I agree with Senator Sanders. I, too, get nervous when President Obama talks about working with the Republicans to reform Medicare. I’d much prefer him to work with progressive Democrats to reform Medicare. For instance, Medicare should be allowed to negotiate drug prices with its suppliers. Medicare might want to consider stopping the 15% premium above its own costs that it pays to private insurers to get them to do Medicare’s job in the program called Medicare Advantage. (I am subscribed to the program, and I appreciate the meager extra benefits I get for that 15%. However, in all honesty, it is probably a waste of money for the government to give such a subsidy to the private insurance companies. It does provide proof that the government run system is more cost-effective than what the private insurance industry is willing to do.)

The Talking Points Memo article, Elizabeth Warren On Daily Show: Washington Must Fight For The Middle Class, pointed me to the videos below:

Elizabeth Warren Extended Interview Pt. 1

Elizabeth Warren describes the role that she thinks the government should play in regulating America’s private sector, in this unedited, extended interview.

Elizabeth Warren Extended Interview Pt. 2

If the embedded videos above do not play for you, the following links work around the bugs in MTV’s serving of these videos. Part 1 and Part 2.

I would give my eyeteeth if this were the Elizabeth Warren that is running for Senator in Massachusetts. The one we do have running seems to have watered down her message so as not to offend any voters. As Jon so aptly put it, her professional handlers have sucked all the life out of her.

The point that Jon made, that went over Elizabeth’s head, is that the Democrats have to do a much better job educating the public on why we must do what the Democrats are proposing. She did not answer his question about why we don’t better explaining the benefits of the programs we have managed to get done. She did not answer the question about what is wrong with Ron Paul’s idea that taking all the power away from the government would prevent the capture of regulatory agencies by those they are supposed to regulate.

I agree that big government can be a problem for all the reasons that Ron Paul enumerates. However, if we are going to have big business, and unregulated markets mean we are going to have big business, then big government is our only hope of keeping the free market honest. If we have to have big government, which I just said we have to have, then we need to figure out how to make it work. Electing politicians who say, “Big government does not work, and if you elect us, we will prove it.” is not the way to solve the problem.

Would private industry hire managers who said, “Big business does not work, and if you hire us, we will prove it?”

Private industry hires and the voters should elect people that say, “Managing a large operation with a big budget is difficult, but if you choose me, I will show you that it can be done. If I fail to do the job, then get rid of me.”

The other thing that a President has to say is, “If you hire me, but put in place a Congress that will thwart every move I try to make, then I will surely fail.”

My fight with Elizabeth Warren’s campaign is over her need to educate the voters on why we must do things that she proposes. I tell them to use videos like this on her web site and facebook page. They argue that to do this might offend some voters. They ignore my statement that if she is be an effective Senator when she gets elected, then a very large majority of the people who voted her in must be strong and vocal backers of these proposals that she is making. In her campaign she needs to start the process of inoculating the voters against the huge lobbying effort that the big corporations will wage against all of her proposals. After the election is no time to disclose to the voters what it is she really wants to do.

If her opposition thinks that they can ridicule her ideas, then they are going to do it in the campaign itself. If she can see it coming, she needs to take steps to prevent it. Reacting to it after it happens will not be as effective.

This is exactly the message I gave to John Kerry with regard to the swift boat attacks during his presidential run. Not listening to my message got him roundly defeated.

On a daily basis, I am able to view the statistics on readership of this blog.  Now here is a way for you to see a 2011 year end summary.

I don’t know if it will make you happy or sad to find out that there are many others who spend time reading my blog posts.  Perhaps you can be happy in that misery likes company.

The Whitehouse web site has a page devoted to President Obama in the State of the Union .  Here is the enhanced video of his speech.

If you liked his initiation of a Wall Street investigation and/or his call for fair taxation of the wealthy, you can express you’re opinion on the Whitehouse Facebook page.

It is no longer enough to vote every four years and watch his speeches with silent approval. To back the President in initiatives with which you agree, you have to express your agreement in a visible manner. Any opposition to the President must be made aware of the millions of voters who want him to do what he has promised. The President and his advisers must be made equally aware that we will hold him to his promises.

Note that the President is having a tough time getting around the obstructionism of a minority of Senators. The rules of the Senate allow only 41 of 100 Senators to block the consideration of any legislation. The Republicans joyfully block every initiative of the President and show their disrespect for him every chance they get. An investigation of the crimes of the major supporters of this obstructionist party is being initiated by the President without the need for approval from Congress. Perhaps moves like these are what is needed to wake up these obstructionists and their supporters. Perhaps they will start to listen to reason when the President shows them that he can still use his powers to set things right even if the Congress does not want to cooperate.

Ever since MIT made a big fanfare over opening a new science building named for David Koch, I have been telling the Alumni fund raising solicitors who call me that that they can charge this year’s contribution to the Koch brothers. I did this long before I saw the following video clip:

Although MIT is in the scroll of schools that flashes by in this video, I have no knowledge of the details of the contract signed by MIT to get the Koch brothers’ donation.

This is the only way I can watch the Republican presidential debates. I let Jon Stewart go nuts. It saves me the trouble.

If the above video does not play for you, then use this bug fix link.

The the two articles that I find to be the most embarassing Public Displays of Affection for Obama’s conservative record are The Most Important Passage from the Secret Larry Summers Memo in The Atlantic.

Constructing a package of this size, or even in the $500 billion range, is a major challenge. While the most effective stimulus is government investment, it is difficult to identify feasible spending projects on the scale that is needed to stabilize the macroeconomy. Moreover, there is a tension between the need to spend the money quickly and the desire to spend the money wisely. To get the package to the requisite size, and also to address other problems, we recommend combining it with substantial state fiscal relief and tax cuts for individuals and businesses.

and The Obama Memos in The New Yorker.

Obama didn’t remake Washington. But his first two years stand as one of the most successful legislative periods in modern history. Among other achievements, he has saved the economy from depression, passed universal health care, and reformed Wall Street. Along the way, Obama may have changed his mind about his 2008 critique of Hillary Clinton. “Working the system, not changing it” and being “consumed with beating” Republicans “rather than unifying the country and building consensus to get things done” do not seem like such bad strategies for success after all.

An administration filled with top banking executives would never come up with the solution of nationalizing the banks and cutting the principle that people owed on their mortgages.  They were giving away trillions anyway.  Why not aim some of that to clear away the housing debt overhang and prevent homelessness?  Because bank executives think they are entitled to bailouts from the treasury.  When they are faced with a catastrophe not of their own making, maybe they are entitled to a bailout.  However, when the catastrophe is brought on by their own fraud, they deserve to be nationalized and put out of business.

If the President had advisers who were not trying to save their own vested interests, there could have been ideas for effective stimulus.  There were dozens of top ranked economists advising a different strategy.  Obama chose to listen to the bankers who got us into this mess instead of the people who had no axe to grind.

He still does not see the error of his ways.  When one ex top banking executive leaves his administration, he replaces him with another.  He will never be able to solve the problem until he understands that he is getting his advice from all the wrong people.

No rush to publish fawning articles in The New Yorker, nor in The Atlantic is going to get this country on the right track.

You have to wonder where the authors of these articles are getting their economic knowledge by which they judge Obama’s behavior.  They probably consult the ex-banking executives from the same club.

January 24, 2012

The New Yorker article is pretty long. I must admit that I skimmed it rather than reading it closely before I made my original post.

Giving a closer and complete reading, it sometimes gives a mostly unbiased view of what the President did and why he did it. From my vantage point, sticking with the facts paints a very negative view of the president. It does confirm some of what I have believed to be true about the president’s performance.

Axelrod and other Obama political advisers saw anti-Keynesian rhetoric as a political necessity. They believed it was better to channel the anti-government winds than to fight them. As much as it enraged Romer and outside economists, the White House was on to something. A President’s ability to change public opinion through rhetoric is extremely limited. George Edwards, after studying the successes of Franklin Roosevelt, Lyndon Johnson, and Ronald Reagan, concluded that their communications skills contributed almost nothing to their legislative victories. According to his study, “Presidents cannot reliably persuade the public to support their policies” and “are unlikely to change public opinion.”

I believe that the president is ill served by choosing to listen to the advisers that explain that nothing can be done and it would be a waste of time to even try. Following the advice to try nothing has at least one benefit. Such a try nothing policy is guaranteed to get the results of nothing accomplished that the policy predicts. I don’t know what satisfaction the president can derive from that.

With all the former banking executives in the top posts in your administration, how can we expect you to ever propose to hold the banks and bankers accountable for their crimes? Eric Holder’s former law practice was heavily involved with the banks.

I have already asked my questions in response to this email that I received. Use holder as a search term and give it the thumbs up or thumbs down. Then ask your own question.

Yahoo is carrying the Associated Press story $25B nationwide mortgage deal goes to states.

A draft settlement between the nation’s major banks and U.S. states over deceptive foreclosure practices has been sent to state officials for review.

Those who lost their homes to foreclosure are unlikely to get their homes back or benefit much financially from the settlement, which could be as high as $25 billion. About 750,000 Americans could receive checks for about $1,800 under the deal.

This is the first report I have seen and is very sketchy as to details.

$25B seems like a paltry sum for the whole country. The direct damage the banks caused to the people they enticed into mortgage traps must be far more than that. The profits the banks made and the bailouts that they received is far larger than this.

I wonder how the banks would negotiate if nationalization of the banks were one alternative to a negotiated deal.

We will have to await a full analysis by the States Attorneys General and more thorough blogosphere to know if this is a reasonable deal.  I can only hope that the wording of the deal limits it to crimes committed over deceptive foreclosure practices, and that crimes created in initiating the mortgages in the first place are still open to prosecution.

Here is an email I received that outlines what a fair bank settlement might look like and what we could hope the President will say in Tuesday’s State Of The Union Address.