Letters to the Editor
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a cogent analysis
"To which one could respond -- back in 1980, Ronald Reagan announced a series of broad, vague principles, and then proceeded to drastically change the direction of American politics and economics. If we take both Clinton and Obama at their word, we have Clinton promising a boatload of quick fixes, and Obama promising a profound change of course. What unites them, in opposition to McCain, is that both understand that the U.S. is facing a real problem."
Thank you, Mr. Leonard, for a truly penetrating and fair-minded analysis.
I think you hit upon the fundamental differences between Obama and Clinton.
The "gift basket" metaphor is apt.
Thanks for a lucid and concise analysis.
It's refreshing.
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his timing could have been better if it was last week when
hillary clinton and barney frank made their proposals.
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Mortgage rate freeze
HRC's proposed mortgage rate freeze isn't just "politically unrealistic"; it's also economically unrealistic. The Economist these proposed rate freezes to the price controls Nixon tried in the 1970s. There's no reason to think they'd work any better now than they did then.
I hope this is just political pandering on HRC's part. As policy, it's terrible. Frankly, even as politicking, it's a bad idea: the Republican congresspeople would vehemently oppose it, as would sensible Democrats--meaning that it would create a fissure in the party when we need unity and sensible policy more than ever.
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solid unbiased analysis
That was a nice bit of analysis, Andrew. Salon has been getting a lot of flak lately by letter writers who (justifiably) see a Clinton bias disguised as neutrality. This post is a good example of how to actually write a balanced article.
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Hillary was against Gramm-Leach-Bliley.
At least, I'm sure that will be her story. The rule of thumb is "anything that turned out bad--she was against it; anything that turned out good--she did it, single-handedly, and while dodging sniper fire."
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Obama's policies are better precisely because they are vague.
When you look at HRC's concrete plans they are plainly ridiculous and would be disastrous if implemeneted.
By next year the landscape will look a lot different anyway, for better or worse, and any current specific plans will have been rendered irrelevant by new circumstances and a new crisis of the day.
Seemingly slight adjustments to overall policies that benefit poor people over the long haul will almost always be more plausible and effective than sudden jolting interventions by the Govermnment like rewriting millions of contracts worth billions of dollars overnight (rate freeze plan).
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My $0.02
Obama doesn't have a fix for the subprime mess, but neither does anybody else. It's a horrible mess that took years to make, and anyone who says they have a magic bullet is probably an idiot or a liar. At least Obama identifies probable causes and suggests long-term structural fixes.
I'll grant McCain a shred of integrity for not trying to tell us that less taxes for the wealthy and less regulation will fix everything. Maybe he's even smart enough to realize that the policies that got us here probably won't get us out.
Hillary is just trying the usual campaign trick of making promises based solely on their likely appeal to voters, without any regard to whether or not they could actually be delivered.
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Yes, yes, and yes.
As a securities fraud litigator (plaintiffs' bar), I've been waiting for any one of these candidates to seriously address the question of market regulation. I confess, even as an Obama supporter, that I had little expectation that I would be as impressed as I am (expecting something more along the lines of the Hillary handouts with no fundamental change). When Wall St. analysts themselves throw their hands up in the air and declare that they have no means by which to effectively evaluate and rate certain derivitive instruments such as, for example, the dreaded collateralized debt obligations, we all need to ask why does this fundamental lack of transparency remain and why are our legislators and regulators so far behind the curve? It's a damn shame that neither Bernanke or Paulson acted on Obama's recommendations of March-2007 to head off the housing crisis (and the corresponding CDO-related implosions), but sadly it too often takes a crisis of the present proportions to force *any* action. This will take presidential leadership. And more, mind you, but leadership on these issues is sorely lacking today.
(Credit, however, to Barney Frank, one of a small number of legislators who has provided no small degree of leadership on these issues.)
Bravo, Obama. The only serious candidate in this race. Full text here: http://my.barackobama.com/page/community/post/samgrahamfelsen/gGBNsq
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Hillary Clinton's complicity with the '90s Republican agenda
One fact that should be obvious - but is not plainly stated in this article - is that HRC's own husband was the president who signed the repeal of Glass-Steagal into law.
It's an indication of the cynicism of the Clinton campaign that she could even pretend to be for any current reform proposals when she was part of the administration that helped Republicans dismantle components of the New Deal financial regulatory system in the '90s. Perhaps this is the vaunted "experience" she's always laying claim to.
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Cue corporatist panic attacks
"Our free market was never meant to be a free license to take whatever you can get, however you can get it," said Obama.
It's unfortunate -- though understandable, I suppose -- that Obama referred to "our free market". We don't have a free market and most people wouldn't want an actual, real-life free market ... and most of the people who are most fervent about the lip-service they pay to the term would probably starve if they had to live in one.
He's right, though, that there does need to be fundamental, long-term change. This shows a better understanding of the current situation than Hillary's band-aids and McCain's unwillingness to risk alienating the true base of the current Republican Party.
And if Obama did immediately head to meet with folks from Credit-Suisse, one has to decide whether he was being disingenuous in the speech -- or brave enough to say those things before going to talk to people who might not have liked hearing them. Now, it's fairly clear what Clinton supporters will decide about that. But it's worth noting that -- unlike Clinton or McCain -- Obama at least said the right things.
I figure someone who at least says the right thing is one step better than someone who doesn't even do that.