So far so good, or so it appears.
Scratch deeper and you find questions and contradictions that make you wonder if any of this is really about change, or just restoring a flawed and failed system that has imploded stoking public anger.
When the music stops, who will still be standing and in control?
Let’s start with the Financial Crisis Commission which will emerge from a divided Congress more used to the arts of unprincipled compromise than the unfettered search for truth. As we know from the 911 Commission, bi-partisan panels don’t necessarily find answers to tough questions.
Isaiah Poole contends on Our Future.org that public vigilance is the only guarantee of a process we can believe in.
”What's also clear is that we will have to watch the watchdog. The administration could hamstring this commission with constitutional privilege claims, and Republican appointees could cripple the commission to score political points and protect its Wall Street bankrollers. Finally, a media preoccupied with what it perceives to be sexier issues and weakened in its capacity to do its own investigative journalism could allow the commission's work to fall into obscurity, thus robbing it of its power to drive fundamental reforms. We will have to be ready to push the commission to confront the tough questions; to call out the obstructionists, regardless of who they are; and to amplify the commission's findings as we forge new and better rules for our economy.”
And what of the economic “stabilization” measures that have poured taxpayer money into the coffers if the very institutions that wrecked the economy in the first place? Andy Kroll argues on TomDispatch.com that these measures are a swindle, restoring Wall Street and propping up a broken financial system:
“The legislation's guidelines for crafting the rescue plan were clear: the TARP should protect home values and consumer savings, help citizens keep their homes, and create jobs. Above all, with the government poised to invest hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars in various financial institutions, the legislation urged the bailout's architects to maximize returns to the American people.
That $700 billion bailout has since grown into a more than $12 trillion commitment by the U.S. government and the Federal Reserve. About $1.1 trillion of that is taxpayer money -- the TARP money and an additional $400 billion rescue of mortgage companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The TARP now includes 12 separate programs, and recipients range from megabanks like Citigroup and JPMorgan Chase to automakers Chrysler and General Motors.
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
