Glenn Greenwald on the bailout

[Craig234]

I've recommended Glenn Greenwald before (on salon.com); here are links to some of his comments on the bailout.

link

Note his linking to information that the democrats' improvements to the plan were more window dressing - as shown in part by a private call between the Treasury leadership and Wall Street leaders, but listened in on by bloggers hearing how, for example, Wall Street was reassured that the CEO pay limits won't affect any existing agreements, and only in limited ways any new agreements.

He has some new reporting as well I had not seen, for example, if the revolving door conflict of interest noted in my sig wasn't bad enough:

(6) The people who run the Washington Establishment are drowning in conflicts of interest. Hank Paulson let Lehman Brothers go bankrupt while intervening to save AIG, only for it to be revealed after the fact that Goldman Sachs -- Paulson's career-long firm of which he was Chairman until just a couple years ago -- would have lost $20 billion had AIG failed. Worse, Goldman's current CEO, Lloyd Blankfein, was present with Paulson when the decision to save AIG was made.

Beyond the litany of Wall St.-loyal government officials demanding this Wall St.-friendly bailout (Bush's Chief of Staff, Josh Bolten, is also a former Goldman Sach official), Congressional leaders are, with very few exceptions, all vested heavily in Wall St. As but one example, Nancy Pelosi's tens of millions of dollars are invested (.pdf) in firms such as AIG, AT&T and others. It only stands to reason -- as always -- that if Wall St. is both owning the Government and running it, it will prevail over the proverbial "Main Street" every time. And it does, and just did again.

Also, in an earlier post, I said whatever your opinion on the public's judgement, there was something to celebrate in democracy working in the plan not being passed, even if only with the coincidence of it being so close to the election with so many Republicans at risk, and probably only shortly delayed while they slightly tweak the plan to get 12 votes switched. Greenwald and David Cay Johnston made the same point:

link

Greenwald makes an interesting argument that politically Pelosi did this just right:

UPDATE: Strictly on the level of "Democratic v. Republican" political strategizing, Nancy Pelosi did exactly the right thing yesterday -- she provided just enough Democratic votes in favor of the bailout so that it could pass only if there was substantial GOP support (thus preventing Republicans from cynically blaming the bailout on Democrats), while simultaneously ensuring that Republicans (and McCain) would be blamed if it failed. Strictly on a strategic level, it was -- for the reason Matt Yglesias describes -- all very well-played by the House Democratic leadership.

 

[Perknose]

Originally posted by: Craig234
Greenwald makes an interesting argument that politically Pelosi did this just right:

UPDATE: Strictly on the level of "Democratic v. Republican" political strategizing, Nancy Pelosi did exactly the right thing yesterday -- she provided just enough Democratic votes in favor of the bailout so that it could pass only if there was substantial GOP support (thus preventing Republicans from cynically blaming the bailout on Democrats), while simultaneously ensuring that Republicans (and McCain) would be blamed if it failed. Strictly on a strategic level, it was -- for the reason Matt Yglesias describes -- all very well-played by the House Democratic leadership.

He's probably giving Pelosi too much credit here but it is otherwise brilliant analysis, in that if the bailout had passed on a wave of Democratic support, Faux News and the right wing blogosphere would have been all over it.