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Obama and the Derivative Merchants
Obama and the Derivative Merchants
Top Contributors to Obama's campaign
Goldman Sachs $739,521
UBS AG $419,550
Lehman Brothers $391,774
Citigroup Inc $492,548
Morgan Stanley $341,380
Latham & Watkins $328,879
Google Inc $487,355
JPMorgan Chase & Co $475,112
Sidley Austin LLP $370,916
Skadden, Arps et al $360,409
Wednesday, 15 October 2008
by BAR executive editor Glen Ford "...in many respects, working with [Barack
Obama] will be very much like working with President Clinton.... I
think he will be just fine." - Top Obama adviser Robert Rubin,
former Clinton Treasury Secretary and Goldman Sachs chair, currently an
executive with Citigroup, August 28, 2008.
The "progressive" Barack Obama that many supporters
imagine is itching to break free once his corporate host's body is
securely in the White House, remains dormant. Not even the groans of
finance capital's collapse can waken him - a strong indication that no
such progressive inner Obama exists.
Certainly the progressive Obama was nowhere to be
found when the candidate endorsed the $700-plus billion "cash for
trash" Wall Street bailout. So eager was Obama to "save" the bankers,
he forgot which party he was supposed to belong to and offered to allow
Bush Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson to keep his job in an Obama
administration. Although the offer was coached in terms of facilitating
a smooth "transition" from one regime to another, it is yet another
telling indication that, in January, the baton will essentially be
passed from one finance capital team wearing red shorts to another
finance capital team in blue.
"Obama performed the bailout functions expected of him by his biggest financial backers: Wall Street."
Goldman Sachs doesn't much care which of the big
business parties wins, so long as the rich remain in power. Paulson is
a former CEO of Goldman Sachs, as is Obama's top economic advisor,
Robert Rubin, who served as Bill Clinton's Secretary of Treasury.
Corporate politics is nothing if not incestuous. When Rubin says that
working with a President Obama "will be very much like working with
President Clinton," he means that the elected players are eminently
replaceable, while corporate guys are permanent. Obama "will be just
fine" as a front for finance capital's continued rule.
When the crunch came in September, Obama performed
the bailout functions expected of him by his biggest financial backers:
Wall Street. After the first attempted heist was thwarted when an
outraged citizenry laid electronic siege to the U.S. Capitol, Obama
smothered the holdouts with promises to make things right once in the
Oval Office. All but eight members of the Congressional Black Caucus
(CBC) sent up the white flag. This was not unexpected, since the CBC as
a body had ceased to play a progressive role years ago - neutered by
corporate influence. It is sadly poetic that the final collapse of the
Black Caucus occurred under the ministrations of history's most
successful Black corporate politician, Barack Obama - a player so
masterful he was able to enlist, silence or co-opt virtually all of
Black "leadership" before one primary vote was cast.
Now Obama picks up an imaginary sword to fight a
phony battle on behalf of the victims of his investment banker friends'
crimes. With his lead widening in the polls, Obama offers a 90-day
reprieve on foreclosures to those homeowners who were working with
lenders that are part of the bailout deal. Homeowners would also have
to show that they were making an effort to pay their mortgages. But at
the end of the 90 days the family would still be out of luck if there
was no agreement on terms with the lender.
"Obama still can't venture any farther left than his corporate leash allows."
Earlier this year, Obama rejected moratoriums on foreclosures and a freeze on rates, measures supported by his
primary opponents John Edwards and Hillary Clinton (Obama called
Clinton's rate freeze "disastrous"). Nearly two million
foreclosures and evictions later, after facilitating a trillion-dollar
corporate raid on the public treasury, and caught in a bidding war with
McCain on spending what remains, Obama still can't venture any farther
left than his corporate leash allows. Obama derides McCain's proposal
to spend up to $300 billion buying up homeowners' mortgages at face
value and repackaging them at terms consistent with current home
values, calling it too expensive and a boon to lenders (the latter part
is certainly true). But he championed the original $700 billion "cash
for trash" scheme that was designed as a pure bailout for speculators -
his investment banker friends - and would save not a single family from
losing its home.
How bizarre it is to observe Obama playing the
people's crusader in the morning and colluding with his top economic
advisers, Robert Rubin and Lawrence Summers, in the afternoon. In
February 1999, Rubin and Summers flanked Fed Chief Alan Greenspan on
the cover of Time magazine, heralded as, "The Committee to Save the World."
Summers was then Secretary of the Treasury for Bill Clinton, having
succeeded his mentor, Rubin, in that office. Together with Greenspan,
the trio had in the previous year labored successfully to safeguard
"derivatives," the exotic "ticking time bomb" financial
instruments, from federal regulation. Less than a decade later,
unregulated derivatives would expand - like the Mother of All Bubbles -
to notional values 10 to 15 times greater than the world's total
economic output. The global order would be brought to its knees, in a
financial conflagration that has just begun to show its full dimensions
and destructive potential. (See New York Times, October 9, "Taking Hard New Look at a Greenspan Legacy,")
So you might want to thank Obama's main men on the economy, Rubin and Summers, for the current crisis. Be assured that this crew will deliver another catastrophe from their positions of influence, if Obama is elected.
"Thank Obama's main men on the economy, Rubin and Summers, for the current crisis."
The November 4 election will change nothing in
the configurations of power in the United States. It is Barack Obama's
mission to ensure that the political transition effects no substantive
alteration of power relationships, but rather, provides a new (Black)
face for the old, fast-failing system. To the extent that
self-identified progressives attempt to ignore or obscure the facts of
Obama's very public allegiance to finance capital, they objectively
weaken the people's ability to resist - or even recognize - the
overarching menace of continued corporate rule.
It is absurd to claim that a progressive "movement"
with a potential for profound social change can coalesce behind a
candidate who repeatedly and reflexively aligns with the worst
corporate malefactors on the planet, the very same individuals who brought about the current catastrophe. The great damage that has
been done to African American political coherence, may never be
repaired. At this crucial juncture in human history, the Black Sampson
plants himself firmly among the wobbly pillars of the rich man's
crumbling edifice - to prop it up!
Obama can no more succeed than John McCain in
resolving the contradictions of capital by feeding the beast the last
remnants of the national wealth. But his "progressive" apologists, by
papering over the "real" Obama in favor of the wishful one that only
exists in their fantasies, politically disarm the people, and make the
inevitable task of organizing against an Obama presidency vastly more difficult.
BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it .
To know what is right and not to do it is the worst cowardice.
Confucius
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