Check It Out for Thursday, June 11th
David Lindorff at Counterpunch writes about how the wheels are falling off Obama's bank "recovery" program.
"While the Obama administration and the Treasury and the Fed are bulldozing funds into the coffers of the big banks, allegedly to get them to lend, the banks, from the largest to the smallest, are pulling back, afraid that borrowers will end up going bust on them. So much for economic stimulus efforts.
"Not that borrowers have been lining up to get credit. Rather, most people, if they aren’t simply going bankrupt or letting collection agents harass them for nonpayment, are trying to pay off credit card balances, and to cut expenses. In April, the savings rate of Americans, which has been negative in recent years as people tried to maintain living standards by borrowing on their credit cards and their homes, boosted their savings rate to a 14-year high of 5.7%. With official unemployment approaching 10%--a level it may hit this month—and real unemployment, as measured the way it used to be back in 1980, at closer to 20 percent, the majority of Americans not only have friends and family members who are unemployed or working part-time or at odd jobs involuntarily, but are worried about getting the axe themselves.
"Meanwhile, the short-lived but incredibly expensive Obama rescue program, like a stagecoach at the end of a spaghetti western chase scene, is about to have the wheels fall off and go sliding over a cliff.
"News that the big banks that were recipients of hundreds of billions of dollars in federal TARP loans were paying some of that money back to the government in order to be able to go back to their old ways was hardly reassuring. Those banks, like Bank of America and Citibank and Goldman Sachs, are not suddenly healthy. They have used accounting gimmicks to disguise the fact that they are what some economists have dubbed “zombies,” with bad debts far in excess of their assets. And they will stay that way, while enriching their top managers with bloated salaries and “bonus” payments, while keeping credit tight and available only to the absolutely best corporate borrowers."Mike Lillis at The Washington Independent asks what happened to single payer and how Washington works when it comes to putting ice cream on cow pies.
"Universal, single-payer health care — the idea that the government will cover everyone’s medical bills using taxpayer dollars — was dismissed by leading Democrats long before any details of their reform plans have been finalized. In the Senate Finance Committee, for example, a series of health reform discussions this year included input from academics, retirees, health insurers and other industry representatives, but no single-payer advocates were invited. Last month, the White House’s top health official told lawmakers that President Obama rejects the model altogether.
"Outside of Washington, the concern might focus on whether health care is available and affordable. But on Capitol Hill, the debate is emerging as an ideological battle — one pitting free-marketers against government interventionists.
"Citing that and similar polls, Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) wondered aloud Wednesday why Democratic leaders have been so quick to dismiss the single-payer option. “If you take the most popular health care reform measure and take it off the table,” Conyers said, “heaven knows what it is … you think you’re left with.”
"Conyers has introduced legislation that would offer health care to everyone, paid by the government but privately administered. In the upper chamber, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) has introduced a similar proposal. Both lawmakers argue that private insurers, who have a fiduciary duty to shareholders, are the wrong folks to dictate who receives what care when.
“ 'The function of a private health insurance company is not to provide health care; it is to deny health care,' Sanders said last week. 'Every dollar of premium that a health insurance company does not spend on health care needs is a dollar more in profits.'
"But the Democrats drafting the party’s health reform proposal have other things in mind. On Wednesday, Rep. Frank Pallone (D-N.J.), who chairs the House Energy and Commerce health subpanel, conceded the system is broken and requires an overhaul. But the reforms, he added, should build on the existing systems — Medicare, Medicaid and employer sponsorship of private plans — that have taken decades to evolve. The single-payer model, Pallone said in an interview, “is off the table.”
"Much of the reason stems from the declination of the White House to get behind the concept. On the campaign trail last year, President Barack Obama conceded that single-payer might be the best idea out there, but adopting it right away, he said, would cause too much disruption to “a whole system of institutions that have been set up.” Last month, Kathleen Sebelius, the newly installed head of the Health and Human Services Department, told House lawmakers that the single-payer model “is not something that the president supports.”
William Pfaff at Truthdig comments on the overblown phobias of US foreign policy.
"Three recent developments in the Muslim Middle East and Central Asia challenge Washington’s conventional assumptions about Pakistan, the Taliban, Lebanon and Iran.
"The first is the revolt of tribesmen against the Taliban in part of Pakistan’s northwest tribal area, including the well-known tourist region of the Swat Valley, where the “students of religion” recently infiltrated and seized power from the Pakistani authorities and police. This provoked alarm there and in the United States that the religious extremists are a menace to Pakistan.
"This fear was exaggerated from the start; Pakistan has a serious government and army. Now, popular anger at Taliban abuses and imposition of unacceptable religious and social norms has erupted among tribesmen and traditional leaders.a second lesson is that American bombing operations in the tribal areas remain the principal force behind the earlier Taliban successes. The important conclusion is that foreign intruders should let the Pakistanis settle their own problems, as they now are doing."The second highly interesting development has been the spectacular presidential election campaign in Iran. The vote takes place this Friday. The battle against President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his politically conservative and culturally reactionary backers has turned into an unprecedented brawl.
"The last item of interest has been the unexpected defeat of the Hezbollah-led coalition in Lebanon’s parliamentary election last weekend."
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