Trump is no Obama or Bush when it comes to ethics

nhboy

Ubi bene ibi patria
" President-elect Donald Trump sees fit to micromanage the economy with serial interventions even before entering office and to retain domestic and foreign holdings as he makes public policy decisions. Past senior Obama administration officials are quick to point out that Trump is setting new and troubling precedents both in his interventions and his ethical conflicts.
Let’s take the interventions first. Obama officials will tell you that the financial meltdown of 2008 created a sort of existential crisis for the economy that justified some extraordinary measures. Those in the outgoing George W. Bush administration thought so, too. That is why both administrations supported the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) and the auto bailout. However, these were sector-wide actions affecting millions of people. Moreover, the actions were subject to tight constraints Trump certainly hasn’t signed onto. Steven Rattner, who has responsibility for the car-industry bailout, recalled:
All of us – especially Tim Geithner and Larry Summers – hated the idea of the U.S. Government owning equity in these companies, let alone a majority interest in GM. But we ultimately concluded that it is better to get something for something than to get nothing for something. To mitigate the obvious risks, the Administration developed a set of principles for the “USG as shareholder” that would add strict limits on government involvement post-restructuring to the existing edict that we not ever meddle in day-to-day management decisions.

Among the ideas that was explicitly rejected was putting any government employees or official representatives on these boards. This underscored the need to put in place capable independent boards of directors and strong chairmen. Once again, there was no political interference. Working with Secretary Geithner and Director Summers, we looked particularly for strong former CEO’s of significant companies and also wanted to have at least one leading private equity person on each board. I don’t believe I have seen even one criticism of the resulting choices.

Contrary to popular belief, Rattner wasn’t sitting in his office deciding which auto plants to close, which dealerships would go under or which car models to develop. By contrast, Trump is micromanaging the economy to an extent heretofore unimaginable.

When a much broader initiative was undertaken by the Obama administration conservatives screamed that it was industrial policy and would have devastating consequences.

Now they are silent when Trump does something much worse, picking out individual companies and telling them how to run their operations.

On the issue of government ethics, no president has attempted to retain ownership of active, highly visible businesses, let alone have them managed through relatives, as he makes daily decisions that affect the value of his holdings. "

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/wp/2016/12/08/trump-is-no-obama-or-bush-when-it-comes-to-ethics/?tid=sm_tw&utm_term=.48867b8e9233



 

itsbob

I bowl overhand
" President-elect Donald Trump sees fit to micromanage the economy with serial interventions even before entering office and to retain domestic and foreign holdings as he makes public policy decisions. Past senior Obama administration officials are quick to point out that Trump is setting new and troubling precedents both in his interventions and his ethical conflicts.
Let’s take the interventions first. Obama officials will tell you that the financial meltdown of 2008 created a sort of existential crisis for the economy that justified some extraordinary measures. Those in the outgoing George W. Bush administration thought so, too. That is why both administrations supported the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) and the auto bailout. However, these were sector-wide actions affecting millions of people. Moreover, the actions were subject to tight constraints Trump certainly hasn’t signed onto. Steven Rattner, who has responsibility for the car-industry bailout, recalled:
All of us – especially Tim Geithner and Larry Summers – hated the idea of the U.S. Government owning equity in these companies, let alone a majority interest in GM. But we ultimately concluded that it is better to get something for something than to get nothing for something. To mitigate the obvious risks, the Administration developed a set of principles for the “USG as shareholder” that would add strict limits on government involvement post-restructuring to the existing edict that we not ever meddle in day-to-day management decisions.

Among the ideas that was explicitly rejected was putting any government employees or official representatives on these boards. This underscored the need to put in place capable independent boards of directors and strong chairmen. Once again, there was no political interference. Working with Secretary Geithner and Director Summers, we looked particularly for strong former CEO’s of significant companies and also wanted to have at least one leading private equity person on each board. I don’t believe I have seen even one criticism of the resulting choices.

Contrary to popular belief, Rattner wasn’t sitting in his office deciding which auto plants to close, which dealerships would go under or which car models to develop. By contrast, Trump is micromanaging the economy to an extent heretofore unimaginable.

When a much broader initiative was undertaken by the Obama administration conservatives screamed that it was industrial policy and would have devastating consequences.

Now they are silent when Trump does something much worse, picking out individual companies and telling them how to run their operations.

On the issue of government ethics, no president has attempted to retain ownership of active, highly visible businesses, let alone have them managed through relatives, as he makes daily decisions that affect the value of his holdings. "

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/wp/2016/12/08/trump-is-no-obama-or-bush-when-it-comes-to-ethics/?tid=sm_tw&utm_term=.48867b8e9233




Thats some funny #### right there..
 

Larry Gude

Strung Out
TARP and the UAW bailout were bad and wrong, very troubling new precedents. They lowered the bar, not raised it. So now, here we are.

Obama also set new and troubling precedents in spying on the press and becoming assassin in chief, all based on the. Ew and troubling precedents Dubbya set.
 
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