{"id":6226,"date":"2011-10-29T00:03:23","date_gmt":"2011-10-29T07:03:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2011\/10\/29\/how-europe-handled-the-financial-crisis\/"},"modified":"2011-10-29T00:03:23","modified_gmt":"2011-10-29T07:03:23","slug":"how-europe-handled-the-financial-crisis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2011\/10\/29\/how-europe-handled-the-financial-crisis\/","title":{"rendered":"How Europe Handled the Financial Crisis"},"content":{"rendered":"

Here is the US, our efforts at handling our financial crisis.  We have made whole the people, whose criminal greed imposed the crisis upon us, given the political party most responsible for enabling it tremendous gains in the last election, and done virtually nothing for the millions if Main Street Americans harmed as a result.  Kudos to the EU for finding a better way, at least in one aspect, as this article by William Greider demonstrates.<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\"29EuroDebt\"At the midnight hour, when financial-market wise guys were predicting disaster, Europe\u2019s political leaders proved to be stronger and braver than America\u2019s<\/strong>. The big nations of the EU worked out a deal to resolve their financial crisis that does what US politicians, including the president, lack the nerve to pursue. The Europeans are whacking the bankers big-time<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Yes, the sovereign governments of Europe have to put up more billions to rescue debt-soaked smaller nations like Greece. But the bankers who lent all that money will be compelled to share in the pain\u2014a 50 percent write-down on the sovereign-nation bonds they are holding<\/strong>. Ouch.<\/p>\n

This may be the beginning of wisdom\u2014forgiving debts that in any case will never be repaid. That giant step should give Europe a clean start for economic recovery. It\u2019s a much smarter alternative than imposing perpetual austerity on people who are already broke<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

American politicians are not there yet, not even close. Republicans are manning the barricades to defend the bankers on everything, even the most modest reform measures. The Obama administration is tinkering around the edges with small-bore adjustments that won\u2019t accomplish much.<\/p>\n

Rhetoric notwithstanding, Obama is still shielding the largest banks\u2014the Wall Street Six\u2014from the consequences of their own recklessness. The biggest US banks are still holding a lot of debt paper, especially mortgage-backed securities, that has effectively failed but is still booked as okay assets. Federal regulators could pull the plug on these illusions and force an honest accounting but are afraid to hurt big guys who are already fragile. Until debt reduction is undertaken in a major way, especially for home mortgages, American recovery is going to be an on-and-off-again a<\/strong>ffair. (See my article, \u201cIt’s Time for Debt Forgiveness, American-Style<\/a>,\u201d in this week’s issue of The Nation.)\u2026 [emphasis added<\/em>]<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Inserted from <The Nation<\/a>><\/p>\n

I readily admit that I\u2019m basing the following statement on back channel buzz, so it is speculation that I cannot definitively support.  I understand that, shortly after Obama\u2019s election, the Clintons took Obama under their wing.  If I am correct, that explains why Obama replaced the progressive economic team that helped him win the election with advisers from the Clinton camp, the worst of which is Timmy the Tool Geithner.  I believe that they convinced Obama that he could  give the banks a haircut without causing their collapse.  He needs to realize that Too Big To Fail is Too Big to Exist.  An excellent step would be to fire his economic team and bring in Robert Reich and Paul Krugman.<\/font><\/p>\n

To make matters worse, Banksters are trying to move toxic derivatives into FDIC insured accounts<\/a> to stick it to taxpayers again.  That MUST be stopped.<\/font><\/p>\n

Another necessary step is to reinstate Glass-Steagall, something Democrats passed in the House and attempted in the Senate, but were blocked by Republican filibuster.<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here is the US, our efforts at handling our financial crisis.  We have made whole the people, whose criminal greed imposed the crisis upon us, given the political party most responsible for enabling it tremendous gains in the last election, and done virtually nothing for the millions if Main Street Americans harmed as a result.  […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6226","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","category-5-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6226","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6226"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6226\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6226"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6226"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6226"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}