Everyone, not everyone everyone but close enough, seems rather blasé about the real probability that we will blow through the debt limit before Republicans get their shit together. In fact the debt limit seems like a worst case scenario for Republicans getting their shit together. This will not be a nice quiet government shutdown. Lots of things will stop working right away, markets will go to shit and international investors will lose a lot of confidence in the United States. And you know, we have become the last safe backstop for global investing at least since the ’08 recession*. All that makes it a poor occasion to explain basic economics and civics to people who sincerely don’t care if everything burns down.
I expected at least a little more conflict within the GOP about this. The debt limit represents perhaps an ultimate showdown between Chamber of Commerce types who fund the Republican party and FOX zombies who staff it and show up to vote. Setting aside the Koch brothers, because who knows what those guys want, most GOP superdonors prefer a functioning US economy to whatever crazy demands the Freedom Caucus thinks up this week. You have two joke candidates running away with the GOP Presidential field and what amounts to a bunch of suicide bombers in Congress practically salivating at their chance to blow everything up.** Now would be a great time for the GOP’s donor class to stage an intervention or, failing that, gently encourage (more) moderate Republicans to form their own non-crazy conservative party to ensure the basic functions of government happen on time.
Or they could all go skipping hand-in-hand over the cliff. Whatevs.
(*) Always worth pointing out, Glenn Reynolds remains one of the dumbest fucking people on the planet.
(**) Ten bucks says they do not even agree on a demands list before the debt limit deadline expires.
MattF
The minimum demands are (apparently) defund Planned Parenthood and repeal Obamacare. The ‘Impeach Hillary’ crowd is disappointed.
Mudge
Tom Hilton has fears that the tactic is to crash the economy on purpose. This allows the rubes to forget that the Republicans did it and to blame Democrats for the bad economy next fall.
Haven’t done exhaustive research, but I have not noticed any of the Republican candidates mentioning the debt ceiling.
Punchy
These people want….crave….gov’t disfunction. It’s the basis for how they get elected.
ETA: or what Tim F. said, because I didn’t read the 2nd paragraph
Just Some Fuckhead
Conservatives are like stupid children. They need to personally feel pain before they understand the fire is hot.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Mudge: They asked Ben Carson about it and he was clueless, having no way to compare it to slavery.
Keith G
I suspect that we will get through this at the last minute with minimal damage, but I would not be surprised or devastated is this pooch gets a bit screwed.
Our political reality is at a place where we are going to be largely dysfunctional for quite some time. So we will be dealing with this and similar “crises” for years to come.
If elected, HRC might be able to avoid some of the worst of it, but like her “predissessor”, she is a manager and not a revolutionary. Thus, our political dysfunctions may well have to burn themselves out naturally.
Luckily, I manage a patisserie, so as long as my neighborhood can afford coffee and lemon tarts, I will be able to pay my bills.
Mudge
@Just Some Fuckhead: I remember that he was asked. I do not remember Carson giving a comprehensible answer.
Mudge
@Keith G: Well, yes, coffee http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2015/may/01/coffee-catastrophe-beckons-as-climate-change-threatens-arabica-plant and lemons http://www.agweb.com/article/lemon-lovers-get-bitter-shock-on-california-drought/.
Tim F.
@Mudge: Steve Inskeep asked him about the debt limit five different times. Carson showed absolutely zero sign that he knows what it is.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Tim F.: In fairness to Carson, Inskeep never asked him how the debt limit is just like slavery. He would have nailed that one.
Docg
The Freedom Caucus is promoting sedition (by common definition) in their attempts to destroy the government financially in order to remake it with their template. I am not an attorney, so is that still illegal?
bystander
This week, the rwns will be regrouping after last week’s rout. They may be planning to ignore the debt limit issue just because they can and suffer no visible detriment.
MomSense
@Just Some Fuckhead:
Did you see his MTP interview? Even my kid was looking at the tv screen like WTF how is allowing women to make choices about their own bodies like slavery?
SFAW
@Docg:
Repeat after me: “IOKIYAR”
Take two of those, and throw down a half-bottle of cheap Scotch in about two minutes. It won’t make things any better, but you won’t care because you’ll either be completely shit-faced, or puking your guts out.
Note: just be careful not to put yourself into a coma, of course.
SFAW
@bystander:
Oh, come on! Chuck Todd will be holding their collective feet to the fire, he would NEVER let them get away with that.
Bobby Thomson
I brought this up at least a week ago and a resident sociopath said, “yeah, freak the fuck out.”
ArchTeryx
@bystander: You mean just fiddle away while the world burns?
Cruz and his band of merry vandals tried that trick in 2011. Didn’t work then, and even less likely to work now. The vandals and rubes that are the Republican primary electorate may want to watch the world burn,but the rest of the 73% don’t.
Just Some Fuckhead
@MomSense: Reductive logic, also known as conservative low-effort thinking. Abortion=bad, Slavery=bad, Abortion=Slavery.
Bobby Thomson
@Tim F.: I’m not confident that most Fortune 500 CEOs know what it is. That’s why we’re fucked.
Ryan
Freedum Caucus.
FIFY
Docg
@SFAW: Ok, you are right.
Bobby Thomson
@ArchTeryx: worked just fine in 2013. They threw the brakes on the recovery and reaped the rewards in 2014. It’ll work again. Voters are stupid.
Matt McIrvin
@Keith G: They could eat brioche!
SFAW
@Tim F.:
I heard that part of the interview. By the end, it sounded like Inskeep wanted to pull a Chris Tucker on him: “DO-YOU-UNDERSTAND-THE-WORDS-THAT-ARE-COMING-OUT-OF-MY-MOUTH?”
He’s a fucking moron, except perhaps as a pedi neuro surgeon.
revrick
If the debt ceiling is not raised by midnight November 4th, we will have proof positive about all the things Corey Robin asserted in The Reactionary Mind. The Republicans will reveal themselves as those who are so eager to restore the ancien regime (even if it’s only their imagined version) that they will blow up the world to achieve those ends.
Now what do we call those who are eager to make others suffer to get what they want? Psychopaths?
gene108
Considering the people, who vote believe Fox News is turning into a liberal media outlet, we are doomed.
I am not sure how to communicate with a public that considers conspiracy theories real and reality a false flag operation.
And those that have some connection to reality are so dejected they are not going to vote as they have no hope positive change is possible.
Matt McIrvin
Ben Carson doesn’t have to know what the debt limit is. He’s running for President. If any Republican gets elected President in 2016, Congress will go back to automatically raising the debt limit, since they’ll have no hostages to take. Deficit-hawk panic will mostly disappear, as long as taxes get cut.
gene108
@Bobby Thomson:
Worked in 2010 as well, as the economy was bad, unemployment high and the new voters that drove the 2008 Democrativ wave got discouraged and stayed home.
Would’ve worked in 2012 too, but Dems got lucky with candidates like Akin in MO.
Richard Mayhew
Destructive but not crazy regarding the Freedumb caucus:
The incentive is for the House Freedumb Caucus is to push for default.
Keith G
@Mudge: I am working on a white “chocolate” blue berry muffin recipe. It’s a bit more pedestrian that the tarts, but it’s gonna be gooooood.
Jado
@revrick:
Republicans.
They care nothing for this world, for their reward is in the next world.
So they’re very much like Super Mario and the Princess in the castle in that respect. And Republicans and the video game electronic avatar Super Mario have a similar amount of free will and intellectual curiosity
Tim F.
@Richard Mayhew: I get that part, what baffles me is why the Chamber of Commerce would follow them over that cliff. Wall Street’s margins are the first thing to go up in smoke when default happens and Republicans have a harder time with bailouts than Democrats do. Even if it works it empowers Freedom Caucus types who have a lot less interest in the GOP’s traditional rich people service in favor of dessert-all-the-time frenzied culture war insanity. There is very little upside for the business class in this.
Mike J
You would have thought that when GE said they were moving thousands of jobs to France because of the exim bank it might have gotten the attention of a few people.
Gex
@Tim F.: The white working class has been adamant in hurting themselves with policies they believe hurt black people more. Perhaps what we are now seeing is that the same is true for the white executive and ownership class.
Matt McIrvin
@Tim F.: The very rich do just fine when the economy collapses; sure, they lose a lot of money on paper, but their power over other people increases, because of the armies of the desperate grabbing for the cash they do have. It’s when you can get good help. They may actually want it to happen.
I suppose a currency collapse and hyperinflation would be worse for them, which is why they’re so scared of that, but if they can anticipate it they can park their holdings somewhere more stable.
Chris
@gene108:
Yep.
The elephant in the room is that the ultimate problem with that party isn’t the politicians, or the pundits, or the lobbyists, or the financiers – it’s the voters.
Patricia Kayden
@Just Some Fuckhead: LOL!! What are you trying to imply about the nice Doctor?
Tenar Darell
@Tim F.: I think the Chamber of Commerce types have been trained by years and years of bad information to NOT understand the disaster that would happen.
Perhaps the savviest are back stopped by immense wealth and think they can use the crisis they’re manufacturing to better their positions. The most self-conscious ones are, maybe, trying to run the Shock Doctrine on the U.S. economy. They don’t think about the vast majority of people they’ll be hurting because all they have been taught is vulture capitalism. There is no empathy in their hearts for the damage they cause anymore.
cmorenc
@SFAW:
Chuck Todd WOULD dutifully would, as a scrupulously professional cable news journalist, hold candidate’s feet to the fire over irresponsible, counter-factual, or demagogic statements – IF doing so would feed the horse-race narrative of election or political coverage – and only to the extent the questioning did so. As to actual policy and real-world implications – hahehehohohaha!
Tim F.
@Matt McIrvin:
I can see a small flaw in that plan. When the US economy catches a cold the rest of the world falls down a staircase and out a window.
SFAW
@cmorenc:
I don’t think he’d do it, even when it it would relate to the horse-race aspect.
Of course, your horse-race comment inherently contradicts the “scrupulously professional” comment – but maybe that was your point. (Irony – how do it work?)
Chris
@Tenar Darell:
To the extent that they even try to rationalize their behavior as anything higher than greed or cruelty, I think the Chamber Of Commerce types’ belief is that what’s best for them is what’s best for everyone else. Or at least, least bad. Sure, they still make mistakes, but anyone else would be making even more mistakes, because they wouldn’t be as smart and talented. After all, if they were, they’d be in the Chamber Of Commerce too.
“So, yeah, okay, we fucked up. What, you think YOU’D be any better at this? Of course you’re not! If you were, you’d be up here with us!”
It’s circular and obviously faulty reasoning, but we’re not talking about deep thinking here, just hopping on the first rationalization you can come up with that’ll justify your doing what you want to do anyway.
SFAW
@Tim F.:
Not in five years it won’t, Meiguoren.
Paul in KY
@Keith G: ‘lemon tarts’ sounds pretty high falutin. Maybe y’all ought to offer bark tarts? Would be cheaper than yer fancy-schmancy ‘lemon’ ones.
Elizabelle
@Mudge: If that’s the case, find someone who’s said that, and hammer the whole party with “you’re trying to crash the economy to give Republicans an advantage.”
After Benghazi and Planned Parenthood and all the stupidity on the GOP side, plus the “Freedom Caucus” blowing up House leadership, it’s believable.
Might be a way to take the glow off that economic genius, Paul Ryan, too.
Although, John Boehner is not going to let this happen, is he? (Again, commenting before I’ve read anyone’s comments upthread….)
Paul in KY
@revrick: Traitors, IMO.
Matt McIrvin
@Elizabelle: The Republican who can win in that situation is Trump, because he can beat the Democrats to it. “Those crazy House Republicans crashed the economy on purpose, and the feeble Democrats just let them do it! They can’t negotiate their way out of a paper bag! If I were in control, you wouldn’t see any of that happening…”
Paul in KY
@Elizabelle: I think it would be the truth!
jayackroyd
I was talking with Joan McCarter at VS last night, and she was speculating that Boehner may well have lined something up that can be passed during the last couple of days of his term. They only need about 40-50 votes from the GOP to add to Dem votes. Cantor’s experience will frighten most of them, of course. But they don’t need many.
And then comes the first of several continuing resolution votes–government shutdowns to come.
boatboy_srq
@Mudge: Isn’t that the usual condition on contemplating one of Carson’s “answers” to any question?
SinnedBackwards
It is a remarkable datum that the investor class is not in panic mode.
I suspect many of them hold one, or both, of two expectations.
First, that Boner can deliver. He didn’t get to be Speaker by not being able to count. Very contentious issues historically have had very close votes in the House. That’s because the Speaker knows almost exactly how many votes are needed and allows more vulnerable, but still reliable reps off the hook once the needed votes are there. Compare Lend-Lease, Clinton’s tax plan, ACA, Cap & Trade, previous debt ceiling increase.
Second, that super-prez will step in if Boner screws it or just gives up. This has been a game of chicken. Obama can solemnly announce he’s not going to let the “full faith and credit” etc be destroyed by a pack of simpering hyenas. This flips the tables on the “crash the economy and rake in the rubes” yahoos by reducing the likelihood of an immediate crash and daring them to impeach him. An impeachment two years ago would have been a mess; now it is likely to stir up our part-time voters and, when it inevitably fails, frustrate theirs.
Whether or not these are accurate expectations, the crowd wisdom of the investor class needs some explanation.
J R in WV
That Glenn Reynolds link is great. The list is best read bottom up, as it’s organized by date from newest first.
[ link = http://pjmedia.com/instapundit/?s=dude+where%27s+my+recession ]
He says over and over back in 2008 that there isn’t a recession. Say what?
Then in 2011 he says over and over that there is no recovery from the recession that didn’t exist.
It is to laugh, and never regard Professor Reynolds as an authority on anything whatsoever again, as if I ever did!
But funny, which is a good thing today.
Paul in KY
@J R in WV: Never let the truth of yesterday get in the way of today’s lie.
Tim F.
@jayackroyd: Thanks Jay. I am inclined to believe that Boehner’s got this. On top of that you have to imagine that a lot of Republicans are getting sick of Freedom Caucus BS by now.
Buuuut…I can’t shake the foreboding. Maybe it is just the way that we keep getting closer every time. And the leadership vacuum. Boehner might have few fucks left to give but he also has near zero leverage over members who don’t want to listen to him. And you know that every right wing media outlet will be going balls to the wall about this. Whichever Republican blinks on this will have the unhappiest phone volunteers on the planet for a month at least. Hope you’re right.
dr. bloor
@Keith G:
This is the most curious statement about an economic crash that I’ve ever heard from someone in the restaurant business. When money gets tight, you guys are the first up against the wall in personal budgeting cuts.
RaflW
@SinnedBackwards: The investor class, and I am adjacent to such, are just as stupid, tribal, and prone to last-minute stampede as the rest of society. They just have more money.
Do not fall for the myth that the market has already “priced in” the risk of a GOP debt disaster. I don’t believe it for a minute. I just hope I have some cash on hand to buy up bargains on the market if the panic sets in.
Ghost of Joe Liebling's Dog
@SFAW: Hard to imagine anyone dim enough to be A Frustration for Steve Inskeep, who has worked so hard for so long to raise mediocrity to the level of an art. I don’t actually remember his ever trying to commit journalism before, but it almost sounds like this one time he did.
Maybe these really are the days of miracle and wonder.
SinnedBackwards
@RaflW:
Fair observation. I also like the Hemingway riff.
No belief here that the psychological reality of a default – whatever that amounts to in real money – has yet been priced in. That there has not yet been the stampede suggests to me that a great belief in Boner’s or Obama’s magic trick hat is still pervasive.
JaneE
The GOP has no problem with not paying our bills. Economic crisis just before an election? No way would they do anything to prevent that. The billionaires know they will get their cash, and everyone else doesn’t count.
Elie
@Tim F.:
Kai Rysdall also on NPR… you could almost hear Kai’s incredulity — asked Carson “you know what that is?” or something like that — a couple of times.
Carson is a narcissist who has no respect for anything but himself. He is literally making it up as he goes along — like Whatever!
Elie
@JaneE:
I am convinced that some not insignificant percentage of the GOP in the House may not really understand how our economic system actually works — what is a “debt ceiling” and why is this important? Why do we want to raise the debt ceiling or not and what will happen? What does that matter to me? From listening to a couple of interviews with these clowns, I am not convinced that they get much other than their ideology.
Goblue72
We’ve had these crises of governance in our nation’s history before. The entire period in the mid-19th century running up to the Civil War bring the most obvious. Today’s GOP is a combo Whig + Know Nothing Party. No telling what happens. Last time around, the meltdown resulted in the creation of the modern Republican Party…and a civil war.