I am attending the "Is There a New New Deal?" panel with Chris Hayes of the Nation, Rob Johnson, former Soros fund manager and Senate Banking Committee staffer, and Maya Rockeymoore, formerly Chief of Staff for Congressman Rangel and now head of a DC-based not for profit. The topic is whether there is a need for a new New Deal and assuming there is (which we all do), how could it be brought about.
Hayes describes the fact that the government under the New Deal was really good at solving problems through direct governmental action, from building tunnels, roads and bridges to the FDIC to responding to natural disasters. The tunnel, in fact, was a metaphor he used for governance -- that the New Deal bore straight ahead in its quest to solve problems, whereas we now feel the need to travel the road indirectly -- pour the federal largesse on the banks, the pharmaceutical companies, the insurers, and other elite business institutions and hope that some of this trickles down to the public at large, see e.g. Medicare Part D and TARP, among others.
Rob Johnson, who seems to be a truly smart man, discussed the fact that the economic theory that you and I are intimidated by is based on a lot of assumptions that simply aren't true. His advice -- do not defer to the putative expertise of today's economic ruling class. Johnson denounced the Blue Dogs and the people who tell us what we can't afford, i.e. health care, infrastructure, etc., while noting the irony of the government bail out of the financial institutions and their wealthy investors that got us into this mess in the first place.
Maya Rockeymoore picked up on the theme of money going to financial elites rather than directly aiding troubled homeowners. Although supportive of the New Deal and saluting its enduring legacy, Rokeymoore also pointed out the manner in which the New Deal frequently omitted African-Americans from its embrace, through such means as excluding agricultural and domestic workers from participation in programs like Social Security and the use of criteria by agencies such as the FHA to essentially keep blacks from obtaining the benefits of cheaper home loans. Rockeymoore also made the case for what a new New Deal would try and accomplish.
The panelists were remarkably eloquent and passionate. It was really am impressive performance -- lively, smart and well-informed. The recurring theme was that the incestuous interplay between the highest levels of government and elite financial institutions like Goldman Sachs, coupled with disingenuous and oblivious economists, and a media that has bought every foolish assumption perpetrated by the free marketeers, stands in the way of genuine recovery and productive investment in the bulk of the American people.
I would like to see an emphasis placed on getting every American back to work with the exception of Amity Shlaes, who I would prefer to see selling apples on the sidewalk.
(Smug right wing fuck John Fund of the Wall Street Journal is in the room looking like an utter stiff in suit and tie.)
[Postus interruptus due to battery failure. Now back in the penthouse of Cogblog world headquarters after the Netroots soiree at the Warhol Museum -- feeling like a Steeltown boy on a Saturday Night. Great speech by Bill Clinton tonight too, about which more tomorrow.]
