Why Keep Geithner?
Dylan Ratigan hosts the show Morning Meeting with Dylan Ratigan, which airs weekday mornings from 9 to 11 A.M. ET. Ratigan was most recently anchor and co-creator of CNBC’s Fast Money, co-anchor of CNBC’s Closing Bell, and has also been a regular contributor to MSNBC’s Morning Joe. Prior to joining CNBC, Ratigan served as a Global Managing Editor at Bloomberg News until March 2003.
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A year ago it was revealed to the American people that our banking system was a legalized Ponzi scheme in which bank and insurance CEOs paid themselves billions of dollars in personal compensation to lend and insure assets with money they didn’t have to customers who couldn’t pay back the loans.
In those dark days between the fall of Lehman Brothers and before the presidential election, we were often carried through that time by the small glimmer of hope in that at least we would soon have a new leader who would hopefully fix this mess and punish those responsible.
Yet in the past 9 months, not only has the administration not fixed anything, they have made things much worse for anyone who isn’t a Wall Street banker. Therefore, we are past the point where anyone in power still gets the benefit of the doubt and the process of taking back our country for all citizens must begin now.
This is why I think we must ask if U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner is still the right person for the job. It has become clear recently that back in his previous role as New York Federal Reserve Governor, he unnecessarily gave billions of dollars of US tax money to banks and insurance companies with few strings attached. And it is now becoming clear that his lack of meaningful action is helping many of these same banks steal more by legalizing their most economically dangerous, socially destructive and self-enriching practices.
Yesterday on NBC’s Meet the Press, Secretary Geithner again endorsed House bank reform legislation that would allow, by my calculations, as much as 80%, or $475 trillion, of the bank’s $600 trillion in crooked insurance schemes to still be held in secret. It was and is the secret risks held in this very market that led to our collapse in the first place and continue to pose massive future risk to the global economy.
He also continued to employ the bankers’ favorite, and most ludicrous, lie : that the taxpayer must somehow continue to pay executives at companies like AIG ungodly sums of money under the threat that if we don’t, somehow the taxpayer will never make their money back. Well let me tell you something, the taxpayer and our nation, will never get back the lost wealth taken under these false circumstances and this colossal breach of fiduciary duty. The idea that we must somehow perpetuate this system with our tax money and the future wealth of our children goes against the very American ideal of failure, adaptation and innovation, not to mention of our democracy.
Also last week, the Treasury Secretary endorsed a piece of legislation that instead of stopping a select few companies from profiting from the implicit taxpayer-guarantee of Too Big Too Fail seeks to officially condone it. If the most prized skill in our society economically is a competition to see who can lend and insure the most money without consequences, you have doomed our nation’s people to lose everything in the world’s largest ever betting parlor; and that is precisely the system this Treasury Secretary — Tim Geithner — is seeking to legalize in America today.
However, the smoking gun for Secretary Geithner comes from a recent Bloomberg FOIA disclosure regarding events from last November. It was then that New York Federal Reserve Governor Tim Geithner decided to deliver 100 cents on the dollar, in secret no less, to pay off the counter parties to the world’s largest (and still un-investigated) insurance fraud — AIG. This full payoff with taxpayer dollars was carried out by Geithner after AIG’s bank customers, such as Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank and Societe Generale, had already previously agreed to taking as little as 40 cents on the dollar. Even after the GM autoworkers, bondholders and vendors all received a government-enforced haircut on their contracts, he still had the audacity to claim the “sanctity of contracts” in the dealings with these companies like AIG.
None of us were in the rooms when these decisions were made, so I don’t pretend to know if Mr. Geithner was the one lone, sane voice of reason fighting against mysterious forces or the primary proponent. However, I fail to see the reasoning for why we continue to rely on those who were in the room when these horrendous decisions took place to be the same people that we choose to deal with their aftermath. There are just certain situations that are not suited for continuity. The best analogy I can think of is that it would be like asking Al Cowlings to spearhead the Nicole Brown Simpson murder investigation under the premise that he knows the layout and the “players” best.
The fact is that there are people who understand all of the intricacies of finance and policy as well as Secretary Geithner, but whose allegiances to the taxpayer are much clearer. People like Elizabeth Warren, Neil Barofsky, Rob Johnson, and Senator Maria Cantwell just to name a few.
To stop the theft from continuing, it requires that the most basic rules of capitalism be applied to our banks and that our future national wealth be safeguarded by the US Government. The current custodian of America’s wealth, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, is not doing a good job of either. The time for corrective action is now.
Follow Dylan Ratigan on Twitter: www.twitter.com/DylanRatigan
Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dylan-ratigan/why-keep-geithner_b_341908.html
November 2nd, 2009 at 8:16 pm
“…gave billions of dollars of US tax money to banks and insurance companies with few strings attached…”
Has Dylan heard of the Compensation tzar? The interest due on the TARP? The equity conversion of the TARP? The firing of CEOs? Dumping of trading operations?
This is utter nonsense.
November 2nd, 2009 at 8:35 pm
VD: I voted for O, and supported him prior to the election. Since that time, he has done nothing to change the status quo. We still disappear people and hold them without trial; the rich are getting richer, and the middle class is getting crushed; heath care (which many people unreasonably hold in disdain — until they are bankrupted by becoming seriously ill or having a family member become seriously ill) has become a political trade-off; he is considering increasing our involvement in the black hole that is Afghanistan; he has refused to go after the entrenched criminal element that runs our corporate/governmental power structure; and he has indicated that he will do more of the same.
The man has betrayed the people who voted for him.
Stop acting like a goddamned Bushco Republican.
Fuck Geithner, Bernanke, Greenspan, Obama, Bush, Cheney, the Democrats, the Republicans, and their horses.
November 2nd, 2009 at 8:39 pm
Geithner and the rest of the Establishment are highly intelligent people and yet the arguements made by Rattigan and Barry any others on this board seem so blindingly obvious (As also to RESPECTED figures such a Volcker and King) that the only possible conclusion is not ignorance but arrogance.
I say again, the crisis in the US is, first and foremost, a moral crisis.
November 2nd, 2009 at 9:05 pm
Did you see Herman Munster’s meltdown with Bartiromo?
Did he not get the memo, CNBC good, Faux bad?
Man, this administration is exploding faster than I could ever imagine. No wonder they love to pick a fight with the fat guy and Faux news. Obama’s own words have left this administration pretty much useless.
November 2nd, 2009 at 9:08 pm
Well I asked the question just the other day, when is my bank going to fail? and today I got a partial answer. The bank that holds 80 percent of my home mortgage, a personal credit card with some debt on it and a businees credit card with no balance, has declared bankruptcy. It was a sort of unsatisfying upheaval, with business as usual, still expected to go on there, but just a new name, after all is said and done.
I agree with the sentiments by philipat, Marcus Aurelius. I still say we should have let them fall where they may. I said it when the crisis hit, and it’s proving true. But that’s what you get when you allow people in positions of power to say things like the alternative is unthinkable.
We’ve got millions of people in this country, if you take the popularity of CSI on TV and say there are some things that are unthinkable in the same sentence, you’ll realize there are plenty of people who are capable of carrying any sort of train of thought you’d like to it’s inevitable conclusion, And we can’t think about a financial crisis? Heck isn’t that what computers are for anyways?
Too big to fail is doublespeak for they are above our jurisdiction.
Some people don’t like to lead and others are bought already. Why keep Geithner? because his boss is our boss too.
November 2nd, 2009 at 9:10 pm
Dylan Ratigan, you’re 9 months late to the game. Tell us else something we don’t know.
November 2nd, 2009 at 9:17 pm
@VD:
Has Dylan heard of the Compensation tzar? The interest due on the TARP? The equity conversion of the TARP? The firing of CEOs? Dumping of trading operations?
Boo Hoo! Cry me a river buddy. If the Fed was willing to give me money at 0% to buy treasuries, pocket a couple of % and then sell them right back, I’d take it. Problem is I didn’t run up trillions in CDO’s and CDS’s and threaten to tear down the financial system if you didn’t save me. What those bankstas should be worried about is bankruptcy, asset seizures and a few years in a barred crib with Bubba, but no they get your very tough list above.
November 2nd, 2009 at 9:18 pm
Arrogance, stupidity, corruption and conflict of interest seem to have become endemic the past few decades so cynicism is likely to yield better results as a heuristic than optimism but, still, there is a plausible alternative hypothesis to the apparent inability of the Obama administration to adequately confront the financial industry: Fear …but not fear of the industry per se.
That is, if we assume that players such as Bernanke et al have a modicum of civic duty or even a little honor and courage left (and I think there is reason to suspect this might be so) then it could that the system was and may still be closer to collapse than the central players are willing (or able) to reveal.
Assuming that may be true then they are neither trying to return to the foetid, crony captialist past nor promote its future but, instead, trying to buy time for a future that does not include that filth and another great depression besides.
Geithner does not appear to be the man for the job but it is not clear this applies to all the other players.
What the hell, a little Pollyanna couldn’t hurt …a slag heap created over decades does not get cleaned up in months and everything I’ve seen suggests we were (and are) only a step back from the precipice of the pit and not in the clear at all. FWIW
November 2nd, 2009 at 9:21 pm
Dylan Ratigan, you’re 9 months late to the game. Tell us else something we don’t know.
Couldn’t agree more. This guy is pimping big time for his show.
November 2nd, 2009 at 9:28 pm
Wasnt Dylan Ratigan the person who created the whole concept for the falling in the Nielsen ratings show called Fast Money? the show that is based on propaganda- the show that sounds like Bob Barker’s side kick, ” come on down…”- “This is Fast Money!!” To me he is just like Jim Cramer- dumb bull , why this site worships Dylan Ratigan I have no idea…
November 2nd, 2009 at 9:35 pm
Wow! A lot soapbox speeches tonight.
Why isn’t The Drudge Report fully packed with stories of these sort of back room antics? Instead we are supposed to be appalled by Michele in a cat costume. (rolleyes, she’s mom) Why isn’t my Tampa Tribune packed with stories about what happened to this money? Why are there Senate inquires on the front page of the news paper.
Why in past economic down turns that affected me personally, 80-82, 87, 93, 99 was the economy front and center in the news; and today it’s not. Oh the pretend economy me is briefly mentioned with the DJIA but not much beyond that.
November 2nd, 2009 at 9:39 pm
“…we were often carried through that time by the small glimmer of hope in that at least we would soon have a new leader who would hopefully fix this mess and punish those responsible.”
yes, sadly, he missed a golden opportunity to take back our country for its citizens. this is my biggest disappointment with the larger than life, but rapidly shrinking O.
he seems to be lacking vision. the only vision he seems to see is the path of least resistance forged through consensus. and since most people have no clue how high finance operates, the consensus in that realm will ALWAYS favor the Wall Street oligarchs.
so without a leader with the vision to see what really needs to be done to “take the country back” from the grip of oligarchical greed and power (and the guts to do it), we are doomed to cowing to the warnings of financial Armageddon coming from TBTF bankers and other high financiers.
but bailouts and CEO overcompensation are only part of the problem. the larger, perhaps even catastrophic, part is the unwillingness to put our fiscal house in order before it is too late, to take our economic pain and then move forward unencumbered.
woe be to the USD, and woe be to all Americans.
Ironically, Ben may be our best hope of avoiding the inevitable disastrous conclusion to the current deficit madness, for only the Fed has the power to stop the printing of USDs. And if the Fed ever loses their autonomy, well there goes the ball game for sure. (see John Mauldin’s “The Independence of the Fed Threatened”
http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2009/10/catching-argentinian-disease/)
November 2nd, 2009 at 9:42 pm
@Marcus
Marcus Aurelius Says:
November 2nd, 2009 at 8:35 pm
VD: I voted for O, and supported him prior to the election. Since that time, he has done nothing to change the status quo. We still disappear people and hold them without trial; the rich are getting richer, and the middle class is getting crushed; heath care (which many people unreasonably hold in disdain — until they are bankrupted by becoming seriously ill or having a family member become seriously ill) has become a political trade-off; he is considering increasing our involvement in the black hole that is Afghanistan; he has refused to go after the entrenched criminal element that runs our corporate/governmental power structure; and he has indicated that he will do more of the same.
The man has betrayed the people who voted for him.
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Obama might have come in with high ambitions…but there were others who visited him…
Like my friend who worked for a College in NY who had to deal with a “waste collection outfit” who had a contract with the college and he being a new upstanding, honest newbie ..tried to cancel the contract with the “wast collection firm.” He was visited by some folks in dark suits who said to him: “Do you care about your wife and family? You want them to still have you there to provide?”
My good friend understood what they said…he understood the consequences. As a bright young newbie filled with hope and aspirations of doing good…he looked at them in their sharp, bright suits…the pinstripes the “attitude” and being that his college was so close to the border of Manhattan….he also understood what they meant.
Perhaps this was what Obama had facing him once he was elected. The “men in the pin-striped suits visited him…and reminded him of Presidents who came in who were expected to do “too much.” Too much more than the system would be willing to give. It was time to take “the kid” by the ears and tell him the way the world works?
Yet, Obama came out of Chicago….I would have thought he’d been visited by “those folks” way back.
And…if that’s the case….then let’s just say this GUY (OBAMA) stole the wind beneath the wings of all who had such hopes.
In spite of those folks in the “Pin Striped Suits” who go from the backwaters of the major cities where the dead are buried in junkyards to the halls of venerable WALL ST….
Let’s just say there’s a price to be paid in THESE TIMES for taking the wind beneath the WINGS of CHANGE. And, while the messenger might be “down and out” …..there are always consequences when folks are now on the ropes in their lives and are are realizing we all might be going down….and some “hig priced suits” from the “organized” and those who cross over onto Wall Street, just might need to understand that they’ve been exposed and there is another agenda that will work out in time.
Just saying….. Hope Springs Eternal in the Human Breast….(an old quote)
November 2nd, 2009 at 10:03 pm
super_trooper…Dylan isn’t late….he was early with this argument last year.
The fact is that the carry trade that Nouriel refers to in his FT article tonight highlights how both the Treasury and Fed are complicit in creating yet another bubble to buy time for the strong hands to pass off more to weak hands and further deepen the moral crisis at the highest levels of our leadership. When this one is over the damage to our financial credibility will be deep but the spotlight will have been turned away from our bank’s failures to entire market failures. Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner is responsible for protecting our wealth as a nation and the current strategy doesn’t fit a headline or a blurb. When it is over the banks will not be the spotlight nor will the weak dollar. But will that make it right? Creating a carry trade is a strategic policy decision that has distinct consequences. Dylan is right on the mark because when it is over US pension funds will be needing bailouts because the bankers came first. The pay tzar will be on vaca that year.
November 2nd, 2009 at 10:03 pm
Ya know, Ratigan works for MSNBC. They ought to kick him down to Intern, and let him spend a few years getting coffee for Chris Matthews. Matthews is smart as a whip and he understands how the basic principles of good government. After a few years, maybe some of Matthews’ wisdom will rub off on snotty-nosed Ratigan.
And to the rest of the posters (except Venn…good comment):
Fine. Come up with something better. And then…and this is the tricky part:
Get it through the Senate.
Not so easy, is it?
November 2nd, 2009 at 10:13 pm
@Madman
madman130 Says:
November 2nd, 2009 at 9:21 pm
Dylan Ratigan, you’re 9 months late to the game. Tell us else something we don’t know.
Couldn’t agree more. This guy is pimping big time for his show.
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You are behind the times. Dylan got a show called “Morning Meeting” on MSNBC…(sister channel of CNBC) where he’s been doing 2 hr. diatribes against Geithner and the Wall St. Give Away.
He has become quite the POPULIST! His rants are amazing..(even if the hyperbole is a turn off).
It’s a good watch but you need to be near a TEEVEE or work at home to catch it. He is not the FAST MONEY SHILL we used to know. But, if you were a viewer of “Fast” and remember when Jeff Mackey imploded over his “Car Guys” rant and Dylan left shortly after…you’d understand. And who heads “FAST MONEY” these days? The charming Melissa Lee who spends her time doing “dirty jokes” with “Debbie Downer, Guy Adami” to make her own “FAST MONEY.”
Ratigan dreamed up two successful shows for CNBC after hours. He seemed to feel it was time to “call quits” after the Great Implosion and is now doing some “interesting stuff” over at CNBC as part of the daytime counterpart to Rachel Maddow, Big Ed and Keith Olbermann.
I wonder if COMCAST will keep that new “LEFTY’” lineup if and when they purchase the Cable from GE?
Anyway…the NEW DYLAN…ain’t that guy who was shilling for “FAST MONEY.” He’s now SHILLING FOR POPULISM…over there in the day.
Some of his stuff is quite good…depending on which side of the aisle or the middle of the aisle you happen to stand or sit on….
November 2nd, 2009 at 10:17 pm
Hey frankie – - I know you’re in academia and it’s not exactly a breeding ground for “Leaders” with a capital L, but real LEADERS actually lead, you know, doing the right thing. The man has the bully pulpit, If he was serious, he’d use it. It means exposing those self-serving and corrupt Senators who serve to block the president’s reform plans. What this tells me is that the president isn’t serious about leading and is, in fact, one of them in the Senate, not the outsider and agent of “change” that he portrayed himself to be in the campaign. Drew Weston has a good take on his lack of leadership skills in this article.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/drew-westen/leadership-obama-style_b_342269.html
November 2nd, 2009 at 10:17 pm
TakBak04, Bill Hicks had a routine that went like this:
a new president is sworn in, and then shown a film.
a film of the kennedy assassination.
from an angle he’s never seen before.
he is asked: ‘any questions?’
November 2nd, 2009 at 10:23 pm
“This is why I think we must ask if U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner is still the right person for the job.”
This would be analogous to the surviving Jewish community in Berlin wondering whether, “Hitler was the right man for the job,” in Germany in 1945. Geithner just presided over one of the greatest financial routs in all human history. What a wonderful example of institutionalized ignorance.
November 2nd, 2009 at 10:32 pm
@Mannwich
You’re right. It’s better to be rigidly uncompromising in pursuit of perfection, and achieve nothing, than to to deal in nuance and achieve partial victory, right?
60 votes, Mannwich. Tell me how to overcome it.
November 2nd, 2009 at 10:41 pm
I can’t recall a time when GWB ever worried about “60 votes” in the Senate, can you, frankie? Granted, GWB was dead wrong on just about everything, but the O-man compromises right off the bat, gives away the store, before even starting the process. That either tells me he’s an appallingly bad negotiator, or more likely, is merely the same old same old in a neat package that the Dems could sell the Sheeple.
Compromise and conciliation are usually great traits, but not in times like these. The O-man is all about half-measures and finding middle ground when things have gotten so badly skewed and pathetically wrong, that that middle ground is still dead wrong.
November 2nd, 2009 at 10:48 pm
franklin411:
You mean the same dolt that gushed so much over Dubya(and the “Mission Accomplished” nonsense) that the term Commander Codpiece was born?
November 2nd, 2009 at 11:03 pm
@Franklin, how to overcome: Just start picking up republican senators doing funny signals in airport mens rooms.. Once the dust is settled, the new replacements will have at least a forty-sixty percent chance of voting for change.
November 2nd, 2009 at 11:18 pm
Tim shafted tax players in CIT loan deal as well. This is called corruption.
http://finance.yahoo.com/tech-ticker/article/364593/Geithner-%22Burned-Billions%22-Shafted-Taxpayers-on-CIT-Loan-Prof.-Bill-Black-Says?tickers=cit,aig,xlf,skf,gs,c,bac
November 2nd, 2009 at 11:32 pm
f411,
What “partial victory,” pray tell, are you talking about? Talk of “perfection” is somewhat premature. Seeing as we’re at rock bottom. Pretty much any alternative we offer, at this point, would represent an improvement. We do all feel bad about the buyer’s remorse, however.
November 2nd, 2009 at 11:43 pm
We shouldn’t keep Geithner, nor Summers.
November 3rd, 2009 at 12:23 am
Don’t happen to agree w/F144 most of the time and find “nuance” and “compromise” weasel words meaning “Do it My Way.” That said, what are the other commentators here doing to change the things they are complaining about? Anyone getting their pretty little hands dirty in politics? Or are they showing their sophistication and lack of extreme political proclivities by laughing at Tea Party attendees, the only ones who have actually accomplished anything: like slowing down the health care ‘reform’ freight train, among other things. Or do they think that just complaining will straighten things out? Has any one of you called your Congresspeople? You have three you know – two Senators and your Representative. You also have state and county elected officials to connect with and explain how the world works.
BTW, the Tea Party attendees are not going away. In my own neck of the woods, they are meeting regularly and planning ways to roll back local taxes and fees. They are no long hot-angry, they are cold-angry and getting in some practice out of the limelight. I suspect this is happening in many parts of the U.S. Just know that the world is run by those who show up.
One final thing – in spite of the rhetoric you read here and elsewhere, the middle class is here to stay and is not being crushed by the poor economy. They know how to tighten their belts. Many of the unemployed are starting their own companies and getting contracts, and feeding their families.
November 3rd, 2009 at 12:49 am
F411-
Ah, yes. The classic liberal fall back of pragmatism. Get what you can while you can, because one shouldn’t lead his life by princples, but by action. Then if the people don’t like the action, tell them that it is “nuanced”; which is a big word that acadmics use to mean “I know what’s good for you. Besides it is complicated, and you wouldn’t understand anyway.” It may be complicated but most people know a lousy deal when they are on the losing end.
If we get out of this mess in a couple of years with interest rates still low, normalized growth with no government support and the dollar remaining the world’s reserve currency, I will become a card carrying democrat and Keynsian. At what point will you be willing to admit that what is going on won’t work if it goes the other way?
November 3rd, 2009 at 3:02 am
F411,
“Fine. Come up with something better. And then…and this is the tricky part:
Get it through the Senate.
Not so easy, is it?”
That was rather my point old boy. The whole system is corrupt and broken. America and its values have changed irreparably, for better or worse. A moral crisis in my perspective..
Solutions? Make Volcker head of a Corruption commission with draconian powers to clean things up? Pitchforks?
It sure as hell seems like the average American either doesn’t understand or doesn’t give a s**t as long as there are still Cheese twiddlies in WalMart. The land of the free? Forget it.
November 3rd, 2009 at 4:23 am
Getting rid of Geithner is like kicking the drug dealer off the corner, nice idea – no effect. Another shill would be right there, ready as willing to do his job. The system has been hijacked.
November 3rd, 2009 at 8:05 am
IMHO, the path is set, ben, tim and paul decided and it was blessed by GW this is the way……….imho, the memo really says, banks you take care of housing, we will take care of the rest……….if the prices of homes continue to implode taxes get an even bigger whack, all bonds in 05,06,07 were based on pied piper numbers, it is the municipalities who are now in crisis and everyone at the top knows it, if you don’t save homes you’re cooked, next year we got option arms resets that is the final tidal wave to come ashore, it will break us most likely, my guess is ben and tim did not imagine oil and copper would rocket up 100% and 300%, this is a war of the smart money verse policy makers and zombie banks and there underwater customers……….no one knows how it will turn out…………..i still believe the next several years will be similar too airlines after 9-11……..they are still in business, extremely lean and have the noose of oil around there necks and a cap on a ticket of 400 bucks due always having supply and 20 years of low rates…………
November 3rd, 2009 at 8:51 am
If you’re part of the problem then you’re not part of the solution. Turbo Tim and Gentle Ben were part of the problem but Team O’B blinked and stayed with the status quo and the big banks have us by the short hairs. We will rue those huge guarantees we gave to CITI and BAC, mark my words.
Hyperinflation will be the ultimate fix for everything
November 3rd, 2009 at 9:32 am
“Why Keep Geithner?”
Simple, he’s the insider who the banks want in that position.
November 3rd, 2009 at 8:29 pm
Introduction
The Civilian Conservation Corps
In March 1933, within weeks of his inauguration, President Franklin Roosevelt sent legislation to Congress aimed at providing relief for unemployed American workers. He proposed the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) to provide jobs in natural resource conservation. Over the next decade, the CCC put more than three million young men to work in the nation’s forests and parks, planting trees, building flood barriers, fighting fires, and maintaining roads and trails, conserving both private and federal land.
After a decade of national prosperity in the Roaring Twenties, Americans faced a national crisis after the Crash of 1929. The Great Depression saw an unemployment rate of more than twenty-five percent in the early 1930s. Inner-city crime rates soared, and the government did not have any specific plans to intervene. At the same time in the Midwest, the nine-year drought that would come to be known as the Dust Bowl was just beginning. Farmers struggled to hold on to their crops and their livestock as more precious topsoil blew away in windstorms every day.
The CCC was President Roosevelt’s answer to the environmental and economic challenges facing the country. Enlisting 250,000 workers in just two months, the CCC was an ambitious undertaking that brought several government agencies together in the effort. The Department of Labor recruited men from the ages of 18 to 25; the War Department clothed and trained them for two weeks, and the Department of Agriculture designed and managed the specific work assignments.
With projects in every U.S. state and territory, “Roosevelt’s Tree Army” lived in camps under quasi-military discipline, and received a wage of $30 per month, $25 of which they were required to send home to their families. Typically, boys rose early for breakfast in the canteen before heading off for eight hours of manual labor. Lunch was often brought out to the work site. In the evenings ninety percent of enrollees took advantage of classes offered in subjects from literature to welding — courses which, over nine years, taught 40,000 illiterate men to read and write.
After planting 3 billion trees in nine years of service, the CCC dissolved in July of 1942. As the economy began to improve in the late 1930s, young men found higher-paying jobs at home, and the number of CCC camps across the country dwindled. President Roosevelt’s attempt at turning it into a permanent agency failed. After the bombing of Pearl Harbor and subsequent U.S. involvement in World War II, the CCC’s funding and assets were diverted as the nation’s focus shifted toward the war effort. The legacy of the CCC continues to live on in the hundreds of campgrounds, hiking trails and swimming holes still enjoyed by Americans today.
In The Civilian Conservation Corps, four alumni Corpsmen share their experiences of poverty, racism, hard work and brotherhood from their time in the CCC. From Producer Robert Stone (Earth Days, Oswald’s Ghost), the film tells the tale of one of the boldest and most popular New Deal experiments.
———-
You know…there’s a point in a Presidency when they “cut loose” those they brought in to “advise them” on the “thrill of victory.”
If Obama is as smart as I think he is…he will dig down and the political realities will give him boost that he won’t get re-elected when both his base “Progressives” and the “Mainstream Repugs” now consider him a “whore for banks and status quot.”
There will be pressures on Obama to “re-work his team.”
If he cares about re-election then there’s a possiblity that Geithner and Summers will have an “Epiphany” to “Resign” to take care of Family or “pursue other interests” …and they will be nudged out back to “Goldman” from whence they came to “game the system” like they did before. In Geithner’s case …he will be hired as the newbie to give his tremendous expertise to the followers with “stars in their eyes”…legacy kids of the annointed.
But, I’ll bet given the angst against Obama from his own supporters…Dem Mainstream and Left that this “FIRST YEAR” will come due in January…when those of us who BOUGHT HIM …want some PAYBACK..and we were told on the LEFT that if we supported him we would run him. LOL’s , LOL’s…
But as the FAR LEFT and the FAR RIGHT seem to be having more in common than the CENTER…I expect SPARKS TO FLY!
WE DISAGREE…but hey…..”Politics makes STRANGE BEDFELLOWS.”