Morning Reads: Monday, Monday,
Posted: October 15, 2012 Filed under: Barack Obama, misogyny, Mitt Romney, morning reads | Tags: health insurance, Paul Krugman, Shelia Bair 52 Comments
Good Morning!
Much of the political news has to do with the lead-up to the presidential town-hall style debate on Tuesday night. I’m going to focus on some other things this morning.
Truthdigger of the Week is Sheila Bair who is one of the women in banking and finance that I admire most. Very few people have as good of an understanding of the weirdness of the financial markets and the need for clarity and removal of moral hazard as the former head of the FDIC. She has a book out that I intend to read.
As leader of the FDIC during that period, Bair was witness to the efforts that Treasury Secretaries Hank Paulson and Timothy Geithner made to save the individuals and banks that were most responsible for the crisis, while leaving American homeowners and taxpayers high and dry. The New York Times’ Gretchen Morgenson, who hailed Bair’s book as an “important piece of history and a rebuttal to the conventional wisdom,“ offered a sample from it:
[P]erhaps the most telling anecdote is from early October 2008, when Henry M. Paulson Jr., the Treasury secretary, summoned Ms. Bair to his office. No reason was given for the meeting. When she arrived, Ben S. Bernanke, the Federal Reserve chairman, was already there. Timothy F. Geithner, then the president of the New York Fed, was on the phone.
Handed a piece of paper, Ms. Bair saw that she had been ambushed. It was a script, prepared for her by the Treasury and the Fed, stating that the F.D.I.C. was moving to guarantee all the liabilities in the financial system. Astonishingly, the guarantee would cover all bank depositors and even protect unsecured claims against institutions. In short, the F.D.I.C. was being asked to back ‘everybody against everything in the $13 trillion banking system,’ Ms. Bair writes.
Taking seriously her job to serve the American public, Bair rejected the plan to drive the FDIC’s funds directly into the pockets of everyone who held bank debts, a modest victory considering that Geithner and company eventually succeeded in handing over trillions of dollars at low interest to institutions that then refused to pump them back into the economy in the form of loans. “Workers, homeowners [and] small businesses have by and large been left to fend for themselves” amid bailouts for “too big to fail” institutions, Bair said in an interview with Morgenson.
Economics Professor Rajiv Sethi also has a review up on the book at his blog. He has a great description of the situation in the market for derivatives and about the assets themselves. I’ll let you venture over there if you’re up for the wonky goodness.
Sheila Bair’s new book, Bull by the Horns, is both a crisis narrative and a thoughtful reflection on economic institutions and policy. The crisis narrative, with its revealing first-hand accounts of high-level meetings, high-stakes negotiations, behind-the-scenes jockeying, and clashing personalities will attract the most immediate attention. But it’s the economic analysis that will constitute the more enduring contribution.
Among the many highlights are the following: a discussion of the linkages between securitization, credit derivatives and loan modifications, an exploration of the trade-off between regulatory capture and regulatory arbitrage, an intriguing question about the optimal timing of auctions for failing banks, a proposal for ending too big to fail that relies on simplification and asset segregation rather than balance sheet contraction, a full-throated defense of sensible financial regulation, and a passionate critique of bailouts for the powerful and politically connected even when such transactions appear to generate an accounting profit.
Paul Krugman takes on Romney assertion that no one dies from lack of insurance. I thought this was a strange comment when Romney made it but no one picked up on it the way Krugman does. It just amazes me that Romney just seems to make stuff up whenever he talks to any one. I can’t decide if he’s delusional or just a facile liar. Something tells me that he’s both.
Last week, speaking to The Columbus Dispatch, Mr. Romney declared that nobody in America dies because he or she is uninsured: “We don’t have people that become ill, who die in their apartment because they don’t have insurance.” This followed on an earlier remark by Mr. Romney — echoing an infamous statement by none other than George W. Bush — in which he insisted that emergency rooms provide essential health care to the uninsured.
These are remarkable statements. They clearly demonstrate that Mr. Romney has no idea what life (and death) are like for those less fortunate than himself.
Even the idea that everyone gets urgent care when needed from emergency rooms is false. Yes, hospitals are required by law to treat people in dire need, whether or not they can pay. But that care isn’t free — on the contrary, if you go to an emergency room you will be billed, and the size of that bill can be shockingly high. Some people can’t or won’t pay, but fear of huge bills can deter the uninsured from visiting the emergency room even when they should. And sometimes they die as a result.
More important, going to the emergency room when you’re very sick is no substitute for regular care, especially if you have chronic health problems. When such problems are left untreated — as they often are among uninsured Americans — a trip to the emergency room can all too easily come too late to save a life.
So the reality, to which Mr. Romney is somehow blind, is that many people in America really do die every year because they don’t have health insurance.
Jonathan Chait writes long read in New York Magazine about Obama and Romney’s approach to the size and character of government. He basically projects what the focus of each administration might be on day one. The character concept is an interesting one. Here’s a bit on Romney first.
Though the broad contours of the Ryan plan amount to a nonnegotiable demand thrust upon Romney by the Republican Party, there are significant gaps within the plan that leave Romney room to maneuver and that, we can imagine, he will use to his advantage. Because, starting January 20, Romney will be faced with the same crushing pressure Obama has endured for the past four years: an anemic economic recovery. If he intends to win reelection, Romney will have to come up with some plan to improve our job numbers.
Here’s where his administration could get surprising. Romney has built his campaign on the promise of alleviating the immediate pain of the recession, yet his program to reduce unemployment is vague bordering on nonexistent. (“If we win on November 6th, there will be a great deal of optimism about the future of this country,” he told donors during his infamous, secretly recorded Palm Springs diatribe. “We’ll see capital come back and we’ll see—without actually doing anything—we’ll actually get a boost in the economy.”) Republicans fervently believe the Ryan plan would restore prosperity over the long run, but even they recognize it has essentially no relation to the economic maladies of the moment. The Obama administration’s approach to the economy has been to follow the tenets of Keynesian economics, which prioritizes stimulating consumer demand (through government spending and/or tax reductions), by deliberately jacking up short-term deficits. During the 2001 recession, Republicans agreed with this theory—advocating quick tax cuts—and they appeared to be heading in the same direction in early 2008. But since Obama’s election, they have turned wholesale against Keynesian economics, instead suggesting that an immediate reduction in deficits could boost the recovery. Recent history, especially in Europe, has not been kind to these austerity enthusiasts.
One brief look at the Obama side and then I’ll let you decide if you want to go read the entire, lengthy piece.
Obama tends to leave the contours of his second term pleasantly vague, which has fueled the general impression that he is tapped out and has no particular achievable goals in mind. He often posits that, should he win reelection, Republicans will abandon their strategy of total opposition, citing Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s unusually frank confession back in 2010 that his top priority was to block Obama’s reelection. “Now, after the election, either he will have succeeded in that goal or he will have failed at that goal,” Obama has said. “And I’m hoping that after the smoke clears and the election season’s over that that spirit of cooperation comes more to the fore.”
There’s little reason to share this profession of faith. Republican obstructionism is not only a strategy to deny the president a second term. Some Republicans genuinely fear Obama, and others fear a right-wing primary challenge if they compromise with him. What’s more, the political calculation that undergirds his opponents’ strategy will not disappear: His popularity is the single biggest factor determining Republican prospects for enlarging their control of Congress and winning the White House. Cutting bipartisan deals increases Obama’s standing and thus reduces theirs.
You might surmise from all this that Obama is simply living in a dream world. That is the conclusion drawn by several of the smartest liberal political analysts I know. I have a different conclusion: Obama does have a plan to break the legislative impasse and settle the long-term struggle over the scope of government. It does not rest on the GOP’s coming to its senses and thinking of the national good. The plan is the very opposite of naïve. And he can put it into effect even more quickly than Romney could enact his own plan.
Here is how it will happen. On the morning of November 7, a reelected President Obama will do … nothing. For the next 53 days, nothing. And then, on January 1, 2013, we will all awake to a different, substantially more liberal country. The Bush tax cuts will have disappeared, restoring Clinton-era tax rates and flooding government coffers with revenue to fund its current operations for years to come. The military will be facing dire budget cuts that shake the military-industrial complex to its core. It will be a real-world approximation of the old liberal bumper-sticker fantasy in which schools have all the money they require and the Pentagon needs to hold a bake sale.
All this can come to pass because, while Obama has spent the last two years surrendering short-term policy concessions, he has been quietly hoarding a fortune in the equivalent of a political trust fund that comes due on the first of the year. At that point, he will reside in a political world he finds at most mildly uncomfortable and the Republicans consider a hellish dystopia. Then he’ll be ready to make a deal.
Anyway, it’s one view point.
Okay, so here’s my interesting grave site dig of the week. It’s in Mexico from about 700 AD and features a woman buried face down.
Archaeologist Raul Matadamas Diaz, director of the Bocana del Rio Copalita investigation project, informed that the sepulcher –the first one that has been discovered in this site– is estimated to date back to 700 AD and although cultural affiliation has not been yet determined, it could be associated to ancient groups that were in contact with Zapotecs of the Valles Centrales in Oaxaca. INAH’s archaeologist elaborated about the offerings found which were accompanying the skeleton, among which a severed femur believed to have been used as a baton. “This finding –he emphasized– will help understand the funerary practices of the civilizations that occupied Copalita, especially its elite from which we have no information until now”. “Around the sepulcher, we also discovered the burial of 22 more individuals, among which a female character stood out. She was the first skeleton in this pre Hispanic site that was facing the floor, which might indicate a sign of submission to the principal character in the tomb. Her skeleton had two jade earflaps and beads located in her lumbar vertebras”, Matadamas said. The specialist at INAH-Oaxaca Center explained that over the female skeleton were four pots, one of which is a bowl decorated with a glyph in a relief that has the representation of an owl between two snakes, an image that is repeated in the contour of the piece and which is associated to ancient Zapotecs from the Valles Centrales in Oaxaca. Matadamas Diaz added that in the base of the same piece they found symmetrical figures of an alligator opening its jaws; within the jaws is the face of a man who has a scroll with a word in front of him, possibly related to cultures from the coast of Huatulco. “Said symbols will be studied in detail to see if it’s possible to elucidate through them the world view that was developed between 700 and 800 AD by groups that settled in the metropolis of Copalita, and to identify the character that is contained in the tomb” the archaeologist stated.
Yup. That’s the interpretation. She’s in a deferential position towards the male in the tomb. Women can’t even get a break in their deaths.
So, what’s on your reading and blogging list today?
peej
Carissa
bostonboomer
ecocatwoman
mablue2
peggysue22
quixote
skydancingguestblogger
Mona (aka Wonk the Vote)
Sky Dancing 
Fascinating stuff here Dak, do you think that Bair’s book is something that even someone like me can understand? Or is it on the “wonky” side?
Ha ha. I was writing almost the same thing at the same time as you.
😉
I doubt it is wonky
Ooh, a Wonk for Dummies book! Adding to my kindle list… 😉
Sheila Bair’s book sound both fascinating and enraging. I hope you can find time to read it, Dak. It sounds like the economic stuff might be a little over my head.
Now I’m going to read the Jonathan Chait piece.
I have to say that I’m getting sick and tired of Chait claiming that Romney was liberal as governor of MA. It’s hard to continue reading after that….
In keeping with “the war on women” our Book Club selection for the month of October is a historical novel, “Caleb’s Crossing” by Geraldine Brooks. It is a fictional account of a non fiction event that describes the first Native American to attend and graduate from Harvard University in 1685.
Though the book itself is a “slog” of a read the author did manage to write about the place of women in that society and it was an eye opener.
Women could be forced into arranged marriages against their will. They could also be sold into indentured service to pay off debts incurred by their families. They were at the mercy of untrained midwives. And they could be taken to court and punished for giving birth to illegitimate children if their “elders” saw fit.
They were denied education and were seen as “suspect” if they showed any interest beyond marriage, childbearing, and domestic chores. Many were denied medical treatment in place of prayer and the “laying on of hands” as a cure all. A “silent woman” was considered a “gift from god” and a woman could be whipped for raising her voice against a man.
Thus was life back in the 17th century for women who relied upon their “Christian masters” to determine their fate.
Sound familiar in 2012?
You might be interested in this, Pat–a Tea Party woman has suggested that perhaps women should not be allowed:
TO VOTE!
We’re too emotional, diabolical.
Are the Republicans performing mass lobotomies on female supporters? I just do not get the self-loathing, the insistence on supporting views and policies against your own self-interest. Unless there’s brain damage involved.
http://crooksandliars.com
This is “religion” talking. But Ann Coulter said as much herself and they don’t get anymore nuts than she is.
Besides, most women are reluctant to send their offspring off to war and this is not part of the GOP agenda where war is “worshipped” and promoted. Keeping women from voting reduces those chances that someone would block their efforts to keep us in a permanent battle with those deemed the enemy every 4 years.
I hate these people and fear them at the same time.
Time to faint and throw up at the same time. I am utterly terrified of women with this level of stupidity……….and what, she’s from the Tea Party of Mississippi. Are there no decent women left in Mississippi?
I think taking the vote away from women is one of the GOP’s long range goals. They brought up the subject after Bush II got into office. 1. women most often vote democratic, so that lowers the number who vote against them. 2. women more often vote for health care, social security etc that they want to get rid of. You do notice they are also trying to get rid of public schools through charter schools.
“You might be interested in this, Pat–a Tea Party woman has suggested that perhaps women should not be allowed: TO VOTE!”
I read that earlier today, that’s totally incredible. I hate to criticize that TEENY-WEENIE-ITSY-BITSY-INSIGNIFICANT-SLITHER of my own gender who think like that, but they sound daddy dependent.
The word “diabolical” and “emotional” smacks of yesteryear machismo that socialized women to believe that women could not be winners and achievers through our talents. We were either losers (brought on by our hormones and our perceived physical inferiority) or we were Loose, (brought on by our innate evilness that we inherited from Eve). We had to do what daddy said, until daddy turned us over to hubby, then we had to do what hubby said. I lived in that era and it was miserable. From my earliest memory I rebelled against that social doctrine.
As for the pitiful women who actually parrot that nonsense, I can’t even imagine the self-loathing, low self-esteem or dependency that drives women living in 2012 to the, Daddy knows best, position.
@ Pat
Me too. Great post today btw!
Women were safer with most midwives, who had apprenticeship training, than with most physicians back then, who didn’t wash their hands, had mythological ideas, and didn’t want to allow the time necessary for a normal birth.
Giving birth is still too often medicalized, but things have been changing over the past several decades. And good to know that Dakinikat’s Dr. Daughter is out in the world practicing rational medical science and helping women.
Thought that article in the NY mag was fascinating. Indeed, it’s written by Jonathan Chait, hardly a neutral observer and certainly someone who makes GOP heads spin. But nonetheless it’s an interesting angle. I have read that the ‘fiscal cliff’ meme is basically a scare tactic touted by right-wing ideologues and that the end-of-the-world scenario for January 1st is a total scam. The damage would be cumulative, not instantaneous. Though the piece is long, it’s well worth the time.
The prospect of breaking the back of Republican economic obstructionists and tax fetishists is very, very attractive. Of course, then the real question is Obama up to playing hardball. It’s something he hasn’t shown much appetite or talent for. But one can dream :0).
Jonathan Chait is on the conservative side. He was pretty comfortable with the idea of Romney winning until a month or so ago. I’m only halfway through the article, and I’m terrified. I had to stop reading for a little while because I felt like I was going to have a full-blown panic attack.
Sometimes I have to lie down and breathe into a paper bag. Too bad Sully’s hogging the fainting couch.
When you finish with bag I need it!!!!
BTW, am I the only one who wonders where Andrew Sullivan is really coming from? Maybe that’s a stupid question. But this morning while I waited for my plumber to show up, I read a recent post at the Daily Beast on “How Obama Gave the Election Away.” Really? I mean talk about pearl clutching. He sounds more like a concern troll. Writers like Sullivan that make me a cynic about political punditry in general. Too much drama and couched agendas going on.
Andrew Sullivan has been in love with Obama since at least 2006–probably longer. His cover story in the Atlantic in 2007 gave Obama a huge push. He’s not a concern troll, he will genuinely be heartbroken if Obama doesn’t win reelection.
Sullivan has an omnipotent crystal ball?
The problem isn’t that that Obama’s a poor debater and has been disappointing (to those who didn’t look at his record). The problem is that Vulture/Voucher would be a disaster for America. Sullivan should write about what’s wrong with Romney/Ryan instead of wailing.
That I agree with.
“Sullivan should write about what’s wrong with Romney/Ryan instead of wailing.”
Sullivan has been on the fainting couch since the night of the debate.
Of course those of us who REALLY know the issues were upset with Obama for his lack of assertiveness and his reluctance to call ROMNEY THE BALD-FACE LIAR THAT HE IS, but Andrew went into full throated, depths of despairville. He needs to channel his inner woman and grow a set of ovaries. Forward goddamit !!!!
We need to send Andrew some cyber smelling salts
Sully’s playing out the final act of “Camille”. Poor dear. He’s coughing up blood. I don’t think smelling salts will help at this point.
Writing in Newsweek, former Reagan budget director David Stockman takes a scalpel to Mitt Romney’s claims that he was a job creator at Bain Capital.
Sheila Bair is a great public servant. She would make a great Treasury secretary for a second Obama term. There I go, dreaming again.
bad link…this one works.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2012/10/14/david-stockman-mitt-romney-and-the-bain-drain.html
Bair as Treasury Sec? I’d love to see that dream turn real!
If only! Although, if we’re going to dream the impossible dream anyway, I still vote Dr. Dakinikat… 🙂
The political elite think Obama will win 82% to 15%. Interesting to see what the insiders think about a range of question.
NY Mag: The Politirati Poll
I wonder if that poll was taken after the first debate?
Never mind. I see it was taken after. That’s interesting.
Piers Morgan demonstrates that he is either hopelessly insane or incredibly stupid: He’s one of the least principled politicians I’ve met. But I believe Mitt Romney might just save America
1. Morgan claims that Romney was a “successful and popular governor of Massachusetts”
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!
2. Morgan thinks that Romney’s “track record as a businessman” means that he’ll rescue the U.S. economy.
Romney’s “track record as a businessman is cutting salaries and benefits, laying off workers, outsourcing jobs, and bankrupting previously successful companies. Maybe Morgan supports the notion of putting the U.S. out of business.
To see the record of LBO artists in general, and Romney in particular, look at David Stockman’s article in Newsweek I linked above 😉
I just read it, thanks for the link!
Oh yes, the King of Leveraged Buyouts will save the Nation. For the 1%. The Chait article gives everyone a whiff of what we might expect with a Romney win–the Republican’s finishing touches to the Government of the Corporations, by the Corporations and for the Corporations. Even though I come to the argument with my own biases, I can’t help but think that when we look at the last 30 years of Republican intractability, the drumbeat insisting government and unions are the source of all evil and taxes are equal to slavery that the plan to completely reshape the political and economic landscape has been underway for a long, long time. There’s a reason Republicans can barely repeat the name FDR without breaking into a cold sweat.
We’ve only had two stopgaps since Reagan: Bill Clinton and now Barack Obama. I have serious, serious problems with Obama but the man looks like a wise sage in comparison to the barbarians at the gate.
I agree with Pat–this ideology has become a religion of the fanatic and dangerous kind. To people standing outside the cult, the true believers sound crazed and self-destructive. The fact that someone like Paul Ryan is heralded as an intellectual is a case in point. His numbers don’t even add up; math is optional, I guess. And then, of course, there are his adolescent Randian ideas and attitudes toward women’s reproductive health. Just to name a few. If Romney wasn’t on board with all this [or at least willing to go along to get along] then he wouldn’t have selected Ryan as a running mate.
It’s unbelievable we’re even talking about these people or taking them seriously. Who would have thunk it??? What a clusterf**k.
Peggy it is so great to read your comments.
Coming to a theater near you: “Young Mitt Romney”
Beata, these videos are great. Thanks!
Sam wang has some good information on trends here.
Princeton Election Consortium: The Passing Storm
This is from a link in a comment. Gravis Marketing, one of the pollsters who led the Romney is winning narrative in the swing states, may be a fraud.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10021489250
How very fitting. Romney’s a fraud and the Romney-is-winning-pollster is a fraud!
USA Today/Gallup has polling that I think is crap. They show Romney and Obama tied women likely voters. Their voter screen has got to be garbage. I refuse to believe women will vote against themselves to this extent.
Swing State poll: Women push Romney into Lead
Or against their parents, their kids, their communities….
Nope, I also think that only the country-club-type females are likely Romney voters.
I agree, Luna. I can’t imagine women in great numbers deliberately voting against their own self-interests. Other demographic groups have done so, of course, but the Republicans have been quite public in their disdain for women and their eagerness to kneecap women’s health and reproductive issues, social security viability [women are far more likely to depend on SS as they age] and all manner of disgusting comments about rape, domestic violence, child care and/or early education. These are ultimately economic issues for women.
I just don’t buy the Great Flip.
Women in my neck of the woods vote against their self-interests quite often. I’m not talking about country-club types. I’m talking about poor and lower-middle class single working mothers who are just a lay-off or serious illness away from living in their cars. It makes absolutely no sense to me.
I know 3 non-country club women who are voting for Romney. The reason – RELIGION. Born again types. They are voting against illegals, homo/lesbo, & abortion for everyone. That’s why their god has turned his back on Amerika.
Beata and ecocat, you’re right. I know those women too. My sister is one: married to a fundy and she’s one too now. They go to a church whose written doctrine says that women should submit to their husbands (retch). Their religion also appears to have no room for love and forgiveness, only sin and damnation and selfishness.
Honestly, I think any of the voters, woman or otherwise, who are apparently ‘breaking for Romney’ are probably more or less of the “we just want a change” variety, nevermind what it’s changing to. They just want to vote Obama out… it’s very hard to really sway those people. I actually really don’t think there is any breaking much movement in voters at this point period, the so-called undecideds probably lean one way or the other at this point…What the Obama campaign needs to focus on is turn out. If they get out their vote, O wins. If they don’t, he loses, and probably rightfully so, as Romney is a horrible opponent and it really means people just wanted him out rather than Romney in. Romney is clearly not a Ronald Reagan figure, even his own “supporters” have trouble being enthused about him–that debate was such a swagger moment for Romney and his supporters precisely because it gave them enthusiasm for the first time about Mr. Flim Flam Shim Sham.
Wholeheartedly agree. Any large movement in polls for either candidate is likely to be more noise than reality. I doubt this election has changed much since it started.