Working Life

Among the many reasons the country would be better off if Bernie Sanders was president is that the man just refuses to deal in silliness. He wants the country to have a serious debate — and whether the next head of the Federal Reserve Board is a man or a woman, or the current president is more “comfortable” with one person or another running the Fed, is entirely irrelevant to Sanders. And so Sanders goes really wild — he invokes the two words that most people will not speak in this debate even though those two words are part of the Federal Reserve Board’s mission: FULL EMPLOYMENT.

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I can’t let Detroit go partly because there is so much to learn from the robbery that took place in the past and is continuing to this day. Today, let’s consider for a moment the price regular workers pay when something goes bad versus the price CEOs never pay when something goes askew. It’s a telling story about the deep corruption of the system.

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Really? The White House is saying to Detroit basically “take a hike” when it comes to a bailout — but, don’t worry, pension holders in Detroit, you have a defender…the Republican Michigan attorney general. This is bizarre and troubling.

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Robert Rubin is like that turd that just won’t flush away. You know, no matter how many time you keep pressing the lever, it sticks around. That’s Robert Rubin. And here he is again, swirling around the toilet bowl of corrupt politics, of financial elite arrogance, mouthing off when, in a just world, he’d either be in jail, without a job or, at least, irrelevant.

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The absurdity of the debate about who should be the next chairman of the Federal Reserve Board is NOT in the debate about Larry Summers versus Janet Yellin. Nope. It’s in the questions not being asked.

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Every day, if you pay attention, we can get a teachable moment. Today’s teachable moment gives us this: if you are a CEO of a bank, a CEO who makes millions of dollars, and you are in financial trouble — trouble of your own making — you can ring up the White House and, presto, the coffers of the Federal Reserve open up to extend you loans in the billions of dollars. On the other hand, if you are a worker making a modest income, or you are now retired, and you live in a city ravaged by the so-called “free market”, a city that files for bankruptcy, and you ask the White House for help, you are told, “sorry, buddy, you are on your own.”

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I think the White House has been brilliant just this once. The nonsense about Larry Summers being the leading candidate to replace Ben Bernanke as the chairman of the Federal Reserve Board is an elaborate ploy designed to do one thing: avoid real questions about the Fed.

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Not a new story. But, it’s kind of amusing to see it in The Wall Street Journal, framed as the scary threat to business.

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I mean this in a couple of ways. If people in Detroit were all named “Jamie Dimon,” a bailout would be on its way, free and clear, low-interest, no questions asked, the same kind of bailout JP Morgan Chase’s Dimon and his gang of thieves on Wall Street were able to pocket after they cratered the economy. But, barring Dimon being an actual whore, not simply a financial one, the familial connection ain’t happening for the people of Detroit — not that they’d really want it. That said, there is a real argument to made: Wall Street should pay for Detroit’s fiscal situation. And I’d propose a surtax on profits called “The Jamie Dimon Surtax.”

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Ah, yes, this is the corporate version of “I want to spend more time with my family” because you can’t actually say a lot of people didn’t want me around. Which is the truth for David Cote and Ellen Futter.

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