Much has been made recently of the strained rapport between the Obama administration and corporate interests. Various talking heads and opportunistic Republicans have seized upon the trumped up “war” between the President and Big Business as the cause of everything from the consistently high unemployment rate (“corporations are afraid to hire in this era of policy uncertainty”), to hard times for small business (“Obama’s desire to let tax cuts for the wealthy expire harms entrepreneurship”), and even, to my incredulity, the fallout from the BP oil spill. For example, the UK’s new Business Secretary, Vince Cable has been quoted as saying of Obama’s rampant criticism of BP’s actions before, during, and after the deep well explosion, “the president talks in a cheap way about 'kicking ass'. Whether or not the American president can kick our asses, he can certainly hurt our wallets and purses.”
Thank you Mr. Cable for your ever so enlightened inclusion of ladies’ “purses” in your corporate lament. We now see you for the truly forward thinking, fair-minded guy you are (cue laugh track).
Even the “liberal media” has enjoyed taking the issue apart. Sunday morning talk show Meet the Press featured a panel discussion this past weekend including New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan. Greenspan, while rightly declaring the state of the economy to be “touch and go,” also added "The financial system is broke and I see we just stay where we are. There's nothing out there that I can see which will alter the level of unemployment."
As soon as the former Chairman uttered these words, I gleefully clapped my hands together and waited for host David Gregory to give him the what for. After all, that is what the incomparable and disinterested Tim Russert would have done. But the moment never arrived. How can Greenspan credulously state that he “sees nothing out there” to act as a positive force on current unemployment rates, at a time when Big Business is posting record profits, and holding onto wads of cash?
Companies like Adobe, AirTran, Honda – even the once shaky banks and mortgage lenders who needed a taxpayer bailout are suddenly right as rain. With all this good news, why isn’t a stronger bottom line leading to improvements for long struggling job seekers? As I perused The New York Times last week, suddenly the answer became clear:
Industries Find Surging Profits in Deeper Cuts
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/26/business/economy/26earnings.html
Writer Nelson D. Schwartz declares, “Many companies are focusing on cost-cutting to keep profits growing, but the benefits are mostly going to shareholders instead of the broader economy, as management conserves cash rather than bolstering hiring and production.” On so very many levels, this makes me ill. Seems to me that instead of focusing on the trumped up antagonism between Obama and corporations, we should be talking about how Fortune 500 establishments have become the tormenter of American families.
So to return to my earlier question, how did the rumor that the Obama administration is the enemy of business get started, and more importantly, why is it being perpetuated? From where I’m sitting, it seems that it’s never been a better time to be a CEO, if not a regular working stiff. In addition to the record profiteering, I don’t recall Obama slamming the door in the faces of banks, automakers and other industries that showed up on Capitol Hill with a tin cup begging for change.
Probing a little further, it seems that the convoluted health care and financial reform bills could be the tacit excuse. Big Business would have you believe that the runaway regulations being passed by the “socialist” President are the root cause of its persecution complex (see first paragraph - “corporations are afraid to hire in this era of policy uncertainty”).
Pardon my French, but what a bunch of horse shit. If anything, President Obama hasn’t done nearly enough to roll back the heady days of Clinton/Bush deregulation. I believe I am not alone in my frustration - having to listen to the tiny violin playing martyrdom of corporations, even as they pop champagne over record profits, commending themselves for delighting shareholders on the backs of the jobless masses.
If the Obama administration has been the arch nemesis of business, how much worse off would the nation be if he acted as a friend?
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Obama got more money from the corporate lobby than any other presidential candidate in modern history. He's not going to bite the hands that fed his campaign. This assertion by some on the political right that Obama is somehow anti-business sounds just as ill conceived and equally as ridiculous as Glenn Beck's idea that Obama has a deep seeded hatred for white people and white culture, leaving out the fact that the president's mom was white and that he was raised primarily by his white grandparents in Hawaii. It's all political rhetoric aimed at dividing the electorate into bite-sized little nuggets of ideology in time for the mid-term elections this fall. As you mention at the end of your post, if the rampant bailouts and "stimulus" packages that the Obama administration has doled out to corporate America is his weird way of showing disdain for them, I'd hate to see how much money he hands out from the public exchequer to people that he likes.
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry, did you just cite Tim Russert as an example of an aggressive questioner? You may want to watch Bill Moyers' documentary about how we got into the Iraq war.
ReplyDeleteTo the broader point, Paul Krugman had a good column in Monday's Times complaining that we seem to be headed towards accepting 9-11% unemployment as the new normal. Bear in mind, when European countries had unemployment rates at these levels, conservatives would cite that as a failure of the European economic system, with its universal health care, efficient trains, and price stickers that match what you pay at the register. If we're going to accept 10% unemployment as the new normal, I want real universal health care and the ability to take a bullet train from Chicago to New York. Just sayin'.
Watch it there Sanjiv. I am unable to remain neutral or unemotional about Tim Russert. I LOVE that man. I stand by my statement that he was in fact, one of the few unafraid to hold Washington's feet to the fire. Are you trying to draw a line between Russert and the start of the Iraq war?
ReplyDeleteI read that Krugman column on Monday and agreed with it wholeheartedly
Becky - I most certainly am. He utterly failed as a journalist. Here is the Moyers transcript:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/btw/transcript1.html
Compare what Bob Simon says about how he followed up to what Russert said.
You might also search Media Matters for Russert.
John McCain, in particular, could come on Russert's show and say any damn thing without being challenged on it. Lieberman too.