Report: Obama Admin Drafts Memo To Detain Terror Suspects Indefinitely

By Zachary Roth - June 26, 2009, 6:21PM

The latest installment in the Obama administration's tendency to mimic the Bushies on war on terror tactics:

The Washington Post and Pro Publica report:

The Obama administration, fearing a battle with Congress that could stall plans to close Guantanamo, has drafted an executive order that would reassert presidential authority to incarcerate terrorism suspects indefinitely, according to three senior government officials with knowledge of White House deliberations.

Such an order would embrace claims by former president George W. Bush that certain people can be detained without trial for long periods under the laws of war. Obama advisers are concerned that bypassing Congress could place the president on weaker footing before the courts and anger key supporters, the officials said.

Financial Reform, Words and Deeds

by Ralph Nader

It's good that Barack Obama is an agile basketball player because on financial regulatory reform he's having to straddle an ever widening chasm between his words and his deeds.

Obama said: "Millions of Americans who have worked hard and behaved responsibility have seen their life dreams eroded by the irresponsibility of others and by the failure of their government to provide adequate oversight. Our entire economy has been undermined by that failure."

"Over the past two decades, we have seen, time and again, cycles of precipitous booms and busts. In each case, millions of people have had their lives profoundly disrupted by developments in the financial system, most severely in our recent crisis."

Strong words, even though he didn't include "corporate crime, fraud and abuse" to replace the euphemism "irresponsibility." One would think that his 88 page reform proposal to Congress would be up to his words. Instead he provides Washington aspirins for Wall Street brain cancer.

Wall Street Sets Campaign on ‘Populist Overreaction’

Wall Street Sets Campaign on ‘Populist Overreaction’

By Robert Schmidt

June 25 (Bloomberg) -- Wall Street’s largest trade group has started a campaign to counter the “populist” backlash against bankers, enlisting two former aides to Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson to spearhead the effort.

In memos of confidential meetings with top financial executives, the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association said it began this month the “execution phase” of the operation, which pledges to “embrace change” and accountability. The plan targets policy makers and the media in New York, London, Washington and Brussels and calls for a “city-by-city, grass roots” approach.

Paul Krugman: Not Enough Audacity

When it comes to domestic policy, there are two Barack Obamas.

On one side there’s Barack the Policy Wonk, whose command of the issues — and ability to explain those issues in plain English — is a joy to behold.

But on the other side there’s Barack the Post-Partisan, who searches for common ground where none exists, and whose negotiations with himself lead to policies that are far too weak.

A Global Recovery for a Global Recession

by Joseph E. Stiglitz

This is not only the worst global economic downturn of the post-World War II era; it is the first serious global downturn of the modern era of globalization. America's financial markets failed to do what they should have done--manage risk and allocate capital well--and these failures have had a major impact all over the world. Globalization, too, did not work the way it was supposed to. It helped spread the consequences of the failures of US financial markets around the world. September 11, 2001, taught us that with globalization not only do good things travel more easily across borders; bad things do too. September 15, 2008, has reinforced that lesson.

A global downturn requires a global response. But so far our responses--to stimulate and regulate the global economy--have largely been framed at the national level and often take insufficient account of the effect on others. The result is that there is less coordination than there should be, as well as a smaller and less well-designed stimulus than is optimal. A poorly designed and insufficient stimulus means that the downturn will last longer, the recovery will be slower and there will be more innocent victims. Among these victims are the many developing countries--including those that have had far better regulatory and macroeconomic policies than the United States and some European countries. In the United States a financial crisis transformed itself into an economic crisis; in many developing countries the economic downturn is creating a financial crisis.

How bad is the Peterson-Waxman deal on climate legislation?

Surprising no one—but disappointing many—House energy chief Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) has caved in to the demands of the the agribusiness industry over the climate bill.

In reality, he had little choice if he wanted his legislation to get through the House. For more than a month, House Ag Committee Chairman Collin Peterson (D-Minn.)—an unabashed proponent of agribusiness interests—has thundered and roared about how no climate bill could get through the House without containing his agenda.

Big Business Is Aiding the Internet Crackdown in Iran and China -- Will the Technology Be Used on Americans Next?

By Amy Goodman, King Features Syndicate
Posted on June 25, 2009, Printed on June 25, 2009
http://www.alternet.org/story/140894/

Tools of mass communication that were once the province of governments and corporations now fit in your pocket. Cell phones can capture video and send it wirelessly to the Internet. People can send eyewitness accounts, photos and videos, with a few keystrokes, to thousands or even millions via social networking sites. As these technologies have developed, so too has the ability to monitor, filter, censor and block them.

A Wall Street Journal report this week claimed that the "Iranian regime has developed, with the assistance of European telecommunications companies, one of the world's most sophisticated mechanisms for controlling and censoring the Internet, allowing it to examine the content of individual online communications on a massive scale." The article named Nokia Siemens Networks as the provider of equipment capable of "deep packet inspection." DPI, according to the Electronic Privacy Information Center, "enables Internet Service Providers to intercept virtually all of their customers' Internet activity, including Web surfing data, e-mail and peer-to-peer downloads."

Why You May Be Stuck Holding the Bill for the Largest Taxpayer Rip Off

By Dean Baker, AlterNet
Posted on June 23, 2009, Printed on June 25, 2009
http://www.alternet.org/story/140869/

This is the time when the excrement starts hitting the fan. The lobbyists are in overdrive, rounding up members of Congress just like the cowboys of the Old West would bring in the herd.

The industry groups will also have their friends in the news media working overtime hyping any possible obstacle to health care reform. And they are filling the airwaves with scary ads, warning that people will never be able to see a doctor again if meaningful health care reform passes.

Thomas Frank: Obama and 'Regulatory Capture'

It's time to take the quality of our watchdogs seriously.

By THOMAS FRANK

The reason why those who see economic regulations as akin to tyranny often win policy debates is because they have a fiery argument with visceral appeal. Those who try to sell the virtues of the supervisory state tend to favor the passive voice. They don't do fire. They do law review.

The situation ought to be the reverse today. We have just come through the most wrenching financial disaster in decades, brought about in no small part by either the absence of federal regulation or the amazing indifference of the regulators.

This is the moment for a ringing reclamation of the regulatory project. President Barack Obama is clearly the sort of man who could do it. But in a white paper his administration released on the subject last week, the bureaucratic mindset prevails.

Robust Health Care Reform is the Moment of Truth for Obama and the Democrats

By Theda Skocpol - June 24, 2009, 9:51AM

Fellow Americans, and fellow Democrats and Obama supporters, we are at a moment of truth, a pivotal turning point -- in the form of what happens in the next days and weeks with robust, universal health reform. A fork in the road socially, economically -- and politically. It could go either way depending on Obama and the Democratic officeholders many of us worked so hard to elect. They have the power to act, but will they use it -- or lose it?

If at this remarkable juncture Obama and the Democrats cannot enact a robust health care reform -- with a strong nationwide public option, cost controls, and nearly universal coverage -- I would not want to be in charge of fundraising and mobilization for them in the 2010 and 2012 elections! Most of us who supported them last time will of course not vote for a Republican.. But if Obama and the Democrats cannot act now on a once in a half century challenge and opportunity, they are not worthy of extra energy. And those of us who wrote big checks last time will tell the Democrats -- especially in the Senate -- to hold pharmaceutical fundraisers instead.

Broken Health Care: What It Really Costs Us

By Sara Robinson

Created 06/24/2009 - 10:45am

Sometimes, when you're up to your chin in alligators, it's hard to focus on the fact that there's a big, broad, alligator-free world waiting somewhere out there, beyond the edge of the swamp.

In this case, it's hard for most Americans to even imagine that nobody in the rest of the developed world lives this way. We've been living inside the restrictions and making the trade-offs required to hang onto our all-important health care coverage for so long that we don't even realize that we're cutting those deals, or what we're giving up, or how thoroughly those choices have come to dominate and limit our lives.

A Lost Decade for Jobs

Posted by: Michael Mandel on June 23

Private sector job growth was almost non-existent over the past ten years.

Between May 1999 and May 2009, employment in the private sector sector only rose by 1.1%, by far the lowest 10-year increase in the post-depression period.

New Rules Aren't Enough

The Obama administration's financial reforms won't prevent future economic crises if regulators remain asleep on the job

by Dean Baker

The Obama administration [1]'s proposal for reforming financial regulation [2] has many useful features. In particular, the proposed consumer financial protection agency likely would have prevented many of the worst abuses in the subprime market over the last decade, as well as in other areas of consumer lending.

Other measures, like requiring that standardised derivatives be traded as clearing houses and that hedge funds register their interests with the Securities and Exchange Commission are positive steps towards modernising regulation, although they do not go far enough [3].

The US Treasury should be trying to standardise all derivatives and have them exchange traded to maximise transparency. There also should be increased public disclosure of hedge fund dealings. But, these are not the biggest flaw in the administration's regulatory proposals. The biggest flaw is that they help to support the view that the main problem was inadequate regulations, rather than failed regulators.

False profits and prophecies

By Henry C K Liu

In an earlier article for Asia Times Online, Tip-toe regulatory reform [Jun 18], I referred to George Soros - the speculator who broke the Bank of England over a defense of the pound sterling - as having said in the Financial Times that a requirement for lenders selling securitized loans as securities to retain 5% exposure "is more symbolic than substantive". This is because many institutions were playing the game of regulatory arbitrage, the practice of taking advantage of a regulatory difference between two or more markets.

The issue of regulatory arbitrage was discussed in my recent article on my website: "Mark-to-Market vs Mark-to-Model" [1], an abridged version of which also appeared on the website of New Deal 2.0, a project of the Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute. [2]

Paul Krugman: Health Care Showdown

America’s political scene has changed immensely since the last time a Democratic president tried to reform health care. So has the health care picture: with costs soaring and insurance dwindling, nobody can now say with a straight face that the U.S. health care system is O.K. And if surveys like the New York Times/CBS News poll released last weekend are any indication, voters are ready for major change.

The question now is whether we will nonetheless fail to get that change, because a handful of Democratic senators are still determined to party like it’s 1993.

And yes, I mean Democratic senators. The Republicans, with a few possible exceptions, have decided to do all they can to make the Obama administration a failure. Their role in the health care debate is purely that of spoilers who keep shouting the old slogans — Government-run health care! Socialism! Europe! — hoping that someone still cares.

Goldman Sachs Issues Non-Apology for Destroying the World Economy

By Matt Taibbi, True/Slant
Posted on June 22, 2009, Printed on June 22, 2009
http://www.alternet.org/story/140806/

Anyone else out there find himself doubled over laughing after reading Goldman, Sachs chief Lloyd Blankfein's "apology" for his bank's behavior leading up to the financial crisis? Has an act of contrition ever in history been more worthless and insincere? Even Gary Ridgway did a better job of sounding genuinely sorry at his sentencing hearing -- and he was a guy who had sex with dead prostitutes because it was cheaper than paying live ones.

Looking at Blankfein's one-sentence apology, I'm struck in particular by a couple of phrases:

While we regret that we participated in the market euphoria...

Really, Lloyd? You "participated" in the market euphoria? You didn't, I don't know, cause the market euphoria? By almost any measurement, Goldman was a central, leading player in the subprime housing bubble story. Just yesterday I was talking to Guy Cecala at Inside Mortgage Finance, the trade publication that tracks statistics in the mortgage lending industry. He said that at the height of the boom, in 2006, Goldman Sachs underwrote $76.5 billion in mortgage-backed securities, or 7% of the entire market. Of that $76.5 billion, $29.3 billion was subprime, which is bad enough -- but another $29.8 billion was what's called "Alt-A" paper. Alt-A mortgages are characterized, mainly, by crappy documentation and lack of equity: no income verification, no asset verification, little-to-no cash down. So while "only" 38% of the mortgage-backed securities Goldman underwrote were subprime, more than three-fourths of their securities were what is called "non-prime," ie either subprime or Alt-A. "There's a lot of crap in there too," says Cecala.

Frank Rich: Obama’s Make-or-Break Summer

THAT First 100 Days hoopla seems like a century ago. The countless report cards it engendered are already obsolete. The real story begins now. With Iran, universal health care, energy reform and the economic recovery all on the line, the still-new, still-popular president’s true tests are about to come.

Here’s one thing Barack Obama does not have to worry about: the opposition. Approval ratings for Republicans hit an all-time low last week in both the New York Times/CBS News and Wall Street Journal/NBC News polls. That’s what happens when a party’s most creative innovations are novel twists on old-fashioned sex scandals. Just when you thought the G.O.P. could never match the high bar set by Larry Craig’s men’s room toe-tapping, along came Senator John Ensign of Nevada, an ostentatiously pious born-again Christian whose ecumenical outreach drove him to engineer political jobs for his mistress, her cuckolded husband and the couple’s son. At least it can no longer be said that the Republicans have no plan for putting Americans back to work.