Obama is Manipulated Again by Big Business' Siren Song of "Legacy"

[KoKo]

By William K. Black
Bloomington, MN: January 8, 2015

William Black is an American lawyer, academic, author, and a former bank regulator.[1] Black's expertise is in white-collar crime, public finance, regulation, and other topics in law and economics. .

http://neweconomicperspectives.org/2015/01/vanity-vanities-vanity-obamas-vain-search-tpp-legacy.html

Obama is Manipulated Again by Big Business’ Siren Song of a “Legacy”

The search for a “legacy” near the end of a term of office is a well-known Washington disease that Ecclesiastes 2 warned against – vanity. Lobbyists sing the siren song of “legacy” to induce behavior in lame duck leaders that is otherwise inexplicable. Note that the Washington Post, in a purported news story, treats it as if it were fact that betraying his promises and giving business lobbyists and lawyers the ability to secretly draft deals that will make corporate CEOs wealthy at the expense of the American people would be “a legacy-burnishing achievement” for Obama. I still hope we live in a Nation in which Presidents who betray their word and the people of our Nation in the vain pursuit of creating a “legacy” actually produce a legacy of shame. It will help the reader to know that the paper’s leadership pushes relentlessly in favor of the TPP.

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The Travesty Known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership

The third strike is that Obama has decided to ally with the Chamber of Commerce, the perennial ally of the Koch Brothers – the people that have demonized Obama and Democrats for seven years – to get “fast track” authority approved so he can pass one of the plutocrats’ great dreams – the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). Obama has also allied himself with the Business Roundtable, the CEOs of the 100 largest U.S. corporations. The Business Roundtable is also a bitter opponent of Democrats and Obama’s health policies. Obama has shaken off his torpor to energetically lobby the business lobbyists to pressure Democratic members of Congress to support TPP.

The obvious conclusion is that Obama’s paramount goal is to remain BFFs with the banksters. As those who listened to Senator Elizabeth Warren’s famous denunciation of the effort to use the Omnibus bill to begin to gut the Volcker rule will recall, Obama has brought the bankers inside the tent to rig the system against the workers. As she explained, Obama is notorious for placing wealthy Citigroup officials inside the government where they set key government economic policies. One of those wealthy and powerful Citigroup officials is Michael B. Froman, who is also a Robert Rubin protégé. It just gets better and better. Froman is Obama’s top trade negotiator, which helps explain why TPP is such a substantive disgrace that Froman is desperate to prevent the American people from knowing what is about to be done to them.

Froman has deliberately made it impossible for members of Congress to understand TPP’s provisions by not allowing them and their staff to have copies of the documents, which are very long, complex, and full of arcane legalese. The drafts also cannot be fully understood without knowing which corporate lawyers secretly drafted them with the intent of aiding their corporate clients by disadvantaging competitors and workers.

At this juncture, if you’re not already familiar with TPP you should be asking yourself, “if the draft agreement is so secret that members of Congress are not permitted to have copies of it, how did the corporations and their attorneys not only get copies of the drafts, but actually craft the drafts for the private benefit of their clients?” You also should be appalled. Obama and Froman’s TPP is being designed and handled in a fashion that reads like the playbook was designed by someone who was trying to take all the worst aspects of crony capitalism and use them to loot the public for the benefit of the world’s most rapacious and politically powerful plutocrats. Obama and Froman aren’t dumb, they know that their natural allies on TPP are the Chamber of Commerce, big pharma, and the Business Roundtable who are salivating at the prospects of what their lawyers secretly drafted becoming law.

To compound the disaster, Obama and Froman are demanding that Congress adopt TPP under “fast track” procedures in which no amendments to delete or rectify even the worst abuses emerging from the plutocrats’ plundering of America via the secret (from the public) drafting process are permitted. The members of Congress would be allowed only a single up or down vote on the entire package with minimal time for consideration and debate. When Warren aptly describes the system as being rigged against ordinary Americans she is talking about scandals like the TPP.

The whole article is a good read:

http://neweconomicperspectives.org/2015/01/vanity-vanities-vanity-obamas-vain-search-tpp-legacy.html

[djean111]

1. That "legacy" thing is total bullshit. But to a lot of people, it is way the fuck more important

than the 99%. WAY more important.
The TTP - and TTIP - are toxic to everyone but the Investor State. Obama knows that. Heh, no matter what he says, he acts like he believes wholeheartedly in trickle down.

[ChosenUnWisely]

2. He signs the TPP it will be a stab in the back to the 99% and finally once and for all prove

who he really represents.

The BOG will be delighted if he signs it.

[SamKnause]

3. President Obama

is not being manipulated.

He knows exactly what he is doing.

He is doing the bidding of the wealthy. ( His appointments, his and Jamie Dimons push for the Cromnibus Bill, the 3 Free Trade agreements he has already signed with Panama, South Korea and Colombia, offering up Social Security for CPI, and the lack of Wall Street thieves being jailed prove this)

The wealthy are gathered in Davos Switzerland. (Jamie Dimon is there)

They cover each other's asses.

The interest of the United States does not equate to the interest of the people !!!!!

It means the interests of the wealthy.

Until people realize they are being lied to, nothing will change, NOTHING !!!!

The wealthy have no need for billions of us.

They want us to disappear.

They are tired of hearing about the poor, the disabled, the homeless, the hungry, the unemployed, the underemployed, and the middle class.

They want two classes;

1) The wealthy who control everything.

2) The slaves who do their physical labor.

[KoKo]

4. Whether it is Obama or the MIC.....this is what we are dealing with..

How do we Fix It and that goes back to the "Power of the People."

At this point they are just watching Movies on Amazon or Netflix to drown out what's going on... But, Eventually.....the Awakening?

I'm optimistic..But, then..there's always the "DARK SIDE RULES" part of things.

You Nailed it in your post for Talking Points......and Thanks!

[sendero]

5. Exactly.....

.. and why? So he can be like the Clintons, leave the white house with modest assets and be a multi-multi-millionaire a decade from now.

[pampango]

7. Interesting theory that Obama's lifelong goal is to sell us out to become a multi-millionaire.

Maybe the tea party folks are right about him being a power-hungry politician who just wants to get rich at our expense.

[sendero]

10. Name another possible reason..

.... to give the banksters almost everything they want. It certainly isn't for rank and file Americans, that much is for sure.

So why DOES some one talk all progressive (he's at it again now that he has absolutely no power to effect his proposals, it's a cruel joke) and then govern like a Republican?

"It's the money" is the only plausible answer I can thing of, tell me your guess.

[daredtowork]

6. Obama should be making community colleges his legacy.

Ending the middle class is a horseman of the apocalypse, not a legacy.

[BrotherIvan]

8. Dance with them that brought you

[glasshouses]

9. Obama has never been manipulated as president

This is who he is

He manipulated us by telling us what we wanted to hear.

He's a sharp guy I'll give him that, it's not easy to fool your base twice.