Check the news, discover that the GOP is now pressuring the Fed to do nothing so that the economy still sucks for the election next year. Will the media notice?
Country first, bitches.
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Come for the politics, stay for the snark.
Republicans seem to think life begins at the candlelight dinner the night before.
Our job is not to persuade republicans but to defeat them.
… pundit janitors mopping up after the GOP
Putting aside our relentless self-interest because the moral imperative is crystal clear.
Come on, media. you have one job. start doing it.
Second rate reporter says what?
Republicans are the party of chaos and catastrophe.
Not so fun when the rabbit gets the gun, is it?
Only Democrats have agency, apparently.
Usually wrong but never in doubt
Jesus, Mary, & Joseph how is that election even close?
Just because you believe it, that doesn’t make it true.
The revolution will be supervised.
I see no possible difficulties whatsoever with this fool-proof plan.
I did not have this on my fuck 2022 bingo card.
Shallow, uninformed, and lacking identity
I’d hate to be the candidate who lost to this guy.
I was promised a recession.
Accused of treason; bitches about the ratings. I am in awe.
Whatever happens next week, the fight doesn’t end.
Too often we confuse noise with substance. too often we confuse setbacks with defeat.
rich, arrogant assholes who equate luck with genius
Imperialist aggressors must be defeated, or the whole world loses.
… riddled with inexplicable and elementary errors of law and fact
Napoleon
If we had a functioning press this would take up the entire 22 minutes in the evening news and the whole front page of every paper in the nation.
But of course we do not.
singfoom
Yeah, if we didn’t have a media that bent over backwards to provide cover for their BS narrative, it’d be all over the news.
But remember, the economy is for JOB CREATORS. Normal people who just, you know, competently work their jobs, pay their taxes and try to make good financial decisions and save for retirement/house/kids college etc?
Those people (myself included) are just rubes in the giant carny show that is our financial ca$ino economy.
Good times!
Yutsano
U funnee!!
singfoom
Yeah, if we didn’t have a media that bent over backwards to provide cover for their BS narrative, it’d be all over the news.
But remember, the economy is for JOB CREATORS. Normal people who just, you know, competently work their jobs, pay their taxes and try to make good financial decisions and save for retirement/house/kids college etc?
Those people (myself included) are just rubes in the giant carny show that is our financial cas$hino economy.
Good times!
burnspbesq
It’s too early for rhetorical questions. The drinking lamp isn’t lit.
James K. Polk, Esq.
Just curious: Doesn’t gimping the Fed “hurt job creators”?
kindness
The MSM will mention it buried deep in a story. And then they’ll bring on 3 different Teabaggers to refute reality and proclaim eternal truth and victory for the Teahaddists.
General Stuck
They even freaked out Dave Frum with the audacity factor. It looks like they are so confident of the voters ditching Obama in 012, there isn’t any effort or inhibition for acting like partisan rogues.
They are even politicizing disaster relief and forcing another hostage taking showdown to shut the government down. When they block funding for running the WH, I figure it’s about time to service the muskets.
gene108
What’s there to notice?
The GOP believes the free market should be left to unleash its power and revive the economy, without government interference…unless the government wants to butt in and cut taxes, slash regulations, and wipe out the social safety net for the non-independently wealthy…
Also, too INFLATION! When the Fed prints money, we’ll be hit with a new round of hyper-inflation.
The GOP is being perfectly reasonable. For them.
I think the media really has nothing to report, on this single issue.
Of course the bigger issue is the fact the GOP really is willing to have millions of Americans unemployed, because it helps their election chances.
Since that’s totally ignored, why bother on these trifling details.
Shinobi
I was talking to my massage therapist about politics last night. He said he’d tried to show some interest in politics, watched about 10 minutes of “meet the press” and then gave up forever.
Perhaps the media’s plan is to be so obnoxious it becomes too much work to stay informed.
BGinCHI
GOP: Drunk, abusive father
MSM: Wife who tells the kids and neighbors that it’s not his fault, that he’s a good man, that they all have to be quiet and careful around him, do what he says
That’s our national drama right now.
Tom Hilton
@General Stuck: I was going to post the Frum link. I’ve seen him appalled at the Republicans before, but never this freaked out about what they’re doing.
Scott
Will the Bobbleheads Notice?
(howls of derisive laughter)
JPL
John, Can you say with 110 percent certainty that the current president did not use the bully pulpit to pressure the fed to act? See both sides do it.
also, too iokiyar
singfoom
Perhaps OT, but I just thought about this.
Coffee is for closers.
Prosperity is for job creators.
That’s all they’ve got at this point.
John PM
Saw this story on the Chicago Tribune website just a few minutes ago. I am angry and depressed at the same time at the state of our politics because of the Republican Party. I hate them with the passion of a thousand burning suns.
Shinobi
@BGinCHI:
Dems: Neighbor who really wants to help but just doesn’t know how.
Tom Hilton
@Shinobi: No snark: that’s absolutely the GOP plan. That’s also why the President is so careful not to come off as a Meet-the-Press type partisan rage junky.
Culture of Truth
Gee, I dunno….
BGinCHI
@Shinobi:
Dems: Neighbor who really wants to help but just doesn’t know how, goes back to writing sci-fi novel about a dystopia that has a happy ending.
burnspbesq
@gene108:
Which is the most bizarre part of this. As Frum astutely notes in the piece Stuck linked to, Republicans are also suffering in this economic crisis. And yet they seem positively giddy about voting against their economic self-interest. WTF is up with that?
Brachiator
@Napoleon:
Don’t think so. If the media tried to devote the entire evening news to complex economic policy stories, 90 per cent of viewers would be afraid that their heads would explode, McCardle style, and would immediately switch over to Dancing with the Access X Factor Entertainment Hollywood Now to see how many viewers watched the premiere of Two and a Half Men.
Of the remainder, 5 percent would be hard core GOP goons who would watch the story and say, “Didn’t Gov Perry say that this Bernanke fellow is a traitor? And aint the Fed underconstitutional anyway?”
And the last 5 percent would be hard core progressive loons who would watch the story and say, “Didn’t you read in The Nation that this Bernanke fellow is a Wall Street Stooge? And besides, don’t the White House hate women, told ya we should have voted for Hillary.”
wrb
@James K. Polk, Esq.:
Short term.
I’ve become convinced they are going for the big win.
Owning the Supreme Court, wiping out the New Deal, Great Society, Environmental regulation and taxes on the wealthy.
The end of history.
BGinCHI
@burnspbesq:
Without this phenomenon, the GOP would be a marginal party, vying with the Greens for 2nd-party status. It would just be 15 or 20 % of the electorate, rich, white, and old.
Poopyman
@BGinCHI: @Shinobi: I dunno. I always saw the Dems as the abused spouse tiptoeing around the abuser trying to appease when they can. And the MSM is the next door neighbor who doesn’t want to get involved and pretends not to hear. Or perhaps the MSM is just a drinking buddy who doesn’t get it.
Rob
Remember the big fuss when someone said or implied back in the day that they hoped the Iraq surge failed – that was treasonous, we heard. Now Republicans are publicly praying that we have 10% unemployment through 2012.
Guster
@burnspbesq: They think that the country is being usurped by a dangerous, alien, radical movement (yay projection!) and they’re willing to suffer just about anything to remove Stalin/Mao/Dahmer from office. It’s actually quite selfless of them, except for the part about ruining the country and all.
Short Bus Bully
@BGinCHI:
Yeah, that’s a perfectly apt description.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
Why do the Boobleheads still have jobs? With every other sector of the economy shrinking, why aren’t pundits being laid off en-mass just like everybody else? Where is the money coming from to still pay their salaries?
SenyorDave
When I saw that the GOP actually sent a letter to Bernanke and there was no outcry about this, i realized this is the tipping point. Obama will lose badly in 2012 barring a miracle. The media in this country no longer exists. Netflix is a bigger story than the Republican party intentionally trying to harm the country. Not to mention them politicizing the Federal Reserve. McConnell, Cantor, et. al. are no better than traitors.
And David Brooks thinks Obama is playing politics. Brooks should get a festering sore that won’t go away.
When David Frum has to be one of the adults in the room, its time to worry.
Judas Escargot
Again: the GOP has now utterly committed to being an insurrectionist party, with zero interest in the good of the country as a whole, or the citizens they claim to serve. And now that they’ve committed to this as their ‘brand’, they can’t turn back.
The US will not be governable until there is no more Republican party.
cleek
the cartoonist who drew the cartoon on Anne Laurie’s Tuesday Night Open Thread noticed.
but that’s probably all we’ll get.
Montysano
@burnspbesq:
Sow the seeds of chaos, whip the rubes into a lather, then hope that you don’t end up in the tumbrel with The Other? IOW….. fuck if I know.
Napoleon
@wrb:
I beleive that you are correct, I just hope we never find out if you are.
Judas Escargot
@burnspbesq:
I realize it’s a little facile to compare GOP voters to caterpillars, but I can’t help but be reminded of this.
kdaug
1). The Fed should have the balls (they certainly have the right) to kindly tell the Republicans to fuck off.
and 2). The Fed should remember their dual mandate: stable prices and maximum employment. They seem to focus on 2a much more often than 2b
SenyorDave
Shorter GOP: Do whatever you think needs to be done to get that ni**er out of the White House.
A Mom Anon
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ: Ever been watching the “news” and see commericals for Boeing or Lockheed? I don’t know about you,but at my house I don’t have a single thing made by either of those companies. I don’t recall going into Target or the mall and finding anything they make either. And yet,there they are on the teevee advertising. Hmm.
And then there’s pharmacutical commericals. Now,I am not a doctor,so I can’t exactly prescribe any of those meds for anyone,so WTF is the need for that? If I need meds or have an issue,that’s kinda what my doctor is for. I generally would rather take medical advice from a doc,not a tv commerical. So why is it on the tv so often?
These asshats get paid by mega corporations that own and/or advertise on various media outlets. The news has been cancelled and replaced by the tv equivalent of People Magazine. Yay Us.
cleek
@burnspbesq:
the GOP has taught them to believe that this is Obama’s economy.
lo-info voters will be the death of us all.
Alex S.
They know that if they give Obama the little finger he’ll reach for the whole hand. Conservatism is so intellectually bankrupt that even a tiny victory for Obama makes their house of cards collapse.
Short Bus Bully
@Judas Escargot:
I think that you are correct. The GOP is now more than ever nothing more than neo-confederate secessionists.
The revolution will be televized, on Fox News with Larry Kudlow explaining how the dropping of all taxes for those making over $500k a year is the only thing which can save our country.
And that story will be BOUGHT.
Michael Finn
This letter, while interesting in that it reveals that the GOP thinks it can push the Fed around (they won’t), Bernake is out of ammo any ways. There just isn’t any demand for the expanded currency. He has the bank’s rate at 0.25% for the banks to park their cash, took on an additional 1*10^12 bucks in bad mortgeges.
Yutsano
@burnspbesq:
Because their Tribe tells them to. They’ve been told that voting Republican is an essential point of membership in the Tribe. To do anything that varies from that point would violate the unity of the Tribe.
Elie
@A Mom Anon:
I believe that in the 60’s, there was a deliberate move to change to a consumer driven economy which then spilled into a consumer driven political system. We no longer support or enhance, through education and work/life balance, the role of the citizen. The citizen, the actively engaged and informed driver of the public good and balanced governance, has been made to virtually disappear. Access to information and to directing the electoral process has been squeezed as citizens now have to work longer, harder and have huge income inequality and little free time. We are only “free” to consume and to listen to the drivel put out to placate our needs to direct our own future.
trollhattan
As a special public service, if you have any HP stock…SELL!
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/22/technology/hewlett-packard-board-meets-on-replacing-ceo.html?hp
Shorter HP: We liked Fiorina so much we want us some Megs time.
kdaug
@Michael Finn: As medium- and long-term securities mature over the next months/years they can start buying short-term securities instead, moving the rest of the market into medium and long (if I understand correctly.)
FlipYrWhig
@burnspbesq:
Instead of voting to help themselves, they’d rather vote to spite people worse off than them — to keep them that way.
Linda
Well, Marketwatch noticed. So did the LA Times. UPI did a mind-blowing headline: Republicans Tell Federal Reserve to Sit On Its Hands. Apparently, they got their balls out of escrow.
The cognative dissonance–believing that everybody in a nice suit is a benevolent patriot, and putting the good of their country first, as opposed to the evidence in front of our eyes–is tough to process in the popular mind. Conventional wisdom is like a battleship; once steered, it’s hard to turn. But I sense that it’s turning.
Montysano
@Elie:
Amen to that. Our son sent me this great quote from Chuck Palahniuk:
FlipYrWhig
@Elie: Excellent point about citizenship — public spirit, really, in the sense of caring deeply about the common good. Very little of such talk these days. Bill Moyers has often sounded off about it, IIRC.
Kola Noscopy
@SenyorDave:
So where is the Dem outcry over this? You have to CREATE outcry? Where’s the PR expertise? Why not have Obama call a special press conference for this evening, just a short one, to call out the Repubs on what they’ve done and to explain exactly why and how they are nihilist assholes, followed up by an organized Dem media blitz placing their reps on every fucking outlet available? They’re just so fucking passive it drives me crazy.
Elie
@FlipYrWhig:
The impact has been profound.
You know what, though? I think people long for it — and miss it. They are just so strapped economically and isolated socially (no time, work all the time and big commutes). People want something different and I think that they are moving in that direction…slowly.
Kola Noscopy
@Poopyman:
Which is why we need to elect MORE AND BETTER DEMOCRATS!
RareSanity
@burnspbesq:
The GOP has managed to put together an unholy alliance of rationalization. It’s really evil genius at work. They have managed to package together, every single group of people, that cannot see past their fanatical beliefs.
Whether it concerns religion, race, sexual orientation, New World Order anarchy, xenophobia or “the free market”, everyone on that group, has committed themselves to at least one of those ideals as one that overrides anything else.
Give you an example. The area in the Atlanta suburb I used to live in, has a “buy here, pay here” car lot, called Dixie Auto Sales. All over the property are large versions of the old Georgia state flag, the one with the star and bars. Me being a black man, I drove by that place everyday and thought, “I would never, ever, buy a car from that lot”. I’m sure that this thought crosses not only black people’s mind. So this idiot, in trying to show that he is a proud “Son of the South”, is significantly reducing the pool of people that would even consider doing business with him. It’s just dumb…The lot has been there for awhile, and this was probably fine in the 80s and 90s. But, now, the area has seen tremendous growth and an influx of people not from the south, with money. There are other car lots on the same street that are flourishing due to the growth.
But there he still sits, on a gravel piece of land, with the same dilapidated house that he turned into an office, flags now showing their age, ripped and discolored. But, instead of reevaluating his business, he would rather struggle with his “principles”, than benefit with some mental growth.
This is the kind of person that powers the GOP.
Tractarian
The irony is that this should make the Fed more amenable to economy-boosting monetary stimulus.
The FOMC now has two choices:
A. Decline to do more stimulus, even if it means the economy will continue to suffer and the Fed-hating GOP will likely assume total control of the government in 2013;
OR
B. Stimulate the sh*t of the the economy, thereby making it less likely that the Fed-hating GOP takes total control in 2013.
If you were a FOMC member who values your job, which would you choose?
Samara Morgan
why dont you frontpage more glibertarians like Kain and de Bore?
im sure that will help.
:)
Brachiator
The Republicans have successfully convinced a segment of the public that the federal government is an alien, malignant, parasitic entity whose existence threatens the well being of “ordinary people,” and is controlled by an unpatriotic cabal that seeks to steal money from Real Americans(tm) and funnel it to unworthy, shiftless illegal immigrants and minorities.
goblue72
The Sociopath Party is seeing the polls indicating that a significant majority of independent voters plan to vote against Obama in 2012. They smell the bleeding edge of victory, regardless of if its Romney or Perry. The Senate is shaping up to be a bloodbath for Democrats. These terrorists know the odds are increasingly in their favor and the more they blow things up, the better it gets for them. Losing in 2008 at the front end of the Lesser Depression was the best thing that happened to the GOP.
Now they get to feed on fascism and corporate kleptocracy for the next decade. Stock up on canned goods and bullets. Civil war may be our only option. Welcome to the Terrordome.
gene108
@Judas Escargot:
It can only happen by crushing Republicans in election, after election, after election.
Triassic Sands
FDR’s success has often been attributed to his willingness to try, try, try and never stop trying. The problem (Depression) was so great that the only wrong thing to do was to sit back and let the market fix things, ala Hoover. Now, that’s what the Republicans are doing (so what’s new?).
Obama has wasted a lot of time — he doesn’t have the image of a president who has been working tirelessly to bring down unemployment. He wasted precious time trying to be the champion of austerity. But with a year to go to election day, his best hope may be to never stop proposing solutions — even though we know none of those will ever get through a Republican House. When the GOP turns down one proposal or set of proposals, Obama needs to reformulate and come right back to Congress with yet another plan. If all the Republicans do between now and November 2012 is say “NO,” they may not have much to run on. “We prevented the president from making things worse” isn’t much of a foundation on which to build a candidacy, when it’s matched against “The Republicans said “NO” to everything.”
If nothing will pass, nothing can fail — except those who refuse to try. Most of what Obama is proposing probably wouldn’t fix the economy anyway, so the GOP may be playing right into his hands by refusing to do anything. If the GOP passed Obama’s proposals and the economy still languished, then the GOP could (justifiably) say, “Look, we gave him his shot, and he struck out. Give US a chance now.” Instead, they’re going to be left with, “We refused to let Obama even try. Give us a chance NOW.”
Note: by “fix the economy” I mean dramatic, undeniable improvement — get unemployment way down, consumption way up, stocks way up, and significantly cut the rate of poverty — all by late summer next year. I don’t mean get unemployment down to 8.5%, have the stock market floundering, and nudge poverty downward by a tenth of a point or two.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@A Mom Anon:
I’ve noticed that too, that half the commercials on TV are for products and services that nobody but the top 2% could even think of having purchase influence at work regarding, much less to purchase as an individual person.
SenyorDave
@Kola Noscopy: I wondered when I saw this who among leading Democrats would call the GOP out on this. But it can’t be Obama or Biden, it should be a leading Seantor or Congressperson. Harry Reid, yeah like that will ever happen. The media no longer cares, they just have sacks of shit like Howie Kurtz saying both sides do it, and then going after the occasional Democrat who has the nerve to make a sound.
The left sure as hell doesn’t have Obama’s back on anything, when they agree with it’s always “its about time”.
The politics of hate and divisiveness will always work in a bad economy.
Gilles de Rais
@goblue72: Don’t think that wasn’t a deliberate move. They purposely threw up a ticket that couldn’t have won running against Jeffrey Dahmer.
gene108
@Kola Noscopy:
If you’ve ever seen the Will Ferrel Mark Wahlburg movie The Other Guys, I suggest you do. It is very funny.
Mark’s character has a great line about “locking you up in the Federal Reserve”, with regards to a case he and Will are working on, when they don’t get the info they want from another character.
The short of it is Mark’s character thinks the Federal Reserve is a prison.
I bet a lot of Americans would vote “prison”, if someone put up an internet poll about what the Federal Reserve is.
Outside of policy junkies like ourselves, most people don’t know and don’t care about the Fed. In other words, trying to make a Republican letter to the Fed a rallying cry is a political loser.
gene108
@Gilles de Rais:
McCain wasn’t the problem. He and Obama were tied in most polls at the end of September.
McCain picking Palin killed his chances, as the economy started to unfold. If he had a guy, who had a half-a-clue about how finance worked, like Romney, the 2008 election would’ve been a lot closer than it was.
Morbo
NPR noticed, but of course they helpfully presented it as “Republicans say earth is flat; Democrats disagree.” Except I don’t actually remember them talking to anyone who disagreed.
chopper
shock doctrine politics. for the goopers it’s a win/win. they drive the economy into a ditch, obama takes the blame and they get to break out the special gold-plated defibrillator they got at ayn rand’s estate sale.
catclub
If it is a choice between a public letter and simply having them put on the same pressure in private, with no public record. I think this way is better.
If anyone believes that Reagan did not have discussions IN PRIVATE, telling his preferences to the FED chair, enjoy your illusions.
I think people are getting upset over SOP.
Brachiator
@Triassic Sands:
The GOP has learned much since the days of FDR, and have improved on their methods. I agree that Obama has wasted time. HOWEVER, FDR had much more time (no limit on re-election). And apart from being rebuffed at efforts to pack the Supreme Court, FDR had a free hand at putting together his advisers. Obama still has nominees to various offices waiting to be confirmed, and he cannot easily dump and underperforming cabinet member (yeah, I’m talking bout you, Hilda Soliz) and get a more innovative replacement on board.
And so, the Republicans can do everything they can to block Obama, and then complain that he is not getting things done.
Kola Noscopy
@SenyorDave:
Why not?
Triassic Sands
@Morbo:
This is the great, great failing of NPR and PBS. It’s absolutely maddening and there has been no apparent effort to alter this phony “balanced” presentation in the many years it has held sway. I finally stopped watching the “News Hour” years ago, because every issue was presented as Republican says “A,” Democrat says “B,” when “A” was some fact-free, unsubstantiated presentation of GOP ideological orthodoxy, and “B” was a more or less simple statement of fact. Each was presented as equally deserving of respect and consideration. If just once they had said, “Despite all the evidence to the contrary, the Republicans today claimed…,” I would have had a stroke.
Of course, the Republicans do pose an especially difficult issue for honest news reporting that also wants to be interesting and not appear to be overly biased. Since virtually every Republican statement has to begin with “Despite all the evidence to the contrary…,” it wouldn’t be long before viewers/listeners got the idea that public broadcasters didn’t believe a word the GOP said. And we all know that no one is wrong 100% of the time. At least that may have been true before the GOP decided that total lunacy was the route to power. In a sense, this may be the GOP’s version of the Big Lie technique, only instead of the believability of any one lie depending on its being so huge it had to be true, in the case of the Republicans, they’ve simply decided that by making everything fantasy, they force fair-minded broadcasters to find a way to not preface every report with “Despite all the evidence to the contrary….” By taking this approach, the Republicans got NPR/PBS to simply take the R said “A” and D said “B” route. It is the lazy, cowardly solution to a serious problem.
Since Democrats resort to their share of fantasy and spin, PBS/NPR could easily point that out when it was the case — then it wouldn’t be a 100:0 ratio of fantasy to fact, but more like 100:25 or even 100:50. I have no problem with factcheckers calling Dems on their BS, since I don’t believe they have to resort to lies to make their case. Republicans have no choice: they have no case if they are limited to the truth.
Ruckus
@burnspbesq:
And yet they seem positively giddy about voting against their economic self-interest. WTF is up with that?
You weren’t paying attention in bible study? To suffer on earth is the ultimate key to heaven?
@BGinCHI:
Very good synopses.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@Brachiator:
Lesson #1: have your friends the Galtian geniuses crash the economy right before an election so the incoming Dem president gets stuck with all but a few months of the resulting depression, rather than doing it in the first year of a Republican administration thereby giving people 3 long years to figure it out for themselves.
The 1932 and 1936 elections might not have gone so swimmingly for FDR and the Dems if Black Thursday had happened in September 1932 rather than in October of 1929.
kdaug
@Triassic Sands:
They’re publicly-funded. They need GOP votes to survive.
Stan of the Sawgrass
I found this from the Memeorandum link John Posted:
I’m not big on Frum, but even he can’t spin this one.
Jesus, the Rethugs can’t even hang onto David Fvcking Frum.
Stan of the Sawgrass
Hmm, where did the link go? Try try again.
http://www.frumforum.com/the-gops-bernanke-letter
If it doesn’t work, it’s at FrumForum.
Ruckus
@RareSanity:
Used car salesmen… Used car salesmen!
Had to say it twice to let it sink in. IIRC at time used car salesmen were considered one of the least respectful jobs. No body liked them, what they did, what they sold, etc. But they didn’t go out of business. And that describes conservatives to a capital T. People still buy their stick, their crap, because they feel they need the product. People are used to it, if not comfortable with it. The MSM is like a 24 hr ad for a slimy car lot.
Poopyman
Fed ramps up aid to economy with $400 billion stimulus
satby
@Poopyman: Because being called “treasonous” is such a motivator.
rollSound
Well, like most Republican memes, “job creators” has just enough truth in it to confuse people. By consistently using the term in the fight to protect low tax rates for the wealthy, they want us to think
I have a healthy respect for people who build businesses that employ hundreds or thousands of people and become part of the fabric of the community and happen to make their founders wealthy. Those people, like Warren Buffett, don’t gripe about the taxes they pay. However, a large chunk of wealthy people either make money off of other people’s money (hedge fund managers) or inherited their wealth (Paris Hilton, Koch brothers) and are intent on hoarding what they didn’t really earn. When you have a plan to reward “job creation” while getting the unearned rich to kick in just their fair share, you destroy this meme.
Democrats response to “blah blah job creators blah blah” should be:
Poopyman
@satby:
That’s where my 401k is, so that’s where I saw it. Simple as that.
Tractarian
@Poopyman:
Bernanke to GOP: Suck. On. This.
…
On the other hand, here’s Matt Yglesias with a somewhat more pessimistic take.
Poopyman
@efgoldman:
Oops, sorry.
Shit! Where can I get in on action like that?
BTW, the DJIA graph on fidelity.com showed a 100 point slide between 1420 and 1440(ish), so I started looking around for a reason. That’s when I saw the article.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@rollSound:
I don’t have a link handy because this factoid comes out of a book rather than a website, but IIRC in Wealth and Democracy Kevin Phillips published some charts and graphs, with citations in the footnotes, illustrating the degree to which US corporate profits were dominated by the FIRE sector. I believe by the late 1990s the FIRE sector was pulling in on the low side of 80% of all US corporate profits (profits, not revenue). The sort of sweat of their brow businesses you are talking about dominate the other sectors of the economy (agriculture, manufacturing, non-FIRE services) and I think a lot of Americans still think of those as the prototypical business that they have in mind when the issue of corporate taxes or taxes on the wealthy are under discussion. I don’t think many Americans grasp how much financialization the US economy went thru over the last two decades, or what that means in terms of the manner in which the horded wealth of our era was obtained.
RareSanity
@Ruckus:
If they were only hurting themselves, I would say it was sad. Since they are taking the entire country with hem, it pisses me off…
Brachiator
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
I think it’s more complicated than that. The economy was wheezing and sputtering throughout the reign of Dubya, and I am sure that the Galtian geniuses would have preferred Gramps McCain and his plucky sidekick Caribou Barbie to the Obama Administration.
The GOP is so hungry for power that they appear to secretly cheer that the economy is still stuck in neutral. The thing is, even if they somehow pull out a win in 2012, there ain’t no magic trick that they will be able to pull to bring the sexy back.
I see your point, but there is absolutely no way to judge this. But I tend to think that since America and the world would still have been in an awful situation, and the Republicans had nothing to offer, that FDR would still have been the man that the country needed.
@rollSound:
I understand what you mean, but Buffet really accumulated his pile by investing in and buying businesses, not primarily in building them. For example:
A complex individual, and an atypical capitalist overlord.
Ruckus
@RareSanity:
You, me, a whole lot of others. Hopefully enough others.
I still think that boycotting advertisers is the best way to make things change but then I’m reminded by other posters (eemom I think) that a lot of advertisers are for things that I will never buy(Boeing) or things that I am unable to prescribe for myself.
I don’t get cable or over air TV (netflix here) but every once in a while I catch it. It takes about a minute to remember why I don’t miss it at all and in fact can revel in my innocence.
rollSound
@Brachiator:
Point taken, and perhaps there are better examples than Buffett, but I don’t know if Kids These Days know the stuff about Henry Ford and his ilk to which I was referring.
rikyrah
T-R-E-A-S-O-N
Odie Hugh Manatee
@burnspbesq:
Simple. You know how those death cults like to follow their leader over the cliff by drinking the koolaid?
That’s what the Republican party counts on for its voters.
Billy Rae Valentine
a key issue for right-wingers is the destruction of the FED.
to think it’s going to anger left-wing or independent people? idk, it might. but it’s already been drilled into the right-wing constituent’s head that the FED is unconstitutional and it this was true looooong before Rick Perry dissed the FED. i mean, don’t even ask a libertarian about the FED unless you want to see someone rant until their head explodes.
this latest move is not shocking at all; it’s exactly what i would expect the right-wing pols to do. now how everyone else reacts? we’ll see i guess because i don’t think anyone else has a feeling about the FED. but right-wingers? it’s just another part of BIG GOVERNMENT therefore the problem.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@efgoldman:
With a nym like efgoldman, I would expect a bit more in pay for blog responses.
Then there’s the golden parachute, stock options and so on. ;)
Brachiator
@efgoldman:
The media is more shallow than persuasive. I don’t buy the “evil media” or worse, the hand wringing “if only the media were better” stuff.
Also, people are increasingly lazy, while others love to cling to their ideological security blankets. There are fewer newspapers and media outlets in the US, but more bazillion more web sites and sources of information. And yet people keep blathering on about the failure of the mainstream media even as they depend on a freaking random tweet as their primary source of news and information.
debbie
@ rollSound:
Should be, “The vast majority of Americans don’t get paid until they perform the work they were hired to do. Why should job creators be any different? Let them create the jobs, and then receive the tax credit for having done so. Just like the rest of us.”
TenguPhule
Option C) Use the Fed to put bounties on the scalps of the Republicans.
$1 M for Boehner’s, body attached optional.
rollSound
@debbie:
I’m all for that. I was aiming for the bumper-sticker level of discourse used by the perpetrators of the “job creator” meme.
Scamp Dog
@SenyorDave:
FTFY
pattonbt
@burnspbesq: It’s their country, and they are sacrificing their own well being to get it back. And then those of who don’t want it to be their country are sufficiently chastised and ostracized they will lessen the crazy.
But until the usurper is out of the white house, the hostage crisis will continue.