We can end the debt crisis!
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
Introducing House Weaker John Boener
"I didn't sign up for going mano-a-mano with the President of the United States."
Even in the debt crisis, they're a bunch of homophobes!
Today's Butthurt Republican Is Brought You To By....
...The Weekly Standard's Bill Kristol.
No, Bill, most Americans would think the "debt ceiling" was the lid of a coffin before the Republicans decided to make it an issue, you amazing moron.
Thirty Years Mortgaged Away
Plus ça change, plus ce meme chose....
The Pew Research Center analysis finds that, in percentage terms, the bursting of the housing market bubble in 2006 and the recession that followed from late 2007 to mid-2009 took a far greater toll on the wealth of minorities than whites. From 2005 to 2009, inflation-adjusted median wealth fell by 66% among Hispanic households and 53% among black households, compared with just 16% among white households.
As a result of these declines, the typical black household had just $5,677 in wealth (assets minus debts) in 2009, the typical Hispanic household had $6,325 in wealth and the typical white household had $113,149.
Moreover, about a third of black (35%) and Hispanic (31%) households had zero or negative net worth in 2009, compared with 15% of white households. In 2005, the comparable shares had been 29% for blacks, 23% for Hispanics and 11% for whites.
That last paragraph tells a tale: that would probably be the result of hyperborrowing in mortgages and against credit cards in the wake of stagnating wages, pitiful jobs growth under the Bush administration, and the collapse of savings in this nation. People need to buy in order to keep the economy humming. The economy hummed, but the social construct has always been that the economy hums when people shop, which creates jobs, which creates wealth (and net worth), which creates a humming economy.
That's disconnected now, largely because the humming has moved overseas as China and other south Asian nations have taken the bulk of the jobs in cost-cutting moves by hypernational corporations that retain their cash, thus turning the trickle-down effect into a true trickle.
This is the worst gap since 1986, when Pew started publishing this study, and not coincidentally, when America gave a goddamn about the tired, the poor, the huddled masses, and not the first tee at Winged Foot.
Just keep those net worth numbers in mind: Blacks, $5,677; Hispanics, $6,325 (so much for the rise of La Raza Republican); Whites, $113,149.
Boener's Flaccid Proposition
Well, this is not kicking the can down the road, this is pushing the penny across the table:
According to a GOP aide familiar with the emerging House bill, it would provide for an immediate $1 trillion increase in the government's $14.3 trillion debt limit in exchange for $1.2 trillion in cuts in federal spending.
The measure also envisions Congress approving a second round of spending cuts of $1.8 trillion or more in 2012, passage of which would trigger an additional $1.6 trillion in increased borrowing authority.
While the bill marked a retreat from legislation that conservatives muscled through the House last week, the two-step approach runs afoul of Obama's insistence that lawmakers solve the current crisis in a way that avoids a politically charged rerun next year in the middle of the 2012 election campaign.
This is probably a premature enactment on the part of the GOP. Pushing this issue into the middle of next year's election cycle will create a far bigger headache for them than it does for Obama.
Boener is mollycoddling his radical right wing with this proposal, and basically throwing his hands up and saying "Basta!" Placing this issue in the middle of the election cycle is going to lose him the House, and any chance at the Senate. I see the warped logic the GOP is using, so let me analyze it a little for you.
Of tangential import, this will be the first major issue in the post-Murdochian-meltdown of FOX News, so Boener loses his most effective propaganda tool.
The gamble Boener is making is that in the next six months to one year, he can marshal public opinion in his favor. Right now, the nation seems pretty divided over who is to blame for the debt ceiling crisis, with the slight benefit of the doubt given to President Obama.
What I believe he is misreading, what Obama can rely heavily on, is that the nation is pretty unified over the idea that the problem demands a long-term solution and now. All those months of stroking to whip up a froth of "you can't spend more than you make" has left the wrong impression of the Republicans in this constituency. It's not about cutting spending deeply, it's about making more money for them. The American people understand that there will be sacrifices, but they remember the Great Depression and World War II when everyone sacrificed. We're all in agreement spending should be cut, and while we may disagree in detail, in the long, broad strokes we get it.
Cutting Grandma's blood pressure medicine won't do it. Cutting ExxonMobil's taxes sure as hell won't do it. The American people want a solution that they can examine, agree with, and then conveniently ignore, secure in the knowledge the problem is wll in hand, and not rising again in six months' time. We, like the markets, prefer certainty, not a "wham, bam, thank you ma'am" buyoff.
Which leads me to point number two that I think Boener is misreading: apart from Ryan's universally panned $6 trillion debt cutting plan, President Obama's proposals are the only ones on the table (not even Reid's match his numbers) that will permanently cut the debt, mount revenues while shedding risky behavior like farm subsidies and plug other corporate loopholes.
If the GOP is successful in kicking the can down the road, Obama can simply run the tape of these past few weeks where he has been stiff in his resolve to seek a permanent solution to the problem. "See? I told you so!" would be a mantra that he could run on.
Meanwhile, in the intervening six months, the GOP has to winnow down the seven dwarves, err, twelve monkeys to a viable field in the primaries. If you think that the debt ceiling isn't going to be a major topic of conversation that the GOP will be arguing back and forth, up and down, in and out until the cows come home, thus softening the impact of any media campaign the GOP leadership might roll out, you'd have to be an idiot, Mr. Weaker Boener.
We don't have much of an attention span, we Americans, but over and over again, we've shown the distinct ability to sniff out garbage, which is precisely what you offer.
Monday, July 25, 2011
Today's Right Wing Crybaby
Believe it or not, he's a mine operator who's decided that because people don't particularly like mines in their backyards, are terrified of the environmental and health impacts and with really good reason (see: Massey Energy), he's going to deprive a county of 125 jobs. Because his panties are bunched up.
Way to go, blockhead!
A Touch Of Grey
I would be remiss if I didn't note the spectacular and thrilling Tour de France victory of Australia's Cadel Evans
At 34, he was the oldest winner of Le Tour since 1923, when 36 year old Henri Pelissier chipped stone wheels and attached them to a couple of oak branches.
It was hard rooting this year: Andy Schleck, the young Luxembourgan who was basically robbed last year by Clenbutero Contador of victory is an engaging, earnest young man (along with his brother Frank, who also is a top competitor and could have won this year, too). Evans is a war-horse who, like Schleck, had been a bridesmaid twice but has the added attraction of having been on some miserable teams and having fought through enormous physical pain in racing the Tour (in 2010, he rode with a broken elbow for more than half the race.) This year, his bad luck held off.
Evans is a rider with passion and grit. He's not afraid of his emotions showing, which is refreshing in an endeavour where people have to pick themselves up, dust themselves off and do it all over again the next day. That tends to damper any highs and level lows.
You sensed from the beginning of the Tour that the final days would belong to the Schlecks and Evans: Contador was rattled early on by the enormous pressure he had put on himself to fourpeat as champion, particularly after winning the Giro, all with the looming cloud of suspicion still hanging over him with a court date over steroid use. He was treated pretty roughly in the mountains by the fans (one wag even trotted alongside his bike wearing surgical scrubs and carrying what looked like an oversized syringe,) although when he made a courageous break on the Alpe D'Huez, fans cheered and jeered pretty equally.
The Schlecks, as Evans, had something to prove. The Schlecks executed a game plan almost to perfection, save for the fact that Cadel Evans had an answer for everything they did. Andy Schleck ended up about two minutes short of where he needed to be coming into the final time trial. Evans saw to that with a masterful counterattack in the Alps. He personified what the term "leader" is all about.
Will his luck hold out next season? We'll see.
Do Parents Not See A Disconnect Here?
Sure. Send your kids to summer camp. Just please, not on a private jet!
More Political Kabuki
Jennifer Rubin (there's that name again) has leaked details of what John Boener told the Republican Congressional caucus on a phone call this weekend.
Now, winnowing out the rhetoric and red-meat tossed about to distract the masses of morons, Boener let Eric Cantor swing in the breeze from a noose, and no one noticed.
The White House has never gotten serious about tackling the serious issues our nation faces — not without tax hikes — and I don't think they ever will. The path forward, I believe, is that we pull together as a team behind a new measure that has a shot at getting to the president's desk. It's won't be Cut, Cap & Balance as we passed it, but it should be a package that reflects the principles of Cut, Cap & Balance. We're committed to working with you — and with our Republican colleagues in the Senate — to get it done. No one is willing to default on the full faith and credit of the United States.And I think the leaders in both parties and both houses of Congress already agree that we need significant reductions. But if we stick together, I think we can win this for the American people . . . because I do think there is a path. But it's gonna require us to stand together as a team. It's gonna require some of you to make some sacrifices. If we stand together as a team, our leverage is maximized, and they have to deal with us. If we're divided, our leverage gets minimized.
Note what I emphasized. Nowhere does Boener suggest that taxes are off the table. Nowhere does Boener say "The President will not get what he wants." Instead, he mentions sacrifices on the part of his membership.
Boener didn't get to where he is without studying the rudimentaries of diplomacy. He says what he wants to say but in a way that has you agreeing with him while he picks your pocket, all the while making you feel like you're giving him your wallet.
Cantor got where he is by being a douchebag. His response:
The president's position of forcing us to give him a debt limit increase through the election is purely political and indefensible. He cannot sustain or defend putting politics above the country's interests in this situation. Let me tell you, though, he has the microphone. The only way to overcome him is to remain united and insist that every dollar the debt limit is increased, we have equal or more dollars in spending cuts without ANY tax hikes.
All Cantor needs now is Rupert Murdoch to fly into DC and give him a "1000% vote of confidence," and he can resign from Congress.
Looking For A Luxury Product To Introduce?
Something that would make people spend three times as much as they need to in order to have? With status and a "cool" factor?
Look no farther than Space Water.
When James Wolcott Likes Your Writing
You must have written a helluva piece. This is a synecdoche of imagery.
Alexander Cockburn is not someone I agree with all the time, but I disagree floridly when I do.
Huhwhat?
You're Texas. Your governor is mulling a Presidential run. You're one of the reddest states in the union.
So you take a look at your political contributions and say, who is that at the top?
Revenooer Smacks Down Former Governor
The whole Pawlenty-Bachman slapfight has taken a bizarre turn: the candidate of smaller government made her name in Big Government screwing the same little people she says she now wants to protect.
Pawlenty takes a split decision, despite Jennifer Rubin's belief.
In The Glue
It looks like we're one step closer to proving the existence of the Higgs Boson.
The so-called God particle is theorized to determine why some particles have mass, and some, like photons and neutrinos, do not. Discovery of this particle will be an huge confirmation of the standard model of particle physics and will...well, it's confusing, but let's just say that there are competing theories that would need to account for the existence of this particular bit of reality.
Clearly, All Christians Are Evil
That's the satirical note to take away from the events of Friday afternoon, when the Norwegian equivalent of a Teabagger decided to slaughter nearly 100 people, willingly and gladly:
“He has said that he believed the actions were atrocious, but that in his head they were necessary,” lawyer Geir Lippestad told independent TV2 news.
[...]Breivik hated “cultural marxists”, wanted a “crusade” against the spread of Islam and liked guns and weightlifting, web postings, acquaintances and officials said.
So in one neat little paragraph, we have the entire right wing of the United States in a nutshell, eh? "Socialism," "Islamism," gun nut, white Aryanist. If only he ate Cheetos in mom's basement, he could be Jim Hoft!
But I digress, and apologize for scoring a cheap political point.
Not really...
Anyway, there's a certain irony hearing the right wing of this country stretching, massaging and twisting truth to fit their narrative. After all, Norway is one of the most socialistic nations on the planet, the very essence of the whole argument "don't let this happen here," that faux freedom fighters and tea-pot tipping Taxbaggers cry over when President Obama suggests a marginal hike in taxes to pay for wars we can't afford.
And when Ross Douthat is the voice of reason for your side, your side needs serious help.
Ahhhhhhhh, but the Foust article has the juicy idiocy:
Not that there's anything wrong with understanding the schools of thought Breivik subscribed to. It is important that he emerged out of an intellectual movement that includes Brussels Journal, Pamela Geller, Daniel Pipes, and Robert Spencer, as it shows how he developed and formed his worldview.
In fairness to Foust, he does not ascribe to the views of Geller and Pipes, but could you ever imagine, even in mocking, the juxtaposition of "intellect" and "Pamela Geller/Daniel Pipes"?
Foust raises a good point, which is that its one thing to talk about eliminating Marxists, Islamists and other impurities in a society, it's another to actually take the step of cleansing. It's one thing to point the finger with words, and another to point a gun at children.
My argument back to Foust is simple: Not everyone who was a Bolshevik picked up a gun in a pogrom. Not every Nazi in Germany gassed a Jew. Not every militia member blew up Oklahoma City. Not even every radical Muslim flew a plane into a building.
That doesn't change them from being Bolsheviks, Nazis, militia members, or radical Muslims, and fomenting the very Petri dish that nurtured the Breivik's of the world. No one is condemning the entire right wing of the world for the actions of one nut, but many of those same conservatives now hiding behind Foust's apron would be the first to tar me as a liberal if this fellow had turned out to be "doing it for the environment," or some such.
For that, Foust should be ashamed.
Subscribe to:
Comment Feed (RSS)
Posts
