After reviewing the contents of this Citibank-friendly new law called the Financial Modernization Act, I asked him: "Do you think the big banks have too much power"?

He paused for a few seconds and replied: "Not Yet." Intrigued by his two word answer, I noted the rejection of modest pro-consumer provisions, adding that now that the banks had had their round, wasn't it time for the consumers to have their own round soon?

He allowed that such an expectation was not unreasonable and that he was willing to meet with some seasoned consumer advocates and go over such an agenda. We sent him an agenda, and met with Mr. Summers and his staff. Unfortunately, neither his boss, Bill Clinton, nor the Congress were in any mood to revisit this heavily lobbied federal deregulation law and reconsider the blocked consumer rights.

The rest is unfolding, tragic history. The law abolished the Glass-Steagall Act which separated commercial banking from investment banking. This opened the floodgates for unwise mergers, acquisitions and other unregulated risky financial instruments. Laced with limitless greed, casino capitalism ran wild, tanking economies here and abroad.

One champion of this market fundamentalism was Alan Greenspan, then chairman of the Federal Reserve. Last October before a House Committee, Greenspan admitted he was mistaken and expressed astonishment at how corporations could not even safeguard their own self-interest from going over steep speculative cliffs.

Greenspan and Summers were deemed "brilliant" by the press and most of Congress. Summers' predecessor at Treasury, Robert Rubin, was also a charter member of the Oracles--those larger-than-life men who just knew that the unfettered market and giant financial conglomerates would be the one-stop shopping mart consumers were assumed to be craving.

Now the world knows that these men belong to the "oops oligarchy" that bails itself out while it lets the companies collapse into the handcuffed arms of Uncle Sam and bridled taxpayers who have to pay for unconditional megabailouts. Instead of the Wall Street crooks being convicted and imprisoned, they have fled the jurisdiction with their self-determined compensation. Corporate crime pays, while pensions and mutual fund savings evaporate.

Now comes the next stage of the Washington rescue effort in a variety of stimulus packages which every vendor group imaginable wants a piece of these days. When trillions are offered, many come running.

As the public focus is on how much, when and where all this money should be spent, there are very serious consequences to be foreseen and forestalled. First, consider how much more concentrated corporate power is occurring. Forced or willing mergers, acquisitions and panic takeovers of big banks by bigger banks along with bankruptcies of companies further reduce what is left of quality competition for consumer benefit.

Remember the anti-trust laws. Obama needs to be their champion. The fallout from the Wall Street binge is likely to lead to a country run by an even smaller handful of monopolistic global goliaths.

In the stampede for stimulus legislation, there is a foreboding feeling on Capitol Hill that there is no proposal on the table to pay for it other than by the children and grandchildren. Just the opposite is raining down on them. Everybody including the private equity gamblers, Las Vegas casinos and Hollywood studios along with the banks and auto companies are looking for tax breaks.

So with the economy deteriorating and taxes being cut, where is the enormous money coming from? From borrowing and from printing money. So look out for big time inflation and decline in the dollar?s value vis-à-vis other currencies.

In all the hundreds of pages of stimulus bills, there is nothing that would facilitate the banding together of consumers and investors into strong advocacy groups. We have long proposed Financial Consumer Associations, privately and voluntarily funded through inserts in the monthly statements of financial firms.

If this bailout-stimulus-Wall Street funny money waste, fraud and abuse sounds confusing, that is because it is. A brand new paperback "Why Wall Street Can't Be Fixed and How to Replace It: Agenda For a New Economy" by long-time corporate critic, David C. Korten will explain some of the wheeling and dealing.

You don't have to agree with all or many of Korten?s nostrums. Just read Part II: the Case For Eliminating Wall Street. He considers three central questions:

First, do Wall Street Institutions do anything so vital for the national interest that they justify trillions of dollars to save them from the consequences of their own excess?

Second, is it possible that the whole Wall Street edifice is built on an illusion of phantom wealth that carries deadly economic, social, and environmental consequences for the larger society?

Third, are there other ways to provide needed financial services with greater results and at lesser cost?

Ralph Nader is an American attorney, author, lecturer, political activist, and perennial candidate for presidency as an independent candidate. . . read more

What do Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and John McCain have to say about our current reality of financial crisis and recession, and the generation-long stagnation in average living standards that has preceded the crisis of the moment? There aren't significant distinctions between Obama and Clinton in terms of their campaign platforms, while both Democratic contenders share huge differences with McCain. But the most important question is not where these candidates stand during the campaign; it's what they would actually do while in office. And this is more a matter of political power - which social groups can exert pressure within a new administration - than of economic philosophy...

A new Democratic administration may well offer possibilities for a dramatic shift in U.S. economic policy, even if some of the same old Bill Clinton crowd is brought back in as advisors. But if such a major policy shift does occur, it will not be primarily because a Democrat-either Hillary Clinton or Obama-will be sitting in the White House. It will rather be because the people who put one of them there will have gathered sufficient political strength to make them stick to their campaign promises. [More] . . read more

Welcome to the emergence of deliberative democracy. I am my own party and the only voter. And I will engage with all the other ‘I’s’ to create the new wisdom of crowds.

Cork the caucus and fiction the faction. The New Deal is in hand.  . . read more

What if, indeed. . . read more

The Republican Majority is using it to build cred with its dwinding racist base, in the process showing off how sexist, ignorant, hypocritical and intolerant they can be.

But what really makes the hearings a sham is the mainstream media's broadcasting this showing of Right wing abuses of a Latina woman.

We don't need to see them doing it. They don't deserve to be given the attention.

For an example of hypocrisy, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse nailed the conservatives putting on a show grilling Sotomayor.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C told Sotomayor, "Unless you have a complete meltdown, you're going to get confirmed."

I can't imagine him saying that to a man. 

I've long felt that a key battle conservatives have been fighting is against the feminine archetype. This manifests itself in many ways, including sexist, even misogynist language.

Let's hope that as the media enables this right wing attack-fest, where senators are getting incredible opportunities to show off their anti-abortion, pro-gun positions, that the media will also show, in the instant replays, just what neanderthals these white males are.

Rob Kall is executive editor, publisher and site architect of OpEdNews.com . . read more

If John Kerry had been elected in 2004, he would have continued the Bush Administration’s policies just as Obama is doing now. But Kerry may have had a chance at a second term. The banks and Wall Street, in 2004, hadn’t yet folded. But would Kerry have been bright, or brave enough, to see the coming catastrophe and intercede in time to at least cushion the crash? Would Kerry have acted boldly to reverse the Bush Administration’s policy of open war? Would Kerry have had the courage to raise taxes, and begin the arduous process involved in addressing the ocean of red ink that Bush left behind? Would Kerry have had the spine to stand up to the republicans? A definitive no to all of the above. Kerry would have tempered any effort aimed at improving the lot of ordinary Americans with the promises he made to his corporate bosses.

Kerry, unable to assert himself, would have been a one term president, just as Obama will be. Obama’s base was essentially suckered into voting for him. All his talk of openness and accountability were only election gambits. Obama, occupying what is arguably the most powerful position on the planet, while enjoying democratic majorities in both Houses of Congress, doesn’t have the spine to make a discernable difference in the lives of Americans. This is exponentially derelict after eight years of a dull witted, and morally bereft, fraud. But as the luck of drunks and fools will have it, Bush will escape accountability. Obama, unfortunately for him, will be deserving of his abbreviated presidency, and his frightened legacy will be but another contradiction of the Founder’s intent. Progressive ideology will have taken another step back, perhaps its last.

Progressives may as well get used to the idea that, in four years, the presidency will go back to the republicans. The Democratic Congressional Majorities, if not replaced, will be reduced. It doesn‘t matter because the majorities are paralyzed anyway. House Speaker Pelosi, checkmated by her own involvement as a cheerleader for torture, is worse than useless. Voters are impressed with strong, assertive leadership, whether it is right or wrong. The republicans, never ones to let an opportunity, real or construed go by, have wasted no time in resting the blame for the economic collapse squarely on Obama’s unresisting shoulders. The question begs. Why would a man devote his entire adult life to politics, then rise to the highest level of his profession, only to cower before the advance of a weakened and outnumbered enemy? Cowardice leaps to mind, but Obama’s agenda is probably more servile than simple cowardice allows.

 [Full article at OpEd News] . . read more