America's Three Wise Men?

Today's Washington Post has published an article about the three key leaders guiding our country and the world through the current economic crisis. A crisis that some say may dwarf the Great Depression. Here is some basic information about America's three wise men:

Paulson, 62, is an investment banker who rose through the ranks of Goldman Sachs to lead the firm. A lanky former Dartmouth College offensive tackle and an intense workaholic, he said he agreed in 2006 to become the Bush administration's third Treasury secretary to prepare the government for a possible market crisis.

Bernanke, 54 and calm of demeanor, is one of the foremost scholars of financial crises, especially the Great Depression. Before being named Fed chairman in 2006, the largest organization he had run was Princeton University's economics department.

Geithner, 47, was a career staff member at the Treasury Department when Lawrence Summers, then a Treasury undersecretary, plucked him from obscurity in the early 1990s. He became a key member of the group that guided the Clinton administration's response to the international financial crises in the 1990s and has been honing his knowledge of Wall Street since taking over the New York Fed in 2003.

The key thing to note is that both Paulson and Bernanke took their jobs in 2006 with full knowledge that they would be dealing with the current economic crisis. It didn't come as a surprise to them or to many other people in this country.

Few in positions of leadership or in the mainstream media would listen to warnings about the housing bubble that the Bush administration created to prop up the economy while we went to war in Iraq. If you weren't afraid of listening to "liberal" voices on the internet (-- the only place they could find a voice), you could find repeated warnings that this would be the result of neo-conservative policies.

What is Cheney Up to Now?

The Houston Chronicle is reporting that Vice President Cheney is heading a diplomatic mission to the war zone in Georgia.

The office of the Secretary of State generally has responsibility for diplomatic missions of this sort, but anyone familiar with the dynamics of the current administration knows that Condolezza Rice is not as committed as Dick Cheney is to either renewing the cold war or instigating another world war.

On The Great Deflation

William Greider, author of The Soul of Capitalism, pens some sobering words in an essay about our current financial crisis.  Here's a quote:

We are witnessing a momentous event -- the great deflation of Wall Street -- and it is far from over. The crash of IndyMac is just the beginning. More banks will fail, so will many more debtors. The crisis has the potential to transform American politics because, first it destroys a generation of ideological bromides about free markets, and, second, because it makes visible the ugly power realities of our deformed democracy. Democrats and Republicans are bipartisan in this crisis because they have colluded all along over thirty years in creating the unregulated financial system and mammoth mega-banks that produced the phony valuations and deceitful assurances. The federal government protects the most powerful interests from the consequences of their plundering. It prescribes "market justice" for everyone else.

His entire essay deserves a thoughtful reading. Here's a link.

Podcast: How Sabre Rattling Effects the Price of Oil

Dr. Bruce Prescott's 6-22-08 "Religious Talk" (27 MB MP3) radio program. I talk about plans for the New Baptist Covenant Midwest Region Meeting, about the ADF's challenge to the IRS by encouraging ministers to endorse candidates from the pulpit, and about the effect that American and Israeli sabre rattling against Iran is having on the price of oil.

Listeners are encouraged to contact their Congressional Representatives to oppose House Resolution 362 authorizing a land, sea and air blockade of Iran.