Feb 25 2009

Obama’s Speech And The Absence Of Substance

( – promoted by buhdydharma )

Thomas Palley is a Yale Ph.D. in Economics, has published in numerous academic journals, and written for The Atlantic Monthly, American Prospect and Nation magazines. Dr. Palley was formerly Chief Economist with the US – China Economic and Security Review Commission. Prior to joining the Commission he was Director of the Open Society Institute’s Globalization Reform Project, and before that he was Assistant Director of Public Policy at the AFL-CIO.

After President Obama’s address to Congress last night, Palley spoke with Real News CEO Paul Jay with his interpretations and analysis of what Obama had to say, and concludes that:

“we’ve heard nothing about trade, we’ve heard nothing about globalization… worker rights and labor markets, we’ve heard nothing about corporate power. You’re seeing here the absence of issues that deal with the structural problems… in the U.S. economy.”



Real News – February 25, 2009 – 15 minutes

Palley: Obama’s speech didn’t mention unions nor tackle the structural problems within the U.S. economy

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    • Edger on February 25, 2009 at 18:03
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  2. listened to another speech. While I think that he did not speak this language, he did if you listened he said what this dude is saying. He talked about structural changes and jobs and regulation even globalization/trade. I really think he’s moving the center using politics. He is gathering public support. Can the government ‘fix’ this?  He’s battling not just the Republicans but decades ‘greed is good’ the myth’s of the American fantasy, myths, which bamboozled the populace into thinking that unregulated capitalism on steroids was the natural order and inevitable. I was relieved to hear him talk about the basic problems in broad terms. He is making his case, from where we are, which is in the grips of the corporate military big money pirates. He talked of remaking, restructuring the economy. I think he has no choice and knows this.  

    The whole government both parties are riddled with the free trading believers and corruption. It’s operating on decades of looting of our wealth, creating crisis’s and is hell bent on destroying democracy. I do worry about the economic advisers he has but he seems able to admit to mistakes. He is pragmatic in the sense that without a consensus he cannot implement reform.

    Pres.Obama seems aware that this crisis has to be stabilized and the need to implement a long term policies that reign in the market. I think first he has too set up the public so that we are not focusing on the right/left ideology and use his consensus to stabilize the created crisis that now holds all progress captive. I think if he has too he will nationalize the banks, I think he will address the trade imbalances.

    You can’t reverse a reality that people were sold and bought by declaring war we’ve had enough of this. You have to move people, and the legislature to a point where the concepts of common good and not self interest is established. Hard work. He’s got the talent to do it and I think he’s starting where we are, politically, financially, and most importantly ideologically.

    The terms we have used and fought over so long need to be replaced the Blue dogs and the ‘were center right’ just keep the power where the corporatist’s want it. Step by step I think we will get the change he talked of maybe not the one we think we need but at least it moving the reality to a place where change can happen. He may not use the strategies of confrontation but he is not a weasel and has always preached talking to your adversaries.  

       

  3. It’s simple. They lost in World War II.

    Two things happened as a result of that: they were forced by the Allies to stand down as military powers, and they had to rebuild significant parts of their country’s infrastructure.

    And they had the money to do that BECAUSE they didn’t have to finance their own military’s STUPID FUCKING FASCIST WARS OF AGGRESSION anymore.

    Any questions, Professor Katzmeow?

  4. of the EFCA – from what I’ve read, the unions and Harkin (who will sponsor it in the Senate) have been waiting for Solis to be confirmed (happened yesterday) and for Franken to be seated (it will surely need 60 votes in the Senate and Franken will be critical to getting there). After that happens, they’re ready to roll with Obama’s support.  

  5. In Clusterfuck Nation, Jim Kunstler States the lurking question in his blog of 2/23.  The day before the Virtual State of the Union Speech, but cogent even so: THE ABYSS STARES BACK

    In the broad blogging margins of the web that orbit the mainstream media like the rings of Saturn, an awful lot of reasonable people have begun to ask whether President Obama is a stooge of whatever remains of Wall Street, with Citigroup and Goldman Sachs’s puppeteer, Robert Rubin, pulling strings behind an arras in the Oval Office.

    and…

    Personally, I doubt it, but it is still a little hard to understand what the President is up to.

    tell me this a product of some cointelpro think tank.

    http://www.theobamaforum.com/

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