Obama's Big Sellout

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/31234647/obamas_big_sellout/print

Barack Obama ran for president as a man of the people, standing up to Wall Street as the global economy melted down in that fateful fall of 2008. He pushed a tax plan to soak the rich, ripped NAFTA for hurting the middle class and tore into John McCain for supporting a bankruptcy bill that sided with wealthy bankers "at the expense of hardworking Americans." Obama may not have run to the left of Samuel Gompers or Cesar Chavez, but it's not like you saw him on the campaign trail flanked by bankers from Citigroup and Goldman Sachs. What inspired supporters who pushed him to his historic win was the sense that a genuine outsider was finally breaking into an exclusive club, that walls were being torn down, that things were, for lack of a better or more specific term, changing.

Then he got elected.

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/31234647/obamas_big_sellout/print

 

A pretty decent article given the source.

 

Too bad the opposition (teabaggers) are missing the real fight. Rolling Stone made a good point of pointing that out and I agree.

With idiots such as Palin as the opposition and the people who follow her they are missing the real problem.


Obama is sold lock stock and barrel to the big bankers.

 

Obama was "delivered" by the bankers. The voting system in the US has been destroyed. People think they elect a President. They don't. They get to choose between a few choices, which are delivered to the populace by the banking system. This country will not change until it collapses and even then it probably won't change. It's time to get out of the US if you can.

 

Fascinating and sickening look at the revolving door at the top between business and state. Good find.

 

I would post links to this article on teabagger forums, if I was not banned from those forums. : )

 

This marriage of the top of business with the top of government refutes Ayn Rand's concept that the noble entrepreneur, left unrestrained, will benefit all.

And here is one more example of what would be the failing of pure laissez-faire capitalism:

"(Wall Street Journal – Josh Mitchell)

A Senate committee approved legislation Thursday to impose tighter regulation of the rates that freight railroads charge shippers to transport goods, but the bill doesn't include the tough antitrust provisions pushed by some Democrats.

The bill, backed by Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John D. Rockefeller (D., W.Va.) and approved by a voice vote, caps months of negotiations among lawmakers, shippers and freight-rail companies. It is designed to expand shippers' access to competing railroads and make it easier for them to challenge rates before the Surface Transportation Board, the federal agency that regulates the industry.

Shippers hope that the measures will bring down prices charged by railroads to use their tracks, after years of shippers' complaints that rail companies have too much pricing power.

But the bill is narrower than some Democrats originally envisioned. It drops a provision that would have stripped railroads of antitrust immunity. Supporters argued that such a step is needed to increase competition in an industry dominated by four companies. Railroads contended that the measure would break up decades-old mergers and threaten their viability.

Mr. Rockefeller said he supported tougher antitrust enforcement but that a repeal of antitrust exemptions had no chance of clearing the full Senate, given industry opposition. The antitrust provision would be "a deal-breaker for railroads," Mr. Rockefeller told reporters after Thursday's vote. "If I put that in, the bill goes down."

Shippers said the current bill would give them more leverage by imposing new regulations, including one that they said would force railroads to open "switching" facilities to expand route options. "What shippers want more than anything is access to competition," said Robert Szabo, executive director of Consumers United for Rail Equity, which represents shippers. "This bill knocks down regulatory barriers that have kept shippers from getting access to competition."

Edward Hamberger, president and chief executive of the Association of American Railroads, a trade group representing CSX Corp., Union Pacific Corp., Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corp. and Norfolk Southern Corp., said he is relieved that the bill lacks antitrust provisions but still has concerns. "As you read through this bill, there's just a much more broad involvement of the STB in the operations of the railroad industry," Mr. Hamberger said. "We don't know what the net impact is."

Mr. Rockefeller vowed to continue to work with senators about possible changes but that the current bill would likely pass in its current form. He said his stance has upset some Democrats, including Sen. Herb Kohl (D., Wisc.), who earlier this year withdrew a bill to repeal railroads' antitrust exemptions after Rockefeller said lawmakers needed more time to draft the legislation.

Mr. Kohl said Thursday that he wouldn't give up on the measure. "I believe and expect that when the bill is considered by the full Senate, it will include an effective repeal of the railroads' antitrust exemption," Kohl said in a statement. "The railroads' antitrust exemption is wholly undeserved, shared by virtually no other industry, and clearly anti-competitive."