Mike Konczal is writing a terrific series on the foreclosure crisis. The other day I read Parts 1-3 of it at New Deal 2.0. I recommend it as providing a very clear explanation with some diagrams about what’s behind the crisis, and a discussion of some possible ways in which could represent big trouble for the broader economy. The Administration is responding to the crisis with noises about its concerns that the big banks might again be damaged and also with its hope that the banks can clear up the foreclosure paperwork problems in a fairly brief time.
Tom Hickey, a frequent and excellent commenter at Warren Mosler’s and Bill Mitchell’s blogs offered this comment to Mike:
What we are seeing in the case of the constitutional crisis (war crimes, violations of the Constitution) as well as the financial crisis, is the institutionalizing of criminal behavior. This is going to undermine America in a variety of ways, some we aren’t even aware of yet.
Couple this with Citizens United and the Roberts court, and loose campaign finance and lobbying, and the revolving door. Democracy and the rule of law in America are in danger, as well as American standing in the world. This is a real disaster in the making.
I think there’s a theme that unites all this and that is the theme of short-run political pragmatism, always outweighing the need for Justice, in the Obama Administration. From the first, the President has continuously prioritized short-term interests over the claims of Justice in every area of his Administration’s activity, as symbolized by the aphorism that “the perfect is the enemy of the good,” and then proceeding to do things that are neither perfect nor very good. As Tom says, “it is the institutionalizing of criminal behavior” and the determination to deal with it by “looking forward and not backward.” Unfortunately neither people nor democratic political systems can live forever without Justice.
It is time for it now, because injustices have a way of accumulating and sticking in everybody’s craw, and people respond to that feeling by getting angrier and angrier. What kind of anger will be loosed if Obama again bails out the big banks from their foreclosure mess at the expense of Main Street, allows obscene bonuses to be paid to those who are playing games with our economic future, and goes through with the coming recommendations of the Catfood Commission reportedly providing ways in which all Americans will be called upon to pay the cost of the mess that was created by Wall Street high-flyers? The Obama Administration needs to turn from its so-called pragmatism. and fulfill the need for Justice NOW, or Obama must resign and give Joe Biden a chance to serve the American people.
(Cross-posted at FireDogLake and Fiscal Sustainability).