[lbo-talk] House rejects bailout

Gar Lipow the.typo.boy at gmail.com
Mon Sep 29 19:52:34 PDT 2008


On Mon, Sep 29, 2008 at 6:05 PM, Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:
>
> On Sep 29, 2008, at 7:05 PM, Gar Lipow wrote:
>
>> How about James Galbraith? Is he operating out of brain dead
>> anti-elitism, when he calls for expansion of the FDIC and creation of
>> an infrastructure bank - along with a long term investment in
>> infrastructure both green and conventional?
>
> I'm all for that. But that's not the issue right now. The issue right now is
> the potential collapse of the banking system. This is a time scale of weeks
> vs. one of years.

Even in the short run there are more progressive ways to deal with this than just modifying Paulson's crap. FDIC expansion, Nationalizing the Federal Reserve and turning it into a Bank of the United States that grants the kind of credit we need. Bailing out failing institutions ether through nationalizing them, or at least getting equity states. A quarter per cent Tobin Tax on financial and currency trading transactions to pay for it. A lot of this is from lefties like Galbraith or Baker. But neoliberal Clintinoid humanitarian bomber Mark Kleiman supports the Tobin Tax. And Duncan Black (Atrios) a very smart liberal Democratic blogger who Max and I both respect has been pushing that it is better to swallow failing institutions whole than bail them out. I mean I think even on the short term issues there is a whole lot of space left of Nancy Pelosi that does no require flying into Never-Never land. And if you don't disagree with that last statement you may want to clarify, because it sure sounds like that is what you are disputing.



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