Your Retirement, Obama, the IMF, Greece and the New Democrat Coalition

~ Fred Donaldson

Fareed Rafiq Zakaria is one of the top 25 most influential journalists, according to Forbes magazine, and as editor at Newsweek and host of a Sunday CNN talk-show, it’s difficult to argue that selection.

Another of the top journalists is Charlie Rose of PBS fame. And you can add Mort Zuckerman, owner of U.S. News and World Report, who is also a frequent guest on MSNBC.

The three have some things in common, besides their membership in the Trilateral Commission. All supported the Iraq war and promoted it. All are financial interest lackeys. All favor the “centrist” approach of the New Democrat Coalition versus progressive American values.

It was amusing yesterday to watch Zakaria on CNN slobber over Goldman Sachs as he defended their activities, including betting against the very products they were hawking to widows and blind pensioners.

Zakaria used the argument that Goldman only finds buyers on each side of a bet. He neglected to mention that Goldman manages hundreds of billions of dollars in other people’s money, making fees on buys and sells, and owns everything from companies to crude oil on its own books.

Meanwhile, along with Zuckerman and Rose, he is promoting the CNN, MSNBC, PBS, Washington Post Republican agenda to eliminate corporate taxes and estate taxes for the rich and pay for that with fewer public services, including cuts to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.

Where is Obama during this assault on our people? As a friend of the New Democrat senators like Kent Conrad, Max Baucus and Ben Nelson, he is secretly applauding the impending intervention of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) into the government of Greece. That country, you may recall, was crushed by loses in investments handled by Goldman Sachs. In recent weeks the big banks have been forcing Greece into financial collapse, with bond interest rates pushing 10%, and that led to IMF as the only recourse.

Now, Greece is raising retirement ages, cutting civil servant salaries and pensions, zooming middle class taxes and preparing for eliminating all types of public services. Goldman made a lot of money on that national misery.

Word from the IMF is more cuts in pensions and higher retirement ages are needed in all European countries (where it is 65 or less) and the U.S. (already 67). That is endorsed by a slew of commentators, including the three mentioned above, but also stooges like the bleached blond two-hour Carter protege daily on MSNBC.

Look for the Pete Peterson-inspired, Obama Deficit Commission to bring all this to a canker with its report later this year.

 

Published by Fred Donaldson

First full-time job at 17 was dollar-an-hour newspaper copyboy at the Evening and Sunday Bulletin (760,000 daily). Promotions led to general assignments and rewrite at that Pulitzer Prize winning newspaper (1964 and 1965). After the Bulletin, served as the editor of Valley Forge Sentinel and Conshohocken Recorder, Sr. VP of their newspaper group in 1972, and became publisher in 1975  of the West Oak Lane Leader - an African-American community newspaper - for the next 18 years. In 1993 named president of ING's 18-newspapers in Metro Philadelphia and New Jersey. Company was later purchased by JRC (NYSE), and I was appointed publisher of the Montgomery/Bucks/Philly newspaper division by the infamous Journal Register CEO Bob Jelenic. During the 60s and 70s, I corresponded for the United States Information Agency, reporting and writing for publication in foreign countries. This website never runs ads, asks for donations, or reveals any information about its readers and contributors.