skimohawk,

Wasn’t Milton Friedman the guy who gave us “trickle-down economics”?

No. Friedman was a monetarist, not a Supply-Sider”. Perhaps you should try reading Wikipedia to get a basic understanding of the difference. Art Laffer, inverter of the “Laffer Curve” gave us Supply-Side economics.

felicity

First of all, we need to distinguish between banks and other businesses. IMHO, what we need to do, is deregulate private enterprise, and “set banks free”. Banks only operate with special permission and favoritism of the government. The government granted the permission to “create” money through fractional reserve lending, and the Federal Reserve. There was a time when all corporations were special privileges from the government, like banks today. That was known as a part of Mercantilism. Today, anybody can incorporate a business, or form a corporation. However, there are still special favors granted to a select few corporations, such as tax subsidies, grants and patents.

Banks are not sitting on hoards of cash. They are engaging in faulty bookkeeping. The Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB)has altered its rule on capital reporting requirements (Ruke 157, 166 and 167). The banks are still under-capitalized, they just “look good” on paper.

Who or what is OJama? Is he a virus, in our political system? Or is he aTrojan horse?

Is he invading the body politic, to reproduce his ilk, and generate more like himself?

Was he designed from the start to sell hope, but deliver hopelessness? We need an
antidote to his politics of despair, in the form of primary challenges in all the states,
every single one of them.

Ahh yes, deregulation, because after all haven’t our corporations proven themselves capable of self policing and acting responsibly? BP, Goldman Sachs, Halliburton, Massey Energy all bastions of the public interest.

How many more examples do we need to fully comprehend that neither major party works for us?

If we can, for a moment, come out of the weeds of infinite particulars, we must step back and recognize that what we are really dealing with technology adavancing ahead of our ontology. And the reason why this is increasingly dangerous, and difficult to change is that culturally we’ve become so overly egocentric in our view of ourselves and everything we’ve created. We just won’t accept the fact that this thing called “existence” is not about us-the ego in Man. Even the science of quantum physics acknowledges that we are not even the “ultimate observer” of our own reality. And yet, rather than seeking the key that would transcend us from the slavery of the ego, we delude ourselves in pretending that our conventions can successfully operate without the benefit of any practical understanding of our immutable cosmological paradigm.

If one starts with the driver of capitalism, which is competition, one would think of it as some sort of construct of the human intellect, when it’s just our collective impulse towards selfish ends. And one could loosely argue that was fine up to a certain point. However, we also have to contend with the “law of change” in the sense that as the world has become smaller and more complicated, the “immaterial” part of the equation that expresses our collective continuity, has exposed a grave paradox from the absence of its utility. In other words, capitalism having become increasingly untempered, is now speeding toward becoming a full blown pathology, under the pretension of intellect! Its the unfortunate scenerio of “living to eat”, where large corporate entities are suffering from the weight of their own success, and like cancer, needing to forever feed (in competition)to survive.

In short, our democracy was structurally predicated on the “sphere”-a equilaterally inclusive self government. However, our economic system is inherently pyramidal, where wealth, via ill advised government policies, naturally gravitates towards the apex. This is the paradox. And this paradox expresses itself especially during an economic infarction that relies on taxpayers for its resuscitation. (Notice also, that when the private sector disposes labor during a recesssion, people just naturally expect government to put them back to work, when the government didn’t hire, nor fire them!) Again, this is the political paradox in the hierarchial structure of “capital”!

The solution is conceptually easy. However, only the evolution of our consciousness can make harmonious change a reality, especially when many in our body politic is still lacking even in their understanding of the basics of government.

But to go back into the weeds, Obama stated some time ago that he would examine any regulations that would hamper “competition and growth”, but maintain that he would regulate that which would need regulation.

The human capacity for self-deception proves almost infinitely plastic, at least in the political realm.  Bob Scheer is no fool—he’s been around, beginning with the entire Vietnam atrocity—so he has every reason to see things as they are and correspondingly speak the truth.  That’s why it is puzzling to see him immediately drop his sometimes-epiphany about the current Democratic phony in the White House, as soon as there appears any shred to latch onto.  This time, it’s the consumer-protection angle, and this in a conversation based on Obama’s acknowledged fealty to Wall Street. 

Please, Mr. Scheer, stop drinking the kool-aid.  Talk to Chris Hitchens, if you need someone to help you shake your DT’s for the photogenic phoney, Obomber.

Wasn’t Milton Friedman the guy who gave us “trickle-down economics”?

May as well have quoted something from Wikipedia…. would have made as much sense.

Correction: my post to PRGP should have been addressed to ‘surfnow’

Fat Freddy - Friedman aside (which is where I wish he
had been for his entire career) does this make sense. 
The financial services industry has been sitting on
mountains of cash waiting for complete de-regulation
of its industry before putting it to work in the
economy.

What else would explain Obama’s call for less
regulation.  The economy is going to go nowhere when
cash sits stagnating in bank vaults. By sitting on
the money, the Street had us by ‘the short ones.’ 
Obama, like Clinton before him (and the public) had
no defense when the Street delivered its final coup
de grace - de-regulate or ‘die.’

PRGP:
“The only faction that uses violence in Amerika is the Right”
That’s not entirely true since at the beginning, Union organizations promoted violence against the ‘scabs’.

But generally I agree, this side of the pond, the Left is committed to non-violence.

But in Europe and Britain, the Left is typically the faction that goes violent. That’s not surprising since the French Revolution was a peasant revolt.

It’s not so much the violence, but the legitimacy of the circumstances that incite it- one being the serious exploitation of the poor and working class.

PRGP:
The only faction that uses violence in Amerika is the Right. I’m sure that’s one of the reasons why Obama has been such a good little President lackey and won’t rock the boat. I’m sure he doesn’t believe the Warren Commission whitewash anymore than anyone with half a brain.

I’m already a frustrated independent who cringes at the choices offered the electorate every two years.  Following the money leads us to the plutocrats.  The French had the right idea in the late 1700s.  Perhaps that’s the only way the “powerless” can affect change - revolution.

Which is why I can’t believe any true progressive would still be supporting Obama. He escalated an illegal war, supports privatization of the school system and deregulation of not only the financial industry but big oil and pharamacy. How is he any different from Clinton, Bush or Reagan? 
And please don’t answer with that absurd list of accomplishments, like
Obamacare and
The Repeal of DADT

Something to ponder:

The ICC [Interstate Commerce Commission] illustrates what might be called the natural history of government intervention. A real or fancied evil leads to demands to do something about it. A political coalition forms consisting of sincere, high-minded reformers and equally sincere interested parties. The incompatible objectives of the members of the coalition (e.g., low prices to consumers and high prices to producers) are glossed over by fine rhetoric about “the public interest,” “fair competition,” and the like. The coalition succeeds in getting Congress (or a state legislature) to pass a law. The preamble to the law pays lip service to the rhetoric and the body of the law grants power to government officials to “do something.” The high-minded reformers experience a glow of triumph and turn their attention to new causes. The interested parties go to work to make sure that the power is used for their benefit. They generally succeed. Success breeds its problems, which are met by broadening the scope of intervention. Bureaucracy takes its toll so that even the initial special interests no longer benefit. In the end the effects are precisely the opposite of the objectives of the reformers and generally do not even achieve the objectives of the special interests. Yet the activity is so firmly established and so many vested interests are connected with it that repeal of the initial legislation is nearly inconceivable. Instead, new government legislation is called for to cope with the problems produced by the earlier legislation and a new cycle begins.”

- Milton Fiedman

‘The lesser of two evils’ rationale keeps this incompetent two party system going. This is how they play off one another to capture the American public.
What they have in common is more disturbing than what seems to divide them- namely the big corporate liplock under the fake rubric of creating jobs.
Corporations have been serviced by the ruling administration on all fours for decades and there is no evidence that doing so creates jobs. The stimulus was one such felatio - but jobs were not forthcoming. De-regulation is more of the same that got us into the mess. Obama is on record having said so several times. He is a shameless dishonest manipulator.

another member mentioned something in another thread which merits repeating:

WHAT IF all those in states where one registers to vote and signs on to a “party affiliation” were all to revise their voter registrations and say they were “independent”?

Would THAT get their attention?

Mr. Scheer said:
“And you do fall for the lesser evil. And if the Republicans put up some horrendous candidate in the next election, I’ll probably have to support Obama.”

And therein lies the crux of the problem at hand: the resignation and acquiescene of the electorate, voting for the lesser of two evils, and against their own best interests.

For all the reasons you mention in the interview, Obama isn’t much different than Bill Clinton. It seems to me obvious that he’s owned by Goldman-Sachs.
The only “change” we’ve seen has been for the worse, unless you’re a Big Bank, Wall Street, or Big Oil.
A horse of a different color, but it’s the same jockey, the same track, and will end up at the same finish line: more of the same.

The stranglehold of the Democrat/Republican machine ( I see little difference between the two, other than their rhetoric and demagoguery ) must be broken.

Abandon Obama.
Abandon Democrats.
Abandon Republicans.
Vote for Something Else.