Given the total corruption and incompetency of the two major political parties, I, too, would vote for a Republican like Ms Baird.  Sorry to say it will never happen in my lifetime.

re: Inherit The Wind

A rational reasonable Republican has nearly become non existent in a party who chose as leader, the one who boasted of making momentous decisions with his “gut”.

Thanks, thebeerdoctor; I was wondering how we were supposed to help this individual who has been acting in our interests.

When are these zombie banks going to rest?

RdV, June 10 at 8:23 am #

  Black is white. Never thought I’d see the day.
********************************

Old Time Conservatives are even rarer in the Rethuglican party than in the Dim-ocraps.  The very few times I’ve voted for a Republican, I thought I was voting for a Sheila Blair.  Instead it turned out to be a Christine Whitman or a spineless Newt ditto-head.

It is PRECISELY the Sheila Blairs that Colin Powell is trying to push as what the GOP SHOULD be—and that is precisely what the Rush-Sean-Bill-Newt axis is attacking.  It will be better for America and the world if Powell wins. Curiously, his success would put HIM as the leading GOP presidential candidate for 2012.  Otherwise they’ll put up the mooseskin slut or Humpty-Dumpty-Limbaugh.  Or Newt “she’s faking a broken ankle” Gingrich.

re: Cathy

Thank you for the link. The reason that the Obama administration will continue to be Citigroup’s Dutch Uncle, is because of the money his campaign received, plus the fact that his pals in the economic arena all have ties to the socialist bank that is simply too big, and for that matter, too important to fail.
Once upon a time the words: “election campaign reform”, were sometimes used, but like “union solidarity” these phrases are considered now to be forgotten items from an out-of-date lexicon.

Regarding Citigroup on NPR this morning.  Looks like we will be carrying this behemoth forever unless somebody grows a set.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=105188938

re:re; Southern Gal

Since the link does not work. Just put into Google: support for Shelia Bair, and you will find the link to the petition site, at the the top of the page.

re: Southern Gal

http://www.thepetionsite.com/1/retain-sheila-bair-as-chairman-of-the-federal-deposit-insurance-corporation

Sheila Bair is my hero. Will someone please share to whom we should communicate to voice our support for Sheila Bair and the need for real regulation?  While we are at it, is there an organized movement to get Geithner out of office?

As I wrote last year after watching a conference where Bair, Summers and company were involved. Sheila Bair said: “there is nothing wrong with a 30 year fixed rate mortgage.” And of course she was correct, but that kind of old school banking and lending fundamentals has already been cast aside by Robert Rubin, Lawrence Summers and Alan Greenspan. Such sound but ordinary practices, did not meet the ‘juice’ specifications to squeeze out much more of a return, hence the ARM and the CDS.
People who tend to see everything through a partisan lens should realize that this is not about political party affiliation, but rather the philosophy you apply to business ethics. It is not surprising that Sheila Bair is a thorn in their backside.

Keep it up Mis. Blair. And watch your back.

We know who’s “side” the Democratic speaker Nancy P. is on. It sure as hell is not the “side” of “we the people”.

It’s Obamageddon all right. But this is a nice piece, well done.

No matter how effective Bair is it’s unlikely that she can prevent a financial Obamageddon.

We’re burning through trillions of dollars, yet the too little to save American people are declaring bankrupy in record numbers.

She’s only one voice, while the crooks remain in charge. Re inflating the bubble is not a recovery, and soon, it will pop once more.

What then?

More Republicans like this and the Democrats, like the corporate sell-out socialists in the EU, are history.
  Ironically enough, locally the Republicans are actually preferrable to some of the Neo-Lib centrist Blue Dog Democrats emerging in my area. I’d rather an old time Conservative following the money, than a yuppie developer New Dem with an overblown sense of entitlement.

  Black is white. Never thought I’d see the day.

One reads between the lines and decides that it is not, as some insist, Republican Vs. Democrat but individuals bucking a system. The Duopoly that stalks the halls of Congress or the offices of the White House are focused upon big money, big business and big opportunity for themselves.

It matters not that Sheila Blair is a Republican, what matters is that she speaks the truth and seeks to protect the future solvency of this nation. We need a whole lot more Sheila Blairs, regardless of party affiliation.