When will the Obama Administration investigate the perpetrators of the economic crisis?

Obama and bank officials. Photo credits: public domain.

Credo, Moveon.org, and other progressive organizations are joining forces to pressure the Obama Administration during this election year to investigate the big banks that caused the housing crisis and resulting recession.

Check out this message from Credo and sign the petition to get Obama to act:

Wall Street greed fueled the housing bubble, and it's not hard to find evidence of what appears to be widespread and pervasive fraud by the biggest players in the mortgage industry.

Yet, despite the work of a handful of brave state attorneys general, there has been an astonishing lack of investigation into the misdeeds and outright crimes that caused the financial crisis.

The investigations that do exist have barely begun to scratch the surface.

And without meaningful investigations, there won't be any accountability for the Wall Street crooks who drove our economy off a cliff.

Tell President Obama: Announce a full investigation into the cause of the housing bubble and foreclosure crisis. Click here to automatically sign the petition.

The collapse of the housing bubble caused trillions of dollars in homeowner equity to evaporate, which directly led to our economy grinding to a halt.

And the ensuing wave of foreclosures — caused in no small part both by predatory loans designed to fail and out-and-out foreclosure fraud — has destroyed communities across the country and shrank the tax base of local governments right when there was the most need for the services they provide.

Yet with all the resources at its disposal, the Department of Justice and other federal entities have yet to announce a full investigation of the cause of this man-made economic catastrophe.

Quite the opposite. Thus far the president's advisors have been pushing for a bad settlement with the banks that lets them off the hook . But a bad settlement has been stopped so far by courageous progressive attorneys general supported by an army of grassroots activists like you.

We now have an opportunity to change the White House's strategy as the reelection campaign heats up, and get the president to come out on the right side of this issue.

Tell President Obama: Announce a full investigation into the cause of the housing bubble and foreclosure crisis. Click here to automatically sign the petition.

The timing of this fight is critical.

The election calendar is working with us by pushing President Obama to be more aggressive than he's been. We saw this, for example, with his recent recess appointment of Richard Cordray to lead the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

And we know that President Obama's political team wants him to run against Wall Street.

CREDO is not alone in asking the Obama administration to launch a full investigation. We're joining with MoveOn and other progressive groups in this campaign.

If we make enough noise, it will be hard for the Obama administration to avoid calling for full investigations into the fraud that led to the housing crisis.

It's a completely reasonable ask, it's within his powers to call for a full investigation, and it's the right thing to do.

Tell President Obama: Announce a full investigation into the cause of the housing bubble and foreclosure crisis. Click here to automatically sign the petition.

Thank you for speaking out. Your activism matters.

Matt Lockshin, Campaign Manager
CREDO Action from Working Assets

Whither the Occupy energy in 2012?

Zuccoti Park, Occupy Wall Street. Credit: public domain.

Katrina vanden Heuvel at the Nation is bullish on Occupy Wall Street energy:

As we head into 2012, there are a lot of questions about where the Occupy energy will go from here. I’m confident it will move in powerful directions–fighting unjust foreclosures and evictions, exploring alternative banking, taking on outrageous student debt, countering the corrosive role of corporate money in politics, and allying in new ways with the growing ranks of poor Americans.

But there are also tangible—maybe not sexy or systemic—reforms that make a real difference in people’s lives and speak to OWS principles, and would benefit from its energy and activism. In 2011, two victories on paid sick leave offer something to build on as we work towards an economy that is more just and fair. Connecticut became the first state to guarantee this common sense protection for working people; and Seattle joined San Francisco and Washington, DC as the only cities with paid sick leave on the books.

As of New Year’s Day, hundreds of thousands of workers in Connecticut no longer have to choose between a paycheck, a job and taking care of a sick child or themselves; and on September 1, when the Seattle law takes effect, an estimated 150,000 workers who didn’t have paid sick days will begin to accrue them—thousands more will earn additional paid sick leave and have the flexibility and protection to actually use it. With more than 40 million workers in the US lacking a single paid sick day—and low-wage, women and Latino workers disproportionately affected—these new laws will also offer more evidence that this humane, decent approach to the workplace is also good for business. That’s important as more states and municipalities look to pass similar legislation.

Read more:

The Occupiers “R” us!

photo courtesy of dnforum.com

The Nation’s John Nichols skewers the attempts of Wall Street’s defenders to dismiss the spokespersons for the 99% of the population struggling with unemployment, underwater mortgages, low wages, and the rising cost of living. 

Open your eyes, folks: the Occupiers “R” us.

In his thoughtful analysis of the Occupy movement, Nichols writes:

How did Occupy Wall Street suddenly become Occupy Los Angeles? Occupy Cleveland? Occupy Janesville? Occupy Pocatello? How did a sleep-in beneath the skyscrapers of Lower Manhattan inspire kayakers clad as Robin Hood to paddle up the Chicago River under a banner reading, Wall St. Takes From the 99%. Gives to the Rich? And how did those giant cutouts of JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon end up dancing with all those San Franciscans chanting, “Make banks pay”? Despite what Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain suggests, it was not some “orchestrated” attempt to deflect blame from the flawed policies of the Obama administration. It was not the media looking for a “left-wing Tea Party.” And it certainly was not a poll-tested, focus-grouped PR campaign that billionaire-funded front groups employ to gin up movements.

Occupy Wall Street started small, took a beating from the cops and struggled for weeks to get the attention of the political class, the media and even its own natural allies. The only thing going for this unlikely intervention has been the pitch-perfect resonance of its founding premises. The American people understood Occupy Wall Street, and began to embrace its promise, long before the mandarins who presume to chart our national discourse noticed that everything was changing. That’s because the generators of this movement—and it is a movement—have gotten three things right from the start:

The target is right. This has been a year of agitation, from Wisconsin to Ohio to Washington. It has seen some of the largest demonstrations in recent American history in defense of labor rights, public education, public services. But all those uprisings attacked symptoms of the disease. Occupy Wall Street named it. By aiming activism not at the government but at the warren of bankers, CEOs and hedge-fund managers to whom the government is beholden, Occupy Wall Street went to the heart of the matter. And that captured the imagination of Americans who knew Michael Moore was right when he finished his 2009 documentary Capitalism: A Love Story with an attempted citizen’s arrest of the bankers who not only avoided accountability after crashing the economy but profited from a taxpayer-funded bailout. Like the populists, the socialists and the best of the progressive reformers of a century ago, Occupy Wall Street has not gotten distracted by electoral politics; it has gone after the manipulator of both major parties—what the radicals of old referred to as “the money power.”

The numbers are right. If Thomas Frank’s What’s the Matter With Kansas? taught us anything, it was that the great accomplishment of the money power in contemporary politics has been to divide the overwhelming mass of Americans over social and cultural issues, thus deflecting attention from fundamental economic debates. The brilliance of Occupy Wall Street’s message, “We are the 99 percent,” is that it invites just about everyone who isn’t a billionaire to recognize themselves as members of the class that has suffered what Thomas Jefferson once described as “a long train of abuses and usurpations.” For all the efforts of Wall Street’s media and political defenders to dismiss the persistent protesters as somehow un-American, the vast majority of Americans recognize that kids in sleeping bags did not shutter this country’s factories, mangle our mortgage markets or create a pay-to-play system. The 99 percent did not ask for or approve a system that always has money for wars and bank bailouts but won’t, as former Congressman Alan Grayson notes, help the 24 million Americans who can’t find full-time work, the 50 million Americans who can’t see a doctor when they’re sick, the 47 million Americans who need government aid to feed themselves, the 15 million American families who owe more on their mortgages than their homes are worth.

The demands are right. The most comic complaint about Occupy Wall Street—not just from critics but even from some elite sympathizers—is that it lacks well-defined demands. In fact, the objection of the occupiers to a system of corporate domination and growing inequality, and their desire to change that system, makes a lot more sense to a lot more Americans than anything being said by politicians. Polling confirms this point: Barack Obama’s approval ratings are dismal, but the approval ratings for the Republicans in Congress are dramatically worse. The American people desperately wanted this movement. That is proven not only by the polls but by the practical embrace of the Occupy Wall Street ethos in more than a thousand communities across the nation. Some are already occupying public spaces, others are marching and rallying. Beyond Wall Street, there will be more specific complaints, more adventurous alliances, more practical politics, but there’s no reason why a diversity of issues and tactics cannot build the movement that was invited when the call to Occupy Wall Street was issued.

Read more:

Stories of Americans economically going down for the count

Photo courtesy of thepeoplesvoice.org

Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont is emerging as the one political leader in Washington who gets it in these harsh economic times. In his recent NY Times op-ed Bob Herbert reports how Sanders has taken the trouble to listen to his demoralized constituents.

Herbert writes:

Buried deep beneath the stories about executive bonuses, the stock market surge and the economy’s agonizingly slow road to recovery is the all-but-silent suffering of the many millions of Americans who, economically, are going down for the count.

A 46-year-old teacher in Charlotte, Vt., who has been unable to find a full-time job and is weighed down with debt, wrote to his U.S. senator, Bernie Sanders:

“I am financially ruined. I find myself depressed and demoralized and my confidence is shattered. Worst of all, as I hear more and more talk about deficit reduction and further layoffs, I have the agonizing feeling that the worst may not be behind us.”

Similar stories of hardship and desolation can be found throughout Vermont and the rest of the nation. The true extent of the economic devastation, and the enormous size of that portion of the population that is being left behind, has not yet been properly acknowledged. What is being allowed to happen to those being pushed out or left out of the American mainstream is the most important and potentially most dangerous issue facing the country.

Read more:

Gasp – What a Concept! Human Beings Should Preside Over the Market – Not the Other Way Around!

It’s Sunday morning, and I was drawn to an opinion piece in the Washington Post by Jim Wallis, a religious leader known for his emphasis on social justice for all people.

I especially appreciated these words in A Religious Response to the Financial Crisis:

…the Earth does not belong to the market. Human beings are stewards of God's creation and should preside over the market -- not the other way around. We must replace the market's false promise of limitless growth and consumption with an acknowledgment of human finitude, with a little more humility and with some moral limits. And the market's first commandment, "There is never enough," must be replaced by the dictums of God's economy -- namely, there is enough, if we share it.

Wallis concludes with some excellent advice:

Moving forward, I hope local congregations and national denominations alike will begin reflecting on where they keep their money and how their investments reflect their faith. I envision congregations creating checklists to evaluate who they do business with, and national church bodies considering where they should invest their pension funds.

When I recently told a few friends that my wife, Joy, and I had decided to close our little account at Bank of America and move our money to a local bank that has behaved more responsibly, I was amazed at the response. Religious leaders and pastors from around the country called to say that they, too, were ready to take their money out of the big banks that have shown such shameful morality and instead invest according to their values, by putting money into more local and community-based institutions.

So we've decided not just to remove our own money, but to invite other Christians, Jews and Muslims to do the same. Already we are hearing reports of whole congregations, groups of churches and faith-based organizations, from California to New York City, deciding to transfer their funds to local banks and credit unions.

The banks say they are "too big to fail." So let's make them smaller. We might finally get Wall Street's attention.

Krugman’s Crash Course in Economics: How Did Economists Get It So Wrong?

If you’ve been reading Katalusis since its inception in August 2007, you’re well aware that economics is not one of my areas of expertise. My usual response to the topic has been to marvel at a system that functions best when the middle class is heading daily to the mall to spend its hard-earned cash on stuff it doesn’t need instead of saving a few dollars for a rainy day.

In recent years, many of us have been suckered in by credit card swindlers to spend more than we have at usurious interest rates. At the same time, a significant number of low income seniors have racked up credit card debt to pay for emergencies like car repairs, dental bills, new eye glasses, and doubled or tripled electric bills from running the air conditioner during summer heat waves.

Then came word in the fall of 2008 that the economy was tanking fast. One of the scariest scenes for me since the announcement of the global financial meltdown was Alan Greenspan’s public admission that the model he had believed in over the years had proved to be wrong. What model would that be, I wondered.

Nearly a year later, I surprised myself by printing Paul Krugman’s 11-page dissertation in the NY Times Magazine titled How Did Economists Get It So Wrong? More surprising, I gathered it up and took it out to my kitchen table and with yellow highlighter in hand sat there and read the whole thing. No kidding. Written in lay people’s terms, the article was readable even for a novice like me, and I now have a much better handle on economic theory and practice; heck, I even know the difference between “fresh water” and “salt water” economists. Hint: lots of fresh water economists are from Chicago.

Krugman writes:

It’s hard to believe now, but not long ago economists were congratulating themselves over the success of their field. Those successes — or so they believed — were both theoretical and practical, leading to a golden era for the profession. On the theoretical side, they thought that they had resolved their internal disputes. Thus, in a 2008 paper titled “The State of Macro” (that is, macroeconomics, the study of big-picture issues like recessions), Olivier Blanchard of M.I.T., now the chief economist at the International Monetary Fund, declared that “the state of macro is good.” The battles of yesteryear, he said, were over, and there had been a “broad convergence of vision.” And in the real world, economists believed they had things under control: the “central problem of depression-prevention has been solved,” declared Robert Lucas of the University of Chicago in his 2003 presidential address to the American Economic Association. In 2004, Ben Bernanke, a former Princeton professor who is now the chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, celebrated the Great Moderation in economic performance over the previous two decades, which he attributed in part to improved economic policy making.

Last year, everything came apart.

Read more of Krugman’s compelling narrative here:

Krugman: “If You Aren’t Outraged, You Haven’t Been Paying Attention

Paul Krugman goes after Wall Street in his NY Times op-ed column, and he does not fail to call the Obama Administration to account:

Americans are angry at Wall Street, and rightly so. First the financial industry plunged us into economic crisis, then it was bailed out at taxpayer expense. And now, with the economy still deeply depressed, the industry is paying itself gigantic bonuses. If you aren’t outraged, you haven’t been paying attention.

But crashing the economy and fleecing the taxpayer aren’t Wall Street’s only sins. Even before the crisis and the bailouts, many financial-industry high-fliers made fortunes through activities that were worthless if not destructive from a social point of view.

And they’re still at it. Consider two recent news stories.

Read more:

Neophyte Obama at the Helm in a Deepening Recession

When the Democratic Party selected neophyte Barack Obama as its nominee over the seasoned and experienced Hillary Clinton in 2008, no one anticipated the global financial meltdown that left Americans in a recession with soaring unemployment. Early on, President Obama surrounded himself with a squadron of financial advisors, including Larry Summers and Timothy Geithner. Having no background in economics, Obama made his decisions based on the advice of said advisors while ignoring warnings from folks like the Nobel-prize winning economist, Paul Krugman. Krugman has graciously refrained from saying “I told you so,” but he has urged the increasingly defensive president to take action soon. In a recent column, Krugman wrote:

Now, it’s bad enough to be jobless for a few weeks; it’s much worse being unemployed for months or years. Yet that’s exactly what will happen to millions of Americans if the average forecast is right — which means that many of the unemployed will lose their savings, their homes and more.

To head off this outcome — and remember, this isn’t what economic Cassandras are saying; it’s the forecasting consensus — we’d need to get another round of fiscal stimulus under way very soon. But neither Congress nor, alas, the Obama administration is showing any inclination to act. Now that the free fall is over, all sense of urgency seems to have vanished.

A follow-up editorial in the NY Times begins:

Unemployment is rising. Foreclosures are surging. Lending is still constrained. So why exactly is the Obama administration waiting to act?

The editorial discusses three main areas in which the Obama Administration should at least lay the groundwork at the present time despite its current preoccupation with health care reform: stimulus spending, foreclosure relief, and bank rescue.

The editorial concludes:

If wait-and-see is anything other than a near-term tactic, it’s bound to be a miscalculation. The need for expanded relief and recovery efforts is compelling. Rather than avoid those fights, the Obama team must win them.

Times reader Dwight Bobson of Washington, DC pointed out:

Most all that Obama and the Dems have done is play it too safe. They had a super majority and knew what must be done. They acted by hiring the insiders and rewarded the criminals in the financial community again benefitting from self-induced bonuses. When it came time for the working class to receive some help, they got $250 to spend wildly on basic food and clothes for their kids. The more things change the more they remain the same.

What’s a Nice Liberal Like Me Doing in a Place Like This?

Note to readers: Continued job losses in the hundreds of thousands each month remind me of what my co-workers and I went through a couple of years ago during a massive corporate downsizing. In the post below I reflect on lessons learned from that life-changing experience.

Cross-posted at the Widdershins

The local regional office of one of the world’s largest insurance companies looks out over the interstate where an endless stream of cars, trucks, and buses pours down the ramp and loops westward.

The building’s redbrick walls seal out the whine of freeway traffic. Rows of green-tinted windows allow occupants to look out, but prevent passersby from looking in. Uniformed security guards patrol the hulking, foursquare building and the well-tended acreage surrounding it.

Located in an upscale suburb of a large city, the state-of-the-art facility was built in the 90s to replace an older building in a less affluent neighborhood. The CEO and chairman of the board appeared with the lieutenant governor and other dignitaries at opening day ceremonies, complete with rousing music by a local band.

During my several years’ employment in the regional office, dubbed “the palace” by visiting agents, I occasionally looked around at my well-furnished workplace, provided by a company long known for its conservatism and powerful family culture and wondered, “What’s a nice liberal like me doing in a place like this?”

The answer eluded me until a couple of years ago when I took early retirement, prompted by a tsunami of consolidation and downsizing across our Fortune 500 Company. The powerful wave of change was unleashed by advances in computer technology that resulted in fewer employees required to do work that was no longer geographically constrained.

In the beginning, I’d considered my first job in the corporate world a temporary stopover; I planned to continue looking for employment where I could better use my skills in a more compatible environment.

My internal gyroscope of liberal values was fashioned by painful experience, clarified through study and reflection, and then dismantled and put back together again several times — before, during, and after three years of study at a progressive seminary. Mine was a thoroughly examined life.

Having grown up in a displaced Appalachian family, outsiders in the flatlands of northwestern Ohio, I easily empathized with others forced to overcome negative stereotypes.

Like many with roots in the mountains, I held in balance respect for the integrity of the individual and the importance of community. And I knew no other way to be in the world than to be myself.

Yet, I — after long decrying the harm wrought by stereotypes — committed the sin of stereotyping others. Through my liberal lens, I saw my fellow employees as hundreds of gray flannel clones. Men strode affably about in suits and ties. Women, wearing their version of the suit, darted down corridors on high heels, power walking to fit exercise into busy schedules.

Members of several minority groups appeared to be fully assimilated by the dominant culture, and I saw them, too, going about their business in monochrome.

I concluded the regional office housed a predominantly conservative population, devoted primarily to the god of capitalism. Corporate America was clearly not the place for me.

Nevertheless, perhaps unconsciously lulled into complacency by an ethos of benign paternalism (do your job, and we’ll take care of you), I stayed on. Eventually, I moved into the public affairs department as a writer and photographer for the regional employees’ magazine and Web site.

My new responsibilities gave me access to employees at all levels of the hierarchy. As I started seeing people as individuals, they emerged one by one from their previous gray anonymity. (The change to a more relaxed dress code helped.)

An American Indian explained how he juggled working full-time as an underwriter; serving as a member of the diversity council while participating in other company-sponsored volunteer activities; and pursuing his master’s degree.

An African-American manager taught me how to do the “pow,” a popular handshake in his culture. I knew I’d gotten it right the day he grinned and said, “You’re a mess.”

A Vietnamese employee, wearing his security badge on a lanyard with yin and yang symbolism, provided instruction in using meditation as a means to detach myself from difficult situations. I didn’t always succeed, but I learned to value this thoughtful man’s insights.

Two young claim reps, fresh out of college, contributed their zany sense of humor to my work life. A brief encounter with them in the hallway was usually enough to turn my day around.

One afternoon, a middle-aged vice president came in to get his photo updated. Afterward, he put his feet up on an open file drawer and talked about growing up in an orphanage in New York City. He was sincerely surprised by the success he had achieved and at the same time humbled by the experience. And speaking of shattered stereotypes, this insurance executive happened to be a Harley rider, who led an annual bikers’ run for charity.

A claims manager who knew the insurance business inside and out was readily available to review my stories. Noted for plain speaking, she had a knack for jolting me out of creeping corporate-speak. On one occasion, she told me, “Quoting a bunch of high profile managers doesn’t improve the quality of this article.”

Her point was well taken. It prompted me to paraphrase familiar biblical words of wisdom: If we say we are without spin, we deceive ourselves. My straightforward informal mentor and consultant, a high profile manager herself, also proved to be a kind, thoughtful, and faithful friend.

Over the passing months, many other employees revealed deeper aspects of themselves:

A mother shared what it was like to lose her son.

I witnessed the depth of feeling of a father whose six-year-old daughter was undergoing treatment for cancer.

A single woman talked about her escape from an abusive marriage and the struggle to bring up her children alone.

Basic connections transcended our differences. As trust developed, our conversations ventured into philosophy, ethics, politics, art, and even the risky terrain of religion. A mystical spirituality began swirling in and around the electronic hum of computers and everyday business discourse. It was a spirituality that affirmed our common humanity; revealed the power of our dreams, imagination, and vision; and hinted at mysteries none of us could adequately explain. It was an inclusive spirituality, unconfined by rigid dogma or particular religion.

Like employees in most workplaces, we reinforced bonds of community by celebrating birthdays, weddings, anniversaries, new babies, and promotions. We offered support when an employee’s life was touched by the death of a loved one. And when someone left, we gathered to bid farewell.

Our population was greater than many small towns, and we had similar amenities: a company store, medical department, mailroom, credit union, and ATM. We could also meet in the dining room to share a meal with friends.

Sheltered as we were within those solid brick walls, the storm that struck in early spring took most of us by surprise — even though we had worked virtually with our sister regional office for months and knew that one of our offices was slated to close.

We had heard a rumor the senior vice president of our recently merged, six-state territory would be in the office selected for closing on the day of the final announcement. Early that morning, a co-worker reported seeing him and other VIPs enter the building.

At the appointed hour we gathered in assigned rooms where the visiting VIPs recited prepared statements confirming our fears. It was a dizzying descent from being among the company’s “most valued assets” to suddenly discovering we were expendable.

We reacted with disbelief, pain, and anger as we began a prolonged process of grieving, not just for the likelihood of losing our jobs, but also for the certain incremental destruction of the unique community we had created.

The grief of those who had worked there the longest was infected by a sense of betrayal. One older employee observed, “When I was growing up, our parents advised us to find jobs in the insurance or banking industries — you could count on lifetime security.”

Members of various minority groups also felt betrayed. Employees were given the option to compete for job offers at the other site. This meant relocating westward from the outskirts of a multicultural, urban environment to a smaller, less diverse city. An African-American man illustrated well how much the dominant culture takes for granted. He said, “I don’t doubt the sincerity of our leadership, but they just don’t get it. How can I explain to them that I don’t want to live in a place where I have to drive 50 miles to find someone who knows how to cut my hair?”

The night following the announcement that our office would be closing, I dreamed I saw in the darkness a black limousine crawl slowly across a wooden bridge and then pull over to the side of the road. The occupants, our VIP visitors that day, got out of their car and walked over to look at a sign posted near the bridge. The sign read: “Danger — Ice.”

In Jungian thought, only gods may cross over a bridge in the realm of dreams; mortals must walk below. I interpreted my dream accordingly: business leaders are ill advised to play god with the lives of their employees.

Regrettably, even before the storm, some looting had already occurred. As the overall number of jobs dwindled at both locations, the occasional supervisor, prone to favoritism, and a few employees, too insecure to compete solely on merit, resorted to robbing others of their rightful opportunities; to my knowledge, they were never held accountable for their wrongdoing.

In the storm’s aftermath, the once lively dining room became quieter each day with muted conversation now seldom interrupted by bursts of laughter. I was having lunch alone on one occasion, when I heard a familiar voice: “You can keep reading your paper if you want to,” she said, as she sat down across from me. I folded my paper and put it aside.

Visibly tired from dealing with our tumultuous transition, this particular vice president spoke with passionate concern for the many employees whose lives were being drastically changed. “No one,” she said, “can take your skills away from you; they belong to you. Your security has to come from within yourself. No company can provide that for you.”

Even as she spoke, the old bureaucratic structure, already weakened, shuddered and collapsed around us. So ends the era of benign paternalism, I mentally noted, and all the false expectations it creates. Through the dust of falling rubble, however, I glimpsed the dawning of a new era in which employees would thereafter take their lives in their own hands and chart their own futures.

Eventually, our conversations turned from debating why our office was closing and not the other one to discussing what we were going to do next. Like a true community, neighbors began helping one another with resumes, networking, and moral support.

Good-byes became more frequent as employees left for jobs with other companies and a few accepted offers in our sister office. Those left behind experienced the early departures — at first a trickle — as an uninterrupted stream of loss.

The plan was to close the office in stages and when more specific announcements were made, I learned I would be leaving sooner than anticipated. I was among those over 55 who were offered early retirement; we were given three months’ notice and had to scramble to make critical decisions and complete necessary paperwork.

My retirement party was held the afternoon of my final day. Arriving a few minutes early, I watched guests crowd into the private dining room reserved for the occasion. I recognized representatives of different age groups, national origin, races, faith traditions, political affiliation, degrees of education, and job levels – from support personnel to the executive ranks.


There were no clones in gray flannel suits.


Of the gifts I received that day, my favorite was an official hooded, zip-front, logo-emblazoned Harley-Davidson jacket presented to me by the Harley-riding VP.

A few days later, seated at my kitchen table, I opened the bound collection of letters from my diverse group of friends. Their comments awakened me to a role I had unwittingly played while making my rounds with notepad and camera.

One employee wrote: “You’ve never been afraid to bring your whole self to work: ethics, religion, and politics. You forced us to bring our whole selves to work, too — just in case you challenged us. Well, it’s an odd thing and a pleasure to have an office full of whole people walking around. What an office you stirred up!”

That’s when I knew just what a nice liberal like me had been doing in a place like that.

I also knew something else: in today’s corporate world, too often governed solely by the bottom line, communities will continue to form and in time, dissolve. But the friendships forged during good times and bad, the truths shared, and the lessons learned will long endure — well past the inevitable day when that company name has faded into oblivion.

The Verdict on Obama’s Response to the Financial Crisis: “No We Can’t”

Nobel prize-winning economist Paul Krugman gently turns the Obama Administration’s response to the nation’s economic crisis inside out and concludes there’s not much there.

Krugman writes:

(emphasis mine)

By any normal political standards, this week’s Congressional agreement on an economic stimulus package was a great victory for President Obama. He got more or less what he asked for: almost $800 billion to rescue the economy, with most of the money allocated to spending rather than tax cuts. Break out the Champagne!

Or maybe not. These aren’t normal times, so normal political standards don’t apply: Mr. Obama’s victory feels more than a bit like defeat. The stimulus bill looks helpful but inadequate, especially when combined with a disappointing plan for rescuing the banks. And the politics of the stimulus fight have made nonsense of Mr. Obama’s postpartisan dream.

Krugman continues:

For while Mr. Obama got more or less what he asked for, he almost certainly didn’t ask for enough. We’re probably facing the worst slump since the Great Depression. The Congressional Budget Office, not usually given to hyperbole, predicts that over the next three years there will be a $2.9 trillion gap between what the economy could produce and what it will actually produce. And $800 billion, while it sounds like a lot of money, isn’t nearly enough to bridge that chasm.

Officially, the administration insists that the plan is adequate to the economy’s need. But few economists agree. And it’s widely believed that political considerations led to a plan that was weaker and contains more tax cuts than it should have — that Mr. Obama compromised in advance in the hope of gaining broad bipartisan support. We’ve just seen how well that worked.

Now, the chances that the fiscal stimulus will prove adequate would be higher if it were accompanied by an effective financial rescue, one that would unfreeze the credit markets and get money moving again. But the long-awaited announcement of the Obama administration’s plans on that front, which also came this week, landed with a dull thud.

And here’s the conclusion of Krugman’s disturbing reflections on the state of the economy this morning:

Over all, the effect was to kick the can down the road. And that’s not good enough. So far the Obama administration’s response to the economic crisis is all too reminiscent of Japan in the 1990s: a fiscal expansion large enough to avert the worst, but not enough to kick-start recovery; support for the banking system, but a reluctance to force banks to face up to their losses. It’s early days yet, but we’re falling behind the curve.

And I don’t know about you, but I’ve got a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach — a feeling that America just isn’t rising to the greatest economic challenge in 70 years. The best may not lack all conviction, but they seem alarmingly willing to settle for half-measures. And the worst are, as ever, full of passionate intensity, oblivious to the grotesque failure of their doctrine in practice.

There’s still time to turn this around. But Mr. Obama has to be stronger looking forward. Otherwise, the verdict on this crisis might be that no, we can’t.

Again, Americans, it's time to wake up. You voted for a charming, motivational speaker in 2008 and elected the least experienced candidate in either the Democratic or Republican primaries to lead us through the most challenging period in recent American history.

Were you really so idolatrous as to expect Mr. Obama to walk on water?

Hanukkah, Christmas, Kwanzaa, New Year’s: Honoring Light in a Dark Season

Photo credits: Ceile Hartleib

In the midst of decorating my home for Christmas this weekend, I easily empathized with those described in Jan Hoffman’s NY Times article, The Holidays Downsized: No Job and Fewer Gifts. As I mentioned in an earlier post, my family and friends have not been untouched by the global financial crisis.

Several among my acquaintances have lost their jobs in recent months, even before the nation’s leaders acknowledged we’d slipped into a recession. Others have had their hours cut or pensions reduced due to the plummeting stock market.

Hoffman’s article in the Times begins:

“SUSAN McCABE liked to go all out for Christmas. Presents for friends and 17 relatives: high-end cameras for adults, Nintendo Wii for the children. On Christmas Eve, she proudly treated the immediate family to dinner at romantic white tablecloth restaurants in Manhattan. Sticker shock? Ms. McCabe, who sold eco-friendly technology, wouldn’t blink twice.

“But in September, the start-up company she worked for went belly up. “A restaurant dinner? All those presents?

‘“Out of the question,” said Ms. McCabe, who is scrambling to make the rent on her Manhattan apartment. “And that really bothers me.”’

As dire as the above sounds, Hoffman interweaves an uplifting spiritual motif throughout the stories she tells of how people like the McCabes are coping with adversity this holiday season. The spiritual shines through in a family’s decision to return to the customs of a previous generation or simply refocusing on the deeper meaning of symbols related to Hanukkah, Christmas, Kwanzaa, or the celebration of New Year’s, all of which, as Hoffman points out, “honor light in a dark season.”

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I’m finding my own spiritual nourishment lately through a revised early morning routine at my kitchen table that includes journaling, reading a chapter or two of Thich Nhat Hanh’s Going Home: Jesus and Buddha Are Brothers, and meditating for a few minutes.

Thich Nhat Hanh is A Vietnamese Buddhist who practices meditation in Plum Village, a retreat center in southwestern France. Here’s an excerpt from today’s reading:

“This evening, December twenty-fourth, we shall practice sitting meditation together. The sitting today is very special because after fifteen minutes we will begin to hear the sound of the church bells in northern Russia. We will sit very silently and we will listen to the bells of an Orthodox Church in northern Russia for about twenty minutes. We shall be sitting together silently, solidly like a mountain and free like the air. We will allow the sound of the church bell to touch the seeds of solidity and joy within us. If you do well, the seeds of joy, of love, and peace will begin to bloom like flowers in the fields of your hearts. You may have a chance to discover the true nature of the bell."

Thich Nhat Hanh continues:

“The sound of the bell in the Buddhist temple, the sound of the bell in an Orthodox Church, in a Catholic Church, and in a Protestant Church, their nature is the same.”

Peace be with you this evening, my friends, wherever you are and whatever your circumstances.

_____________________

P.S.

If you'd like to share how you and your family are coping with adversity this holiday season, please leave a comment below.

Euphoric Supporters Harbouring Unrealistic Hopes of What President Obama Might Achieve?!!

Photo credits: Photobucket.com

The name of the game is lowering expectations, and who would have thought it would come from the most impressive motivational speaker of our time? Barack Obama, the man who has demonstrated repeatedly that he’s got a talent for turning a political rally into a foot-stomping, chanting revival meeting, has suddenly realized that if he’s elected president on Nov. 4th , his followers might expect him to fulfill all of those big campaign promises he’s made. Wowser!

Let’s see - within the next four years, Obama is obligated to end the war in Iraq; cut taxes for everyone whose income is under $250,000; create millions of green jobs; provide universal health care; stop global warming; beef up our educational system; solve the financial crisis; unite Democrats and Republicans; and bring peace to all the nations.

Is it any wonder that the haloed one is getting a little nervous? Here’s the word from the Times Online:

“Barack Obama’s senior advisers have drawn up plans to lower expectations for his presidency if he wins next week’s election, amid concerns that many of his euphoric supporters are harbouring unrealistic hopes of what he can achieve.

“The sudden financial crisis and the prospect of a deep and painful recession have increased the urgency inside the Obama team to bring people down to earth, after a campaign in which his soaring rhetoric and promises of “hope” and “change” are now confronted with the reality of a stricken economy.”

No kidding.

Is this the same candidate who during a recent presidential debate moderated by Jim Lehrer couldn’t think of even one campaign promise that he’d have to forego due to the financial crisis? Guess he had to wait until he felt he had the election wrapped up.

To read more of the Times article, go here.

Ignore the Tabloids: This is Not a Depression!

Lately, I’ve wished I’d taken at least an introductory class in economics during my college years. After word of the House’s thumbs down on the $700 billion rescue bill yesterday, sensationalist headlines instantaneously appeared across the MSM and the blogosphere shouting, “the worst stock market plunge ever!”

Marketwatch offers a calmer voice this morning: Irwin Kellner writes: “We are nowhere near a depression, so let's stop talking ourselves into one.”

Kellner compares today’s financial situation with the depression of the 1930s:

In the crash of 1929 the Dow Jones industrials ($INDU:Dow Jones Industrial Average
$INDU 10,365.45, -777.68, -7.0%) plunged 40% in two months; this time around it has taken a year to fall 22%.

The jobless rate jumped to 25% by 1933; it is little more than 6% today.

The gross domestic product shrank by 25% during the early 1930s; it is up over 3% during the past year.

Consumer prices fell by about 30% from 1929 to 1933; and the last time I looked they were still rising.

Home prices dropped more than 30% during the Depression vs. about 16% today.

Some 40% of all mortgages were delinquent by 1934 compared with 4% today.

In the 1930s, more than 9,000 banks failed compared with fewer than 20 over the past couple of years.

Remember also it was policy errors, not the stock market crash, that caused the Great Depression:

Instead of increasing the money supply, the Federal Reserve of that era reduced it by one-third.

Instead of lowering taxes, Herbert Hoover raised them.

And to channel whatever demand was left into U.S.-made goods, the government enacted the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act to keep out foreign products; this only provoked our trading partners to do the same.

Add to this today's automatic stabilizers such as unemployment insurance and Social Security, the FDIC to insure bank deposits and circuit breakers to keep stocks from falling too quickly, and you can see why this is not a depression in any way shape or form.

While I am at it, I would like to take issue with the almost ubiquitous use of the word "bailout" to describe the government's rescue package.
Read more.

Clinton’s Economic Policies Meet the Main Street Test

In responding to the current economic crisis, Hillary Clinton’s first allegiance is to the people who live on Main Street.

According to Gene Sperling in today’s Washington Post, “To solve the current crisis, Hillary Clinton believes we need sorely missed proactive policies that ask what is best for families on Main Street. That starts with economic leadership that is poised to preempt rather than chase crises.”

Sperling continues:

“Last March, when the Federal Reserve and the Bush administration claimed that the subprime mess was "contained," Clinton called on regulators to take preemptive action -- including a foreclosure timeout, strengthening the Federal Housing Administration's capacities to respond to a crisis and cracking down on predatory lending practices with plain-language disclosure requirements.”

Further, according to Sperling, “She {Clinton} has since called for a plan to encourage the restructuring of viable mortgages through a voluntary agreement to freeze interest rates on subprime adjustable-rate mortgages and a 90-day foreclosure moratorium. She immediately supported the legislation introduced by Rep. Barney Frank and Sen. Chris Dodd seeking a more systemic effort to unlock and restructure mortgages, and she continues to consult experts over the most effective method for doing so.”

Clinton’s “Main Street Test” means “Complex lending vehicles for sophisticated financiers must ultimately be shown to benefit America's working families. What justifies a $30 billion temporary lifeline for Bear Stearns and more common-sense supervision of our mortgage industry is the recognition that hands-off postures toward mindless or mind-numbing lending practices can lead to an economic spiral that can hit Main Street hard.”

Sperling reports:

“Sometimes the best way to meet the Main Street Test is to directly assist those who live there. On Thursday, Clinton proposed a second stimulus package, focused on helping at-risk homeowners and communities. Across the nation, concentrated foreclosures and vacant buildings are leading to downward spirals; they threaten to bring crime and blight into once-viable neighborhoods. In early January, Clinton called for a $30 billion Emergency Housing Fund to give localities broad tools to head off this threat, including the latitude to buy and rent out or resell such vacant properties. Today, even Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke is calling for policies to confront the community harm traced to "clusters of foreclosures." If we can provide a $30 billion lifeline for Bear Stearns, can't we afford $30 billion to prevent Main Streets from turning into mean streets?

“As important as productivity growth can be, the ultimate test of our long-term economic policies are the wages, jobs, health care and economic mobility of typical and too often "invisible" American families. The answer does not lie in extending high-income tax cuts or in expensive new corporate tax cuts. Nor is it in creating a spate of new government bureaucracies. Hillary Clinton supports policies that empower Americans directly to achieve greater economic security and upward mobility: a health-care tax credit that goes directly to you; a $1,000 matching tax cut that goes directly to your savings account; and higher education tax cuts that go directly to pay for your or your child's tuition and dreams of a better future.”

Gene Sperling, is economic adviser to Sen. Hillary Clinton's campaign.

Krugman's Economics 101: Clinton Knows What She’s Talking About; Obama Leans Right

Photo credits: AP

Reminding readers of the potential for a recession, Paul Krugman, professor of Economics and International Affairs at Princeton University, critiques what the leading candidates have to say about economic policy in his op-ed column in today’s NY Times. Below are abbreviated versions of Krugman’s responses to each candidate's economic proposal (to read his original column, go here):

McCain:

But shouldn’t we worry about a candidate who’s so out of touch that he regards Mr. Bubble {Greenspan}, the man who refused to regulate subprime lending and assured us that there was at most some “froth” in the housing market, as a source of sage advice?

Giulani:

...his answer to the economy’s short-run problems is a huge permanent tax cut, which he claims would pay for itself. It wouldn’t.

Huckabee:

...well, what can you say about a candidate who talks populist while proposing to raise taxes on the middle class and cut them for the rich?

Romney:

He’s still offering nothing but standard-issue G.O.P. pablum about low taxes and a pro-business environment.

Edwards:

...he proposed a stimulus package including aid to unemployed workers, aid to cash-strapped state and local governments, public investment in alternative energy, and other measures.

Clinton:

Last week Hillary Clinton offered a broadly similar {to Edwards’} but somewhat larger proposal. (It also includes aid to families having trouble paying heating bills, which seems like a clever way to put cash in the hands of people likely to spend it.) The Edwards and Clinton proposals both contain provisions for bigger stimulus if the economy worsens.

And you have to say that Mrs. Clinton seems comfortable with and knowledgeable about economic policy. I’m sure the Hillary-haters will find some reason that’s a bad thing, but there’s something to be said for presidents who know what they’re talking about.

Obama:

The Obama campaign’s initial response to the latest wave of bad economic news was, I’m sorry to say, disreputable: Mr. Obama’s top economic adviser claimed that the long-term tax-cut plan the candidate announced months ago is just what we need to keep the slump from “morphing into a drastic decline in consumer spending.” Hmm: claiming that the candidate is all-seeing, and that a tax cut originally proposed for other reasons is also a recession-fighting measure — doesn’t that sound familiar?

Anyway, on Sunday Mr. Obama came out with a real stimulus plan. As was the case with his health care plan, which fell short of universal coverage, his stimulus proposal is similar to those of the other Democratic candidates, but tilted to the right.

Krugman concludes with an appropriate jab at the superficiality of media coverage of the 2008 campaign:

In short, the stimulus debate offers a pretty good portrait of the men and woman who would be president. And I haven’t said a word about their hairstyles.