Two horses with the same owner: Taibbi asks, "Is the Two-Party System Doomed?"

The sooner, the better. Let's follow the money, shall we?

Is the Two-Party System Doomed?, by Matt Taibbi (Rolling Stone)

A new study shows us what observation should already have made clear: a messy restructuring of America's political parties is coming

Thomas Piketty, the French economist whose 2013 bestseller Capital in the 21st Century awoke upscale Americans to the shocking news that their economic system was not working for everyone, has written a new paper exposing more uncomfortable truths.

Piketty's new essay, called Brahmin Left vs. Merchant Right, studied electoral trends in three Western countries – France, Britain and the U.S. – dating back to the 1940s.

SNIP

America, like pretty much everyplace else in the neoliberal world, is becoming a society split up into unequal camps. We have an extremely small group of very rich people, and a much larger group of everyone else, who may or may not be educated, but increasingly have either zero net worth, or close to it.

The numbers are getting harder to ignore.

American politicians for decades have done an outstanding job of keeping low-income voters from seeing their shared economic dilemmas. The Republicans dating back to Goldwater and Nixon have kept voters transfixed with race hatred and fears about things like gun control, while Democrats have emphasized the Republican threat on social issues like reproductive rights and Social Security.

But having two parties sponsored by the same donors simply can't work in the long-term. The situation ends up being what a Colombian politician once deemed "two horses with the same owner."

From Mitt Romney's idiotic tirade against "the 47%" to Hillary Clinton's recent remarks about how she won all the "dynamic" parts of America, our political leaders have consistently showed that they don't see or understand the levels of resentment out there.

Papers like Piketty's are a warning that if the intellectuals in both parties don't come up with a real plan for dealing with the income disparity problem before someone smarter than Donald Trump takes it on, they're screwed. Forget nativists vs. globalists. Think poor vs. rich. Think 99 to 1. While Washington waits with bated breath for the results of the Mueller probe, it's the other mystery – how do we fix this seemingly unfixable economic system – that is keeping the rest of the country awake at night.

"Don’t blame it all on racism. During the financial crash Obama sided with the bankers, not people losing their homes – making Trump’s victory possible."

On this most auspicious of days, it bears repeating that I admire Barack Obama immensely as a human being performing a thankless job. We may not see the likes of him again, and that's to be regretted.

However, it's simply inescapable that one must separate the man from the performance, and the legacy of Obama's record is mixed. Posterity will probably enhance this legacy owing to the shambles of what came before it, and what's about to happen next -- that is, if we have anything approximating real news in the future.

The overarching point remains: Without properly understanding what has happened these past eight years, we cannot understand neither why Donald Trump is taking office as president, nor what a proper opposition political organization looks like.

Buckle up. America's about to indulge its inner white trash, and the results are not likely to be therapeutic.

How Barack Obama paved the way for Donald Trump, by Gary Younge (The Guardian)

Don’t blame it all on racism. During the financial crash Obama sided with the bankers, not people losing their homes – making Trump’s victory possible

 ... One cannot blame Obama for Trump. It was the Republicans – craven to the mob within their base, which they have always courted but ultimately could not control – that nominated and, for now, indulges him. And yet it would be disingenuous to claim Trump rose from a vacuum that bore no relationship to the previous eight years ...

 ... There is a deeper connection, however, between Trump’s rise and what Obama did – or rather didn’t do – economically. He entered the White House at a moment of economic crisis, with Democratic majorities in both Houses and bankers on the back foot. Faced with the choice of preserving the financial industry as it was or embracing far-reaching reforms that would have served the interests of those who voted for him, he chose the former.

Will we get our cut? Or better yet, will we make it count?

(Originally published by Lloyd Wimp at his View from the Highway blog.)

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This past Monday (October 20), along with John Miller and Pat Woosley of NA Community Housing, I had the pleasure of attending a live teleconferenced seminar sponsored by the Federal Reserve System entitled Confronting the Neighborhood Impacts of Foreclosure.

The local venue for this all day event was held at the Louisville Branch of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. Others in attendance from Corydon, Louisville, and elsewhere who deal with housing issues in one way or another in their respective locales.

The panel consisted of Mayors and Housing Department officials from cities around the country, Federal Reserve Board Members, representatives from NeighborWorks America, National Housing Institute, National Community Stabilization Trust, JP Morgan Chase, and Enterprise Community Partners to name a few.

The presentation centered around the small portion ($3.92 Billion) of the $700 Billion that has been set aside to be deal with foreclosure issues at the local level and how best to utilize those limited funds. It is information that any city government could find useful in these trying times.

While most of the legal and financial jargon was well above my pay grade, I found a much of what was presented to be germane to our own local conversation.

There were numerous examples of how municipalities from other states have successfully dealt with such financial crises of the past three decades, instances brought on by plant closings, which led to job losses and a decline in population followed by deterioration of housing stock in what were once thriving neighborhoods.

Such things as increased code enforcement, city/county owned land banks, greenfields, small neighborhood parks, urban agriculture, mixed use properties, and much more were sited as successful ways to deal with vacant and abandoned property.

The folks who had initiated these programs in their own communities suggested a variety of ways to tweak them to fit in cities of all sizes in all states in order for them to get the biggest bang for the bucks available.

Does it mean that an adjustment in thinking will be required ? Yes, but it also means that we do not have to reinvent the wheel. Templates are available to any who choose to look at them.

Click on this link and you will find access to Power Point © presentations from previous sessions in this series. This particular meeting should be available there within the next few days.

Other links of interest include:

NeighborWorks America

Enterprise Community Partners

Housing Partnership Network

Local Initiatives Support Corporation

Genesee County Land Bank