Geithner told the G20 that we will HALVE our deficit by 2014 - not good enough

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703485304575331081259535688.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
BUSINESS JUNE 26, 2010, 3:36 P.M. ET Geithner Calls on G-20 to Focus on Growth
By IAN TALLEY
TORONTO—U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner on Saturday called on the Group of 20 leading nations to focus fundamentally on strengthening near-term and midterm growth prospects.

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"The role of government is to create the conditions for the private sector to invest and grow," Mr. Geithner said.

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The U.S., for its part, would more than halve its deficit in the next four years, by 2014, the Treasury secretary said. Canadian Finance Minister Jim Flaherty earlier Saturday called for G-20 nations to achieve the same proportional reduction by one year earlier, 2013.

I missed that part in the Constitution where it says that the role of government is to help the private sector grow. Although, upon reflection, I can see how that philosphy is playing out right this minute with the call for dismantling public education, and with mandating that we buy for profit healthcare. Can't wait to be forced to buy into equity funds in lieu of Social Security and also can't wait for the privates or a voucher system to replace Medicare.

But guess what? According to Reuters, the draft communique says that the deficits will have to be halved by 2013!
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSSUM00000420100626

I have to agree with this commentary

http://www.g20breakdown.com/2010/06/g20-deficits-britain-canada-gain-shortsighted-victory/
G20 & deficits: Banks Cause The Crash, The World’s Poor Pay
07. Jun, 2010

G20 deficit cutting wrong approach to fix crisis, the austerity simply hurts poor (working or unwaged) and middle class people, and we can not lose sight of that. Having started with Greece, it seems that the plan is to go country by country, one-by-one, and force these measures which will diminish social programs, decimate the public sector and dramatically increase poverty and unemployment.

In fact, the G20 pointedly told indebted nations that they must ’speed up’ their austerity drives. And, just today, British PM David Cameron brought the point home, announcing his drive to cut the deficit in the UK through massive cuts. He warned that Britain’s ‘whole way of life’ will change due to the most drastic public spending cuts in 20 years.

It is worth reflecting on the value an economic system that can continuously and callously demand more from its population, undermining their futures in the process, to pay for the sins of financiers whose risky speculation made them billions of dollars before the bubble burst.

The banks get bailed out, but somehow we can't extend unemployment, and we also somehow just manage to miss that deadline for Medicare reimbursement extensions. This is definitely cutting the deficits on the backs of the poorest and least able to defend themselves and it is disgusting.

Why is this wholesale deficit cutting necessary and agreed to by the G20? The answer seems obvious. The privilleged class literally did blow up the worlds financial and monetary systems with their funny money CDS and the like and we are all operating under an illusion of solvency.


Stop the wars. Rescind the Bush tax cuts. Reject the cynical media manipulation (Deficit Reduction Town Halls) that is starting in an effort to engage the population into begging for the razor that slits their own wrist.

Be informed. Be engaged. And stop being so gullible about who is on our side. There is no one on our side but ourselves.

[sabrina 1]

1. They, the privileged class, never liked Social Programs

It's been obvious for a while now, that the propaganda here against countries that have a Socialist system, (European, Canada eg) were so lied about by the rightwing noise machine for so long that people actually had no idea that those were all lies.

Now, as you say, that they have destroyed the world's economy, they are attacking socialist programs around the globe. Cynically forcing those who were the victims of their corruption, to pay the bills while at the same time, destroying systems of government that actually took care of their own people.

They may regret this. Already working people from around the world are beginning to form alliances. It all could backfire on them with the growth of a real Labor Movement.

Sometimes when the corrupt privileged class push too hard, that is when real change occurs.

:kick: and rec'd

[Laelth]

2. k&r for exposure. Love your last line. n/t

:dem:

-Laelth

[Goldstein1984]

3. Those who make the decisions are not the ones who suffer

It's that simple.

Imagine how quickly the wars would end if Bush's or Obama's daughters were the ones on the battlefield.

[Sebastian Doyle]

4. Geithner needs to keep going north when he leaves that summit

Call Yukon Cornelius and he can drag your ass back home, Timmy.

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

7. His quote about the role of government made me do exorcist head spins

At least he put it right out there.

He unabashedly proclaimed that corporatism is the formal stance of our Treasury Department. Which explains why the Treasury and the White House supported or didn't support various parts of financial "reform".

[hvn_nbr_2]

12. Yep. The role of government is to serve giant corporations.

The goal of corporations is not to be "too big to fail." It's to be too big to govern.

[quaker bill]

5. I believe the words you are looking for

in the constitution are "promote the general welfare". It is in the first sentence. The "general welfare" has been generally understood as the business climate, among other things, ever since the document was written.

Now, I would tend to agree that it is a bit early in the recovery for austerity measures. But the notion you state that government has no constitutional role promoting the growth of the private sector is not well founded.

[sabrina 1]

9. The government helping promate the growth of

the private sector so long as it's not corrupt or 'too big to fail' is fine, but NOT at the expense of the common good. And not an unregulated private sector, that is not so private when the people are called on again and again to pick up the tab when the corruption becomes so egregious that they cannot or will not do it for themselves. That is welfare and should be called what it is.

A private business to me is the guy who starts a construction company and doesn't depend on government (tax-payer) bail-outs when he fails. A business, the kind that Geithner loves, that runs to the tax-payers each time they fail, is not a private business. I do not believe that Geithner's idea of the private sector is even close to what the FFs had in mind.

In fact, we don't have to wonder what the Founders thought about the private banking system, they told us:

" Bank of the United States... is one of the most deadly hostility
existing, against the principles and form of our Constitution... An institution like this, penetrating by its branches every part of the Union, acting by command and in phalanx, may, in a critical moment,
upset the government. I deem no government safe which is under the vassalage of any self-constituted authorities, or any other authority than that of the nation, or its regular functionaries. What an
obstruction could not this bank of the United States, with all its branch banks, be in time of war! It might dictate to us the peace we should accept, or withdraw its aids. Ought we then to give further
growth to an institution so powerful, so hostile?" --Thomas Jefferson to Albert Gallatin, 1803.

I think we just saw Jefferson's nightmare in action and I doubt he would have approved of the citizens bailing out those banks. Geithner would be Jefferson's worst nightmare imo.

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

11. Beautifully stated Sabrina. nt

[Hydra]

6. We saw this coming

Back in 2006 when they deliberately crashed the system.

The question we were asking was, "If we're smart enough see that they are killing the goose that laid the golden egg(The middle class), the people up top know it too. Why are they killing the goose?"

We decided that they were killing the goose as population reduction. Something has occurred- something monumental, something that has caused them to decide that they don't need us as slave labor anymore.

Welcome to a brave new world.

[LiberalLoner]

8. They want most of us to die, don't they? I mean that's really the plan, isn't it? n/t

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

10. I know the what, but not the why.

I honestly can't explain it.

Societies have always been highly stratified between the wealthy and the poor. A prosperous and happy middle class is something fairly new and something that is definitely at risk as we speak. It seems like there is just some kind of sick insatiable greed at the top that I correlate to a change in a group ethos spearheaded by the Reagan era "Greed is Good" philosophy. Profit over all.