Bill Black: Wall Street Urges Obama to Commit the Great Betrayal

By Bill Black, the author of The Best Way to Rob a Bank is to Own One and an associate professor of economics and law at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. Cross posted from Benzinga

Greetings from the Third Annual Kilkenomics Festival in Kilkenny, Ireland. The Irish bubble (as a percentage of GDP) was twice as large as the U.S. bubble. I’m returning to the U.S. to provide economic commentary for al Jazeera’s election night coverage. (Yes, I voted via absentee ballot.)

The Safety Net is the Glory of America and the Unending Wall Street Nightmare

Wall Street’s leading “false flag” group, the Third Way, has responded to the warnings that Robert Kuttner, AFL-CIO President Trumka, and I have made that if President Obama is re-elected our immediate task will be to prevent the Great Betrayal – the adoption of self-destructive austerity programs and the opening wedge of the effort to unravel the safety net (including Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid).

Romney favors the same betrayal, but it would be political suicide for a Republican national leader to lead the attack on the nation’s most popular programs. Huge majorities of Americans oppose cuts in the safety nets. A majority of Republicans oppose such cuts and Democrats overwhelmingly oppose the cuts.