A System of Fealty to Oligarchs

dday at Hullabaloo: "The system of government in this country has become a system of fealty to oligarchs."

What provoked dday today, was the failure in the U.S. Senate of a bankruptcy reform "to allow bankruptcy judges to modify loan terms on primary residences the way they can on second homes, yachts, cars, and other pieces of property".

"Nays included all Republicans and Baucus, Bennet, Byrd, Carper, Dorgan, Johnson, Landrieu, Lincoln, Nelson (NE), Pryor, Specter (awesome!), Tester. The Senators against this bill have lined up with the banksters, and for good reasons - they fund the campaigns, they throw the best parties, they share the interests and perspective of those disproportionately wealthy politicians." Roll Call Vote

So, there you have it: the Oligarchs control the Senate, approximately, 52-47. (3 Senators were absent, and not voting, but I made a good guess where they stand.)

Bankruptcy bill is a relatively minor issue, of course, even if the Rollcall is a good indicator of the balance of power.

ampersand commenting at Economist's View said today what no one in the news Media will say, the truth:

"Summers, Rubin, Geithner, Bernanke et al.

None of these people will admit to a recovery plan - which they pretend to want - and stick it to the oligarchs. All kinds of excuses abound for that. Sticking it to the oligarchs is 'moral hazard fundamentalism', there is no Senate support for it, 'first let us fix the economy' and so on. Remember [Brad] DeLong covering Geithners ass on the PIPP by crying "Voinovich, Voinovich"?

All these people push the line -like gospel truth - that breaking the oligarchy makes recovery impossible. This pretension that without the oligarchy, recovery is impossible fails the simple laugh test. Without this govt propping it up via bank bailouts, the oligarchy wont exist.

In reality, none of them want a recovery plan that breaks the oligarchy. None of them will _allow_ such a recovery plan.The current impasse and mind-numbing morass of dealing with the crisis and recovery planning is precisely because of the opposite. It is really hard to come up with a plan to save the oligarchs and have an economic recovery.

These people pretend the problem is the opposite - that it's hard to get a recovery plan that breaks the oligarchs."

We are tying ourselves into knots, wringing our hands over the impotence of economic policy, because such an attitude protects key powers-that-be.