Monday, April 27, 2009

A promising hidden agenda?

Charles Hugh Smith raises an intriguing possibility in an essay entitled "Obama's Secret Plan"

http://www.oftwominds.com/blogapr09

I quote:

"In which we speculate that perhaps Obama has a secret plan to discredit the investment banker cabal and thus undermine their vast political power and reach.

Many observers, partisans non-partisans alike, have been mystified by President Obama's continuation of the Bush/bankers/Treasury's "privatize bonuses, socialize risks" campaign of taxpayer-funded bank bailouts, phony slight-of-hand "transparency" and political support for blatantly bogus accounting of banks' profits, assets and losses."

My comment here: I count myself among those so mystified.
Mr. Smith goes on,

"Is there any strategy would might actually work? How about "give them enough rope to hang themselves"? President Dwight Eisenhower has long been dismissed as a do-nothing who "got lucky" in his two terms. Perhaps--but he was also a canny politico who didn't say much because he preferred to give his opponents plenty of stout rope. And sure enough, most of the time they promptly hanged themselves with their own excesses."

My further comment: I certainly believe President Obama capable of this level of subtlety, and I only hope it's true. Smith goes on to suggest that we should watch Paul Volcker as an indicator of whether or not there is more to this than meets the eye. He says that if Volcker resigns, then Obama actually believes in his current policy and has nothing up his sleeve. But if Volcker stays on, even in deep background as he is now, then we may be in for a big surprise.

More from Smith,

"What better way to discredit the bankers than to give them plenty of rope to complete their tarnished, fraudulent "plan to save Capitalism from itself"? How can they complain when their own bankrupt policies have been supported? ...

Make like you're doing the banker/Plutocracy's bidding in every possible way. And what will be the result?
A complete repudiation of the entire Bush/Treasury/banker bailout and "free pass" to further plundering. And when the public rises up in righteous fury, then you appear to bend, almost reluctantly, to "the public will."

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