{"id":189811,"date":"2010-02-10T20:57:00","date_gmt":"2010-02-11T01:57:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2010\/02\/10\/ok-now-its-time-to-roll-tom-tomorrow\/"},"modified":"2010-02-10T20:57:00","modified_gmt":"2010-02-11T01:57:00","slug":"ok-now-its-time-to-roll-tom-tomorrow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2010\/02\/10\/ok-now-its-time-to-roll-tom-tomorrow\/","title":{"rendered":"OK, Now, it’s Time To Roll Tom Tomorrow"},"content":{"rendered":"
Click for full size<\/p>\n
\n

<\/a> <\/p>\n

<\/a>
Tom Tomorrow, from Sept. 19, 2005 and Feb. 1, 2010<\/span><\/div>\n

So Barack Obama is now saying that he, “doesn\u2019t begrudge the $19 million in bonuses<\/a> for Goldman Sach CEO Lloyd Blankfein and JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Domon: <\/p>\n

“I know both those guys; they are very savvy businessmen,” Obama said in the interview yesterday in the Oval Office with Bloomberg BusinessWeek, which will appear on newsstands Friday. “I, like most of the American people, don\u2019t begrudge people success or wealth. That is part of the free- market system.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This is simbply a complete mind f%$#.<\/p>\n

It is as Krugman notes<\/a>, clueless, and Simon Johnson notes that this is an example of, “One of the most complete (and awful) instances ever of savvy businessmen capturing a state and the minds of the people who run it<\/a>.”<\/p>\n

Even if you accept the argument, such as was made by Greg Seargant, that Obama was actually making a nuanced statement where he attempted to show concern without being too “anti-business” in his statements<\/a>, an to be fair, both Simon Johnson and Paul Krugman<\/a>, as well as yours truly accept this, it’s still wrong, and shows a concern that is warping the decision making process at the white house.<\/p>\n

Johnson notes<\/a> that he is, “Not sure why he needs to strike that balance. CEOs are overpaid, bankers are overpaid, and bank CEOs are overpaid. Why not just say it plainly?”<\/p>\n

Paul Krugman thinks that the nuance makes it worse<\/a>:<\/p>\n

I really don\u2019t see how this makes things any better than the reporting in the Bloomberg story. We don\u2019t begrudge wealth in the free market system \u2014 OK, but this wasn\u2019t about free markets, this is an industry that survives only thanks to taxpayer backing. And Wall Street bonuses are like baseball salaries; please.<\/p>\n

Just to be clear: what freaks me out about this isn\u2019t what it says about Obama\u2019s policies, it\u2019s what it says about failure to read the mood of the country. The president seems solely concerned that someone might think that he\u2019s anti-business, without \u2014 in this interview, at least \u2014 appearing to consider it necessary to say a thing about the pervasive sense of unfair Wall Street privilege. He doesn\u2019t have to bash bankers every step of the way, but to respond to a question about bonuses solely by praising free markets and comparing bankers to baseball stars is \u2026 clueless.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Whether Tom Tomorrow is right, or whether Paul Krugman is right, what it means is that there is a distinct possibility of a President Palin in 2012.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Click for full size Tom Tomorrow, from Sept. 19, 2005 and Feb. 1, 2010 So Barack Obama is now saying that he, “doesn\u2019t begrudge the $19 million in bonuses for Goldman Sach CEO Lloyd Blankfein and JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Domon: “I know both those guys; they are very savvy businessmen,” Obama said in …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1142,970,1004,1064],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-189811","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-barack-obama","category-corruption","category-finance","category-media"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189811"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=189811"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189811\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=189811"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=189811"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=189811"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}