By Naomi Klein
http://www.alternet.org
NaomiKlein.com
November 6, 2008
To understand the meaning of the U.S. election results, it is worth looking back to the moment when everything changed for the Obama campaign. It was, without question, the moment when the economic crisis hit Wall Street.
Up to that point, things weren’t looking all that good for Barack Obama. The Democratic National Convention barely delivered a bump, while the appointment of Sarah Palin seemed to have shifted the momentum decisively over to John McCain.
Then, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac failed, followed by insurance giant AIG, then Lehman Brothers. It was in this moment of economic vertigo that Obama found a new language. With tremendous clarity, he turned his campaign into a referendum into the deregulation and trickle down policies that have dominated mainstream economic discourse since Ronald Reagan. He said his opponent represented more of the same while he stood for a new direction, one that would rebuild the economy from the ground up, rather than the top down. Obama stayed on this message for the rest of the campaign and, as we just saw, it worked.
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The New Trough
The Wall Street bailout looks a lot like Iraq — a “free-fraud zone” where private contractors cash in on the mess they helped create
by NAOMI KLEIN
Rolling Stone
Nov 13, 2008
Editor’s note: The online version of this story has been amended to reflect developments since the publication of the print edition.
On October 13th, when the U.S. Treasury Department announced the team of “seasoned financial veterans” that will be handling the $700 billion bailout of Wall Street, one name jumped out: Reuben Jeffery III, who was initially tapped to serve as chief investment officer for the massive new program.
On the surface, Jeffery looks like a classic Bush appointment. Like Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, he’s an alum of Goldman Sachs, having worked on Wall Street for 18 years. And as chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission from 2005 to 2007, he proudly advocated “flexibility” in regulation — a laissez-faire approach that failed to rein in the high-risk trading at the heart of the meltdown.
[…]
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see
Naomi Klein: Now Is the Time to Resist Wall Street’s Shock Doctrine (video)
Now Is the Time to Resist Wall Street’s Shock Doctrine By Naomi Klein
Will the US default on its foreign debt? Interview with Michael Hudson
Interview with Naomi Klein: The Shock Doctrine (video)
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