Former IMF ECONOMIST: Unless US breaks up financial oligarchy crisis could be worse than Great D

[mod mom]

THIS WAS A REALY GOOD PROGRAM FROM FRESH AIR YESTERDAY. THIS MIT PROFESSOR/FORMER IMF CHIEF ECONOMIST SAYS WE ARE WITNESSING A SHOWDOWN BETWEEN THE BANKING ELITE AND THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION. HE IS HOPING THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION DOESN'T CAVE IN TO THEM. WORTH LISTENING TO!


Fighting America's 'Financial Oligarchy'

Listen Now <44 min 39 sec>
At a press conference in July 2008, Simon Johnson and members of the IMF predicted a global recession. IMF / Getty Images


Fresh Air from WHYY, April 15, 2009 · Former International Monetary Fund chief economist Simon Johnson has advised many countries in financial crisis. When it comes to America's current economic woes, Johnson says that U.S. suffers from "financial oligarchies" — government officials and elite members of the financial sector that run the country like a profit-seeking company.

In his article "The Quiet Coup" in the May issue of The Atlantic Monthly, Johnson explains that the close connections between government officials and financial leaders are a major part of the U.S.'s economic problems:

"We face at least two major, interrelated problems," Johnson writes. "The first is a desperately ill banking sector that threatens to choke off any incipient recovery that the fiscal stimulus might generate. The second is a political balance of power that gives the financial sector a veto over public policy, even as that sector loses popular support."

Johnson insists the U.S. must temporarily nationalize banks so the government can "wipe out bank shareholders, replace failed management, clean up the balance sheets, and then sell the banks back to the private sector." But, Johnson adds, the U.S. government is unlikely to take these steps while the financial oligarchy is still in place.

Unless the U.S. breaks up its financial oligarchy, Johnson warns that America could face a crisis that "could, in fact, be worse than the Great Depression — because the world is now so much more interconnected and because the banking sector is now so big."

-snip

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=103122382

[dkofos]

1. I expect them to cave.

[girl gone mad]

5. They already have caved, for the most part.

I think Johnson is way too optimistic. When Geithner recently went in front of congress to ask for more authority, Johnson seemed convinced that Geithner was seeking these powers as a precursor to nationalization, despite mountains of evidence to the contrary.

[MannyGoldstein]

2. He Is A PUMA Socialist

Everyone knows that the IMF is to the left of ACORN.

:sarcasm:

[xchrom]

3. recommend -- and noam chomsky just recently talking about the

similarities between the two parties.

um -- maybe because the oligarchs run things -- all within degrees, of course -- between the two parties.

[followthemoney]

7. The oligarchs are happy to have the little folks fighting...

against each other on cultural issues.

When people are fighting left and right on cultural issues they are not fighting up and down on the economic issues that will cost them when they lose.

Do you doubt the oligarchy could organize a fight that cost them nothing? The U.S. backed both Iran and Iraq in their long mutually devastating war. It is a piece of cake for the party oligarchs to keep the two parties in a clinch while picking their pockets.

[The Wielding Truth]

4. Corporate hierarchy pushes it's propaganda on Fox and controls

national opinion. Oh, democracy needs to fight for accountable news.Fact checks and anti-trust laws.

[mod mom]

6. Not just FOX. Think of the coverage of antiwar protests (zilch) versus the tea bagging

events.

[The Wielding Truth]

8. That is so true, and it's just expected that our voices of common

sense will be ignored.It has happened so many times over the last 8 years, that it is no news to us that hundreds of thousands and near millions marching in Washington and NY and Florida and California are minimized. Yet the right wing fools get out in tens and hundreds, and it's as if the world is on fire.
BS propaganda machine at work. The threats to bring down our democracy are at work in the right wing media, and they are a domestic threat to our democratic government.

[arcadian]

10. Yup, they wrap themselves in patriotism, just like they have always done.

The Teabaggers are presenting themselves as fighting for the "real American ideal" when in fact they are just shills for corporate whoredom.

[bridgit]

9. Would rec if I could = Agreed! End - Economic Apartheid in America!

http://www.commondreams.org/views05/1121-21.htm :kick: