GS paid Sperling $800,000 for his trouble, not exactly charity.

WooHoo! Finally a Democrat Independent…wait…it’s just another Republican.

Just in time for that staff meeting with Jintao.

Someone in the White House must have told Obama some of the UNION members still like you.

Obama said I will fix that problem.

Obama goes and finds the man that gave the USA NAFTA Bill Daley.

Now all UNION members hate OBAMA.

One of these days OBAMA is going to attack a republican, most think it will happen when pig fly. :)

Daley has all the creds to be in O’s admin: Clinton, Chicago, Wall St. connections.

Ooops. Missing the Reagan connection.

Do you hear anything from the unions on this?

Neither do I. They’re back in Dem Party lapdog mode.

If he were still alive, Big Al would probably say:

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

What a friggin’ joke. On the other hand, “the Ruling Class business community likes him.”

I can’t wait to hear Obama’s fuckin’ populist speeches on the campaign trail in 2012. Hopefully folks are putting eggs away to rot.

This is a reshuffle of the same deckchairs

Fixed it 4 u.

I think being a Daley makes up for the lack of Reagan cred…

The veal pen is warm and cozy, and when you’re at the top of the shit pile, awfully rewarding.

Wall Street has the reins firmly in hand now. That’s the message.

Not that they didn’t before, but why take chances?

“The executive of the modern state is but a committee for managing the common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie.”

True in 1848, and true today.

Union Leadership if you want to call it that, has a lot of the same qualities OBAMA has, they take long walks and think they have followers. They refuse to face the obvious they just took a walk by themselves.

Union rank and file members hate Obama

The post child for Corporatism himself. I’m sure somewhere his father is smiling.

I apologize if this, and the article it quotes on the attitude of Wall Street to Main Street,
have already been mentioned.

I am quite surprised that clinton did not install himself as COS.

On economic matters I like to read Brad DeLong’s opinions. He thinks Gene Sperling is a “liberal.”

http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2011/01/yes-gene-sperling-really-is-a-liberal.html

“The conditions of bourgeois society are too narrow to comprise the wealth created by them. And how does the bourgeoisie get over these crises? On the one hand by enforced destruction of a mass of productive forces; on the other, by the conquest of new markets, and by the more thorough exploitation of the old ones. That is to say, by paving the way for more extensive and more destructive crises, and by diminishing the means whereby crises are prevented.”

Again, as true today as in 1848.

Except that Brad is wrong. Sperling is a Social Security hater. And has gone on record as such.

“But the ‘business community’ likes him, so that’s something.”

Thank God! We wouldn’t want to piss off The Chamber!!

It’s almost like they wake up and say “How can we shove a boot into the Progressive eye today?”

Daley has all the creds to be in O’s admin: Clinton, Chicago, Wall St. connections.

Sad, but true…

Oldgold why do you punish yourself daily? :)

you still think OBAMA is a democrat

you still think that people like tax cuts for the rich

What do you think about the statement below OLDGOLD?

The price of oil is skyrocketing again. John Hofmeister, the former president of Shell Oil, believes that American consumers could be shelling out 5 dollars for a gallon of gas by 2012. If that actually happens, it is going to absolutely devastate millions of middle class American families

me thinks, Obama is history. :)

by the way, when people asked you how evil looks? just give them a photo of OBAMA.

Bill Daley is going to do wonders for Dems on campaign trail in 2012. No one loves the middle class of the USA like Bill Daley, Mr. NAFTA himself

I can see the commercials now, BILL DALEY loves the USA middle class so much he gave the USA NAFTA and guess who loves BILL DALEY your Senator. :)

U.S. Chamber of Commerce president Tom Donahue calls President Obama’s selection of William Daley as his next chief of staff “a strong appointment.”

But the “business community” likes him, so that’s something

The business community has one rule, back the winner, the team in power.
Right now they think it is (or will be) the Republicans.
All of Obama’s ass kissing only makes them more certain of their decision.

Yep! the guy who helped to NAFTA America is back…..remember the trip Obama made to S-Asia in Nov’10,trying to secure NAFTA type deals with India & S-Korea, well some “unions” weren’t happy ,so hence Obama brings in Daley,the guy who helped Clinton to NAFTA the unions & America to do it once more.

And for Howard Dean to go on TV trying to sell this crap as good,wonder how much the WH is paying Dean to herald their bullshit as good is downright disgraceful….when Olberman asked Dean how is it that Daley is not of Washington Dean hemmed & hawed,”I know Bill Daley,well I don’t really know him but what I can tell ya is that Bill Daley won’t treat us like we don’t know anything”.That’s Howard Dean defense,how pathetic.

That would interfere with his speaking engagements. And “Naked Tuesdays”.

Nothing to see here, move along.

Pfffft! It’s gotta be item #1 on the daily meeting’s agenda.

Some people think it’s still 1993.

Howard Dean tried to carry the bull shit for the WH, but he ended up spilling most of it on himself.

The smell coming from TV last night was horrible.

Dean needs to leave the bull shit carrying to Chris Matthews and Chuck Todd.

It doesn’t get much more corrupt than this.

Kudos to Zero. Everything is predicated on his re-election, the people be damned.

Daley will be Zero’s corporate and Wall Street fundraising Czar.

“Bill Daley will step in as the White House Chief of Staff, according to multiple reports”…. I see Obama is going from one piece of human garbage to the next.

Daley. JP Morgan Vice Chairman. Lobbied Against Financial Reform. Foe Of Health Care Bill. Opposed Consumer Protection Bureau.

yes they do!

they also think the DEMOCRATIC PARTY is building somewhere with about 200 people in it, that calls all the shots

well things are changing rapidly

Wonder how Dem Senators up for re-election in 2012 feel about having the GOD FATHER of NAFTA back in DC? as CHIEF OF STAFF

No Dem Senator wants to wear Bill Daley around their necks in 2012, because the OBAMA necklace itself is going to caused a lot of them severe NECK PAIN

Utah Phillips commented at the time that Daley was laid out for his wake face down so that everyone filing by could kiss him good-bye.

Rahm looked soo much scummier, though. He always struck me as the kind of guy that would drive around in a van with no windows asking kids to help him find his puppy.

One of the most sordid things about this, is Howard Dean kissing Daley’s ass:

From a piece today on HuffPo:

“Dean said that his (Daley’s) ascendancy to the chief-of-staff roll would be a positive development. In the process giving Daley the progressive validater that he has lacked so far.

“I don’t agree with him on a lot of stuff politically, but I do think–A: he is a grown-up. And B: that you don’t treat people like you know everything and they don’t.”, said Dean. “If Bill Daley becomes the Chief-of-Staff that is going to be a huge plus because he is outside of Washington, he sees things the way people outside of Washington do. It is not a left or right issue.”

Which is easily the most crapped-out, bullshit-ridden statement I’ve ever heard from Howard Dean. He’s saying that Daley’s main qualifications are:

1: He’s “grown-up”…whatever the fuck that means…

and 2: He’s not an abrasive asshole like Rahm, and he probably won’t call
progressives “fucking retards”, even ‘though his track record sure points toward his believing it.

In other words, Howard’s saying that Daley’s a great choice because he won’t piss off congress…as if Rahm had shoved a bunch of really unpopular legislation down congress’s throat. (without Obama knowing he was doing it…)

This is nothing but a protect-and-preserve-the-status-quo move on Obama’s part, and Dean’s horseshit approval of it is just one more sellout.

A serious third-party run is looking better every day, folks.

Foe Of Health Care Bill.

File under broken clocks…

Sperling is a Social Security hater.

I don’t think that is accurate. This interview on PBS’s NewsHour suggests otherwise.

Gene Sperling: Social Security is the foundation. It’s the one thing you can count on. If life takes wrong turns for you, if you become disabled, if the market goes down, you’re going to be hurting your housing value, you’ll be hurting your pension. Social Security is the risk-free foundation. Cutting that risk-free foundation is much too risky for tomorrow and today’s seniors.

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/social_security/jan-june05/ss_4-29.html

Was this choice ever in doubt? I wish I could make money betting on Obama’s probable actions-I would be a millionaire by now!

Obama has said pretty much the same thing. Actions speak louder than words and we see the actions already taken to begin the destruction SS. As a footnote, Newshour has been a neoliberal shill for years.

The talking points have changed since then.

how do you sleep at night? please tell us all.

defending evil, can make for an unhappy life.

Read below:
By HOPE YEN, Associated Press

WASHINGTON – The number of poor people in the U.S. is millions higher than previously known, with 1 in 6 Americans — many of them 65 and older — struggling in poverty due to rising medical care and other costs, according to preliminary census figures released Wednesday.

At the same time, government aid programs such as tax credits and food stamps kept many people out of poverty, helping to ensure the poverty rate did not balloon even higher during the recession in 2009, President Barack Obama’s first year in office.

Under a new revised census formula, overall poverty in 2009 stood at 15.7 percent, or 47.8 million people. That’s compared to the official 2009 rate of 14.3 percent, or 43.6 million, that was reported by the Census Bureau last September.

Across all demographic groups, Americans 65 and older sustained the largest increases in poverty under the revised formula — nearly doubling to 16.1 percent. As a whole, working-age adults 18-64 also saw increases in poverty, as well as whites and Hispanics. Children, blacks and unmarried couples were less likely to be considered poor under the new measure.

Due to new adjustments for geographical variations in costs of living, people residing in the suburbs, the Northeast and West were the regions mostly likely to have poor people — nearly 1 in 5 in the West.

“Oldgold we all know OBAMA has no problem sleeping at night because he can lie and smile at the same time.”

Conservative Ideas are killing AMERICANS daily! FACT

The Census figures are likely the most honest figures to come out of deecee in 150 years. The Labour Dept figures are manipulated so much they’re totally unreliable. Poverty and jobless numbers are meaningless to this administration or Congress. Corporations continue to trim their biggest expense, labour, while there are no jobs for the millions of unemployed, who will now join the ranks of the poverty stricken. If and when corporations expand and start hiring again those hires won’t be in the US.

“In proportion as the bourgeoisie, i.e., capital, is developed, in the same proportion is the proletariat, the modern working class, developed — a class of laborers, who live only so long as they find work, and who find work only so long as their labor increases capital. These laborers, who must sell themselves piecemeal, are a commodity, like every other article of commerce, and are consequently exposed to all the vicissitudes of competition, to all the fluctuations of the market.”

How little things have changed in 150 years.

And how clear why the U.S. elite has waged such a holy war against “the Communists.”

how do you sleep at night? please tell us all.

Well, what keeps me awake at night has nothing to do with what I type here.

The revolving door of corruption. Besides his role in NAFTA, Daley as Chairmen of the Chamber of Commerce fought for deregulation of the derivatives market (right before it caused the global economic meltdown.

AND THE KILLIN’ GOEZ ON AND ON AND…

Citizen David Dayen:

That’s it…it is time to mobilize inside and outside the Democratic Party to make this funky, Chicago political bagman a one-termer. Even if the Republicans were to gain the White House, and I don’t think the oligarchy wants that, the only possibility of restoring some semblance of representative governance and movement toward equal justice under law is to fill the hollowed out shell of the Democratic Party with progressives from the ground up. If Obama is re-elected, the only way we get change in the structure of our politics and government is from the street…and in any case, the only way to get any of this done is to make the corporate wars the only issue of the next 2 years and let Obama find out what LBJ and Custer experienced.

KEEP THE FAITH AND PASS THE AMMUNITION, THERE IS ONLY THE STRUGGLE!!

Gene Sperling hate of Social Security together with Daley’s distaste for that which de-motivates the poor and the middle class like food on the table and shelter that has not been taken away by corporations because of “un-necessary” regulations means they have a great shot at being kept on once the GOP takes the White House.

Daley is actually an adult and will not say F/U to the left – but he is very conservative

Now with Daley playing at a more powerful national level we can probably expect this administration to work harder to privatize national services in the same way that Daley sold off the parking meters in Chicago, for chicken feed. Having Dean and others refer to this corporatist crook as an adult, because he says slightly less provocative things than his predecessor, just seems to be part of the ongoing slide of the Ds into vacuousness. Paint every corrupt loss as the lesser of evils.

And still they stand around with their hands out offering to tinker around the edges for progressively smaller goals while massively enriching the members of FIRE with every new bill – selling the rest of us down the drain.

Citizen oldgold:

It is time to figure it out,Citizen, and recognize and admit that political shills and sycophants like Sperling,Orzog, Emmanuel and Obama do not say what they really believe or know to be true. When someone has dug a deep hole and put you right at the bottom, you better not trust that they are gunna have your best interests at heart and will throw you a ladder…more likely they’ll jest throw ya the shovel and walk away laughin’. JEEzus,Citizen, you’re old enough to know when you’ve been snookered.

Great, another Wall Street anti-worker person appointed by Obama. I am so sick of this, as we watch oil rise to the $100 a barrel level again! Love those futures!

Yes, it is. I will vote third party or not at all. The choice seems to be in 2012 either enthusiastic support of Bush policies by a republican or reluctant support of Bush policies by Obama. The democrats just do not get that they have to do better than “I am not a republican.” The dramatic decrease in young people and minorities voting in 2010 should have been a hint.

Great to see a flaming Lefty like Gene Sperling back in the White House fold.
His resume reads like a Who’s Who of Left-leaning, Trotskyite affliations:

Council on Foreign Relations: check
Bob Rubin acolyte: check
Proponent of Gramm-Leach-Bliley: checkLongtime associate of Larry Summers: checkA large six-figure salary for doing GS “charity” work: check and mate
Yeah, who can argue with an “impressive” resume like that. Corn’s obviously bucking for a Jay Carney-like job within the administration.

The american national bird should be the middle finger.

I would say the vast majority of people making comments at FDL are very savvy about what has transpired in the past two years under the Obama administration and how the Democratic party has evolved into a second “corporate” party. The complete corruption of our government with the government – corporate revolving door is truly a sad state of affairs to watch. “We the people” have lost our government and therefore any semblance of “democracy”.

Brad DeLong says he is a good liberal – pointing out statements of support for Bill Clinton policies when Sperling worked for Bill – including support for no change for Social Security and support for Clinton’s attempt to add voluntary 401k accounts to the process– But hard to buy that Sperling is a liberal when he gets to be on his own – and working for Obama he will become as far right as Obama wants him to become.

As for DeLong – well he has previously vouched for such luminaries as Greenspan, Geithner, Summers, and, today, Rubin.

Don’t think DeLong is as far left as myself, as into regulation as myself, or indeed is a real member of the professional “left” – the base here on FDL – although I grant that DeLong is a member of the Democratic Party – and is indeed left of center.

No doubt, this is part of the attempted deal to appoint Emanuel as mayor of Chicago. It is also a demonstration that Barack Obama is as divorced from reality as his predecessor and as given to inventing his own.

Dave, thanks for the reminder about the “black party.” Not having read Novak’s memoir I didn’t know that Bill Daley had been outed on the quote, but I sure do remember it from that campaign.

Along those lines, anyone looking for a twenty-minute overview of the murky subtext of Chicago politics could do worse than to search the phrase ‘daley “wet mayor” ‘. The first page on google is full of treasures, including slideshows and a rather interesting timeline, but the key is probably this:

Daley Will Leave Chicago With a Wet Mayor

OB is like one of the bird species… ie: Cowbird, which lays an egg in other bird’s nests, and grows up big and feisty, and kicks out the “sibling” rightful heirs… of the host bird, leaving a monster mouth to feed.

Clever animal parasitism, putting the OB species candidate egg in the nice well made nest of the democrat identified brand name.

Changeling is the change you can see and believe.

The parent bird organization… ? PTB Manchurian division.

I am not one who readily latches onto conspiracy theories, but I don’t think it is an accident that so many Goldman Sachs employees go back and forth from Wall Street to prominent positions in the executive branch. It’s just one more revolving door like the one that connects the Pentagon and Congress to the military-industrial complex, or Congress to several other big-money lobbying groups.

We have a political aristocracy in this country. That is a consequence of electoral politics. We need to get rid of elections and replace them with the random selection of limited term representatives from the general population. Those who are able to make the commitment would accept; otherwise, the next person on the list would be asked. We don’t elect juries, do we?

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I created some converts amongst some graduating Georgetown Law School students to creating a government by lottery system a few years back. :-)

They were very, VERY skeptical, but I was successfully able to argue that at worst it would be the same as the system we have now, but that it did bring with it enough elements of entropy to thwart corruption, etc. Thus, on whole it was a net positive improvement.

as we watch oil rise to the $100 a barrel level again!

In another year we’ll be wishing it was only $100 a barrel.

Howard Dean has really gone of the deep end. I think he knows where his bread is buttered. The Dem aristocracy. So now hes just an ass kisser to them to make sure they sign his pay checks.

Sadly unless a very strong independent or third party challenger or someone comes out of the woodwork over the next 6 months to a year we’re pretty much going to have Repub rule for another 6 years. Since Obama is a Republican obviously the next 2 years will have nothing but right wing policies and then we will have a Repub president so another 4 after that.

I sware unless things change and damn quickly america quite literally will be a third world country by the year 2016.

Sad.

Speaking of third party candidates and/or primary challengers, for some reason the following name popped into my head this morning:

Caroline Kennedy.

I have a vague recollection of some stuff swirling around in the background when she was rumored to want/be in consideration for Hillary’s old seat, but can’t recall specifics.

I realize she has no elected office experience but I’m beginning to think that by 2012 that will be a plus, not a negative. And maybe she’s the only one who could spark any legitimate enthusiasm among the Kennedy-loving baby boom contingent.

Probably not a viable idea, and probably wouldn’t do it, and probably not as good as Elizabeth Warren (who, unfortunately, probably ain’t gonna do it either), but just thought I’d throw it out.

JP Morgan executive Bill Daley

Sperling is someone tied to financial industry, dismissing the fact that he worked for Goldman Sachs in 2008

James Galbraith needs to adjust the title of his hpost article:
Obama’s Problem Simply Defined: It Was IS the Banks

Are we ruled by our banks?