Being for Main Street

Robert Reich, former Secretary of Labor, made three excellent suggestions on what to do for Main Street. He contends that Wall Street has no shame. While the people bailed them out to the sum of over $700 billion, they refuse to assist Americans who are underwater on their mortgages and lend to small businesses, instead setting aside multiple billions for executives and traders. Goldman Sachs set aside $17 billion and JP Morgan Chase around $5 billion.

To assist Main Street, Reich proposes the following:

Congress and the Obama administration should give homeowners the right to go to a bankruptcy judge and have their mortgages modified.

And while they're at it, resurrect the Glass-Steagall Act that used to separate investment from commercial banking, so Wall Street can't continue to use other people's money to gamble.

Finally, before Goldman hands out $17 billion in bonuses, claw back the $13 billion Goldman took from AIG and the rest of us and add it to the pool of money going for mortgage relief.

I would also like to see a real program that targets lending for small businesses during this crisis. Goldman has set "up a crudely conceived $500 million PR program to help Main Street." But a "PR program" is hardly one that will be most beneficial to small businesses, although I'm sure likely recipients would not turn it down. Small businesses are really hurting.

Might Reich's proposal work better in relief for Main Street?

Being President Barack Obama XIV

Being a bit leery and weary about the possibility of their not being health care reform that for me needs a public option to keep insurance companies honest and enable small businesses, working people and the poor to purchase insurance, I was beginning to have my doubts. If another option will provide for lower insurance premiums, I'd be happy to embrace it. But no option, not even a cooperative, which Blue Cross Blue Shield began as, seems able to do the necessary things above. Some 70% of Americans, including doctors, and nurses, are for a public option.

Listening to President Obama's speech at the University of Maryland today and his relatively silence on Bacus plan, I became even more leery, quite uncomfortable with my beloved president's style. Where is the leadership I wondered? Then something struck me like a ton of bricks: The president is leading as any great leader does. He knows the law. We have three branches of government: the legislative, judicial and executive. He is not a legislator. But what he signs his name to will be something he "owns."

As with any good CEO, President Obama listens, leads, and governs. But he knows his role and did not seek to create legislation as did the executive branch during the Clinton administration. As a leader he speaks clearly about what he wants to see in the health care reform bill: a public option and no deficit increase. He will not sign a bill that increases the deficit but he will consider another option that will make insurance affordable for small businesses, working people and the poor.

During the month of August President Obama took a hit in the polls. There seemed to have been uncertainty of message among the administration and the downright raucous town halls spread unease and hateful messages and lies that exasperated the process. Where is the President Obama I wondered? Does he not have much fight? But as I listened to him owning his plan I wondered what exactly is your plan?

Well, his plan will ultimately be the plan that passes Congress that includes what the vast majority of the people want, which is a public option or something like it and no increase in the deficit. If a bill does not pass after his bending backwards, listening and leading, it will be the failure of elected leaders in the Congress. But the President's health care reform should pass because it is what the people want: affordable health care insurance and no increase in the deficit.

What seems to be occurring now is that Washington and the American people are accustomed to the old way of doing things, where the president usurps his executive position and legislate a bill as the Clinton administration. With this kind of leadership the role of the people becomes paramount; it is, in fact, a representative democracy.

All of the polls that I have seen indicate that the American people want a public option or something that will force honest competition and not apparent price setting where the cost of living has increased and wages have decreased. Some 15 million Americans are out of work and many fear that they too will lose their jobs. If we do not pass health care insurance reform with a necessary option for entrepreneurs, the working class and the poor, we are looking at many more millions of desperate Americans who will rely on emergency rooms for health care which increases taxes and doesn't concentrate on wellness.

President Obama should be wished much success. His leadership style brings change. Let's each do our part and demand that our leaders in Congress vote for what we want. They are the legislators. We are the people. Call and write your legislators today. What is for certain is that if the President and Congress do not listen to the people and vote accordingly they can pretty much forget about being re-elected. It seems that this is the objective of some,, to merely make this President Obama's "waterloo" as Senator DeMint (R-SC) said. His decision to block health care as well as those of others and not based on the needs of the people.

President Obama we're counting on you to bring change to Washington and in the lives of Americans. We are also well aware, at least I hope we are, that without our participation you cannot effecitively lead in this our representative democracy.

Being Shelia Bair

Just read an article by the Associated Press on Shelia Bair, the Republican FDIC Chairman, who has the ear of President Obama. The article caught my attention for its title alone: "Shelia Bair Shakes up Washington, Wall Street."

I really like what I have just read. While I'm not too clear on the "bad bank" idea, I'm very much impressed with the tone of her words and her Midwestern values of thrift and saving and non-partisanship:

""She's off on a lot of social missions," said Bert Ely, a banking industry consultant in Alexandria, Va.

Bair, though, said she remains "very much a capitalist."

"Sometimes people misinterpret that as somehow I'm not a real Republican or something. I very much am. I guess I'm more of a Teddy Roosevelt kind of a Republican ... It's been said that Franklin would be proud of me, but I think Teddy would be proud of me too."

It is said that she is the most influential woman behind Angela Merkel, Chancellor of Germany. From what I've read so far, she seems pretty solid and this is not because of her position alone. We've seen empty suits in spades these days in government and business, so positions alone do not mean much. I look forward to reading more.