Self Righteous Progressives STFU: Stop Whining about Obama & Tester… er… no wait…
By CFS
In all this ongoing back and forth between the liberal/progressive/Democrat blogs of Montana (the Great Flame War of 2011) one point that is yet to be made is the differing approach that the two parties seem to deal with internal dissent. One party gives the impression of eagerly embracing the mutiny… while the other is trying to quickly stomp out the fire before it can spread.
What started as a grassroots movement from outside the ramparts of a party historically known for it’s discipline in pulling it’s member into line on issues; the Tea People’s anger, enthusiasm, and naivety was quickly capitalized upon by the Republican establishment and old guard power base. Organizations that, at first ad-hoc groups meeting at coffee shops bitching about how the Republicans had betrayed their ideals, were quickly provided with organizational support, funds, and training from long-time Republican political operatives. Nation-wide organizations were built by the likes of Dick Army and elected Republicans such as Michele Bachmann embraced the mass of angry white people produced by a steady diet of Fox News.
Now that the Tea People are well ensconced in the warm and loving embrace of the GOP guess what happens whenever the Tea People get all uppity? Thats right… Boehner quickly folds and make overtures to please his new far right base.
Contrast this with the current approach that the mainline Democrats seem to want to take when dealing the more progressive/liberal/whatever side of the party…
This attitude comes straight from the top as Obama and his press secretary have said more than once that they are tired of the criticism coming from the left. Other Democrats have used this type of language, calling liberals “extremists.”
The same attitude has been on display recently on various Montana progressive blogs. Pogie actually did a great job of getting to the issue and fostering a discussion around the role of dissension within a political party in shaping policy and strategy. Others however have been eager to follow the STFU guidelines. From LITW:
Here’s the dealio. Democrats still have value. I like Jon Tester, even more for taking action on wolf control dictated by the judiciary. Don’t like that? Tough shit. Leave. I like Barrack Obama. I think he called out the Republicans and has played them very well. Don’t like that? Tough shit. Leave. Seriously. You don’t like Democrats? Leave, assholes.
The problem with the STFU/your-either-with-us-or-against-us type attitude is that people really do leave. People will choose to vote for third party candidate like Nader when they get frustrated enough which then gives us 8 years of THE ADVENTURES OF BUSHIT AND TURD BLOSSOM .
If a party doesn’t listen to internal dissent and respond to the criticism by addressing people’s grievances then people leave. The Republicants were electorally successful in the last cycle specifically because they embraced the crazy hidden within themselves and physically manifested as the Tea People.
Do we really want to put this at the entrance to the Democratic party?
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April 23, 2011 at 1:03 pm
Nice, CFS! You point right to the heart of why the dem party is showing decline in membership, and there is a rising faction of lefty independents beginning to rattle their cage. And this helps to explain why Dem Party ID dropped to 31% last year–the lowest in the last 22 years.
Oh, and a pleasure to have made your acquaintance last night (and that goes for the rest of you BB’ers, too)!
April 23, 2011 at 6:32 pm
It was fun and long over due meeting up with everyone from 4&20… i think it inspired me to be a bit more active.
April 23, 2011 at 7:51 pm
Nice meeting with y’all last night. Couldn’t hear a darn thing after the music started, though. Let’s do it again. Preferably sometime before 2 mil visits.
April 23, 2011 at 1:17 pm
the democratic party leadership have been so fearful of how the right views democrats that the republicans have backed them into a corner of “look moderate or else.”
the democratic party leadership has been so intent for so long on pleasing conservatives that now they are beginning to exhibit all the psychological markers of battered spouse syndrome…… instead of driving the agenda by boldly pushing for reform on such things as health care, they retreat and people who once relied on the democratic party to protect them now have effectively no party.
i am not sure that the democratic party leadership has enough courage to ever regain it’s first and most important duty- to protect the working class and those less fortunate from the oppression and predation by the wealthy and powerful. their cringing cowardice has allowed the conservative right to flank them by actually recruiting the workers, seniors and the poor into their ranks by lying to them. but it should be noted that cowardice on the part of democratic leadership has aided this phenomenal recruitment of less fortunate to help the rich take even more from those who have less and less.
April 23, 2011 at 5:04 pm
It is incorrect to ascribe randomness to events that are not at all random. The Tea Party hasn’t had a gathering of any size that hasn’t draw cameras. Without media support they’d fizzle. Progressives have had larger gatherings and protests and prominent arrests like Ellsberg and Hedges, and no note is taken. The function of the media appears to be to direct our attention rather than to cover events of significance. A progressive protest on Wall Street drew thousands of protesters, and no note of it was taken, even in New York. But six TP types will draw coverage.
Democratic treatment of progressives is no accident. Party leadership is corporate, and doesn’t really care that the party succeeds, since it is not a vehicle of any importance other than to thwart the left. I cannot say with certainty that it hasn’t always been so – Hedges says that the “liberals” have always been on the side of mainstream institutional power, but now and then served as a conscience of sorts. Not sure I buy that. Even so, with the “new” Democrats, Clinton forward, the “conscience” function is gone, and the “ratchet” function is in place. Republicans push us to the right, and Democrats prevent backsliding.
If that is the case, then it makes perfect sense that the Democrats would piss on progressives, and only hope we are so dumb as to continue to play eh good-cop bad-cop game. Rand and file Democrats get furious at us, but that is politics for its own sake, winning being more important than advancing philosophical ideals. That’s bankrupt.
So if you look at the two-party structure as different heads of the same beast, then you will see that the treatment of the Tea Party on one side, and progressives on the other, is quite consistent.
April 26, 2011 at 11:01 am
“Too nuanced for a blog post that you little sand castle barons will delete anyway. Check out my blog, where I posted today.”
How about a link since I have no idea what blog you write for
April 26, 2011 at 11:24 am
Hanky P writes over at http://pieceofmind.wordpress.com/
He’s been our resident Anonymouser for a while
Fwiw Mark, I can’t get logged in here either today in Safari, and all my comments are ending up in spam too, just like your other attempts to post a link. Weird. Don’t take it personally.
April 26, 2011 at 11:38 am
I didn’t realize Hanky Poo was Mark.
Mark… you are always welcome on one of my posts. I’ve never deleted anything from a post of mine.
April 23, 2011 at 5:11 pm
It’s not about courage. Leadership is conservative. They have no desire to represent working people. That’s been the trend since the late 1970s. Liberals like to start the rightward trend of the nation when Reagan came in, but Carter started deregulation. Raising the amount that banks could charge for interest happened in 1979. Carter appointed Paul Volcker who then dramatically raised the Fed prime interest. Tip O’Neill made the deal with Reagan to double our working people’s payroll taxes.
Glenn Greenwald says it best. http://www.alternet.org/news/150642/glenn_greenwald%3A_why_do_we_assume_obama%27s_actually_trying_to_enact_a_progressive_agenda?page=1
April 23, 2011 at 7:24 pm
FCOF, great article.
It certainly makes sense. And it makes sense in terms of the health care bill.
April 23, 2011 at 5:17 pm
You make a pretty huge mistake there, CFS.
I’m not the party.
April 23, 2011 at 5:18 pm
But on the other hand, I like the graphic. Mind if I use it sometime?
April 23, 2011 at 6:12 pm
I never said you were the party… But it would seem that you share the same attitude. What it sounds like to me based on the paragraph that I quoted is that if someone doesn’t agree with you they are not welcome at LITW. Please correct me if I’m wrong…
I’m assuming your talking about the hipies graphic… you can use it on one condition… it has to be the banner to the main page.
April 23, 2011 at 6:58 pm
Sharing the same attitude? There’s more than just a big problem with that. How ’bout if I said this website shares an anti-government attitude with the radical right eliminationists? I could make a very good argument that it does, even using this post as an example. I won’t, out of respect for jhwygirl, but you really should think before you type.
You should also learn to read. The paragraph you quoted was an invite to leave LitW if you simply must be an asshole about Democrats. Here’s the funny thing, CFS. The liberal thinks their opinion must be respected at all places, in all ways. My declaration was very simple. If you wish to attack the website, or me or use the website as a platform to attack Democrats, then move on. That doesn’t mean you have to agree. Do learn to think. What it does mean is that no one owes you a megaphone to be ignorant or disrespectful. Would you think different here? Would you like me to remind you of the number of times Lizard, or JC or yourself have invited those disagreeable to ‘push off’? Are you being hypocritical? Actually you are. Heheh.
No, I was talking about the Sparta graphic. I’ll just make one of my own, thanks.
April 23, 2011 at 7:07 pm
I can’t recall ever telling someone they aren’t welcome here or deleted a comment… though I probably have told someone to fuck off. Your welcome to prove me wrong though… in which case I will freely admit I was wrong.
and yes you can use that graphic… half the fun of writing this post was pulling together the graphics.
April 23, 2011 at 7:30 pm
I told no one they weren’t welcome at LitW either. Your presentation is somewhat different from the truth.
April 23, 2011 at 7:54 pm
Nor did I accuse you of any such thing. But now that you bring it up…
Regarding Mathew Koehler, “God knows I’ve done as much as I can to get you to leave.”
maybe your not explicitly, but it sure sounds like your trying to make someone leave LITW.
April 24, 2011 at 9:13 am
Koehler actually said in email that Matt and I were causing him to leave Left in the West. I’d post the email, but I don’t do that. That’s Koehler’s shtick. Given that, and the fact that he still commented afterwards, don’t you think I was being a touch sarcastic?
April 23, 2011 at 8:06 pm
bears have no manners and really don’t care if we are welcome, so it is a moot point for me. if i have something to say i will say it, regardless of engraved invite or what site i feel the need to participate.
of course, the owner of the site is free to do what they will with it. i don’t have a problem with that. if certain views are demanded to be given allegiance before participation can be allowed then the site will simply stagnify like a pond with no outlet, at which point, i and many others who disagree with the stench will simply move on.
funny thing about water and truth; the more you try to dam it up, the more it seeks a way around the obstacle.
April 23, 2011 at 8:31 pm
PB, did the Pope rescind Rob’s dispensation?
to paraphrase Bob Dylan off his Infidels album;
“There a woman, on my blog,
She types long into the night so still
Saying, who’s going to take away his license to smell?”
April 23, 2011 at 9:35 pm
steve w. – please speak plainly. your comment is too riddlesome for bears
April 23, 2011 at 7:59 pm
Rob… I never realized the potential of that graphic. Every time you ban someone or delete a comment… you can throw that graphic up.
Example: Rob kicks “a” Mathew Koehler out of the site…
April 23, 2011 at 5:46 pm
You are always welcome to vote third party… just don’t whine when the Democrat loses to the Republican (and the ensuing insanity shown by those self same Republicans when they have a majority).
I am certainly not saying that you shouldn’t hold your representatives to a standard and when they screw over their base for corporate interests, by all means, say “don’t do it again”. But until you can forward a better choice (or run yourself), saying you won’t vote for the guy that sometimes represents you so that the guy that never represents you wins, you have only yourself to blame.
I am going to end up holding my nose again when I vote next year and it will likely be for the more sane of the candidates (in this case, probably Tester for Senate). That said, given the choice between Rehberg and Tester, the choice seems pretty clear. Make no mistake, it will be a tight race, and those that decide to vote for the third party candidate will NOT be hurting Rehberg.
April 23, 2011 at 6:44 pm
The trouble is that it’s a trap that we can never get out of. It’s like ground hog day. Different election nothing changes.
When you think about it it’s really a perversion of the idea of self rule, a perversion of a democratic republic.
Third parties, by tacit agreement of both the Repos and the Dems, have to be spoilers and there is absolutely no electoral political space for anyone unless they are a Democrat or a Republican.
Fusion now!
When Flash gave his presentation on fusion voting to the legislature this year he did it with a guy from the Libertarian party working for fusion also. Fusion voting would be a step in the right direction towards reclaiming our electoral politics
Maybe we need an initiative?
April 24, 2011 at 12:34 pm
“Trap” is exactly right, but there’s more to it than that. Democrats don’t behave differently, they just spin differently than Republicans. Tester is a perfect example – he got done in one term what Burns could not accomplish in three – privatization of Montana’s remaining wildlands. But Democrats either support him in this action, or say “Yeah, well, take the good with the bad.” But from what I can see, with Tester, we got worse than Burns. How’s that for a trap!
April 24, 2011 at 12:56 pm
so far tester has failed to pass the “timber-jobs” bill that he inherited from conrad burns. doesn’t mean he won’t keep trying. the only thing stopping him so far is there is no market for timber right now. if the housing market rebounds to pre-recession levels and timber becomes valuable again, then the reelection of tester is a threat to wildlands for sure. but, then rehberg would be even more of a threat.
the difference here is razor thin but i don’t put it past rehberg to be able to ram it through even if there is no market for the lumber.
many other issues separate jon from denny much more clealy though. rehberg would be disastrous for this state in terms of funding for the poor, women’s rights, senior social security, and virtually any program which helps people instead of big corporations.
April 24, 2011 at 4:08 pm
You’re not seeing it. The presumption is that the two are different on those issues, but the pressure that is put on them is by right wing lobbyists and money. There is no counter-pressure on Tester, and his base continually pledge to vote for him no matter what. So he knows you won’t hold him accountable.
Rehberg, on the other hand, you will pressure, and so he is more likely to vote in your favor when you stand united.
Right wing money and lobbyists always have the upper hand, but you have more influence over Rehberg than Tester.
Mostly it’s lose-lose.
April 24, 2011 at 6:08 pm
Arkm=Mark?
April 24, 2011 at 6:56 pm
mark again ….
Arkm Gniaa
but i don’t mind if cfs doesn’t.
i will take the bait on that one mark…
“Rehberg, on the other hand, you will pressure,…”
curious as to how you posit that any progressives will ever pressure rehberg???
April 26, 2011 at 8:39 am
Check this out:
http://pieceofmind.wordpress.com/2011/04/26/on-the-selfishness-of-not-voting-for-crappy-democrats/
Too nuanced to deal with in a small post that might be deleted anyway.
April 26, 2011 at 8:43 am
Too nuanced for a blog comment that the sand-castle kings will delete anyway. Check out this:
http://pieceofmind.wordpress.com/2011/04/26/on-the-selfishness-of-not-voting-for-crappy-democrats/
April 26, 2011 at 8:44 am
Too nuanced for a blog post that you little sand castle barons will delete anyway. Check out my blog, where I posted today.
April 23, 2011 at 6:51 pm
Hummingbirdminds is in the Blackbird’s blogroll. Check him out then thank a Democrat today: http://hummingbirdminds.blogspot.com/2011/04/tea-party-slim-sovereign-jake-vs.html
April 23, 2011 at 8:22 pm
I’m still trying to get my head around the “anger” and “craziness” that exists in the Tea Party.
Sure you’re not looking in a mirror?
April 23, 2011 at 9:55 pm
Anger and craziness in the Tea Party is projected outwards. Anger and craziness in the Democratic Party is projected inwards. Republicans shush everything up and never air their laundry.
All eat their young.
April 23, 2011 at 10:11 pm
i optimistically believe the young will have the last word in the end, j-girl.
the two party system has proven itself so failure ridden, i don’t believe anyone under 30 will want anything to do with either party in the future.
April 24, 2011 at 1:31 am
Hey now, I do not shush everything up. I air as much of our dirty laundry as possible- in fact, these days, I air far more dirty GOP than lefty laundry.
They’ve tried to eat me, but I’m too fast for them. :)
I’m in the middle of a similar, although far less public, disagreement with a tea party leader. I hope you guys can work this out.
April 24, 2011 at 6:33 am
p-bear,
The young will figure something out, they always do. Fusion will help. But ballot access still looms large in the two-party protection racket. Remove barriers to candidates and who needs parties. Right now an individual candidate in Montana needs over 15,000 signatures and 1,500 bucks for a box “free” voters can check on election day. Make non-party candidacy possible, and young voters will have some of that sequestered power being squandered on old white farts in Helena and D.C. for their dreams too.
April 24, 2011 at 10:10 am
Yeah, I hope so. But they are the target of the neoliberal thrust in the country these days. Brainwshing starts as early as possible, and the shift of government services to private sector ones just ingrains it.
Sometime I think the best we can do is to teach young people to think for themselves and then get out of the way. Of course, there will still be a lot of the patronizing “You should also learn to read” bullshit that is passed off as commentary these days, but it is easy to see that as a sign to ignore everything else a commenter has to say.
April 25, 2011 at 7:49 pm
Gotta get ’em young-like in Jr. High.
April 24, 2011 at 12:45 pm
Rob… I’m starting a new thread because the one above was getting to small.
I honestly never know what angle you take in many of your comments. I know your not a lawyer but you have a way of slithering between what you say and what you mean very expertly.
The mainpoint of this post was to point out that telling people to leave if they don’t like the message is counter productive and you gave me a great example to illustrate my point. You may feel that people complaining about a betrayal of “party” ideals is the more counter productive of the two. Telling those people to shut up and leave is more counter productive because they really do go and vote for a Nader.
The second part of the post was to test your principle of:
and
I took issue with the “Leave, asshole” attitude posted to LITW and specifically did not make it personal. I obviously tweaked your nose a bit though, as it didn’t take you long to forget the
condescension… er… advice you gave the bloggers here @ 4&20 as you said this in response to my criticism:and
If your not willing to listen to people tell you
then what makes you think you can come over here and tell me I should learn how to read and condescend to us with your superior knowledge.
April 24, 2011 at 10:10 pm
Because he’s Wulfgar! Can’t you see how In! Your! Face! He! Is?!
But, CFS, you’re falling into the trap here. Rob wrote his little piece about dissenters against the Royal Sovereign Democratic Party to deliberately get everyone angry and get their attention.
This is what Wulfgar does when he’s mad. He just causes controversy. He feeds on it like some kind of disturbed parasite.
Now, Rob, I know you’re reading this and getting all in a tizzy. I’m not trying to get you in said tizzy. I’m just trying to have a bit of a laugh instead of simply saying this: Stop feeding Wulfgar. Let him do his thing, and ignore him when he’s doing “his thing” just to get someone going.
LitW can be the middle ground. That’s fine. And 4&20 can be the nutty place where conservation meets poetry, and atheism meets vaguely pagan phrases like “goddess.” We’re good at that.
April 25, 2011 at 1:55 am
If you don’t feed a conflict troll, he’ll starve for lack of attention.
April 25, 2011 at 10:48 am
CFS, you are still missing the obvious, even though you are the one who quoted it. Here it is again with the subjects bolded so that you can’t miss:
I’ve never told anyone to “shut up”, no matter how much JC wants to believe that disagreement is someone attacking him. And throughout, I’ve acknowledged something that many here seem to have forgotten. People make their own choices, with there own consequences, and that’s of more value than any “message”. Rather convenient that you’ve assumed what my “message” was and forced the rest of it to fit your assumptions, all the way to assuming what I might think is counterproductive. It would be nice if you would define that, but to you it’s so obvious I’m certain you don’t feel you need to. Let me take a stab at it. You think my ‘goal’ is to get people to vote for Democrats, and my message must be to serve that goal. How ’bout, no. My goal should have been much more plain, except that doesn’t fit the expectations that someone else must have the problem and not the good progressive. My goal: Quit attacking me, and quit attacking the website. If doing either of those is a clear statement of good progressive principles, then leave the website. No one ever wrote anywhere at any time that progressives have a right to mess with LitW, anymore than right wingers have a right to mess around over here.
Counterproductive or not, I believe that everyone has the right to decide for themselves, on pretty much anything. Koehler chose to post a Rehberg attack ad on the website. I’m certain that the progressive reaction should have been chin-stroking while saying, hmm, I see your point, but have you considered …? It wouldn’t have mattered. Your minds made up, just as you’ve made mine up for me; not about the politics, of course, but about me. (See Duganz just below for details.) If you want to take a look at who is stifling dissent, you want to look beyond your bad guys dejour, and check the personal agendas of those around you who mask wanting silent agreement behind ‘good progressive principles’.
That would be called critical thinking. I remember reading somewhere how that’s important …
April 25, 2011 at 11:42 am
Oh come now. You can’t start the “I was just talking about issues” argument now. You weren’t just talking issues. You were attacking people for not being on your side. You called them assholes.
As for stifling dissent, how many of your comments are on this post?
April 25, 2011 at 12:21 pm
That’s the point, Duganz. When I left the post CFS derides here, I wasn’t talking about “the issues”. As indicated above, it’s rather remarkable how folks, especially around here, get to decide when things are about the issues and when they’re about the person, for everybody else even. I think the word I used was convenient.
And if you actually have a baseline for number of responses before someone is ‘trying to shut you up’, then you must be an absolute hoot to have a conversation with. As I’ve argued for literally years now against the right, disagreement is not “stifling dissent”. As much as I love to feign amusement over it, I sure as hell don’t find it funny when that kind of thinking pervades the left.
April 26, 2011 at 12:05 pm
Oh for crissakes.
You know I wans’t saying that. You just twist words. I was pointing out that you’re not being silenced here.
I don’t care if you want to kick people off LitW-your house, your rules. But don’t try to dress that attitude up as anything except what it is: You being tired of hearing the progressives whine, and responding by calling for the dissenters to leave.
Nothing is wrong with that, Rob. Not a damn thing. That’s your right, good sir.
I’m sorry you think people are trying to destroy your site, or you personally. For me, it’s not about that, it’s about your attitude that people like me (critics of Obama and Tester) are going to get Republicans elected. That’s absurd. You know damn well that come Election Day most of us will grit our teeth and vote for the lesser of two evils. You know that because you’ve most likely done that in your many years of democratic participation.
But to call everyone an asshole for their opinion… Can’t do it man. I think that’s unnecessary. You wrote the post with anger, I’m sure, but calm down and actually consider if you think your behavior is helping or hurting the candidates you support.
April 25, 2011 at 12:38 pm
That quoted comment comes from a post titled “This is Left in The West.” You made the post a statement of the site’s guiding principles in essence, defining where LiTW is coming from. A post in which you clearly state that the “message” of LiTW is to express the “views of dry land democrats.” So no, I am not confused with your “message.”
The post very clearly states the site’s view toward as you call them, “the self-important” “real left.” If you tell someone to “leave, asshole” you are telling them that their point of view is not welcome within the confines the of LiTW forum. You are silencing there voice by telling them to stop participating if they don’t want to follow more closely your view of what a “dry land democrat” ought to be. That is your choice as the administrator of the site. Th
“I am not going to spend the next year and a half being told how wrong-headed I am because I question the opposition to Democratic candidates coming from the left”
That pretty much sums up the fact that you feel debating with the “real left” about what it is to be a Democrat is is not worth your time and you have more productive things to do.
April 25, 2011 at 1:04 pm
My last comment stands directly against that view, but you’ve made up your mind, as I indicated that you had. I actually wasted time in my life to write half a rebuttal, but it really isn’t worth it. I’ve already rebutted every one of your so called points. You’ve made up your mind, and mine as well. So, there it is. You win.
April 24, 2011 at 10:42 pm
i really don’t mind arguments as long as something new is learned by both parties. i have fought wulfgar to a draw on many occasions. i don’t take it personally though. i figure it is a way to let out steam and frustration once in awhile. but that is just me. i grew up in a screaming, furniture throwing catholic household (no actual physical violence however) so i guess it is part of my nature to wade in with claws beared.
that being said, i must admit it is less fun than it used to be. maybe age is catching up with me and wisdom is overtaking my inner warrior instincts and teaching me to listen and not react too quickly or in many cases not at all when others lose their cool and get personal. william kittredge wrote a wonderful paragraph once and i haven’t been able to find it since – basically it involved poor people who fight each other because they are too chicken to actually fight with the bankers in this town who own the notes that might put them out into the streets. (if anyone can find that quote – i believe it was from owning it all – please put it up here because it describes beautifully how the wealthy and the powerful depend on our mutual cowardice to avoid conflict with us while we eliminate the threat we pose to them by pummeling ourselves to pieces.
often we blow at each other over issues we feel strongly about when we really need to blow at the politicians. but politicians and their handlers have become expert at preventing any real dialogue from happening with their constituents, so we take the easy route.
those in power and their sycophants who fail to do the right thing for the greater good of their constituents, should be the target. not fellow bloggers.
April 25, 2011 at 8:07 am
I’m suggesting Tester understands the economy and is doing what he thinks needs to do to prevent a decade long depression. Last summer was not the summer of recovery.
I’d like to get some Progressive thoughts on these numbers:
http://banktracker.investigativereportingworkshop.org/banks/montana/missoula/
April 25, 2011 at 10:03 am
A couple of thoughts. One I don’t trust where their national trend line is. I don’t know where they got theri comparative data, but I would have thought that troubled assets would have spiked during and after the fall of ’08, instead of just gradually trended upwards, nationally.
Be that as it may, overall, the charts for banks in Montana show that there are a lot of troubled assets in them. But I don’t know where you’re trying to draw a connection between any understanding of Tester, and what to do about troubled assets.
After all, troubled assets are created by consumers’ loans becoming very risky–late loan payments, home values going underwater, etc. All markers of an unrecovered recession for the average worker. How are any of Tester’s policies directly affecting that?
Are you trying to suggest that somehow his swipe fee legislation is going to feed more money to the banks to backstop their sheets, i.e. by forcing them to keep more assets, relative to troubled ones, on hand? Those sorts of policies were fought over during the financial “reform” fights last year, and basically lost.
If you’re going to solve the next looming banking crisis–zombie banks failing as a result of the economy (for the rest of us) not recovering fast enough to rebalance their sheets–it’s going to take far, far more than some twiddling at the fringes of bank profits. I’d like to see an indicator of bank profitability figured into those graphs, as my sense is that bank profits are not being translated into increased holdings, i.e. the banks “skin” in the whole dealio.
Progressive take: the economy still sucks, zombie banks presage the next financial collapse, and Congress missed its opportunity to do anything about it. What to do? Well, I partially wrote about it here, as to the big banks. As to the small banks, they are best served by policies getting people back to work and stabilizing the still plunging housing market median price. And then figuring out how to deal with the massive loss of wealth in middle america, due to the “reversion to the mean” in median housing prices.
The chart at that last link shows that median house prices have declined 40% so far (and are still declining) this recession, taking with it most of middle americas equity and savings in the form of their home. What you going to do about that? That’s the trillions dollar question lurking behind the zombie bank problem. And the solution isn’t some stupid swipe fee bonus for bank execs.
April 25, 2011 at 1:00 pm
JC… troubled assets are trending upward because you still have adjustable rate mortgages adjusting to higher rates. Thats the main driver now behind the foreclosures and a reason that the foreclose rate didn’t peak(maybe) until 2010. Also, a big part of the reason the median house price continues to fall is that the figure is calculated based on the latest home sales and when you have a significant portion of those sales being composed of foreclosed homes the median price plunges farther.
Another reason is commercial real estate. Commercial development tends to follow or lag behind residential development. The result this go around was that a lot of commercial loans didn’t go into default until 2010.
The crisis made banks that were “to big to fail” even bigger in many cases. That will make any banking crisis in the future even more dangerous through the consolidation of assets and risk in the hands of a select few economic operators. It also gives the banks unprecedented power to decide the direction of our economy because policies set at a single bank will blanket so much of the market with little choice or competition.
April 25, 2011 at 2:16 pm
It seems that as a companion piece to the People’s Budget, we need a People’s Fin-Reg and how to survive the great recession Primer. Fire away!
Let’s not get too derailed by the conflict troll among us that we loose track of the issues.
April 25, 2011 at 2:20 pm
That would be “lose”. I think you might know something about that word.
Can the crap, Drama Queen. I haven’t tried to derail your little discussion here. I haven’t been involved in it at all.
April 25, 2011 at 6:40 pm
This is a very good observation. I will try to find that Kittredge quote. Yes, we must fight the banksters not other bloggers especially if it is just for the sake of fighting. And we must engage with people who will honestly listen. Then we may learn something new. Think like a beginner. Not as an expert. (Suzuki)
April 25, 2011 at 12:43 pm
I have watched Tester speak and ask questions during session of the Senate’s Committee on Banking, and I would say that Jon probably knows how to run a successful family business but a lot of the macro- and micro-economic issues that drive our economy escape him.
April 25, 2011 at 6:41 pm
Yup.
April 25, 2011 at 11:10 am
Thanks JC for your thoughts. I also share your rage but don’t want to hijack the thread. Thanks for the Elect City link, i follow it as well.
April 25, 2011 at 11:49 am
It’s a good topic for a separate post. If I get some time, maybe I’ll write one up.
April 25, 2011 at 6:42 pm
Yes, I would be interested.
April 26, 2011 at 1:50 pm
The middle class homeowner that keeps his mortgage for 30 years will pay 279,000 dollars in interest to his lender. ( 200k home)
So how big a check do you want to write each month to bail out the lenders?
June 3, 2012 at 5:19 am
I read every post and said to myself these are the left elite that have not been educated to the ways of the world. (How it really is at gutter level) And then I said to myself they are but harmless folks and not one of them served is the Armed Forces. Thats so easy to see, but they do no harm stroking each others egos.