The problems we face will not be solved by the minds that created them.An aphorism usually attributed to Einstein. The utterly brilliant Newton could not have conceived of relativity. It is possible he could have conceived of field theory, but not relativity.
Obama's linguistic syntax has been great up to now. But fix conveys the wrong concept and perception of the problem.(See Benjamin Lee Whorf.) We are facing the abyss and it is paradigm change or disaster.
I find it very useful to think in terms of the "ideal". Since politics is typically a domain of horrendous compromise, it serves us well to imagine politics without compromise.
Barack Obama's election has given many people renewed hope in the future of this country and the world. I share some of that optimism, but am also gravely familiar with everything that could go wrong. We are already hearing various names that may be under consideration for Obama's cabinet. These names include Republicans such as Chuck Hagel, Dick Lugar, Robert Gates and Colin Powell. They also include members of Clinton's cabinet such as Robert Rubin and Larry Summers. This latter pair are directly responsible for much of the deregulation that occurred in the Clinton administration and which paved the way for the current financial crisis.
I hope these names are unfounded in reality, otherwise somebody ought to take Obama to one side and explain to him what "change" means. It certainly does not mean retaining elements of the Bush administration and the most culpable members of Clinton's cabinet.
For what its worth at this late date, the following plan makes a lot more sense than the Paulson plan, even with the proposed Congressional add-ons. It's proposed by Nouriel Roubini, a professor at NYU's business school who saw this coming much earlier and more clearly than most anyone.
http://www.rgemonitor.com/roub...
Though it looks like Congress may end up moving fast on this, I'd love to see the netroots push this one hard, in conjunction with the elements of the "financial expert" community that are coming around to Roubini's way of thinking. Here are the highlights:
Roubini proposes a program he calls HOME (Home Owners' Mortgage Enterprise), which is basically an updated verion of the Great Depression's Home Owners' Loan Corporation (HOLC). And its got an even more politically attractive name, since it reminds people that helping Americans keep their homes is a lot more important than asking these already-stressed homeowners to bail out wealthy elites whose serious gambling problem is on the verge of taking down our economy.
Roubini explains how his HOME-focused approach is more important and would be more effective than the attempt by Paulson (and now Congress) to do an RTC-like bailout of financial institutions.
STATE BLOGS
