Health care reform -- which is crucial for millions of Americans -- hangs in the balance. Progressives are desperately in need of leadership; more specifically, House Democrats need to be told to pass the Senate bill, which isn't what they wanted but is vastly better than nothing. And what we get from the great progressive hope, the man who was offering hope and change, is this:
"I would advise that we try to move quickly to coalesce around those elements of the package that people agree on. We know that we need insurance reform, that the health insurance companies are taking advantage of people. We know that we have to have some form of cost containment because if we don't, then our budgets are going to blow up and we know that small businesses are going to need help so that they can provide health insurance to their families. Those are the core, some of the core elements of, to this bill. Now I think there's some things in there that people don't like and legitimately don't like."
A spending freeze? That's the brilliant response of the Obama team to their first serious political setback?
It's appalling on every level.
It's bad economics, depressing demand when the economy is still suffering from mass unemployment.
It's bad long-run fiscal policy, shifting attention away from the essential need to reform health care and focusing on small change instead.
And it's a betrayal of everything Obama's supporters thought they were working for. Just like that, Obama has embraced and validated the Republican world-view -- and more specifically, he has embraced the policy ideas of the man he defeated in 2008. A correspondent writes, "I feel like an idiot for supporting this guy."
"Obama has embraced and validated the Republican world-view."
And that's the whole story of Obama's miserable Presidency.
The Main Event Smack Down from Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman.
Krugman 1/Ailes 0
Why is BarbWa Wawa moderating "This Week"? ABC has no other credible moderators? WOA! Is Ailes the new Guinness Book record holder for double chins? I mean they must go to his knee caps..OK I won't go any further with that thought, too gross. EWWW.
Finally a Representative body, that knows WHO they work for ...
Class war breaks out in the U.K. The Labor government announces a tax on exorbitantly-paid bankers. American populists gnash their teeth in envy
By Andrew Leonard, Dec 9, 2009
Unsurprising headline of the year: "U.S. Probably Will Avoid Matching U.K. 50 percent Bonus Tax."
Alistair Darling, the U.K. Chancellor of the Exchequer, announced the tax -- aimed squarely at overpaid bankers
[...]
From Bloomberg:
"There are some banks who still believe their priority is to pay substantial bonuses," Darling said in Parliament. "I am giving them a choice. They can use their profits to build up their capital base. If they insist on paying substantial rewards, I am determined to claw money back for the taxpayer."
Paul Krugman says the move is "entirely reasonable." Justin Fox asks, "why the heck not?" Felix Salmon says "well done."
Yesterday, in a NYTimes Op-Ed titled "Reform or Bust", Nobel Economist Paul Krugman gave some well needed advice on good economics and good politics that President Obama and Democratic members of Congress should listen to.
It's not just that taking a populist stance on bankers' pay is good politics - although it is: the administration has suffered more than it seems to realize from the perception that it's giving taxpayers' hard-earned money away to Wall Street, and it should welcome the chance to portray the G.O.P. as the party of obscene bonuses.
Equally important, in this case populism is good economics. Indeed, you can make the case that reforming bankers' compensation is the single best thing we can do to prevent another financial crisis a few years down the road.
One obvious point is the need, politically, to make the GOP the party that defends huge Wall St salaries and bonuses, which they will do anyway and gladly. Politically, the GOP can not be for the bonuses. They just can't. Even more so, they can not be against the regulations AND against the bailouts. It just won't work. Like Saruman in Lord of The Rings when confronted by Gandalf and the Riders of Rohan at the foot of Orthanc, the GOP can not be all things to all people, or against all things either. When too many eyes are watching at once the illusion is broken. The GOP can not be against all cures and still appear in the populist corner, as their teabagging antics try to portray, badly. The GOP must stand for something, and they do, they stand for the Super Rich and Corporate Wealth. Proving this is very important.
Recently wingnutty teabagging Republican Senator Jim DeMint (C Street-SC) offered his answer to all that economically ails Wall St. Guess what? His answer; More Tax Cuts!
Instead of looking at more regulation, we could do a lot by fixing our tax system here in this country, to make us globally competitive. The President needs to focus on what really has caused problems and look at what has really made America so prosperous, and I'm afraid that's not the lens he's looking through right now.
Because who would think that cutting taxes for Wall St would be kind of rewarding for them, or a serious attempt at real reform.
The GOP has NO new ideas, and the only ones they do have are Failed, totally and utterly Failed. Bipartisanship with these guys is a sort of cheating off of the dumb kid in class at ths point. It WILL NOT WORK. I understand why Obama has made the effort, but no it is time to play hardball, it is NO LONGER the time to keep trying to make the GOP feel good about themselves, especially when their ideas suck and they hope you fail.
Given this contempt for hard science, I'm almost reluctant to mention the deniers' dishonesty on matters economic. But in addition to rejecting climate science, the opponents of the climate bill made a point of misrepresenting the results of studies of the bill's economic impact, which all suggest that the cost will be relatively low.
Still, is it fair to call climate denial a form of treason? Isn't it politics as usual?
Yes, it is - and that's why it's unforgivable.
Do you remember the days when Bush administration officials claimed that terrorism posed an "existential threat" to America, a threat in whose face normal rules no longer applied? That was hyperbole - but the existential threat from climate change is all too real.
One of the best and most refreshing changes established by the Obama Administration has been its reliance on intellectuals, scientists, and experts rather than lobbyists and ideologues. Across a broad swath of federal departments, pragmatism seems once again to be valued. Unfortunately, with the world economy imploding, Obama continues to rely on the advice of corporatist insiders, and their advice is predictably corporatist. There also seems to be a bit of myopia going on.
On Saturday, Joan Walsh warned Obama supporters not to be taking credit for the previous week's slight market rally:
As someone who has repeatedly defended Obama from GOP efforts to blame him for the current crisis and to deride the "Obama economy" only 55 days into his presidency, I think the administration could be playing a dangerous game. Live by the week's economic news, die by it as well. If the Dow dives next week, or retail spending dips again, does that mean the stimulus failed?
"Consumer confidence is slightly up. The market is slightly up," Biden said. "It'll go down again, but the people are beginning to figure out that the president's got a plan and he believes we can work our way through this."
Um.
Nouriel Roubini has been warning that there may be "dead cat bounces," or "bear market suckers rallies," and there's no reason to think the latest is anything else. Which means that Biden should maybe be a little more circumspect about taking a day trader's view of a one week market rally.
There's a growing sense of frustration, even panic, over Mr. Obama's failure to match his words with deeds. The reality is that when it comes to dealing with the banks, the Obama administration is dithering. Policy is stuck in a holding pattern.
Here's how the pattern works: first, administration officials, usually speaking off the record, float a plan for rescuing the banks in the press. This trial balloon is quickly shot down by informed commentators. Then, a few weeks later, the administration floats a new plan. This plan is, however, just a thinly disguised version of the previous plan, a fact quickly realized by all concerned. And the cycle starts again.
Welcome to Monty Python's Flying Bank Bailout Circus. Everything is under control. Nudge, nudge. Wink, wink . . .
I was reading his column today, The Obama Agenda and it hit me: kaBoom! why shouldn't this guy, better than any one in Washington at reading the economic tea leaves, get tapped to serve in Washington.
A long time ago, in an economic universe far, far away, people cared about the trade balance. When the U.S. trade deficit passed $100 billion for the first time, there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth. Doomsayers warned of an imminent ''hard landing'' in which a crashing dollar would precipitate economic crisis. Even calmer types regarded the unprecedented red ink as a warning sign.
But a funny thing happened on the way to the 21st century: people lost interest in the trade balance. In January, the Commerce Department announced last week, the United States set a new world record: the biggest monthly trade deficit ever. (Is this a great country, or what?) Measured as a share of G.D.P., last year's current account deficit (the broadest measure of the trade gap) was wider than ever before. But the markets couldn't have cared less. They were more interested in the accounts of MicroStrategy (a high-flying tech stock that lost two-thirds of its value in one day when it adopted a new accounting standard) than in those of the United States.
Paul Krugman, the winner of the 2008 Nobel Prize for Economics, penned an article a few months ago: "Know-Nothing Politics".
the debate on energy policy has helped me find the words for something I've been thinking about for a while. Republicans, once hailed as the "party of ideas," have become the party of stupid.
For Krugman, the Republican embrace and promotion of Drillusion exemplified how "know-nothingism" had become revered within the Republican Party. "The party's de facto slogan has become: "Real men don't think things through."" ANd, "In the case of oil, this takes the form of pretending that more drilling would produce fast relief at the gas pump."
In any case, remember this the next time someone calls for an end to partisanship, for working together to solve the country's problems. It's not going to happen - not as long as one of America's two great parties believes that when it comes to politics, stupidity is the best policy.
Interesting news today. Progressives like Paul Krugman, George Soros, and Jerome a Paris have suggested that the economic rescue/bailout would work better if we bought equity in the banks rather than just bad debts. They see buying bad debt as inefficient and less likely to succeed. It looks as if Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson is seriously considering partial nationalization of financial instiutions:
An administration official, who spoke late Tuesday on condition of anonymity because no decision has been made, said the $700 billion rescue package passed by Congress last week allows the Treasury Department to inject fresh capital into financial institutions and get ownership shares in return.
Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson told reporters that Treasury was moving quickly to implement the $700 billion rescue effort and he specifically mentioned reviewing ways to bolster the capital of banks.
I haven't been disappeared into a CIA torture chamber, if those of you concerned for my wellbeing have been wondering. I started college again late last month, and it's taken up a lot of my free time. I'll probably be doing my updates primarily on the weekends for a while. Anyway, on to business.
Maybe I'm wrong, but my sense is that Jason Furman has become a proxy target for some Obama supporters who, now that the Great Satanness has been defeated, are suddenly starting to have the queasy feeling that their hero might be a bit of a .... centrist. I'm tempted to say I told you so; in fact, I guess I just did.
Although Krugman actually likes Furman, I think his remarks are -- as usual -- spot on. The Obamamaniacs got the presidential candidate they wanted, but now that they've begun to realize they put their hopes in a fraud they're getting nervous. I would be too, if I suddenly realized I'd thrown my support behind another DLCer and in so doing, helped Democrats lose the White House again.
I take Obama to task on a lot of issues, but it wouldn't be fair if I didn't acknowledge that he does take some good positions in this campaign. An example is illustrated in yesterday's column by the New York Times' Paul Krugman, which states:
The impression that Mr. McCain's tax talk is all about pandering is reinforced by his proposal for a summer gas tax holiday - a measure that would, in fact, do little to help consumers, although it would boost oil industry profits.
Obama opposes this silly and, ultimately, fairly useless measure. Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, agrees with McCain.
Does a candidate's policy proposals reveal the kind of president he/she would be? Paul Krugman today in the NYT suggests that policy proposals have revealed the kind of leadership that past presidential candidates. He points out that Bush proposed big tax cuts for the rich and followed through on them, making life harder for the rest of us.
The moral is that it's important to take a hard look at what candidates say about policy..... policy proposals offer a window into candidates' political souls - a much better window, if you ask me, than a bunch of supposedly revealing anecdotes and out-of-context quotes.
The current issue that McCain, Clinton and Obama have responded to is the mortgage crisis. Krugman analyzes the three responses and I found his analysis interesting and to be troubling for progressives.
(yeah. that's it. unregulated markets... - promoted by pfiore8)
In a recent EENR entry I posted about Paul Krugman's blog entry regarding the real reason regulators have failed to reign in the excesses of Wall Street. Essentially, the failure was deliberate -- an effort to systematically remove any and all regulation. I guess causing one Great Depression wasn't enough to wake up the laissez-faire assholes into realizing that the days of unrestricted greed should have remained dead and buried; they've been working like hell to create another while making their money, and they appear to have succeeded.
But I digress. In today's New York Times column, Professor Krugman expands upon this failure to reign in Wall Street by bringing the discussion to the presidential election.
Leave it to Paul Krugman to tell the hard truth about what needs to be done in this financial crisis.
[T]he important thing is to bail out the system, not the people who got us into this mess. That means cleaning out the shareholders in failed institutions, making bondholders take a haircut, and canceling the stock options of executives who got rich playing heads I win, tails you lose.
Not that the Fed shall listen, mind you; Ben Bernanke, like Alan Greenspan before him, cares about the laissez-faire swindlers who caused the latest financial meltdown. Factoring in the taxpayers only counts for bailing out the criminals, not bailing out the system the crooks abused in order to flush the economy down the toilet.
Krugman goes on to caution:
According to late reports on Sunday, JPMorgan Chase will buy Bear [Stearns] for a pittance. That's an O.K. resolution for this case - but not a model for the much bigger bailout to come. Looking ahead, we probably need something similar to the Resolution Trust Corporation, which took over bankrupt savings and loan institutions and sold off their assets to reimburse taxpayers. And we need it quickly: things are falling apart as you read this.
He's right, of course. Bailing out Bear Stearns might be the smart thing to do as an individual case; for better or worse, that bank is large enough that its failure could -- as Krugman suggests -- hasten the market panic that would make the Depression we now suffer (the one OpEdNews.com contributor Michael Fox wrote had begun back in November) official. But if it's used simply as a model for bailing out the rest of the Wall Street rip-off artists, then we taxpayers shall have been forced yet again to foot the bill for the irresponsibility of Wall Street. It's like a mugging victim being told by a jury that the thug who robbed him wasted the cash on booze and women, so now the victim has to reimburse the thief.
If the Democratic nominee somehow manages to survive the general election in November and become president, he (or she) could do a lot worse than to ask for Bernanke's resignation as Fed chairman, and offer the job to Professor Krugman.
I never thought I'd see the day, but David Brooks just made a point that made me slap my head and wonder why it didn't occur to me before. I dunno how he did it.
And Americans are not going to want to see this stopped. When an African-American man is leading a juggernaut to the White House, do you want to be the one to stand up and say No?
I don't see that many will. I don't see how they can. I thought the story from here was going to be "How will Obama blow it?" But what I see coming is different, after reading those words. The good story, and the only one nearly anyone can get away with, is the coronation of an American legend-to-be. And if that is true, then the Obama campaign we've all maligned is actually a work of brilliance. Because he hasn't said anything that can really offend anyone. Who wants to speak out against hope, against unity, against healing divides, much less to do so against a candidate whose very candidacy is a testament to the kind of progress this nation has made?
Indeed, is this displayed in any way better than by the pathetic nature of Paul Krugman's swipe at Obama in his column today? (As an aside, I am taking great satisfaction in watching Krugman's unraveling as a columnist, which is clearly a result of the loss of his dispassionate eye for the truth as an economist which got him the gig in the first place.) How, after today, can you possibly see anyone truly getting away with going after Barack Obama as "shallow"? If he is shallow, then the entire American mythos is shallow (which may well be true, but not something anyone in politics can sell).
It is a dirty game, and I have no doubt that Sen. Clinton can play it as well as anyone. But I'm having a hard time seeing how she can take Obama down.
(With the caveat that while all of this is somewhat interesting, I still don't believe it particularly matters.)
In the 1950's, my Dad was the head counselor at a summer camp in in Pennsylvania. About 10 years ago, I ran into a friend who had gone to the camp. After reminiscing for a few minutes, I asked him if he would like me to give his regards to my father. His answer:
"Don't give him my regards." He paused. "Give him my respect."
The comment captured his larger-than-life presence for generations of kids at summer camps and at the schools where he was a teacher and principal.
My Dad died on October 24 at the age of 91. He was a quintessential member of the "Greatest Generation." Born in 1916 to immigrant parents, he made it through the Depression, went to City College, served in W.W. II, took advantage of the G.I. Bill, raised a war baby (my big brother) and a boomer (me), moved to an "urban suburb" (Rockaway Beach, NY), worked two jobs -- teacher and principal; and camp counselor and director.
Also, between 1973 and last month, he tenaciously and courageously fought his way through several heart attacks, a couple of "mini-strokes," two multiple bypass surgeries, carotid artery surgery, gall bladder surgery (with complications), knee surgery and loss of most of his sight and hearing. But another heart attack on January 1, 2007 began a series of events that even he could not withstand.
In the Emergency Room that night, the doctor asked a series of questions to test his cognitive functions: He aced "What's your name?" and "What's your wife's name?" Then the doctor asked "Who's the President?"
His reply: "We have a President?"
We knew then that his mental functioning was fine.
But is this new emphasis on equal labor and environmental standards really about anything but protectionism? Is there really an expectation of that countries like Peru, Mexico and the Central American countries (not to mention China and India) will meet US labor and environmental standards? the irony is of course that this would be a form of erstwhile globalization - an attempt to impost US standards on the Thrid World - if it were sincere. It is not. It is just a new way of defending an old idea - protectionism.
I think the evidence of this is obvious - in no other context do we see a drive for higher labor and environmental standards in the Third World. Consider the issue of climate change:
. . . George Bush pulled the US out of the Kyoto treaty, which requires 36 industrial nations to cut greenhouse emissions by at least 5 per cent from 1990 levels by 2012. The US president says Kyoto unfairly burdens rich countries while exempting developing ones such as China and India.
Developing nations say rich states built up their economies without emissions restraints and argue that less-developed countries should have the same opportunity to establish their economies now.
But as emissions from places such as China and India grow, environmentalists say action by the developed world alone will not be enough to stop the warming trend.
Does anyone think George Bush shares the concern of environmentalists on this? Or is it an excuse? And does anyone really think Mexico, Peru and the Central American countries are comparable to China and India on this? Of course not. This is pretext for protextionism.
Today Bob Herbert takes his whack at the "Ronald Reagan didn't use racist tactics" piñata. He scores a direct hit:
To see Reagan's appearance at the Neshoba County Fair in its proper context, it has to be placed between the murders of the civil rights workers that preceded it and the acknowledgment by the Republican strategist Lee Atwater that the use of code words like "states' rights" in place of blatantly bigoted rhetoric was crucial to the success of the G.O.P.'s Southern strategy. That acknowledgment came in the very first year of the Reagan presidency.
Ronald Reagan was an absolute master at the use of symbolism. It was one of the primary keys to his political success.
The suggestion that the Gipper didn't know exactly what message he was telegraphing in Neshoba County in 1980 is woefully wrong-headed. Wishful thinking would be the kindest way to characterize it.
Reform Immigration -
March on Washington
