- Obama promised more corporate trade agreements with developing nations. These types of trade agreements have created a huge trade deficit and the net loss of 5.1 million manufacturing jobs and 43,000 factories since America started its experiment with the current trade model in the 1990s. The Korea pact which Obama trumpeted is projected to cost another 159,000 U.S. jobs.
The Chamber speech and Obama's recent appointments have the media claiming a new business agenda. His recent appointments of William Daley, a JP Morgan executive and former board member of the Chamber of Commerce as his chief of staff, Gene Sperling, formerly with Goldman Sachs, to head Obama's National Economic Council, and Jeffrey Immelt, CEO of General Electric to heat the Council on Jobs and Competitiveness, are certainly pro-business. The latter selection is particularly obnoxious since GE has cut 10,000 jobs in the U.S. while creating 30,000 jobs in India in the last decade.
But these appointments are consistent with the appointments in his first two years. The previous chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, received more donations from Wall Street than any other member of Congress. His Treasury Secretary, Timothy Geitner, was the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York where the failure to control Wall Street gambling was the chief cause of the economic collapse. Larry Summers was appointed head of the National Economic Council even though he played a large role in deregulating the derivatives market and repeal of Glass-Steagall, two major contributors to the economic collapse.
And, his policy proscriptions have also been in favor of concentrated businesses. His health reform gives hundreds of millions to the insurance industry in new annual tax subsidies and strengthens their grip on health care. His financial reform was inadequate, did not confront the causes of the collapse and was applauded by the financial industry. He has failed to deal with urgent environmental issues and did not even mention climate change in the State of the Union. Wars have escalated, expanding to a third front Pakistan, while escalating in Afghanistan and failing to truly get out of Iraq. Obama has produced record weapons and war budgets, record intelligence budgets and record arms sales.
While Obama is a brilliant communicator who suggests a progressive agenda rhetorically, his appointments and policy proscriptions have been consistently corporatist in nature favoring big business over the necessities of the American people.
The corporate media spin that Obama is now becoming business friendly is false. He has always been business friendly. Every proscription to critical issues facing the nation has consistently been to add to the profits of concentrated corporate power. What Obama is doing now, is laying out his continuing agenda for big business to position him with them for the next election.
Americans who hope that a different President Obama will appear if he is re-elected need to keep the agenda laid out before the Chamber of Commerce in mind. These are the promises he is making to the big business community as he begins preparation for his re-election. The billion dollars he seeks for his re-election campaign will come primarily from concentrated corporate capital and they will not donate unless they are assured that their agenda is Obama's.
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