A new beginning

Requires a thorough housecleaning

Why must Americans begin their world anew? It is because disaster looms, David Lindorff believes:

The actions of Obama's Chief Financial Adviser Larry Summers and his Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner in permitting the payment of $165 million in bonuses to AIG executives (Summers, according to the Wall Street Journal, actually pressed Sen. Chris Dodd, D-CT, to secretly remove a bar to the payment of such bonuses from the bailout bill) and the storm of public outrage that has followed public disclosure of those payments, provides President Obama, whose administration is stumbling badly on many fronts, to turn things around and avoid political disaster.

His advice to the President:

He should promptly demand Geithner's and Summers' resignations, and should also fire the CEO of AIG, Edward Liddy (as 80% owner of AIG, the US has the power to do that anytime). It would also be a good idea at the same time to fire the CEOs of all the leading banks that are at this point surviving on government bailouts.

This would allow Obama to correct the fundamental mistake he made during the transition period following the November election in installing a bunch of Clinton-era economic advisors and Bush holdovers to be his economic team.

The reason Obama should make the about-face:

The US economy is in disastrous shape, and it is going to take new ideas, and people untarnished by the last 30 years of deregulatory excess and unsavory links to Wall Street, to rescue it.