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How J.P. Morgan Chase Has Made the Case for Breaking Up The Big Banks and Resurrecting Glass-Steagall

Evans Liberal Politics
May 15, 2012

The Best in Truthful Liberal News
And US Politics

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How J.P. Morgan Chase HasMade
the Case for Breaking Up The Big Banks
and Resurrecting Glass-Steagall

How J.P. Morgan Chase Has Made the Case for Breaking Up The Big Banks and Resurrecting Glass-Steagall, Robert Reich.org, May 10, 2012, by Robert Reich: Evans Liberal Politics wishes to thank Professor Reich for permission to publish his articles on an ongoing basis:

J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., the nation’s largest bank, whose chief executive, Jamie Dimon, has led Wall Street’s war against regulation, announced Thursday it had lost $2 billion in trades over the past six weeks and could face an additional $1 billion of losses, due to excessively risky bets.

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The bets were “poorly executed” and “poorly monitored,” said Dimon, a result of “many errors, “sloppiness,” and “bad judgment.” But not to worry. “We will admit it, we will fix it and move on.”

Move on? Word on the Street is that J.P. Morgan’s exposure is so large that it can’t dump these bad bets without affecting the market and losing even more money. And given its mammoth size and interlinked connections with every other financial institution, anything that shakes J.P. Morgan is likely to rock the rest of the Street.

Ever since the start of the banking crisis in 2008, Dimon has been arguing that more government regulation of Wall Street is unnecessary. Last year he vehemently and loudly opposed the so-called Volcker rule, itself a watered-down version of the old Glass-Steagall Act that used to separate commercial from investment banking before it was repealed in 1999, saying it would unnecessarily impinge on derivative trading (the lucrative practice of making bets on bets) and hedging (using some bets to offset the risks of other bets).

Dimon argued that the financial system could be trusted; that the near-meltdown of 2008 was a perfect storm that would never happen again.

Since then, J.P. Morgan’s lobbyists and lawyers have done everything in their power to eviscerate the Volcker rule — creating exceptions, exemptions, and loopholes that effectively allow any big bank to go on doing most of the derivative trading it was doing before the near-meltdown.

And now — only a few years after the banking crisis that forced American taxpayers to bail out the Street, caused home values to plunge by more than 30 percent, pushed millions of homeowners underwater, threatened or diminished the savings of millions more, and sent the entire American economy hurtling into the worst downturn since the Great Depression — J.P. Morgan Chase recapitulates the whole debacle with the same kind of errors, sloppiness, bad judgment, and poorly-executed and excessively risky trades that caused the crisis in the first place.

In light of all this, Jamie Dimon’s promise that J.P. Morgan will “fix it and move on” is not reassuring.

The losses here had been mounting for at least six weeks, according to Morgan. Where was the new transparency that’s supposed to allow regulators to catch these things before they get out of hand?

Several weeks ago there were rumors about a London-based Morgan trader making huge high-stakes bets, causing excessive volatility in derivatives markets. When asked about it then, Dimon called it “a complete tempest in a teapot.” Using the same argument he has used to fend off regulation of derivatives, he told investors that “every bank has a major portfolio” and “in those portfolios you make investments that you think are wise to offset your exposures.”

Let’s hope Morgan’s losses don’t turn into another crisis of confidence and they don’t spread to the rest of the financial sector.

But let’s also stop hoping Wall Street will mend itself. What just happened at J.P. Morgan – along with its leader’s cavalier dismissal followed by lame reassurance – reveals how fragile and opaque the banking system continues to be, why Glass-Steagall must be resurrected, and why the Dallas Fed’s recent recommendation that Wall Street’s giant banks be broken up should be heeded.

Robert Reich was President Clinton’s Secretary of Labor and is Chancellor’s Professor of Public Policy at California Berkeley. Time Magazine named Prof. Reich one of the ten most effective Secretaries in U.S. history. This article is from Professor Reich’s blog and can be viewed here.

Recommended: JPMorgan Chase Has Lost $20 Billion On Its Bad Trade, Taking Into Account Share Price, HuffPost Business, May 14, 2012, by Mark Gongloff:

By now you may have heard that JPMorgan Chase lost $2 billion on a bad trade. Multiply that by 10, and you’re starting to get a better idea of how much it has really lost.

That’s because the share price of the biggest U.S. bank by assets has tumbled by more than 11 percent since it announced the trading loss, shaving about $17.5 billion from its market value. JPMorgan shares were down another 2 percent on Monday, following a 9 percent tumble on Friday.

Shareholders aren’t necessarily upset about the $2 billion loss itself. The bank has lost more money than that at different times in other businesses, the New York Times reminded us this morning, without causing much of a ruckus. Though the loss could grow to $4 billion or more, by some estimates, that’s still a far cry from the $90 billion or so in revenue the bank has raked in over the past year.

The real worry for investors is the damage the episode has done to JPMorgan’s previously sterling reputation for managing its risks, the increasing heat of the water around CEO Jamie Dimon and — maybe most importantly — the fact that this debacle comes at the worst possible time for the bank, regulation-wise.

See White House urges bank reforms after JPMorgan loss, The Raw Story, May 14, 2012, by Agence France-Presse:

Investors punished the bank’s shares again Monday, sending them 3.2 percent lower, as JPMorgan announced that chief investment officer Ina Drew was stepping down and news reports said more heads were likely to roll.

See Romney Vowing Dodd-Frank Repeal Hits JPMorgan Risky Trades (Update 1), Bloomberg, May 14, 2012, by Julie Hirschfeld Davis and Lisa Lerer:

Mitt Romney says he wants to talk about the economy in this presidential campaign, including his call to repeal the Dodd-Frank financial regulation law. JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM)’s $2 billion trading loss in risky transactions isn’t the sort of conversation he had in mind.

So far, presumptive Republican nominee Romney has said little about the transaction that is roiling Wall Street and Washington, prompting an inquiry by the Federal Reserve, a call for a congressional investigation and a demand by Elizabeth Warren, a Democratic Senate candidate in Massachusetts, that JPMorgan Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon resign from the board of the New York Federal Reserve.

…

Romney, co-founder of private-equity firm Bain Capital LLC, has spotlighted his vow to repeal the Dodd-Frank law that aims to strengthen financial regulations, calling it one of several overly burdensome laws backed by President Barack Obama that costs jobs. Romney hasn’t directly commented on the JP Morgan losses since Dimon disclosed them on May 10; he ignored a reporter’s shouted question about the matter at a May 11 rally in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Also See JPMorgan Said to Weigh Bonus Clawbacks After Loss, Bloomberg, May 14, 2012, by Laura Marcinek, Donal Griffin and Dawn Kopecki:

JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM), the biggest U.S. bank, will consider reclaiming incentive pay from employees including former Chief Investment Officer Ina Drew after her unit had a $2 billion trading loss, said two senior executives.

The lender can cancel stock awards or demand they be repaid if an employee “engages in conduct that causes material financial or reputational harm,” JPMorgan said in its annual proxy statement. The company will claw back pay if it’s appropriate, said one of the executives, who asked not to be identified because no decisions have been made.

The incident, which led to Drew’s retirement yesterday, may test JPMorgan’s claw-back policy amid mounting investor criticism over Wall Street pay practices and as regulators investigate the trades. Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon said the strategy that led to the loss was “poorly executed and poorly monitored” and that it gave ammunition to proponents of stricter bank regulation.

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Posted on May 15, 2012 by , Reply

The Economy, Entitlements and Welfare: The Democratic Position — A Secular and Rational Validation

Evans Liberal Politics
April 24, 2012

The Best in Liberal Christian News
and US Politics

The Economy, Entitlements and Welfare:
The Democratic Position –
A Secular and Rational Validation

Evans Liberal Politics, April 24, 2012, by Paul Evans:
I have written quite a few articles arguing for compassion towards our fellow man in the form of funding for entitlements, welfare, and the like. More often than not, the primary rationale I have used has been not only coming out of liberalism and liberal values, but also from Christianity. I took Jesus’ life, as recorded in the Gospels, and the way the early Christian community was run in the years after his resurrection, from Acts, as well as the concept of Logos, and tried to translate that into my own vision for society, which, as I see it, amounts to a basically liberal conception. I was trying to say that if we listened to the words of Jesus and saw how he lived his life on earth, and how the early church was run, it points to a model for living and for a society, an economy and a government which must necessarily be very caring towards all of our people.

photo of Evans Liberal Politics owner Paul Evans against a background of white roses

However, I don’t think that one necessarily needs to take one’s model for society from the Gospels or from the model of the early church in order to justify a society and a government which acts as its brothers’ keeper and takes care of society’s less fortunate citizens. In fact, growing up, I was agnostic, really basically into my late forties (I am 55 now), and I have always tended to follow ideals which followed those of New Deal sorts of Democrats.

I believe that there are so very many ordinary citizens, both Christians and secular citizens, who simply do not understand the situation faced by America’s poor and even, currently, that faced by much of our middle class. There is a lot of suffering in America, and many Republicans seem to feel it is the fault of the less fortunate that they find themselves in the predicament which they are in.

The right wing media, financed by very rich hard line Republicans who do not want to pay for social programs, have brainwashed far too many ordinary Americans. I refer to people like Rush Limbaugh, who (I believe) made about $53 million in 2009 or 2010. And now it seems that Mitt Romney is going to be nominated for 2012, and is being pushed by some Republican spokespersons as someone completely in touch with the “heart and soul” of ordinary Americans. This is just pure garbage, and we need to understand the facts: Mitt Romney is worth about a half a billion dollars ($500,000,000.00). Further, he has investments in the tax free Cayman Islands and owns at least one Swiss bank account. He may not be as extreme as someone like Newt Gingrich, but he certainly is much richer, and he is FAR from being any sort of “ordinary American.”

I would argue that someone like that, who grew up in a wealthy family, simply cannot be likely to understand the problems of ordinary Americans and also, may not even truly care about us. It is easy to make speeches which seem to be reaching towards us, but what does he know about running out of money halfway through almost every month, scrambling or even begging friends for money for gas, or being unable to pay the phone bill? What experience does Romney have working with the poor, and interacting with them on any sort of level of equality whatsoever?

One seventh of us live in poverty, you know. Are we beneath the rest of Americans in worth?

Barack Obama worked with the unemployed factory workers of South Chicago, and tried to help give them a hand up out of poverty and to advocate for them. He grew up in a rather modest middle class family. I would argue that he must necessarily understand ordinary Americans better.

FDR grew up wealthy. But he showed, time after time, for nearly four terms as President, that his heart and soul was with the less fortunate of society. And for that, most Republicans hate him and almost all the legislation he enacted, and everything he stands for.

What are the facts? Right now, about 400 or so people in America own one half of this nation’s wealth. The lower 80 percent of us actually only own 17 percent of the wealth. We are HURTING.

They say that the unemployment rate is dropping, that in fact it has dropped about a percent, now. Fine. Let’s just look for a minute at what the situation was about a year ago. Certain of these statistics in particular are burned into my consciousness and actually, I would bet my nose that they simply have not changed that much. In February, 2011, for those Americans making $100,000 a year or more, the unemployment rate was 3.2 percent. I hope they didn’t suffer too badly. For those making $20,000 a year or less, the unemployment rate was actually 31 percent. So, with the unemployment picture finding five applicants for every job opening, who do you think was getting the jobs, and what sort of jobs were these?

What is the Republican solution to our current economic malaise? They want to cut spending, in particular entitlements and welfare, and to enact tax cuts which would almost certainly be in favor of the rich. Every since Ronald Reagan, the Republican line has been that tax cuts for the wealthy result in a “trickle down” effect which benefits everyone. This has been enthroned in the grand theory of “supply side economics.” But it’s bunk!


From Truman to Eisenhower the highest bracket tax rate was about 94 percent and the economy grew steadily at four percent, without deficits. Then the highest bracket was lowered to 75 percent. Still, the economy grew at about four percent. This continued, at decreasing tax rates under Nixon and Ford, with a downturn at the end of Ford’s term. We had a problem under Carter which I recall was called “stagflation.” The economy was contracting and there was inflation which reached about 17 percent.

Reagan swept into office under the banner of supply side economics, and two things did occur which stimulated the economy into growth. First the overall normal business cycle came around and the economy, as normally occurs after a recession, began to grow again. Normal recession, normal recovery. Secondly, tax cuts were enacted which, it could be argued, served as an effective stimulus to the economy. But the economy did not grow nearly as fast as it did under Reagan’s successor, Bill Clinton. Clinton raised taxes on the rich, and, what happened? We saw economic growth return to its “normal” post WWII rate of four percent a year, and a fairly severe budget deficit was entirely erased and turned into a surplus.

Let’s look at President Bush’s economy. In the first place, regulations which governed the banking and investment industry had just been trashed and these institutions then grew ascendant and arrogantly powerful, growing from about 14 percent of the economy to about 34 percent. This problem actually began in the Clinton administration but that most of the abuse was under Bush. There were then in fact two sets of tax cuts which strongly favored the rich. We saw economic growth of about 2 to 3 percent, followed by a severe turndown due to a typical Republican failure to regulate business. In this case the main problem was the investment industry, and the banking industry in particular with regard to the nearly unrestricted enactment of mortgage loans. Even after the picture for mortgages had deteriorated, the severe structural problem was concealed in the practice of issuing “derivatives,” as investments, which disguised bulk packages of trash mortgages in packages of corruptly highly rated bonds.

It was this combination which has put us in the severe downturn in which we find ourselves. It has not been a typical cyclical contraction but a severe structural problem in the economy because, mainly, America’s middle class lost the ability to finance loans, having lost any equity they had in their homes, assuming they were able to keep them. Progressive economists have argued that because of the severe and structural nature of the contraction, which some argue did in fact reach the level of a depression, only real stimulus of the overall economy by the government would pull us out of the slump. It has been shown factually, for example, that one dollar invested in infrastructure returns money into the economy at a significantly higher rate than does one dollar in tax cuts. But of course, the Republican line is that Obama’s stimulus accomplished little or nothing. Yet without it, we might have suffered far worse.

Recently among other things, the Republican majority in the House forced a continuation of the low Bush tax rates for the wealthy. Democrats wanted a return to the proven success of the Clinton tax rate levels, but did not have power to enact this. Has the continuation of low tax rates for the rich stimulated the economy into any sort of stiff growth? I would argue that, in fact knowing the facts about what tax cuts for the wealthy really are for (and it isn’t to stimulate economic growth), the almost single minded purpose behind a great deal of the proposals and enactments of Republicans during Barack Obama’s three plus years has been to PREVENT the economy from growing fast at all.

This is of course so that a “pro-business,” President can be elected who is a “true Christian” and has the “right sorts of social values.” In fact, Mitch McConnell has been quoted as saying at one point recently that he would allow no legislation to pass which would materially help Barack Obama to be reelected. This is the sort of “true patriotism” which the Republican Party demonstrates.

The leaders of the Republican Party don’t care how much ordinary Americans suffer so long as they can have full political power to do as they will. In other words, they will do whatever is necessary to have full control of the House, the Senate and the Presidency. And why should they care about ordinary Americans? Because of their – I might call it almost a pure capitalist religion, but, you know, “their sort” of capitalism – corporations are growing, Wall Street is again expanding, and the rich are seeing their stock portfolios once again grow fatter. While ordinary Americans suffer.
To sum it up, these Republicans are entirely for the wealthy, for big corporations, against any sort of prosperity so long as a Democratic President is in office, against continued aid to society’s less fortunate at current levels, and they lie about their true purposes. They are adamantly pro-life, but pro-life ends at birth. Children of the poor are supposed to get by as best their parents are able, and if this means babies and children suffer or even die, somehow this is the fault of the poor. This is not the Republican Party of Lincoln or Eisenhower. This is the truly patriotic and morally steadfast Republican Party at it’s absolute best, as it has been over about the last eleven or twelve years.

In conclusion, if we always favor the rich, even when in fact it has been shown that this does NOT stimulate the economy effectively, if we fail to enact or even roll back crucial regulations and laws which keep our economy functional and support the welfare of all of our people, and if we are against continuing aid to society’s less fortunate, I ask you: how moral is that? I would argue that purely secular and rational considerations point to a strong superiority in the liberal or Democratic positions about government, and that the current Republican agenda is in fact morally bankrupt.

These are some of the secular arguments which come to my mind in favor of basically Democratic positions about the economy, entitlements and welfare. ~ Paul

Comment by Evans Liberal Politics owner Paul Evans: So fiscal conservatives want to slash Medicaid. OK, fine, note to world: many doctors and most dentists no longer accept Medicaid. I have a broken off tooth with inflamed gums and my jaw hurts. Well, there is only one Medicaid dentist in Wooster, serving a county of 105,000. So there’s a long wait, and many people just resort to going to the ER. See Hidden America: Medicaid’s Youngest Face Dental Crisis, ABC News, April 24, 2012, by Chris Cuomo:

With more than 16 million low-income U.S. children on Medicaid not receiving dental care — or even a routine exam — in 2009, according to the Pew Center on the States, dentists and ERs say they are treating very young patients with teeth blackened from decay and bacteria and multiple cavities.

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See “Supply Side Economics, the Bush Tax Cuts & John Boehner Completely Discredited,” Evans Liberal Politics, December 31, 2011, by Paul Evans.

See In Addition to Geithner, Republican Economists Also Argue That Tax Cuts Do Not Pay for Themselves, Center for Budget and Policy Research, August 8, 2012, by CEPR.

See Americans Believe in Tax Equity: Polls Show Americans Want Tax Fairness as Part of Deficit Fix, Center for American Progress, April 15, 2011, by James Hairston.

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Posted on April 24, 2012 by , Reply

Why Anyone Should Care that Bill O’Reilly Calls Robert Reich A Communist

Evans Liberal Politics
April 24, 2012

The Best in Liberal Christian News
and US Politics

Why Anyone Should Care that Bill O’Reilly
Calls Robert Reich A Communist

Evans Liberal Politics, April 24, 2012, by Robert Reich, used with permission, quoted verbatim:

Bill O’Reilly, the tumescent personality of Fox News, said on his Friday show “Robert Reich is a communist who secretly adores Karl Marx.” (This came after Fox News’ Neil Cavoto called me a “sanctimonious twit” for suggesting the rich should pay more in taxes.)

O’Reilly’s accusation is odd, to say the least. If we were living in the 1950s, amid Senator Joe McCarthy’s communist witch-hunts, the claim might have some bite and cause me injury. But these days it’s hard to find a full-throated communist anywhere in the world.

O’Reilly’s accusation isn’t even logical. How can he know if I secretly adore Karl Marx, if it’s a secret?

For the record, I’m not a communist and I don’t secretly adore Karl Marx.

Ordinarily I don’t bother repeating anything Bill O’Reilly says. But this particular whopper is significant because it represents what O’Reilly and Fox News, among others, are doing to the national dialogue.

They’re burying it in doo-doo.

O’Reilly based his claim on an interview I did last week with Jon Stewart on the Daily Show, in which I argued that because America’s big corporations were now global we could no longer rely on them to make necessary investments in human capital or to lobby for public investments in education, infrastructure, and basic R&D. So, logically, government has to step in.

Since when does an argument for public investment in education, infrastructure, and basic R&D make someone a communist or a secret adorer of Karl Marx?

Obviously, O’Reilly has no interest in arguing anything. Ad hominem attacks are always the last refuges of intellectual boors lacking any logic or argument. (Whoops, I think I just stooped to name-calling. Sorry, Bill.)

Yet this is what’s happening to all debate all over America: It’s disappearing. All we’re left with is a nasty residue.

In Washington, Democrats and Republicans no longer even talk. They just vent charges and counter-charges.

The 2012 election doesn’t seem likely to clarify any issue. At this moment the candidates and their surrogates are debating the treatment of dogs.

Across the nation, conservatives right-wingers and liberal or progressive lefties have stopped debating their respective views, or even listening to anyone they disagree with. They just find broadcasters and bloggers who confirm their views.

We’re even sorting by belief according to where we live. Today your neighbors are more likely to agree with your politics than disagree. We’ve settled into like-minded enclaves where we don’t need to think because everyone we meet confirms what we assume we already know.

It’s not that the nation is more polarized than it’s been in the past. America has been through searing conflicts, some within the living memories of most of us. The communist witch-hunts of the 1950s were followed by the civil rights movement, the Vietnam War, battles over womens’ reproductive rights and gay marriage.

What makes America’s current polarization remarkable isn’t the severity of our disagreements but our utter lack of engagement debating them.

So many Americans are so angry and frustrated these days – vulnerable to loss of job and healthcare and home, without a shred of economic security – they’re easy prey for demagogues offering simple answers and ready scapegoats. Take, for example, Bill O’Reilly and his colleagues at Fox News.

But people can only learn from others who disagree with them — or at least from witnessing debates between people who respectfully and civilly disagree. Without respect and civility, it’s not a debate – it’s just name-calling.

A democracy depends on public deliberation and debate. Without it, the members of a society have no means of understanding what they believe or why. The Lincoln-Douglas debates were notable not because they solved anything but because they helped Americans clarify where they agreed and disagreed on the wrenching issue of slavery.

Hence the danger today – when deliberation has stopped.

This morning I left a message on Bill O’Reilly’s office phone asking him to invite me onto his show to debate whether public investments in education and infrastructure are needed.

What are the odds he’ll invite me on?

Get #BeyondOutrage.　

See Robert Reich blasts Bill O’Reilly over ‘communist witch hunt’, The Raw Story, April 23, 2012, by Eric W. Dolan.

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Posted on April 24, 2012 by , Reply

War and Killing “Cannot Be Reconciled with Wisdom, Justice & Love”

Evans Liberal Politics
April 18, 2012

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War and Killing “Cannot Be
Reconciled with Wisdom, Justice & Love”

Evans Liberal Politics, April 18, 2012, by Paul Evans:

The inspiration for this article comes directly from Martin Luther King, Jr., as interpreted in two consecutive songs by Linkin Park. These songs and Dr. King’s speech in the first of these songs were so moving and inspiring for me that I wanted to be sure more people were exposed to them.

The songs can be found on Linkin Park’s album “A Thousand Suns” from 2010, where the first song grades into the second. First is a spooky version of a snippet of a Martin Luther King, Jr., speech, from inside a church, as he often made his speeches or sermons. Sometimes his sermons are speeches or his speeches are sermons, it’s hard to tell.

Linkin Park
Wisdom, Jusice and Love

Perhaps that goes along with his vision for society of a “Blessed Community” of Christians who truly and actually love their neighbors as themselves. I guess in the society we live in, Dr. King’s vision for us had too much of a fully revolutionary implication for the order of things which exists now, and so like JFK, and later Bobby Kennedy, he died. The real message of Martin Luther King, Jr., for many people is not that of the races of man living together and simply interacting together, but involves the vision of all of us truly living and enacting lives that are loving.

As to his death, draw your own conclusions. Personally I am not a conspiracy theorist, but think that often events occur because of an overall social, mental mood of sorts, and what that accomplishes or enacts in our society and lives. Too often, this works in a rather harmful way, and will continue to until we learn to actually love one another, or else in the final analysis God may well intervene.

In Dr. King’s speech, as recorded in the first of these two songs, he said:

I come to this magnificent house of worship tonight, because my conscience leaves me no other choice. A true revolution of values will lay hands on the world order and failed war. This way of settling differences is not just. This business of burning human beings with napalm … of filling our nation’s homes with offerings and widows …of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into the brains of people … cannot be reconciled with wisdom justice and love.

After the third ellipsis, above, the recording by Linkin Park becomes deliberately strongly distorted, leading into the final statement. This last section is spoken a la Darth Vader only in a still more deadly, deathly and almost robotic way. After a short, partial section which is so distorted that I am fairly certain that most of us could not interpret it, the “song” or speech ends with the repeated phrase, “cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice and love.” The song title comes from this directly, simply, “Wisdom, Justice and Love.” This song then leads without pause into the second song, “Iridescent,” where the words are the band’s own:

You were standing in the wake of devastation. You were waiting on the edge of the unknown. With the cataclysm raining down, insides crying save me now, you were there impossibly unknown.

Do you feel cold, and lost in desperation? You build up hope, but failure’s all you’ve known. Remember all the sadness and frustration …and let it go. Let it go.

And then the ghost arrived but blinded every angel, as if the sky had blown the heavens into stars. You felt the gravity return the grace, falling into empty space, no one there to catch you in their arms.

Do you feel cold, and lost in desperation? You build up hope, but failure’s all you’ve known. Remember all the sadness and frustration …and let it go. Let it go.

The refrain is then repeated in a choral version, with a series of a few notes at the end where the tune rises upwards. The phrase “let it go” is sung repeatedly, and the song closes with the solo voice singing the refrain once more.

This song combination is almost impossibly beautiful and very inspiring to me. First of all, I feel an incredible identification with Martin Luther King’s speech. The full effect with distortion can be fully experienced in the video, above.

The second song really hit me hard, perhaps with more grace than any other effect. I felt that perhaps I truly needed to take all the images of war I had seen, all the bombs falling, all the dying people I have known as I grow old, my own mental illness, my mother and sister’s death and my father’s growing rather feeble, and now my poverty, then feel deeply the words of “Iridescent,” and then just let my own sadness and desperation go. Just let it go.

In the final analysis, I really can’t forget what I have seen and what I have been exposed to, but the song really did help me. In a fashion, it did “wash me clean.” I felt energized and inspired, with my ability to face the world strengthened.

The exact way that these two songs are connected, other than the fact that the first song actually grades into the second, is not immediately clear, but to me there is an obvious intuitive connection. It has something to do with the terrible things we are exposed to in the society we live in, and our need for renewal and a clean start. Perhaps any reader who “gets it” might well be helped as I was by Linkin Park’s two songs.

What do these two songs mean to you?

You can view a video of the second, uplifting song, “Iridescent,” here. ~ Paul

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Posted on April 18, 2012 by , Reply

One Liberal’s Perspective on Compassionate Conservatism

Evans Liberal Politics
April 18, 2012

The Best in Liberal Christian News
and US Politics

One Liberal’s Perspective
on Compassionate Conservatism

Who Are These "Compassionate Conservatives"
And Why Do Most Liberals Dislike the Term So Much?

What Is The Testimony of Christianity
As To How We Should Think About The Poor,
Social Programs & Our Obligations?

Evans Liberal Politics, April 18, 2012, by Paul Evans:

I have been a Democrat all my life. My father, and his father before him, perhaps because both men served in WWII, considered themselves New Deal Democrats and followed the ideas of Franklin D. Roosevelt.

I grew up mostly politically unaware, and was a late initiate to the world of politics. All I knew growing up was that my father watched the world news most weeknights at 6:30 p.m., and sometimes would invite me to watch with him, although at that time I did not find the subject matter all that exciting.

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I did somewhat follow the Vietnam war, and once had to give a speech about it at Jr. high school. I saw the TV coverage where our last servicemen and political operatives were taken off of the roof of the U.S. Embassy in Saigon by helicopters. The city fell to North Vietnamese Communist forces and our time in that war was over. I remember that at the time, there was much talk of a “Domino Theory,” whereby if South Vietnam fell to the Communists, all of Southeast Asia would follow suit. That was the hawks’ line back then.

(I guess I must be getting older to have digressed like this. I believe my young housemates think I drive like a “grandpa,” anyway. I’m old enough that I should be one.)

On January 25, 2010 I published Open Thread for Night Owls and Other Strays, a Daily Kos article (and ongoing series), in this case mainly written by Meteor Blades. The main thrust of the article was a discussion of South Carolina Lt. Governor Andre Bauer’s comment comparing people receiving government assistance (such as myself) to “feeding stray animals.” He was then running for the Republican nomination to become Governor and said that the needy "owe something back" for the aid they receive. Meteor Blades quoted Bauer:

“My grandmother was not a highly educated woman, but she told me as a small child to quit feeding stray animals. You know why? Because they breed. You’re facilitating the problem if you give an animal or a person ample food supply. They will reproduce, especially ones that don’t think too much further than that. And so what you’ve got to do is you’ve got to curtail that type of behavior. They don’t know any better,” Bauer said.

Of course, this incensed the Daily Kos community, and Meteor Blades said: "It’s also considered culturally acceptable to euthanize suffering animals, so maybe that’s Bauer’s next idea for ‘helping’ poor people. South Carolina can call the death chambers ‘Grandma Bauer’s Self-Sufficiency Ranch.’"

This is the sort of vitriol that exists between staunch fiscal and Tea Party sorts of conservatives on the one hand, and liberals and progressives on the other. It is a question of attitudes which hardened, chronologically, as Congress became a bitter place where bipartisanship essentially disappeared. At the conclusion of the article, I said:

I would have to agree that Bauer is scraping the bottom of the barrel, however: this man, whatever he calls himself, is no compassionate conservative. Many of my neighbors ARE compassionate conservatives. Just because you are fiscally conservative and would prefer, for instance, to arrange assistance for the poor by means of private and church sources, or because you place such a strong emphasis on living a personally conservative lifestyle and want the society you live in to reflect those personal values, by no means indicates that you cannot be both a conservative and compassionate. I (personally) know several people who are. As for Bauer, after this, I don’t think he’s much of a threat to be elected as South Carolina’s governor, at least, I certainly hope not.

Many of you may remember the big scandal over Bauer’s disappearance and South American sexual affair. See Wikipedia, in it’s biographical aritlce on Bauer, here. Bauer didn’t get much further after that.

But this has been an ongoing theme among right wingers. As you might expect, Rush Limbaugh has chimed in. See Rush: Welfare Recipients Akin to Wild Animals Dependent on People for Food, Daily Kos, April 4, 2012, by Black Max. Limbaugh wasn’t even original. I wonder who he cited as the source of “his idea.” Maybe it came up for discussion with one of his erudite callers. Also, be sure and watch the YouTube video from March 18, 2012 Mary Franson (R) compares people on food stamps to wild animals. So this sort of thing has been an ongoing commentary and talking point among Republicans.

Is this compassionate conservatism? How about the recent push, at least in part funded by the billionaire Koch Brothers, at the state level, to take away collective bargaining rights for teachers, firemen and policemen — who are ordinary working folk, but working and paying their own way in life? Is that “compassionate” or in any decent way fair? These workers dedicate their lives to society! Yet the right wing media, led by Fox News and people like Rush Limbaugh, have convinced decent, church-going, basically good-hearted Americans everywhere that people on welfare are shiftless, lazy bums and must be forced off of the rolls.

I myself am on full disability for mental illness. Despite my strong preference to remain silent about this, I recently spoke about the whole subject. In Thoughts About God Part 2: Related Political Ramblings, (Evans Liberal Politics, April 10, 2012, by Paul Evans, subtitled “Looking Back at the Last Two Presidents, And Speaking on the Intersection of Politics and Religion”), I described my own experience trying to get back into the workforce:

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If you want people to get off of welfare and food stamps, etc., the fact is, there are no real programs that really, actually help that. (Yes, there is the Bureau of Vocational Rehabilitation, but if you ARE on disability, are you going to drop that in order to sweep floors or wash dishes, in the process losing your medical coverage?)

I am on full disability for mental illness. Last year I tried to work my way out of that, and succeeded at getting a part time job, 20 hours a week designing websites and doing cold call telemarketing to get more work. Immediately, after a safe earning of $65 a month, I think it was, half of what I made was deducted from my SSI, my food stamps were cut almost in half, which hurt all three of us living here, and I was given a medical spend down. In what way is that providing a hand up out of poverty? What incentive was there for me to keep working? By the way, the three of us living here have been trying to get by on about $8,000 a year plus food stamps. That’s really living the life of Riley, I can assure you.

The point is NOT that I have been mentally unstable in fact, and have been advised not to work full time and drop my disability. Regardless of that, I was determined to get to work, but there was no path for me to get there. So how are those on disability or welfare who in fact may want a way out, to blame, and why are conservatives so sure that we are all “lazy” and must be forced off of welfare? This is bullsh*t.

My housemate has degenerative joint disease. He can’t make his elbows straighten out, and he essentially has no cartilage left in his knees. He also has neurological problems. He has applied for disability twice and twice been turned down. It’s a racket. The lawyers get to apply for you, and they string out the process for years, and they take a cut, but it works now that most people have to apply three times before you have a real chance at getting disability. And then they lawyers take their cut. And I really didn’t want to “spill my guts” about all this, either.

I am really trying to get any conservative reader who may read this to, just maybe, “get it.” Coming towards the conclusion of that article, I said:

To finish this overall line of argumentation, it is not only up to God to care for His people, nor just the churches. He expects all of us – including the government and our leaders — to do what we can do help those less fortunate than ourselves without judgment and even to the limit of our abilities. Again, Jesus enjoined (three times) before He ascended into heaven, that he expected Peter and the church to “feed my (His) sheep.” That’s not hard to understand, should not be twisted into anything ”only spiritual” in its direction, and is central in my beliefs.

Another idea which has been formative for me is the First Principle of Unitarian-Universalism, which is “the inherent worth and dignity of every human being.” In this regard, remember that Jesus refused no one help in his ministry on earth, including the Samaritan woman, with whom Jews were not supposed to have any contact, and Cornelius the Roman Centurion, who was a pagan Roman soldier and as such an enemy of the Jewish people. In other words, He did not judge the individual in need, just as He told His people to be very careful about making any judgments of others. In His life on earth, Jesus only offered up only His caring love, advice, healing and help, and then His life itself.

To me, it should not matter whether you approach the question of poverty and entitlements, etc., from a Christian perspective or simply as caring, patriotic Americans. I have never, and I will never, understand how the rich can drive through the poorer sections of our major cities and not be moved by compassion to try to change things for the better. It seems as though so many people have the idea of themselves as Christian or righteous before God, yet they ignore all this suffering around them, and I cannot understand how they do it, except that somehow, perhaps, it never even crosses their minds that what they see around them is unacceptable to God. If you are a caring person, as Martin Luther King said, you must realize (to paraphrase) that where injustice remains for one of us, none of us are truly free.

…

The basis of my … political discussion here lies with the Gospels and the Book of Acts, with the concept of Logos, with my discussions with quite a few pastors and priests, and with my reading over at least 33 years. It also lies with my own experience in life mingling with ordinary citizens, of whom I am certainly one, and experiencing their suffering, their hopes, and their dreams, which often only include carrying on in life and reaching their reward when they are done.

Life has often been referred to as “this veil of tears.” I do not think that in times which may well grow increasingly more difficult, as even a CIA warning to the President indicates, we can expect too much of an overall, rapid betterment of the economy and any sort of immediate, “happy” times in the near future. For those of us who are Christian, it may well be wise to be content with what we have, to realize how hard is America’s place in the world for the future, and to see that all of us need to realize how lucky we are to be Americans.

At the same time, the exclusive power and riches of the wealthy and its continued concentration in the ways occurring now are just wrong for America. We are – all of us – the only people who can change that. And we are the only people who can truly make this a Christian nation in the best sense of the word, while accepting people of all faiths, beliefs and value systems as our equals before God, in love. Again, the Bible teaches us that “none are righteous, not one,” and Jesus enjoined us to love our neighbor as ourselves – all of our neighbors.

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Posted on April 18, 2012 by , Reply

Republican 2012 race ‘mathematically’ over: Graham

Evans Liberal Politics
Monday, March 12, 2012


The Best in Liberal Christian News
and US Politics

Republican 2012 race
‘mathematically’ over: Graham

Republican 2012 race ‘mathematically’ over: Graham, Agence France-Presse on The Raw Story, March 11, 2012, by AFP, used with permission, quoted verbatim: Evans Liberal Politics is pleased to partner with The Raw Story to bring you cutting edge news.

WASHINGTON — Mitt Romney has all but won the 2012 Republican presidential nomination, top senator Lindsey Graham said Sunday, agreeing with the candidate that “mathematically, this thing is about over.”


Romney has won 14 of 25 state-by-state votes that decide which Republican candidate takes on President Barack Obama in November, compared to eight wins for Rick Santorum and just two for former House speaker Newt Gingrich.

These victories have given Romney almost 40 percent of the 1,144 delegates needed to secure the nomination. He has 446 delegates, Santorum 199 and Gingrich 117, according to authoritative poll aggregator RealClearPolitics.

“Mathematically, Rick would have to win 75 percent of what remains,” Graham, a senior Republican who serves on various Senate committees, told ABC’s “This Week” program.

“He’s done an outstanding job, Rick has, of starting with almost nothing and being a real contender, and Newt’s come back from the dead two or three times,” Graham said. “But mathematically, this thing is about over, but emotionally it’s not.”

Graham was speaking ahead of two do-or-die contests for Gingrich on Tuesday in the conservative southern states of Mississippi and Alabama — although the former House speaker has pledged to stay in the race until the bitter end.

The Santorum camp argues that if he can consolidate the conservative vote behind him, at Gingrich’s expense, then he can still overtake the frontrunner before the race wraps up at the party’s end of August convention.

“I think everybody believes, if I could just get a one-on-one with Romney, I could win this thing,” said Graham.

“But if Romney does well, wins either Mississippi or Alabama and wins Illinois, then I think it’s virtually impossible for this thing to continue much beyond early May.”

Graham, who has yet to officially endorse any candidate, stopped short of calling on Santorum, Gingrich, or even veteran Texas congressman Ron Paul — who has yet to win even one state vote — to quit.

“It’s Romney’s to lose,” he said. “And, quite frankly, every time he had his back against the wall, he’s performed. And I like his chances, but the other two candidates have got to make that decision themselves.”

See Mary Matalin: Romney has ‘heart and soul’ of an average American, The Raw Story, March 11, 2012, by David Edwards: "Mitt Romney may have a net worth of a quarter of a billion dollars (AND a Swiss bank account, AND investments outside of the US in the tax-free Cayman Islands — PE), but he has the “heart and soul” of an average American, according to GOP strategist Mary Matalin." – Ha, ha, ha, ha ha ha. I laugh. – Paul Evans

Obama Behind Romney in New Poll

See Obama poll rating drops in Republican boost, Agence France-Presse on The Raw Story, March 12, 2012, by AFP:

President Barack Obama’s approval rating has plunged below 50 percent and he would be beaten by Republican frontrunner Mitt Romney if November’s US election were held today, a poll showed Monday.

The survey, by ABC News and The Washington Post, indicated that only 46 percent of Americans now approved of the way Obama is handling his job and 50 percent disapproved as he took a hit from rising gas prices.

The situation was a reversal from early February when 50 percent approved of the president’s performance and 46 percent disapproved.

The survey was released as the battleground for the Republican presidential nomination moved to the deep South for Tuesday’s primaries in Alabama and Mississippi.

If the presidential election were held today, the poll found that Romney would beat Obama 49 percent to 47 percent.

Agence France-Presse: "AFP journalists cover wars, conflicts, politics, science, health, the environment, technology, fashion, entertainment, the offbeat, sports and a whole lot more in text, photographs, video, graphics and online."

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Posted on March 12, 2012 by , Reply

Moody’s declares Greece in default of debt

Evans Liberal Politics


The Best in Liberal Christian News
and US Politics

Moody’s declares Greece in default of debt

But New debt deal should tide Greece over

Moody’s declares Greece in default of debt, AlJazeera English, March 10, 2012, by AlJazeera, quoted verbatim, with commentary by Evans Liberal Politics owner Paul Evans:

"Bond credit rating agency says EU member has defaulted on its repayments as it secures biggest debt deal in history."

Moody’s Investors Service has declared Greece in default on its debt after Athens carved out a deal with private creditors for a bond exchange that will write off $140 billion of its debt.

New debt deal
should tide Greece over

Moody’s pointed out that even as 85.8 per cent of the holders of Greek-law bonds had signed onto the deal, the exercise of collective action clauses that Athens is applying to its bonds will force the remaining bondholders to participate.

Overall the cost to bondholders, based on the net present value of the debt, will be at least 70 per cent of the investment, Moody’s said.

“According to Moody’s definitions, this exchange represents a ‘distressed exchange,’ and therefore a debt default,” the US-based rating firm said.

For one, “The exchange amounts to a diminished financial obligation relative to the original obligation.”

Secondly, it “has the effect of allowing Greece to avoid payment default in the future.”

Ahead of the debt deal, Moody’s had already slashed Greece’s credit grade to its lowest level, “C,” and so there was no impact on the rating.

Moody’s said it will revisit the rating to see how the debt writedown, and the second Eurozone bailout package, would affect its finances.

However, it added, at the beginning of March “Moody’s had said that the risk of a default, even after the debt exchange has been completed, remains high.”

"Source: Agencies"

Commentary by Evans Liberal Politics owner Paul Evans: I have to say that this looks exactly like the story by Agence France-Presse that The Raw Story ran yesterday, but since AlJazeera and a gazillion other internet sites saw fit to republish this, and I have an agreement with The Raw Story anyway, I felt I should republish it.

Please watch the video to get the full lowdown on what is going on with the Greek economy and the credit default. To me, the whole thing seems as though it is an arranged situation, with no dire consequences, for example, for the European and world economies. The articles around the web have alarming titles, and the text of this article is rather alarmist in it’s tone and content, as well. However the video portrays a more hopeful, if somewhat grave, situation for the Greek people. Investors in the Greek bonds will lose something like 86 percent of their investment, and we’re talking about hundreds of billions of dollars. Therefore there will be some pain among the mostly European investors.

The Greek Debt Crisis
and Goldman Sachs

In the article mentioned from February 15th, the predatory role of Goldman Sachs in the Greek debt crisis is exposed. The entire Greek economy only amounts to $400-$500 billion anually. However it seems that Goldman Sachs has been investing heavily, to the tune of some $600 to $700 billion, in hedge funds that have been betting on the Greek economy to tank, with attendant results.

See Will the EU and the IMF & Investment Banks relent or will Greece erupt in chaos, Telegraph.co.uk on Evans Liberal Politics, February 15, 2012, by Peter Oborne, with commentarty by Paul Evans: At the time this article was written, it looked like Greece might erupt, perhaps, even into violent revolution. This is a proud, civilized people and they are being driven deep into poverty and sometimes hunger. If the new debt deal results in suffering beyond what is tolerable to most, with the Greek Communist Party and other left wing parties now getting the support of 40 percent of Greeks, anything could happen.

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Posted on March 10, 2012 by , Reply
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