Progressive Corporatism Is Here
Conn Carroll /
There was no bigger media cheerleader for Barack Obama over the past year than MSDNC. Hardball host Chris Matthews famously admitted that Obama sent “a thrill going up my leg” and Keith Olbermann’s over the top boosterism was even recently parodied by Saturday Night Live. MSDNC could have tried to relegate these two to their respective hour long opinion shows, but instead they chose to make them hard news anchors for MSDNC’s election coverage.
Now that MSDNC has gotten its wish, and Obama is president, their parent company General Electric is set for a big payoff. The Wall Street Journal reports:
The Treasury Department is considering using more of its $700 billion rescue fund to buy stakes in a broad range of financial companies, not just banks and insurers, after tentative signs of the program’s success, according to people familiar with the matter.
In focus are companies that provide financing to the broad economy, including bond insurers and specialty finance firms such as General Electric Co.’s GE Capital unit, CIT Group Inc. and others, these people said.
The Cable Game connects the dots to Obama:
The Politico adds some telling new detail about the dealings: The U.S. Treasury Department, nominally controlled by George W. Bush but in reality controlled by Wall Streeters who lean Democrat (at least now) is throwing itself open to input from the incoming team of President-elect Barack Obama. So the Obamans will not have to wait even two months before getting control of the money spigot.
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As The Politico’s Victoria McGrane and Eamon Javers explain, not only are Obamans moving in before they officially take power, but they are planning on keeping tight control of the bailout: “Financial observers expect the incoming Obama administration to make the bailout effort their own.” Well of course they do! Why wouldn’t the Obamans want to get control of disbursing $700 billion, even before their man is inaugurated on January 20? Why wait?
Expect to see paybacks like this repeated early and often in Obama’s administration. It is pure myth that liberals/progressives are enemies of big business. The left LOVES big business. Who else could possibly afford exorbitant big labor contracts? As Amity Shlaes details in her book The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression, the New Deal was not about big government punishing big business. It was about big business, big labor, and big government getting together in one room to screw over small businesses and tax payers. That is why the New Deal extended the Depression a decade longer it had to be.
From the auto industry to ethanol agribusiness to broadband hogs like Google, expect a steady stream of corporate giants lining up in front of the Obama White House for bailouts, tax breaks, loans, and subsidies. Progressive corporatism is back with a vengeance.