What we can do now, though, said the Congressional scholar Norman Ornstein, co-author of “The Broken Branch,” is “ask President Bush to appoint Tim Geithner, Barack Obama’s proposed Treasury secretary, immediately.” Make him a Bush appointment and let him take over next week. This is not a knock on Hank Paulson. It’s simply that we can’t afford two months of transition where the markets don’t know who is in charge or where we’re going. At the same time, Congress should remain in permanent session to pass any needed legislation.
This is the real “Code Red.” As one banker remarked to me: “We finally found the W.M.D.” They were buried in our own backyard — subprime mortgages and all the derivatives attached to them.
Yet, it is obvious that President Bush can’t mobilize the tools to defuse them — a massive stimulus program to improve infrastructure and create jobs, a broad-based homeowner initiative to limit foreclosures and stabilize housing prices, and therefore mortgage assets, more capital for bank balance sheets and, most importantly, a huge injection of optimism and confidence that we can and will pull out of this with a new economic team at the helm [Thomas Friedman, "We Found the W.M.D.," New York Times, 2008.11.22].
President Bush has two months left. He could take bold action to fight the economic downturn. Forget replacing his Cabinet with Obama's; fire Dick Cheney, appoint Barack Obama Vice-President, get Congress's approval tomorrow, and then resign.
Remember when you say,
ReplyDelete“We finally found the W.M.D.” They were buried in our own backyard — subprime mortgages and all the derivatives attached to them."
Those were Clinton policies, not Bush policies, brought about to encourage home lending.
This was not a problem caused by GWB, rather it was caused by every regulator who allowed it to continue when the trends were showing weakness.
The problems didn't start overnight and they won't be solved in January. Peaks and troughs are part of every economy. Every low point is followed by a higher point, and of course, Obama will be able to take credit for the uptick, much to your joy, should it occur in his first term.
Now that the anti-science, superstition-based initiative presidency is coming to an end, we need several public works science Manhattan projects to make us great again and boost us out of this Grotesque Depression. First we must provide free advertising-based wireless internet to everyone. Then we must criscross the land with high speed rail. We must develop microorganisms that may be freely distributed like bread yeast and become commonplace to improve our future. Because bovine flatulence is the major source of greenhouse gases, we must develop microorganisms which can be grow in the home that will provide all of our nutrition. Then we must create microorganisms which turn our sewage and waste into fuel. Since paranoid schizophrenia is the cause of racism, bigotry, homelessness, terrorism, ignorance, exploitation and criminality, we must provide put the appropriate medications, like lithium, in the water supply. We must require dangerous wingnuts who refuse free mental health care to be implanted with drug release devices and microorganisms. Osama bin Laden and Timothy McVeigh were the ultimate superstition based initiatives. We should encourage international organizations to do likewise. In order to fund this we must nationalize the entire financial, electrical and transportation system and abolish the silly feudal notion that each industry should be regulated by its peers. Real estate and insurance, the engines of feudalism, must be brought under the Federal Reserve so we may replace all buildings with hazardous materials to provide public works. Insects, flooding and fire spread asbestos, lead and mold which prematurely disables the disadvantaged. Furthermore, as feudalism is the threat to progress everywhere, we must abolish large land holdings by farmers, foresters or religions and instead make all such large landholding part of the forest service so our trees may diminish greenhouse gases. We must abolish executive pay and make sure all employees in a company are all paid equally. We must abolish this exploitative idea of trade and make every home self sufficient through the microorganisms we invent.
ReplyDeleteVernon Malcomb, you just scared the hell out of me with those comments. I thought I was outside the mainstream once in awhile, but after reading your words and ideas, I feel very normalista.
ReplyDeleteVernon has a point. I would take it a step further. The ideal microorganism, distributed in the optimum mode, could solve all of humankind's problems, as would a massive asteroid impact or an all-out nuclear war. The transition would be painful, but the planet might be better off in the end. A particular advantage of the microorganism method is that we already have trained personnel who are ready, willing, and eager to deploy them once they have been synthesized.
ReplyDeleteTo return to topic ...
ReplyDeletePresident Bush has two months left. He could take bold action to fight the economic downturn. Forget replacing his Cabinet with Obama's; fire Dick Cheney, appoint Barack Obama Vice-President, get Congress's approval tomorrow, and then resign.
Barack Obama and his diverse crew will get their chance soon enough. Good things take time to prepare. One may argue that we don't have time; I would say that indeed we do, and we must use it wisely. You don't expect your Thanksgiving pheasant to roast in five minutes, do you?
No, Stan, I can wait for pheasant... if I have to. ;-)
ReplyDeleteI've been thinking that even two and a half months doesn't seem like much time to put together a team to run a country. I don't know how anyone can be ready on January 20 without a little drapes-measuring before the election.
Even if we have to wait for President Obama to take office in the usual way, I wonder: is President Bush making the best use of the time he has left?