The Day the CEOs Were Called to the Principal's Office

The only way they could have sent a more Spartan message is if they had served bread along with the water

Isn't it actually more spartan to have just water, and no food? Heh.

that sounds like a cheery photo op, all right.

I'm so glad President O decided to slap these guys around, they are living in a dream world. Anyone want to take bets on how long it will take the Republicans to start crying about the horrible treatment of the CEO's?

I don't pretend to understand the formalities at high-powered meetings, but it seems to me that providing food around a table implies that it is a social meal of some sort whereas providing just water implies that it is a meeting where some kind of serious work is expected to be done. When Obama had just water at the table, he was signaling that this was meant to be a serious discussion and he was at least going to be nice enough to give them all water to keep their throats moist. If he had served bread, it would have almost been like he was saying, "Thank you for coming to have dinner with me. But I'm not wasting my good food on you. You're getting bread."

That's just my read on that sentence, anyway.

On another note, that is the last time I am reading comments in a Politico article again. Good lord! Some of those people weren't even pretending not to be racist.

himself quite Liberal.  His writing, life work, family history, and most professional actions demonstrate this.

There's a family doctor of his in Chicago, who is a big proponent of single-payer, that said something a while back about Obama definitely being in favor of single-payer.  This doctor is now wondering about Obama's wavering at the moment, but to me, this is an example of what's been happening in much of the Liberal blogosphere, where they completely ignore the realities of politics and what it takes to get things actually, you know, accomplished.

To debate his tactics is one thing, but this constant Children's Table questioning of Obama's motivations is laughable in my opinion.  The latest is to point out how much BigMoney industries have donated to Obama, yet they completely ignore that Obama raised much more than those amounts from "We, the people..."
  He ended the campaign loaded with cash.

Even using their tortured logic, the poutragers
 arguments don't make sense, since if amounts of money raised is the gauge, Obama is more beholden to us than anybody.  By far.

So, if he deep down is a Liberal guy, why would Obama need people around telling him what he already knows and believes himself?  Of course, whenever I try to make this case to a poutragist, I get labeled a naive rube who's been duped.  Fortunately, Al and a few others are around to give different perspectives to many readers.  Of course, that will only continue if each of us hits the "Make a Donation" button up in the upper right corner of this page.

The blogosphere is just as committed to narratives as cable news is. It isn't about the facts or about the reporting, they have to fit what's going on into the narrative  they've been spinning for the past few days, weeks, months, etc.

The media is somewhat accountable to public opinion so their narratives are subject to change. Like going from Obama fucked up the stimulus sell to Obama's townhalls and the people's need for stimulus. The blogosphere is only subject to it's readers. I.E. they preach to the choir everyday.

Right now the theme is that Geithner (a fucking career public servant) is in pockets of wall street, and so is Obama. So anything that happens has to reinforce that narrative. It's no different from going on right wing blogs and reading about how Obama is some bumbling stuttering speaker that can't live without a teleprompter. It's obviously bullshit, but that's their narrative.

Actually I found the politico commenters interesting.  I only read the first 30 or so.  They seemed to be the typical Republican mix of anger, greed and envy and so terribly dated & unoriginal.  All the comments about Comrade Obama, "class warfare" & Obama's "arrogance" at taking on powerful CEO's.  I didn't see race as the primary issue although the intensity of right wing hate was probably intensified because of his race. I think many of these people, like Sirota are responding to symbolism.  Obama's "pitchfork" comment seemed to really send them over the edge.

wait Al, the Poutrage Club aside, isn't Obama's pitchforks statement an acknowledgment of the real anger over the bailouts and layoffs, that is simmering in the background?

To me it appears as though the Obama admin. is making constructive use of the public anger over the Wall St. bailouts and bonuses. See this excerpt from a March 26 article from Bloomberg News.

The Obama administration is counting on public anger over the taxpayer-financed rescues of American International Group Inc., Bear Stearns Cos. and other firms to help it win approval for the changes, which could be the most sweeping since the 1930s. Policy makers want to improve the oversight of the financial system now rather than wait until the crisis is over, administration officials said on condition of anonymity.

“We have a moment now where there is broad-based will to change things that people did not want to change in the past,” Geithner said yesterday in a speech in New York. “We want to begin the process now of trying to build consensus while people recognize and are feeling so acutely the damage caused by those basic failures in regulation.”

Geithner to Seek Power Over Hedge Funds, Derivatives

Hi all,

First of all, this is my first comment here. I am a Portuguese national (living in Portugal) who has followed Obama's rise to the presidency even before he announced his bid to the White House. I found Al's The Field during the Primaries cycle and I must say I find Al (and Jon Stewart) to be the best people to actually report news. So, kudos to Al for his almost always informative and interesting reads.

Having said that, Obama has been making some tough decision, but in my book, he's handling them like a seasoned statesman. His ambitious agenda and handling of the financial CEOs is proving me that not only he can talk the talk, but also walk the walk.

Nevertheless, I am very surprised to read the comments at Politico. As Nancy said, it is a mix of rage and delusion with a pinch of dickishness. I mean "asshat", "comrade", "marxist", "arrogant" ? When did being praised by other top presidents/prime ministers around the world is something wrong or unpatriotic?

Cheers all!

Something I'm noticing from this overseas trip is that Obama is all smiles and waves in public.  Very cool and disarming.  However, things aren't always as they seem, and I suspect that below the radar and behind closed doors, he's quite different - much more intense and serious.  This reminds me of the story about how he told the Republicans during a meeting he had with them re: the stimulus that "I won" when discussing who's ideas will prevail.

I remember watching the video footage of the CEOs as they left the meeting and were immediately forced to give statements, etc. to the media.  They all seemed flustered.  I knew it was not a social meeting.  You could see it in their body language, their eyes, and the overall demeanor of the CEOs.  I'm glad bits of the meeting have come out, since I figured there were some unpleasant truths discussed.

It would seem the reference is to bread and water rations/diminished rations used as additional punishment in prisons.

For years I have been wondering about the preponderance of expressions of right-wing hatred, racism, fear, greed, and violence permeating the comments sections not only of big-media blogs but also local and national newspapers that allow comments on articles. Either these extreme and violent wingers simply have nothing better to do than post rather meaningless comments about the trivialities that get their goats or there is some vast right wing conspiracy that sends talking points and web addresses to a cabal of glassy-eyed minions who devotedly recycle violent cliche after violent cliche so as to appear more like a vast and dangerous underground (because anonymous) movement than the petty hacks they are. Maybe both are true.

In spite of the four unnamed sources, this one makes my BS detector go off.  

Doesn't it seem likely that this story was fed to Politico?  Is it not in both parties' interests to be seen as antagonistic? After all, those pitchforks won't necessarily directed at bankers come election-time.

Even if true, does the toughness of stern words and ice-cube withholding compare to the giving away of billions of dollars?  Surely the bankers will gladly endure a behind-closed-doors rap on the knuckles in exchange for enough government cheese to keep their ice machines humming well into the next century.

Scats - While there certainly are many cases of revisionist history and spin even in reported stories, it's harder to pull off because if an account is inaccurate there's a greater chance that one of the participants comes forward and says "that's bullshit." Still, a reported story still has a thousand times more chance of being accurate than a thoroughly invented account.

What I take issue with is your characterizing government loans to companies as "giving away billions of dollars." You are aware that they're loans, right? A simple read of the Politico story shows that how fast the loans are repaid to the government was one of the issues discussed at the meeting.

If those "ice machines" stop humming and crash, the ice cubes will fall on the heads of the poorest and least powerful with a lot more force than they fall on the CEO heads. I think you and others who fail to see that are suffering from some cognitive dissonance here.

I am not so pleased with the way the bailouts part 2 have been handled and I am not that confident in the plan. However, we have the most progressive budget in decades passed with very little fanfare. This budget sets aside money for health care, energy and education investments unlike anything we have seen in years.

If Obama had decided to nationalize the banks a few weeks ago none of the Senators would have been nearly as willing to back his budget. All we would be hearing on tv is Obama is a socialist, etc. He would be using all of his political capital on the banks. Whenever I write this in response to the David Sirota-types nobody disputes this. They just ignore the damage their plans for the banks/financial sector would have on every other part of Obama's agenda.

So for this, I am hopeful that in six months Obama's plan for Wall St. is sorted out and that if some of the banks need to be put into receivership, they are. At least Obama will be able to say he pursued every avenue first and we should have health care with a public option passed in Congress.

I have a hunch they're ain't going to be any corrections. On AM radio here, the aforementioned malcontent above was on an unhinged McCarthyist tirade for an hour against a truly progressive Colorado blogger, using a variety of distortions about a blog post she had written that he didn't happen to like. What was most disturbing was the language. He said his “blood was boiling” and claimed the blogger was just “jealous” of him and his success, before calling for her to lose her job. That's just not the language of a stable personality. People like that can't be reasoned with.

And then he wonders why Sen. Bennet won't talk with him about the Employee Free Choice Act? Hmmmmmmm.

Sirota is somewhat deranged, I think he was demanding a union-backed Independent *general* election opponent for Harry Reid if he couldn't keep his entire caucus on EFCA (regardless of whether it passed or not). Personally, I'm waiting for him to demand a primary challenge against Pat Leahy because he's been too close to George Bush...

It would be great to listen to (and then publicly mock) Sirota's rantings...

Nevertheless, I am very surprised to read the comments at Politico. As Nancy said, it is a mix of rage and delusion with a pinch of dickishness. I mean "asshat", "comrade", "marxist", "arrogant" ? When did being praised by other top presidents/prime ministers around the world is something wrong or unpatriotic?

As you pay more attention to American politics and its media coverage, Sergio, you will come to see that it has become pathologically inane and destructive, compared to what you have in Europe.  It is probably indicative of an empire that is not long for this world.

It will be interesting to see if that is how Bill Moyers is characterized here....

http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/04032009/transcript1.html

No cognitive dissonance here.  I think you're confusing me with David Sirota.  It is possible to believe both that the idea that Obama is being tough on banks in any substantive way is a little silly AND that the banks should not be allowed to fail.

It is also possible to believe that Obama's solution to the problem is not very fair, that more just solutions are possible, and that it is not the worst solution proposed (which would be the "do nothing" option).

I read the politico article Al referred us to and I don't understand why Obama insists that it's still too soon to return the bailout loan money?

You can find the audio here:

http://www.am760.net/pages/JayMarvin.html

I can't tell you when he made the comments that Erin referred to because I have had to turn the radio off between 6 & 10 a.m. since Jay has been recovering from surgery and complications from surgery.  I keep trying to listen sporadically but then get angry and turn the radio off.

You might be able to find it by reading the hourly recaps provided.

Jay has been out since March 4, I believe but the comments you are looking are probably not quite that far back.

Al -

Your response to scats is one I honestly don't understand. Repay the loans? The banks are insolvent. They are not worth what they say they are. And when they were "worth" what they say they are, it was stolen money. And here we're talking about the direct loans to banks. The "public-private" partnerships have no such compunction about paying anyone back, as those are non-recourse loans, where the "lendees" can literally just walk away.

I agree with you that we need to be mindful of those who stand to be further hurt by a meltdown caused by "finance". But I can't agree that solving that problem includes the very same banks that created it. Here I'm not including the "thousands of banks" across the country, but the Big Banks (Citigroup, BoA, Merrill, etc.) that were and are the source of the problem.

Why must we go through the Big Banks? Can't we help people, without helping banks?

The reality may be slightly different....

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/03/AR2009040303910_pf.html

The Obama administration is engineering its new bailout initiatives in a way that it believes will allow firms benefiting from the programs to avoid... limits on lavish executive pay....

The administration believes it can sidestep the rules because, in many cases, it has decided not to provide federal aid directly to financial companies, the sources said. Instead, the government has set up special entities that act as middlemen, channeling the bailout funds to the firms and, via this two-step process, stripping away the requirement that the restrictions be imposed, according to officials.

"At first, when the initiative was being developed last year, the Bush administration decided to apply executive-pay limits to firms participating in this program. But Obama officials reversed that decision days before it was unveiled on March 3 and lifted the curbs, according to sources who spoke on condition of anonymity because the discussions were private."

Ask, and ye shall receive. March 27 hour 3, about 15 min in.

Geithner was asked about it (the WaPo story) this morning and flatly denied it...and it's not like he has much of a poker face.

I'm pretty late to the game here, but given that it's almost Passover, perhaps water and matzoh would have been better. 

Thanks for making me smile, Al.  I've been staying off the 'puter to tend to some other stuff, so I'm glad you posted this tasty little morsel.

It seems the key point of Bill Black's is flat-out wrong (if not an out-and-out lie):

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/4/4/716470/-(UPDATED)-Please-be-smarter-than-the-Freepers.

where is sirota's blog? i wanted to give him a piece of my mind. how dare he engage in mind reading/crystal ball gazing and try to pass if off as reporting. but i don't see any recent entries. 

phoenix woman, now i have to write to bill moyers and request he put forth a correction.

And the most typical headline I've seen on stories about Geithner's appearance on Face the Nation is along the lines of Geithner May Oust Executives at Banks Needing ‘Exceptional’ Aid.

Which sounds more like being expelled from school, as Al put it.

Also, Geithner has proposed a bill (which would need to be taken up and actually introduced by someone in Congress) to give the government the authority over bank holding companies, insurance companies like AIG, and other large financial companies that are currently outside the reach of the FDIC. Oddly enough, I saw very little discussion of this on the blogs of nationalization supporters, even though it would be necessary (as that diary describes) in order to actually nationalize these companies like people want. Either that, or a nationalization bill would need to pass Congress for each of these entities - and to anyone who thinks there are 60 votes in the Senate for a long series of nationalization bills, I say "Can I have some of what you're smoking?"

@ Paul - On what evidence do you state categorically that all the banks are insolvent? The stress tests haven't been completed yet, so anybody who makes as a categorical statement either way cannot possibly know what they are talking about. One would think that we on the left could actually base ourselves on the facts. As the diary Phoenix Woman linked to shows, not to mention Al's original post we are commenting on, we seem to have some major problems in this area, which is a disgrace.

Ok love ya Al, however if Obama is playing some complex 11 dimensional chess then we on the left have to do our part.  If he's trying to piss off the left in order to provide himself with the political cover to do the right thing then we'd actually be undermining his strategy is we didn't take offense.

The reality is that his economic team is made up of people who hold fast to the very economic philosophies that got us into this mess. Myself I'd feel much more confident if Obama had any voices from the left side of the economic debate to balance out he Summers Geithners and Rubins.

Now for all I know he's got a super-secret private line to Doug Dowd and already has his own plan to push through more left leaning economic policies over the objections of his neo-liberal economic team.

If he does then great but whether the current economic policies are the result of poor advice from the Neo-liberal globalists he's surrounded by or some longer term strategy to remake the U.S economy into a more egalitarian form I and others on the left still have to do our part to "force" him to do the right thing willingly or not.

oh dear, now the william black misinfo is being propagated by cspan callers.

Shawn - Of course the left (or, more accurately, the many different versions of "left," because we're hardly organized or united) has to do its part. But I disagree with your presumption that "we'd actually be undermining his strategy is we didn't take offense."

The truth is, nobody cares if we're "offended" or not. And acting all offended only divides the academic and blogger "lefts" from the very working class, the poor, and the racially diverse American people that without which, there can be no authentic "left."

Just because I and some others aren't acting like crybabies, doesn't mean we're not pushing and pulling the administration to do better. (See my post, today, on Obama's European trip and his upcoming one in Latin America for an example of how I think such efforts are done intelligently in ways crafted to win the narrative and better policies.)