So, this has kind of a coordinated feel to it, as tonight’s Democratic debate looms: Yesterday evening, Ed Rendell dropped a WaPo op-ed entitled “I like Elizabeth Warren. Too bad she’s a hypocrite.”
Rendell smarmily drags Warren for shunning high dollar donor events during the primary campaign because she did attend those type of events (including one hosted by Ed! for which he received a nice thank-you note!) when raising money for the senate and then rolled some of that money over into her primary campaign.
It’s a dog’s breakfast of an argument, IMO. Warren took a risk by eschewing big donor events during the primary. Her campaign finance chair quit over it. If she starts doing the swank circuit now, Rendell would have a point, but she hasn’t, so he doesn’t. Rendell even (stupidly) dragged President Obama into the hair-splitting:
Barack Obama, whom I consider one of the greatest presidents in my lifetime, vowed not to take any money from the political action committees of Wall Street firms in his 2008 campaign. At the same time, his campaign took in millions of dollars in contributions from individuals who worked for Wall Street firms.
But the news media basically gave Obama a free ride and didn’t point out the blatant hypocrisy of trying to win credit for shunning contributions from Wall Street firms while taking tons of money from people who work for those same Wall Street firms. Politics can make people do peculiar things.
Yeah, “politics can make people do peculiar things,” Ed, such as making you construct wholly specious arguments against better people to cover for the fact that you yourself are an old-timey bagman.
Rendell is using the same dumb argument many brainless ninnies deployed against Beto O’Rourke — implying that Beto was in the pocket of Big Oil because many of the individual folks who donated to his campaign worked for oil companies. Duh — he’s from Texas! Not too many lobstermen work in Texas.
Putting Rendell aside (with great force, please and thank you), there’s this long and prolifically sourced Politico piece that came out today that is delightfully entitled: “Why Are You Pissing In Our Face?’: Inside Warren’s War With the Obama Team.” It’s an utterly fascinating article in which many unnamed Obama administration Treasury staffers — and Larry Summers, Tim Geithner and Rahm Emanuel — say Warren doesn’t play well with others. An excerpt:
The acrimonious differences between Warren and her allies, and members of the Obama team, led in part to her decision, with prodding from Obama himself, to leave the administration to run for the Senate rather than continue pursuing the leadership of the consumer-protection bureau. But they never fully abated, and now represent dueling approaches to Democratic economic policy-making, presenting the possibility that the next Democratic president will have ascended to the height of Democratic Party politics in part by bashing the previous one.
Though I recommend the Politico piece (unlike Rendell’s screed), I think that last sentence overdramatizes the schism in true Politico “let’s you and him fight” fashion. As the writer acknowledges, Warren on the trail has been complimentary of President Obama. Why wouldn’t she be? They agree on most things.
The dramatic confrontations are with people like Summers, Geithner and Emanuel. Some Democrats (your humble correspondent, for example) read those names and credited Warren for choosing her enemies wisely. It’s almost as good an unintentional Warren 2020 campaign contribution as Cramer’s “she must be stopped!” rant on CNBC the other day.
Still, the timing of all this is interesting. First lumbering griftosaurus Rendell’s hatchet job, then the moneymen have their say in Politico. If Arne Duncan drops an op-ed today, I’m going to start to get suspicious!
waspuppet
I’m sorry; who did he used to be again?
VOR
My recollection is Warren stopped going after the leadership of the Consumer protection bureau once it became clear the Republicans were 100% opposed to her nomination. Instead, she went to a job she could get and which could make an impact – the US Senate.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@VOR: I think about that sometimes and laugh. Bet the Rs are sorry they did that now.
rikyrah
Some people I just won’t listen to. I have a long memory and remember how he treated PBO.
Rendell can go kick rocks.
Roger Moore
It’s doubly ridiculous because we’re supposed to be worried Warren is taking money from Wall Street workers but not Wall Street firms while ignoring that Joe Biden is happy to take money from both.
Kay
I think she was right and they were wrong. They weren’t focused enough on regular people. The “opportunity agenda” is a loser for Democrats. I get that elites fucking LOVE it but they have to let it go.
People wanted politicians to be on their side after the financial crash. That’s understandable. They didn’t want a droning lecture from Larry Summers on how to better themselves. Larry Summers has admitted the approach isn’t enough and doesn’t work. Larry Summers has basically renounced his whole theory. When are we allowed to?
Chief Oshkosh
Betty, your take is exactly what I thought when I saw the op-ed title. Rendell has always been an old-school asshole centrist. WaPo, though nominally better than TFNYT, is still part of the problem. Hell, look at Jenghazi’s piece today – another “if only Democrats would legislate like Republicans, I might vote for them!”. Anway, fuck Rendell.
Hildebrand
Ed Rendell is one of the (many) reasons I simply won’t watch any morning show on MSNBC. He is such an insufferable both-siderist knave. We would all be better off if ‘allies’ like Rendell disappeared forever.
Kay
You know who started the “individual donors = sector support”?
John Edwards, that’s who. It was dishonest and sleazy when he used it against Obama and Clinton and it remains so. Equating “a nurse” with “health care companies” is dumb. It’s a lie. And we can thank John Edwards for it.
Kay
Warren is a front runner, she is a threat to many powerful interests and entrenched powers, and I fully expected them to go after her. I bet she did too. This is nothing compared to what she will get. Her plans would take us back to 1970’s levels of equality (when it was much more equal) and that would be an enormous change. They will throw everything they have at her. If you’re a supporter of her, and I am, expect incoming. She’s a threat.
Baud
Rendell is basically using left wing purity troll tactic for the benefit of right wing Democratic interests.
westcoast
When the alternative is TRUMP, these guys can ALL take a long walk off a short pier. If we return to some sense of sanity in our country, we can return to arguing about style points.
Baud
Completely agree. That paragraph has no real basis in fact.
Guess what? Different Dems disagree on policy. We get to do that.
Baud
@Kay:
John Edwards was sleazy?
Kay
@Baud:
I always feel like the people on the internet who say this are not themselves donors, or they would know you submit your occupation and that’s the genesis of this lie. Rendell of course knows better- he’s just a horrible person.
I also don’t think “HYPOCRISY!” matters that much in politics, so it’s a dumb argument anyway.
schrodingers_cat
I found Ed Rendell to be quite annoying way back when he was a HRC surrogate in 2008.
Darrin Ziliak (formerly glocksman)
@Kay:
Using that standard, the TJX Companies, Inc. backed Barack Obama in 2008 because I donated to his campaign. ?
He might have a point if he’d limited it to C-level executive donations, as the CEO is hardly going to donate to candidates that the company opposes.
As it is, I agree that equating an individual employee donation to sector support is ridiculous at best and an outright lie at worst.
Cacti
@waspuppet:
The governor of a state that will cost any D the White House if they don’t carry it.
MattF
It’ll be interesting to see how (or if) Warren deals with this. It’s what primary season is about— Can a candidate win in the face of dishonest opposition?
ETA: One assumes that Trump will be dishonest, so being able to deal with it is a required skill.
Kay
@Baud:
I thought he was. He’s a dishonest person. I never bought him- not even the “poor people campaign”. That wasn’t his Senate record. I was actually shocked when he completely invented this persona- out of nowhere! I don’t know- it’s weirdly admirable I guess, to have absolutely no beliefs of any kind. Ultimately not successful for him, but it could have worked and he was good enough at it. I remember the debate where he pulled this on Clinton and Obama. They didn’t really defend because it SOUNDS kind of right and they (wisely, probably) chose not to get into the details of how donations work, but they were pissed.
jl
@Kay: I agree. Lots of evidence Warren was right on a lot of important things about the Obama administration approach to recovery from Great Recession. One example:
“That the survival of the big banks is not the measure of recovery.”
Geithner never understood that. Many very good financial experts and macroeconomists, across the political spectrum, advocated for more attention to regular people, who took a huge hit in wealth from the housing bust. You don’t hear about the conservative and libertarian leaning economists who advocated for a Depression style HOLC, since they have been banned, it seems, from any media attention, and of course, are banned from GOP policy circles which admits only hacks and shills now.
I didn’t bother with the Rendell article, but did read the Politico piece, which is ruined by too much attention to political gossip and court palace intrigue.
Should I note the crappy slam on Warren for being hypocritical, merely because she took different approaches publicly and privately. The substance wasn’t hypocritical at all, but the style was. One has to wonder if Warren were a man, there would be no charges of hypocrisy, but admiration for real political skill. Or if she were more of a power player.
I think two double standards at work in the slams on Warren: woman, and not in the officially recognized power circles.
Warren disagreed with Obama, to his face!! Oh, the horrors! I’m sure Obama could take it.
donnah
Warren is a smart, thoughtful, brave, and experienced WOMAN, so of course there is going to be a backlash. Now that she’s gaining in popularity, it will get worse. I’m going to keep backing her because she is a terrific choice for president.
DCrefugee
This doesn’t have the feel of a Bernie-instigated attack, so by process of elimination it came out of Biden’s camp…
rikyrah
@Kay:
You know..they peddled him as the ‘safe White Male Choice’ in 2008, against Obama and Hillary.
Lord have mercy, thank goodness that the Democratic Party base didn’t fall for THAT.
Lyrebird
@Baud: Seriously!!!
If these Important People are so concerned,
and if they think some other Dem candidate than Warren has a better plan,
let them openly campaign for that candidate, not encourage Politico’s horseracing while Rome burns.
And grrrr re: sector employees’ lack of privacy. We ALL get to vote.
We almost all get to contribute to campaigns (not government employees I think?).
The dogs bark, the caravan moves on is how I think the saying goes…
daveNYC
What’s interesting isn’t the attacks so much as they’re aiming them at Warren. They’re just as applicable against Sanders, roughly speaking, so the question is if they’re going after Warren because they think she’s more of a threat or because they think these attacks will resonate more with her supporters.
Cacti
@jl:
A sitting US Senator who was previously a high dollar corporate lawyer isn’t in “the officially recognized power circles”?
Brachiator
Who the fuck is Ed Rendell and why should I care?
I heard this phrase used by some Brits talking about BREXIT, but confess that I never heard it before.
Anyway, some very astute observations. Is the idea to bring out the surrogates so that the candidates themselves are not seen bashing their fellow Democrats?
I hate this kind of shit because I don’t care that much where candidates get their money. Unless it’s the Russians. Or if a candidate is known for being owned by a particular plutocrat or group.
It says much that someone fears Warren and her candidacy. She must be doing something right.
Does Rendell write regularly for WaPo? It sucks that they would even print this crap.
retiredeng
I saw this op-ed and the title smelled of sewer rat so I skipped reading it.
Fair Economist
Wow, bankers and people who who support them don’t work well with Warren. What a shocker.
Kay
@Baud:
I don’t hate centrists and I wouldn’t have blamed the NC Senator at all for being a centrist. I’m a (true) 50 state strategy person and the result of a 50 state strategy is you get an ideological mix- that’s the nature of the thing itself- but Edwards CHOSE to become Leftier than Thou for that one campaign and I thought it was pure cynical positioning.
This is one of my crackpot theories but I lived in the south and IMO there is a certain kind of southern man who is a slick salesperson and shouldn’t really be trusted and Edwards was to me that “type”. Bill Clinton had elements of this too, but in a less phony way. I think it was natural to Clinton and so people accepted it. He’s a striver. Just right out there with it. I don’t mind that. I usually like those people.
TenguPhule
Speaking of Morons, yesterday marked Peak Grifting.
Donald Trump’s brilliant new idea to fix the economy is negative interest rates. This is not a joke.
He wants people to PAY the Treasury to take their money.
jl
@Kay: I also agree on Summers. He has a sketchy and creepy history, playing important roles in supporting several very significant economic policy efforts, foreign and domestic, that have not turned out too well or have turned into very dysfunctional and dangerous situations (e.g., Russian domestic economy).
But you are correct, at least in his publications, academic and popular, he has been intellectually honest enough to admit some of his mistakes (but only some). Well, some credit where some credit is due. And he has made some very constructive proposals, backed by good analysis, that are more in Warren’s direction (and in Sanders’ too, to the extent that you can detect actual policy in Sanders sloganeering in everything he puts out).
But, there are a lot of people trying to defend Summers’ actions during the Great Recession.
Elizabelle
@Fair Economist:
That’s a campaign ad waiting to happen. Bring it on, you greedy MOTU MFs.
Major Major Major Major
When I saw the WaPo op-ed headline, I knew it had to be a plant from either the Sanders or Biden campaign. When I read the byline… god, what a garbage essay.
matt
So rich people are pissy that Warren’s no longer chasing their dollars and they’re talking shit. Good for Warren.
Fair Economist
@daveNYC: Warren is much more of a threat because she understands the legal mechanisms that underly corporate power, and she’s not a purity pony. Bernie is an agitator and won’t get much effective done with the left-center at best Senate we will get in 2020.
sdhays
I like Ed Rendell. Too bad he’s a shithead.
Oh, wait. I don’t like Ed Rendell.
FelonyGovt
It’s interesting how attacks on Warren seem to have increased, from various sources. I think she’s really scaring some people. Which makes me really want to support her.
That, and her plan to increase Social Security payments, now that I’m an old and am about to start collecting SS…
ETA to say that unlike Republicans, I don’t REALLY vote based on my personal bottom line. I’ve been gravitating to Warren lately although I still like Harris.
Baud
@retiredeng:
@Major Major Major Major:
To be fair, I don’t think newspaper editors always craft the headline.
Kay
@rikyrah:
Right! And there were a lot of doubts if Obama could win. I couldn’t believe it myself. I backed him as a risk-free long shot, actually. I never thought he’d win. That’s why it was so much fun watching him go – right? I was like “well, would you look at THAT”
We may never have that much fun in an election again. We have to deal with that :) Maybe we only get one phenom.
Karen
Isn’t Rendell a Biden surrogate? I’m confused about the whole donor thing. Who is acceptable and which donor is the scum of the earth? How will any candidates run ads against Trump without donors?
Major Major Major Major
@TenguPhule:
Germany currently has negative interest rates. We did (or came damn close, I forget) around 2009. It’s not actually a completely insane idea.
Elizabelle
Was about to put up “Ed Rendell — rhymes with “Go to Hell”, but, um ….
bystander
Ed Randell and Mike’s Barnacles are more soporific than Ambien.
Meanwhile, check out who’s playing Slim in this episode of Rawhide .
David Fud
@TenguPhule: That is his loans sitting on his shoulder whispering in his ear.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@waspuppet:
(Raises hand and sighs heavily from Philadelphia). Our mayor. Then our governor. I was given to understand John Street, who was mayor when I moved here and was not one of the bright lights in mayoral history, was Rendell’s hand-groomed successor.
jl
@TenguPhule: Negative, or approximately zero, real interest rates, at least for long term low risk loans is a fact around the world, not a policy. In some places, pushing them to be slightly negative is a government policy for their bond market. So, it’s not a crazy idea in and of itself. The mere fact that an ignorant and crazy person babbles about it means nothing.
I think Trump and Trumpster GOP internal polling is pretty bad, and Trump is desperate for a ‘win’ so is rapid fire babbling about everything and anything.
He’s also been babbling about reducing interest rate burden of US debt by some vague babble about ‘refinancing’. He seems to think that the world government bond market works like a few people paying off their car loans early to save on interest payments. Buying back a lot of bonds and issuing new ones at a lower interest rate may have some advantages, but reducing interest rate burden of US government debt is not one of them.
Trump has absolutely no idea of anything about economics, and random stuff comes out of his mouth. Don’t judge things on random meaningless babble.
Ksmiami
I think on a fundamental level – aside from all the plans etc is that Warren understands how we got to this moment of extraordinary wealth inequality and how to truly address the issue from the ground up and the PTB are scared :(:3/less. But her campaign does need a better framework “slogan” to hit this home or she will be vulnerable to the socialism propaganda
Spanky
@Brachiator:
Someone who has so much cache that the WaPo editor just handed over real estate on the Opinion page?
Not quite. I don’t think Rendell has enough of his faded cache to pull that off. I think somebody on a campaign (coughBidencough) pulled some strings/called in some chits to get Ed’s sleazy opinions aired. And I was glad to see the readers weren’t having it.
Ruckus
@Kay:
We are/were allowed to disagree with that crap the day they came out with it. They think they know so much that we should agree with them on everything. Even their condescending BS. And if that sounds like someone else we know and hate, there is a good reason for that. They were wrong and pompous about it.
Eunicecycle
@Kay: Yes I agree that the people who make this argument either never made a contribution or are lying. Just because you work for an oil company doesn’t mean you represent the industry. I worked for a hospital when I gave to Hillary-so she was in the pocket of the hospital industry?
MattF
@Major Major Major Major: The theory is that banks will be discouraged from holding on to large piles of cash, which will then encourage banks to make loans. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem to actually work. In the US there’s an added complication of money-market funds– negative interest rates make their business model fall apart.
Bottom line: It’s not completely ridiculous, but– it doesn’t actually work.
TenguPhule
@Major Major Major Major:
That was the effective market rate. We had brief periods between 2008-2012 where the effective rate went negative because traders were bidding up treasury prices in a flight to safety to where the prices they were paying exceeded the amount of interest the treasury bills would generate.
Trump is talking about the Official Fed Rate a.k.a. “The rate every other financial institution in the fucking world uses as the base standard for setting interest.”
Nobody would buy US treasuries with an official starting negative rate. It would bring the whole market down.
Roger Moore
@jl:
Count me among those who think this is Trump thinking about the interest rate on his own loans. Self above party, party above country. That’s the Trump way.
Major Major Major Major
@Kay: @Eunicecycle: two of the largest “donors” to Buttigieg are the University of California and the rando company I work at, so clearly he’s in the pocket of Big Research and Big Second-Tier Startup
Spanky
Oh, and as long as we’re discussing WaPo headlines …
jl
@Cacti: Didn’t go along with conventional wisdom that protected power and wealth of incumbent oligarchs in our oligarchy. So, a troublesome outsiders whose every move must be interpreted in the worst possible way. And, a woman.
Outsider, hard to get along with, hypocritical, not a team player… and any other double standard BS you can come up with to bash her.
I’ve read one pundit, forget who, except it was a man, who said a strength of Warren is that she comes off like a ;happy warrior’ in the style of FDR. I agree, and good to see that some people can get beyond CW double standards at least once in a while.
I hope Warren responds to this garbage ‘happy warrior’ style.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
What a fucking hypocrite. He trolled Obama like a BernieBro on Balloon Juice, but from the other side. He was particularly obnoxious about the BP oil spill, giving Carville a run for his money in delusional Bubba worship. And after he left the PA gov’s mansion, he went to a sinecure at the fucking Peterson Institute (or whatever they call the anti-New Deal web of lobbyists that old fuck set up) and bragged about it. This is exactly the kind of frozen in New Democrat amber asshole I was afraid Biden’s been listening to, added to it the personal bitterness that That One denied him whatever Cabinet post or ambassadorship he thought the restored Clintons were going to give him in 2009.
I like Biden, and there’s a part of me that wants to play it safe and settle for him, but if he’s dragging the ghosts of 1993 out of the political graveyard to smear Warren… his time has passed, if it ever happened.
ETA:
Asshole can’t resist taking a bullshit swipe at the President he so admires. Such. An. Asshole.
Spanky
@Spanky: (Throws cocaine-laced catnip into the blog, runs away.)
Betty Cracker
@Fair Economist: Harry Reid says as much in the linked article:
Major Major Major Major
@TenguPhule: the European Central Bank’s official rate is -0.5%.
Ruckus
@Cacti:
The first word you quoted is the key. WOMAN. They can’t have that, it will show them for who they really are. Useless Fucks. Think of them as the worst band ever.
Kay
@Ruckus:
I just think the “opportunity!” pitch doesn’t fundamentally work with our voters and many of them righfully see it as a dodge and a way to leave existing “winners” in place while tweaking things at the margins. We actually had this same fight already. It was the fight in 2014. The “opportunity” people were these same people. It’s a real split in the Party and that’s fine. We don’t have to deny it or run away from it. We can disagree. The world won’t end.
Warren (so far) seems to be deliberately not attacking the other candidates. I think Democrats want that. They want to be united and who they should be united behind will come clear as this progresses. They want to win. They just need these hacks to get out of the way and let them sort it out.
jl
@TenguPhule: It hasn’t been very effective policy. I agree that the idea of intentional policy of pushing them negative is especially problematic in US economy.
But if economy weakens, and there is a big flight to safety in gov bond markets, and US follows much of the world, real rates may go negative anyway. So, I guess Trump can brag about it being his idea. Banks and financial industry will piss themselves. More cognitive dissonance for Trumpster GOP, if not Trump himself who is completely ignorant an oblivious of and to any reality that doesn’t affect his immediate gratification.
trollhattan
I eagerly away the Zell Miller piece opining on Elizabeth Warren.
Barbara
Emanuel, Summers and Geithner wasted every opportunity Obama gave them to make life better for ordinary people. If Elizabeth Warren isn’t interested in letting their brilliance inform her policies that shows a rather high level of discernment on her part. Obama stuck with each of these three for way too long IMHO. This also tells me that they all want back in under the tent as of January 2021 and are playing their cards accordingly. Gah.
MisterForkbeard
@FelonyGovt: I mean, this is what happened to Harris in July. When you start doing better, you start getting a LOT of really dumb attacks.
Harris had trouble maintaining her momentum in the face of it – she’s still my preferred candidate, but that was an important test she didn’t do well on. If Warren can maintain her standing (or expand it) that has a lot to say in favor of her candidacy.
Also, Harris really needs to do better with her web strategy. She’s doing excellent in traditional terms (endorsements and organizational support) but her web campaign just kinda sucks. Right now she’s dependent on making waves during high-visibility events like the debates, and that’s not sustainable.
Spanky
@trollhattan: Now that would be entertainment!
Brachiator
@Spanky:
Yes. Excellent point. It’s good to know that that there is strong pushback against this stupid attack.
Betty Cracker
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I don’t know how involved Rendell is with the Biden campaign aside from lining up fundraisers, but there’s just no way he didn’t coordinate this op-ed with them. Really dumb move, IMO.
Aleta
1/2
Talk about hypocrisy. Will Bunch (reporter, Philly Inqu.) has been posting and retweeting some links re Rendell’s attack on Warren..
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@trollhattan: Dick Harpootlian and Bob Shrumm have a Ouija board out trying to get in touch…
(Maybe an unfair swipe at Shrum, who I believe helped write Ted Kennedy’s greatest speech “the work goes on…. the cause endures… and the dream…. shall never… DIE!”)
Kay
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Democrats in Pennsylvania at the ’08 convention said Rendell wanted his wife on the SCOTUS and he knew Obama wouldn’t put her there. They were delegates and incredibly cynical about him, in a way that I (of course!) loved so maybe it was for me, but I don’t think so. I did egg it on though. Because it’s important I be entertained.
TenguPhule
@Major Major Major Major:
The EU’s central bank is not the base standard of the world’s financial markets.
Steve in the ATL
@Major Major Major Major: why is why the Brits are trying to get out of the EU!
Well, either that or stupidity and Russian meddling.
JPL
Today’s episode of Back in the USSR
https://twitter.com/ktbenner/status/1172195511929118722
Baud
@Baud:
Ugh. I meant that the editors always craft the headline
ETA: I’m all thumbs today.
Roger Moore
@Spanky:
Nit: the term you are looking for is cachet. A cache is a stockpile. Cachet is prestige.
Major Major Major Major
@TenguPhule: sure, but your original incredulity was directed at the idea of a central bank having negative interest rates.
TenguPhule
This should be interesting. Is Trump going to steal money from other programs again?
Major Major Major Major
@Steve in the ATL:
Ah yes, the U.K., that well-known adopter of the euro…
There we go!
jl
Funny how there were stories a few months ago about how the financial industry and other power brokers preferred Warren to Sanders. She was a progressive they could live with, supposedly. I have to wonder if that effort was an overture to her to soften things and stick her nose into the tent of power, as it were. But she plowed ahead. This is the result.
I wonder if same thing happened to Klobuchar, she might be a centrist they could live with. But even though i disagree with her centrism, I think Klobuchar is most steadfast and straightforward on policy, much of which will hurt powerful long term, even if Klobuchar goes about it a slower way than Warren. Suddenly Klobuchar didn’t get nearly so much positive coverage and exposure as before in the media.
Or maybe I am just too cynical.
MattF
@Major Major Major Major: Here’s an NYT explainer about negative interest rates.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Kay:
Ah, I knew there was something, I never knew it was so specific. That’s really clarifying.
And fuck him hard, the fucking Tweetycrat.
Brachiator
@Betty Cracker:
This sounds like a stunt that Summers would pull.
All this stuff is making me like Warren more and more. I like a president who is not intimidated by his or her advisors.
rp
@Baud: perfectly stated
TenguPhule
Another day ending in Y.
Steve in the ATL
@Roger Moore: as in “cash me outside”?
JAFD
As a Philadelphian and a Pennsylvanian during Rendell’s terms as Congressman, Mayor and Governor, I have to say that he did an honest and competent job. Met him a few times, shook hands, got good impression of him. Voted for him for governor, cast protest votes for Socialist Worker candidates in mayorality elections. Thought of him as representing ‘the absolute center of teh american political spectrum’. Sad to see him become an ‘attack dog’.
rikyrah
@Roger Moore:
I think this too.
Steve in the ATL
@Kay: I also only support candidates who will put me on SCOTUS. Unrelated: I haven’t voted in a very long time.
TenguPhule
I don’t even know where we’re going to begin to fix things.
Aleta
2/2 (About Rendell and hypocrisy)
Will Bunch retweeted this article by DORY HIPPAUF (from 2013) about Rendell hypocrisy on fracking, at http://www.nofrackingway.us/2013/02/05/rendell-the-lobbyist-home-on-the-range/
Links to reports, etc. are in the article.
Rendell the Lobbyist – Home on the Range?
E&E Reporter, Mike Soraghan, shook the Pennsylvania fractivist community this morning with news of former Governor Ed Rendell (PA-D) lobbying the EPA on behalf of Range Resources regarding a high-profile Texas water contamination case.
While Governor of Pennsylvania, Rendell had issued an executive order placing 1.5 million acres of state forest land off-limits to natural gas drilling. As Governor, Rendell, pressed for a severance tax on natural gas. “”The natural gas industry is up and running strong in Pennsylvania and has many of the world’s largest energy companies backing it,” Governor Rendell said, citing multibillion dollar deals by Exxon Mobil and Dutch Royal Shell, among others, to access Marcellus Shale natural gas reserves. “These gas companies are paying top dollar because they know they can earn record profits. Exxon Mobil reported a record $45.2 billion profit in 2008, and the company’s most recent financial statement does not report any taxes paid to the IRS.”
In May 2010, Common Cause issued a report: Deep Drilling, Deep Pockets. The Campaign Contributions & Lobbying Expenditures of the Natural Gas Industry in Pennsylvania, by Alex Kaplan and James Browning.
Rendell wasn’t the only one in his administration spinning through the revolving door from government and into the arms of the natural gas industry. Per Sourcewatch: Three of Rendell’s former high-level staffers have abruptly left their jobs gas industry lobbying positions. The three are Kenneth Scott Roy, Barbara Sexton, and Sarah Battisti. Roy was Rendell’s former executive deputy chief of staff and left to work for Range Resources Corp. He formerly served as chief liaison between the governor’s office and the gas industry and environmental groups, making the transition to Range Resources a perfectly logical one. Sexton, former executive deputy secretary of environmental protection of Pennsylvania left to work in governmental affairs for Chesapeake Energy Corp., an Oklahoma company that is one of the nation’s largest gas exploration firms. Battisti, former Deputy Chief of Staff for Rendell, who, on her LinkedIn page says she focused on “Energy, Conservation and Natural Resources, Community and Economic Development,” now works for the BG Group, an integrated oil and gas company which has its headquarters in Reading, Berkshire, England. “BG Group’s main business is exploration for and the extraction of natural gas, liquefied natural gas and to a lesser extent oil. It sells these products to wholesale customers such as retail gas suppliers and electricity generating companies. It also owns some gas pipelines and is involved in some power generation projects. It is active around the world, with only a minority of its business being in the UK. BG Group is a multinational company with operations in 27 countries.” (See also: Rendell advisers getting jobs with shale gas firms )
…
The Moar You Know
I back Biden at this point simply because his numbers are best, and I suspect that will not change between now and the California primary. And that’s my criteria for this election; Trump HAS to be removed from the White House. And the awful truth, what with the current composition of the American electorate and the Electoral College; if this election goes 52-48 for the Dem, Trump stays in the White House. We need five or six percent to beat the orange sack of crap. Four percent ain’t gonna cut it.
That being said, I’ve really come around on Warren. I like how she’s looking at things and I like the plans – actual plans, which I’ve not seen from anyone else including Biden – on how we’re going to get from here to where we need to go. And I like where she thinks we need to go. In any other timeline, I’m sending all my monies to Warren.
But not this one. The price of failure is not something I can accept, even if I end up with a president who I don’t have much in the way of common goals with.
TenguPhule
I’m sure this will have absolutely no effect whatsoever on detecting discrimination. //S
TenguPhule
@Steve in the ATL:
Your blood alcohol levels are too low. You require more Vespene gas.
Kay
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I just don’t know why he’s such a sage. Pennsylvania has a D governor now. Let’s hear from him. How long?
Until he DIES? They recycle them so fast now, too! My God, Chris Christie and Rahm Emanual just left!
“Let’s hear now from the historically unpopular former gov of NJ and the person who ran away from a D primary in Chicago”
You can’t get rid of them. You elect them, you’re stuck with them for life. It certainly raises the stakes. These are lifetime appointments.
Nicole
I read the op-ed. Yeah. Typical Ed Rendell. He’s one of the many things I don’t miss about not watching any TV news shows anymore. MSNBC included.
I was surprised he didn’t go all in with, “AND SHE USED TO BE A REPUBLICAN, TOO? DIDJA KNOW THAT?” Seriously, when your argument is “She’s not doing something now she totally used to do!” you’re in trouble. I used to drink 3 cans of diet soda a day. I don’t do it anymore. AND THAT’S A GOOD THING, EDDIE BOY.
Major Major Major Major
@The Moar You Know:
General election polls at this date are essentially meaningless.
jl
At least Baud 2020! can only be charged with being a virtual hypocrite, by definition.
Spanky
@Kay:
Wow. I would have assumed an asshole of his calibre* would be more aggressive and not so passive-aggressive.
(* = Intentional phrasing)
TenguPhule
And Trump is doubling down on stupid.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@Major Major Major Major: I’m cleaning out some old papers at home. Found a stack of stuff from 2007, including magazines, that reminded me that at this point in the 2008 campaign, Hillary Clinton and Rudy Giuliani were being treated everywhere as the inevitable 2008 presidential candidates.
Brachiator
@The Moar You Know:
I don’t know. Can we have a couple of actual primaries before we declare a winner?
Spanky
@Roger Moore: I’m having rouble with he key.
Aleta
@Steve in the ATL: You might find your best fit with Candidate Baud, something of an outlier (aberration) (inaccessible island) (no one really knows)
Kay
Agreed. Don’t shun him, jackals. He’s this close to switching parties. This is what you learn living in a red area. You can’t be choosy. BIG tent. Independent? Close enough! Welcome, friend!
Spanky
@Brachiator: Also the fact that Summers is a known flaming misogynist.
daveNYC
@Fair Economist: I was actually taking about being the bigger threat to Biden in the primary. Warren has been moving up in the polls and Biden’s team has started downplaying the importance of winning Iowa, which isn’t a great look.
The bigger threat as far as enacting policies though? Honestly I think they’re about equal. Mostly because the Senate is God awful to the point that any real progress will rely on executive branch action. Baring a ludicrously optimistic outcome in the Senate and removing the filibuster (and probably am new majority leader too, because Schumer) getting any of either Warren’s or Bernies’ proposals passed is highly unlikely. Fucking Senate.
JustRuss
No kidding. Warren should run an ad saying “Vote for me, cuz these tools are scared of me.”
Here’s a little Wiki on Summers:
On July 30, 1998, then-Deputy Secretary of the Treasury Summers testified before the U.S. Congress that “the parties to these kinds of contract are largely sophisticated financial institutions that would appear to be eminently capable of protecting themselves from fraud and counterparty insolvencies.” … “to date there has been no clear evidence of a need for additional regulation of the institutional OTC derivatives market, and we would submit that proponents of such regulation must bear the burden of demonstrating that need.”[33] In 1999 Summers endorsed the Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act which removed the separation between investment and commercial banks, saying “With this bill, the American financial system takes a major step forward towards the 21st Century.”[34]
When George Stephanopoulos asked Summers about the financial crisis in an ABC interview on March 15, 2009, Summers replied that “there are a lot of terrible things that have happened in the last eighteen months, but what’s happened at A.I.G. … the way it was not regulated, the way no one was watching … is outrageous.”
jl
@TenguPhule: ECB is stuck in hard place between Eurozone explicit and EU implicit policy of excessive financial austerity, and need for more economic expansion outside Germany (whose economy quit expanding and may be entering recession). Amazing that much of the one hundred percent socialist liberal Europe you hear about in the media has been suffering from GOP-lite conservative macroeconomic policy during recovery from Great Recession, but it is true. ECB just lost very competent leadership who was clever in counteracting that conservative impulse in clever ways. Will be interesting to see what happens.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Kay: the aides who gravitate to TV hosts bring the reverence they had for the people they worked for/with, and promote them, and I think there’s an age factor, too, “the prime of my career is always relevant”, so you get the cult of Moynihan, with Lawrence O’Donnell succeeding Tim Russert as HighPriest, and then tweety comes panting along after out of combination of status-envy and the whole Irish thing. I don’t know if Rendell’s Irish– he would certainly fit in with a group portrait of my uncles– but he attempts the same regular-guy-from-Philly affect that tweety thinks he pulls off, and I’m sure thinks he knows the secret to winning back the hard hats. When in reality, as I mentioned in this thread or the last one, he brags about working for the Pete Peterson Anti-New-Deal lobbying outfit.
(Just adding to the list of overrated throwbacks I’m kinda done with: Howard Dean, who owed his brief star status to his opposition to the Iraq War, was on MSNBC last night talking about the work he had done with John Bolton about Iran, aka lobbying for MKE, along with Rudi and Newt.)
Aleta
@Spanky: the term you are looking for is rubles. that key is for the hallway to the safebox.
Major Major Major Major
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: in a Gallup poll that was in the field on today’s date in 2011, Romney beat Obama by 2.
Brachiator
@TenguPhule:
A headline that has been written too often during the misadministration of this fool Trump.
JPL
@Kay: That’s not a bad idea, because he could take votes away from the republican and the dems would have a pick-up.
Baud
@Kay:
So now Trump has no African Americans left?
JMS
Off topic, but I consider my teenaged son to be a reasonable political bellweather. He is mildly politically aware, has some naturally wingnutty instincts, tempered by having his allowance come from Democrats. He is not an ambitious overachiever by any means (sigh) and isn’t into ideologies. He thinks Obama was the coolest president ever, but Hillary is tragically uncool (and therefore someone to be voted for with heavy clothespin on nose action), and Trump, although a bad president, is funny and entertaining.
I mention this by way of saying that he asked me recently, unprompted, if I was planning to vote for Warren in the primary. I don’t recall ever discussing anyone other than Biden and Bernie with him, although I said I’d prefer to vote for a woman, so I think this is a good sign for Senator Warren. Yes, this is overly simplistic, but if she wants to win the election, I want to know how she’d win over my son (OK not literally, he won’t be old enough to vote).
Jim, Foolish Literalist
this is kinda funny, Herself was apparently on CSPAN this morning:
Major Major Major Major
@Baud: I think the Yahweh ben Yahweh cult is still on board.
rikyrah
@TenguPhule:
Lips so pursed.
Kay
@JPL:
Of course it’s not bad. Even if he gets in as an independent who is he going to vote with? The pro-white agenda Party? If he wanted to do that he could have stayed a Republican. With any luck douchebag will attack him on Twitter.
mrmoshpotato
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: I’d forgotten about Ghouliani’s presidential runs. ?
mrmoshpotato
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Fixed.
Baud
@mrmoshpotato:
You’re proving her point!
JPL
More information about McCabe’s possible indictment…
Sounds about right
Kay
@Baud:
None. Zero. That was the one. Remember during the election in brief breaks of the email coverage where we realized Trump has no friends? That’s pretty odd. Statistically unlikely, even.
catclub
OT: politico reports Israeli spy devices aimed at Trump. Trump does nothing to punish Israelis.
NatSec front pagers?
Barbara
@Kay: Ben Carson is still at HUD.
gene108
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
Ed was mayor, when I moved to this area. He’s from here. Gets (got?) the culture of Philly & SE PA. Outgoing guy, glad hander, and was also a big city mayor, when big cities started turning around, crime went down, etc.
He gets credit for revitalizing Center City / Old City.
Helped him in his run for Governor, having those tailwinds at his back.
Mayor Street was an abrasive guy. He did, at least, get the new sportsball stadiums built, where the Vet used to be, which was minimally intrusive to everyone.
Big city mayor seems like one of those jobs, where you pretty much wear out your welcome, by the end of your second term, unless you are lucky and/or gifted.
trollhattan
@Barbara:
Do we know that for a fact? Can somebody go wake him? His luggage has arrived.
mrmoshpotato
@Baud: Sorry for being unnice calling her what she is. What’s the over/under on the Rethuglicans hanging her out to dry?
Major Major Major Major
@trollhattan: leave him be, trump has never replaced a hire with somebody better.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@JPL:
If trump and Barr keep pushing this, people might begin to notice this part
and I hope there will be other ways they’re poking a hornet’s nest, but I’ve all but given up on insiders spilling beans
Baud
@Kay:
I think I was in the shower when that happened.
Baud
@mrmoshpotato:
My party left me, man. My party left me..
rikyrah
@TenguPhule:
no welfare for them?
hmmmmmm
Betty Cracker
@Kay: Rock and Burlap?
Omnes Omnibus
@Cacti: At this point, you’ve pretty much jumped over the line into complete dishonesty. High dollar corporate lawyer? She was a partner at which BigLaw firm?
JPL
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Didn’t amend his testimony?
Martin
This is an unpopular opinion pretty much everywhere I’ve expressed it, but I’m fundamentally a capitalist, and Warren is as well. The people I don’t believe are capitalists are pretty much everyone who calls themselves one.
Capitalism is a theoretical framework that does a good job of predicting outcomes under a certain set of circumstances. It lays out those circumstances pretty clearly (which almost everyone ignores) and doesn’t really pretend to be a good predictor outside of them. Scientists tend to be pretty good at confining their thinking to the context of suitable frameworks, so perhaps I’m just experienced doing this.
Capitalism does a great job in particular of describing commodity marketplaces and marketplaces where both consumers and producers are free to enter and leave, and therefore where competition can fairly easily be generated. And that’s a LOT of the economy – everything from farms and extraction industries to most retail. But when you apply it to something like healthcare, one of its predictions will be ‘this person will opt out of the market and die’ and it predicts that with no bias. That’s not a moral problem because it doesn’t pretend to be a moral framework – it just predicts the outcome. It’s up to us to say, no, that’s not acceptable and therefore we can’t use the constraints of capitalism in this case – we need to pick something else that won’t produce that outcome, or will produce it to a lesser degree.
Republicans get very emotional when you point out the areas where capitalism breaks down, but a good capitalist should be very up front about those things, because it ensures that capitalism is applied to the places where it works very well, and produces good outcomes. Physicists use classical physics to solve problems all the time, but they know at what scale it breaks down at which point they switch over to quantum mechanics or general relativity or whatever is more suitable for the situation. It’s not that one is superior to another, it’s that this is optimal for this class of problems and that is optimal for that class of problems. That’s the best possible way to defend capitalism, by letting it succeed where it’s suitable and avoiding the places where it fails in favor of a different economic approach. India famously had centralized control of telephones, and the wait list to get a telephone in your home could be 20 years, and they were quite proud of this because the long wait was interpreted as a sign that it was exceptionally well executed. But really it was a disaster because there was no merit to distributing phone service in this way, and a competitive marketplace with government regulation as the US and Europe had could put a phone in your hands in a matter of weeks at most. The economic benefit of giving people phones when they need them can’t be overstated.
What I like about Warren is that she understand very well where to apply capitalism and where it will fail. She is an exceptional defender of capitalism in that regard. And she is non-emotional about it. Yes, we have a free marketplace when it comes to tacos and a captive marketplace when it comes to healthcare or a market where it’s impossible for new entrants to arrive in the case of social media, etc. and we need to adopt a different approach, a different set of regulations or a different economic model in those cases. Quite frankly, she’s better at it than any politician I’ve ever seen.
Capitalism gets a bad rep because Republicans in particular but a lot of Democrats as well have done such a piss-poor job of defending it in practice, constantly forcing it to solve problems it’s poorly suited for, and allowing it to run amok when it admits up front ‘hey, if you don’t regulate this shit, the market will consolidate into a monopoly and all of the benefits will evaporate’.
It’s one of Harris’ weaknesses. She’s not bad at it, but fuck, Warren is simply unbeatable in this particular area. A Warren/Trump debate on the economy would be a fucking show, let me tell you.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@JPL: I think you’re right, he lied to the FBI– a crime– about talking to reporters about the Clinton Foundation, which wasn’t illegal. To be honest, I’ve always thought MSNBC shades the whole matter to make him look more like a trump martyr
Major Major Major Major
@Martin: You’re a neoliberal sellout!!
Like Warren, me, and all of Scandinavia!
JPL
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Someone on twitter speculated that they will let him plead to a lesser crime, just to get the conviction. I hope he doesn’t do, and instead have his attorney go though the discovery stage.
This is such dangerous territory, because it’s a political hit job.
TenguPhule
@Baud:
Polyester and Cubic Zirconium.
Martin
@Major Major Major Major: Indeed. I’m a traitor to progressives all over by thinking Warren is the shiznit on economic issues.
TenguPhule
@rikyrah: Congress is not delegating the money as of now.
Will Trump steal it instead?
Ohio Mom
@JMS: Re: your son. He has about ten years of brain growth ahead of him, so plenty of room for hope that tne wingnutty tendencies wither away.
Major Major Major Major
@Martin: I just can’t believe you think there should be 23 kinds of deodorant.
Martin
I don’t think it’s been covered here, but I think Liberty U is about to implode completely. This Falwell Jr scandal is getting stupider and more damaging by the day, and Liberty U is nothing without its veneer of religious/moral leadership. It’s a shitty school, and everyone knows it.
Spanky
@Martin: {Golf clap} A well-constructed argument, and one I happen to agree with (but then this is Balloon Juice). I’m actually a bit surprised that people push back on this, but I guess it’s an emotional response rather than from a logical deduction, which in fact is the crux of your argument!
Brachiator
@Martin:
An odd formulation, of capitalism as a predictor of outcomes, as opposed to a process or system which results in outcomes.
This is often the crux of the problem. Ultra lefties often want to intervene when they should stay out, and too often confuse regulation with total control. Wrongheaded control leads to the India telephone problem.
Trump would lie and praise his great brain. Most idiots in the audience would whoop and yell for Trump. Idiot pundits would try to hide their ignorance of Economics by bashing Warren over irrelevancies.
germy
catclub
@Martin:
Barry Ritholtz called it crony capitalism
Martin
@Major Major Major Major: That might be the dumbest thing I’ve ever read from a political candidate. Who fucking cares how many deodorants there are. That’s the whole point of brand adversing, to lock me into Old Spice when I’m 17 so I can buy that shit for the next 10 years until my new wife produces a coupon and switches me over to Speed Stick to save money because what the fuck do I care, I’m a boy – we should all be thankful I don’t rub butter or a glue stick under there. Making fewer deodorants doesn’t allow you to funnel money to starving children – how the fuck does that work?
Kay
Don’t loan out your gun(s), BJ’ers. And don’t take legal advice from over-rated far Right House members on Twitter.
hueyplong
@TenguPhule: I won’t be crediting you as I steal “Polyester and Cubic Zirconium.”
TenguPhule
@Martin:
As if it had those to begin with.
TenguPhule
@Martin:
Balloon Juice After Dark is educational.
Barbara
@Kay: I had a boyfriend who once worked at a sporting goods chain that went bankrupt around 20 years ago (Herman’s). They sold guns. One day a guy came in and bought a shotgun and asked the sales guy (not my BF) if he knew where he could buy a saw. He then went and bought a saw and shot and killed his estranged wife on the bus that she was driving as a city bus driver. It’s hard for me to believe that we don’t live in a world that is sane enough that the only response to such a request would be to call the police.
TenguPhule
The HUD inspector general is on the take, just like Carson.
Fucking bullshit that he did nothing wrong.
Marcopolo
So this is something Matthew Yglesias (and yes i know there are folks here who do not like the man) posted on twitter today after reviewing a bunch of Warren’s plans which I thought was fairly enlightening. He points out that Warren’s plan to increase SS payments could be more targeted towards those in most economic need (ignoring the fact that the broader based an action is the broader its political support) and notes there are critics who will say it is not the best use of resources. But…he goes on to say:
J R in WV
@Omnes Omnibus:
Good job, point well made!
Ladyraxterinok
@Barbara: I had negative views of Emmanuel (VERY) and Summers. Initially had neutral view of Geithner (wasn’t he also on U of Chicago faculty with Obama) but then he was in media more and more supporting big banks. Speaking as someone with little background in economics or finance.
rikyrah
@Martin:
I refuse to click through to see ‘the G and PG rated pictures.’
But, once it got out that this phony azz Christian had made a multi-million dollar payment to a SECOND young man?
Uh huh
uh huh
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Martin:
Hmmmm…I think I’m doin’it wrong.
Steve in the ATL
@?BillinGlendaleCA: that’s what she said!
ETA: zing
Martin
@Brachiator:
That’s fair. But it’s both really. It lays out a system that if applied as prescribed should produce the outcome. That’s what the Econ 101 supply/demand curve is – for commodity items, and a marketplace where buyers can come and go, and where competitors can come and go (that’s the system – you need to create a scenario where those things can happen) then you’ll get price efficiency by balancing supply against demand. Take any of those away and shit goes differently, which is why gas prices tend to be inelastic – buyers are captive because I need to get to work and $5 gas will only curb my demand slightly. So it works both ways.
There was a nice formulation recently to explain regular programming and machine learning:
Traditional programming is data + rules => outcomes
Machine learning is data + outcomes => rules
You can see how they self-reinforce when combined as machine learning is basically programming run backwards. I tend to think of economics similarly. If you want these outcomes, this framework will produce those if you apply this system as prescribed. Or, if you have this system (perhaps it emerged organically) then it should produce these outcomes. We generally don’t give a shit about the outcomes of shoe sales, so it’s better to aim for a system that provides other benefits (jobs, wealth creation, etc.) but we do care about health care outcomes, so you need to run that one backward – if you want these outcomes, then you need to set up this system.
That’s why I believe single payer is inevitable. We’re increasingly focused on the outcomes over the process. At some point we’ll be forced to stumble into a system that produces the outcome. This is the machine learning analogue for economics – deriving the rules from the desired outcome. In a lot of cases those rules are capitalism, as India should have determined. In other cases they aren’t. The notion that you need to run everything through one economic framework is a serious failing of the GOP and of people like Bernie.
Omnes Omnibus
@Betty Cracker: If I were involved with the Biden campaign, I would make sure that the campaign told Rendell that it could not approve such an attack. If he did it on his own it can’t be blamed on the campaign if it doesn’t work, right?
Kenneth Fair
Wait, Rahm Emanuel is opposed to Elizabeth Warren?
Then I need to give her some money right away!
Elizabelle
@Martin: Weirdly, Liberty U has (or had) a well-regarded debate team. No idea of its present condition.
But I am ready for that “university” to take a huge fall. The mask is off these evangelizing types. (Has been, to us, for ages, but it’s now even more commonly noticed.)
jk
@JPL:
You don’t know how lucky you are.
Fuck Ed Rendell. Warren is head and shoulders better than Biden. She can actually open her own mouth without inserting her foot inside it unlike dumbass Uncle Joe.
Spanky
@Martin:
This reminds me of something totally off-topic. One of the dollar stores – Dollar General or Dollar Tree or some such – has a blister pack of glue sticks that look exactly like Chap-Stic.
Take this as a public service announcement, either as a warning … or perhaps you have a too-chatty co-worker.
Ladyraxterinok
@TenguPhule: Where is the Issak Walton League on this? During 70s and 80s in IA we were members. Their big push was to clean up rivers, streams, wetlands. There were stories about this in every newsletter, about what various chapters were doing.
The purpose was to create a safe environment for food and sport fishing.
jl
@Major Major Major Major:v”
” You’re a neoliberal sellout!!
Like Warren, me, and all of Scandinavia! ”
My experience telling Swedes and Danes that they are considered socialists in the US has been interesting. They scoff at it and say they are competent capitalists, and we are just jealous. Some lines I remember:
“We are just better capitalists than you are, and we don’t want to live like animals. What is wrong with that?”
“Just because you are bigger doesn’t mean you are better”
And from a Swede: “if we are bad capitalists, how come we’ve bought a lot of your failing manufacturing companies and made them successful”
Martin
@Marcopolo:
As any monetary theorist should agree with. The benefit of acquiring capital to the broader economy is an entities ability to put that capital to work. From buying cheeseburgers to a home to a factory. Banks play a role in that by aggregating capital so they can bundle it up and loan it out. Your mortgage used to come from the collected savings of thousands of people put to work. So capital is only economically beneficial if it can be steered through one mechanism or another toward growing the economy by building infrastructure, goods and services.
But right now we have $15T in money in negative yield bonds, which for whatever fucking reason Trump thinks is desirable and wants to expand. That’s $15T doing NOTHING. It’s doing no work, in fact, it’s doing negative work taking money out of the economy. If you have money in negative yield investments, you’ve completely failed monetary policy 101 by allowing those entities to capture and idle that money in the first place. You should have taxed it, or penalized it in some way for being used that way. It would be infinitely more beneficial to the economy as a whole if you seized it and distributed it randomly. Fucking drop it from the sky – whoever picks it up will do more economic work with it than it’s currently doing. This is not controversial. The act of doing it is, though.
Warren is so obviously right that literally everyone agrees, which is why everyone is worried about that $15T. They know it’s bad. They just can’t bring themselves to confess that seizing it would be obviously better (apart from the unknown incentives that would bring to capital usage in the future). In short, the rich (which includes some corporations) aren’t just too rich – they’re so rich they can’t even figure out how to spend that money even in an irresponsible way – so they’ve just given up and are paying other people to make sure it does nothing.
trollhattan
@TenguPhule:
If you were the HUD IG would you want Ginny drunk-dialing you at midnight?
“This furniture seems perfectly normal.”
?BillinGlendaleCA
@jl:
Well, it’s because they rake their forests. That’s the Swedes, right?
StringOnAStick
@Elizabelle: I’m ready for all the evangelical colleges and universities to take a huge fall.
Back in the late 1980’s when I was in graduate school, I had an officemate who was a really bright guy and a SCA knight; he introduced me to Christian Science Monitor and in the pre-internet era that was an incredible news and information resource. At the time I was in an apartment that had apparently been occupied by RW Christianists so I got their junk mail and occasionally looked at it. I kept getting one for some Christianist “save the baybeezzz!” group, and one mailing asked the subscribers if they should make a big play to get into politics. I ran this past my officemate and his comment was “when your enemy presents their completely unprotected back, it is your duty to knife them”. Wow did he miss that one! I would really like to see the long overdue destruction of evangelical political power.
MattF
@Martin: There was an expose of Falwell Jr. published on Politico, of all places. His response is that it’s fake news, a left-wing conspiracy. I admit I only scanned the article, but it’s pretty awful.
Omnes Omnibus
@Elizabelle: The law school’s moot court team was pretty good as well. It sounds to me like they are/were prioritizing the development of rhetorical skills. Advocacy and spokesmonkey factory.
StringOnAStick
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Finns.
Martin
@?BillinGlendaleCA: I’m not saying those won’t work, or even work better. That’s untested in my experience so I’m open minded about it. TBH, I’ve found scant few things that butter doesn’t make better, so I’m actually biased to think that would work well. It might be cheaper, I don’t know. I open my medicine cabinet and there’s a deodorant shaped thing in there that I use unquestioningly. When it runs out, a new shaped thing appears like magic. My wife is a wizard and there’s nothing you can say to dissuade me from believing she’s the most powerful entity on earth because that shit didn’t start happening until I moved in with her.
Martin
@MattF: He’s now claiming that fowarding work emails is illegal, which is an argument so stupid that even Trump hasn’t tried it.
jl
@?BillinGlendaleCA: The Finns rake their forests, silly BillinGlendaleCA.
You’ve not attended to your little Red Book of Trump Truth, and you are under suspicion.
No Fox News pundit gig, or Trump cabinet position for you.
Roger Moore
@Martin:
I like to say that there’s a difference between capitalism and free markets. Capitalism is a system in which firms are controlled by investors who provide them with equity capital (as opposed to firms being controlled by the government, by workers, or by some hybrid), while free markets are a system in which buyers and sellers have the choice of what price they’re willing to pay or ask for goods and services. We tend to associate capitalism with free markets, but the association is not necessary. You can have a system where firms are controlled by workers but prices are set by the market, or a system where firms are controlled by capital but prices are set by government fiat, monopolists, or industry cabals.
trollhattan
@MattF:
That article is something else. JFJr doing somebody’s work, just not the Lord’s.
He’s a spitting image of Conner Roy in “Succession”–billionaire offspring running for president.
Brachiator
@Martin:
Fair enough.
Many advanced countries have universal health care, but some Americans wrongly insist that single payer must be the answer. Also, as one commenter here (Barbara, I think) often points out, we have tremendous problems delivering good health care even when people have insurance or theoretical access. We need to thoroughly re-examine the entire system before we declare single payer or Medicare for all as the final answer.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@StringOnAStick:
@jl: I obviously need some time at a re-education camp. But Swedes, Finns…how can you tell the difference?
Omnes Omnibus
@jl: My response to the Swedes: You sold Saab to GM, you bastards. Die in a fire!
It may not be exactly on point, but it is heartfelt.
Richard Guhl
@jl:
I have to take issue with some of your premises about who and what was done to handle the financial crisis of 2008.
For one thing, TARP did not bail out the big banks! What happened was Secretary Paulsen handed the banks multi-billion dollar checks in exchange for warrants on ownership. It was as close to nationalization as it could get. And the banks didn’t want to accept the loans. They understood the threat. And this was in 2008, under Bush.
Most of the TARP funds went to taking over AIG, which insured the CDOs, and the quasi private agencies of Ginnie Mae and Fannie Mae. Obama used most of the rest of TARP rescuing the auto industry, smaller regional banks like Fifth Third.
It was the FED that took the banks’ CDOs as assets in exchange for ZERP loans.
The Obama administration did try to rescue homeowners with the HARP program, but it was a nightmare to administer, because the banks resisted and the securitization of the loans made it almost impossible to figure out who owned what.
Ruckus
@Kay:
Absolutely.
Brachiator
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Sit in their Laps??
Chris Johnson
“Then they fight you”
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Brachiator: I think that’s best left to “Balloon Juice After Dark”.
Major Major Major Major
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
If you can make some sense of basic phrases in their language, they’re Swedes.
Brachiator
@Richard Guhl:
The Mortgage Relief Act, passed in December 2007, also helped many homeowners who lost their homes through foreclosure, but who still had outstanding mortgage debt.
Ladyraxterinok
@Martin: circ 90,000 of its students are online. And I think the school makes a fortune out of them.
I believe the school gets much money from Pell gr as nts.
I never understood going into debt or working 20plus hours a week to get a degree from Liberty or Regent’s (Pat Robertson’s school). Out a ton of money with a degree few respect. If you want a job in an Evangelical/fundamentalist church, ministry, or school, then maybe a Liberty degree will help you get a job.
Roger Moore
@Brachiator:
This is very true. People have been so fixated on the insurance side of the equation that they’ve ignored all the problems with health providers. We need to stop encouraging doctors to be entrepreneurs and hospitals to be profit centers and refocus on being providers of medical care. Also, too, our whole system needs to be reoriented away from focusing on providing cutting edge care to the lucky duckies with the money to pay for it and toward providing competent care to everyone. The problems with our health system are exactly the same as the problems with our economy as a whole.
Kay
@Richard Guhl:
I defended it for years but I no longer do. It was an extraordinary situation and it called for extraordinary measures. They should have bailed out or crammed down the mortgages and made the banks eat some of it. They made the loans. I think lenders wouldn’t accept offers from borrowers because they didn’t want to have to book the losses and have it revealed what a catastrophically bad job they did at their BUSINESS, which is making loans. The Tea Party would have screamed bloody murder whatever they did, so go big. All the moral hazard concerns went to the public’s role. What about the lender’s role? They’re the fucking “experts”. It was the borrowers job to figure out that these loans made no sense? Why do we need bankers, then?
Ruckus
@MisterForkbeard:
I think Harris is using a different strategy here. I think she’s trying to first set herself up as the liberal who can work with all democrats to build a more sustainable country. I think she’s trying to be a leader, who can get things done using the best ideas from a lot of directions. She’s building a consensus for all democrats.
MattF
@Roger Moore: The whole ‘conservative’ approach to health care is based on free market assumptions… which are entirely bogus. Try finding out the competing prices for something simple— some common procedure plus the accompanying tests plus an overnight hospital stay. It’s just impossible.
trollhattan
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
The ones nervously looking over their shoulders watching for Russians, are Finns.
Elizabelle
@Omnes Omnibus:
Yup. And maybe it’s easier to make an energetic argument when you’re someone who will believe something on “faith” alone.
FDRLincoln
My son, the political science major, goes to college in Iowa. He says that Warren has a very well-organized ground game, while Biden’s effort in Iowa seems much thinner, with less staff and less enthusiasm than Warren has. The Bernie people are also very active, as is Klobuchar building on her base from nearby Minnesota, but he thinks the momentum and caucus buzz are with Warren and that Biden could finish as low as third.
jl
@Richard Guhl: I don’t see any claims in my comment about TARP, or accusations that Geithner was responsible for the Fed programs. Geithner played a large role in formulating policy, and, obviously, Treasury lending programs during the crisis. And i was not damning Geithner generally. I think when he was involved in the Fed himself before he run Treasury, he did good things. I just said he, along with Summers, made mistakes in federal government decisions on policy that they were responsible for.
Kay
More filthy water from the President. Handed an absolute GIFT of waterways – a valuable asset NONE of us paid for- and he has to take a shit in it and spoil it. Burn it down, use it up, and make sure and leave it worse than you found it. Reckless, selfish and deeply stupid people. They don’t deserve rivers.
Omnes Omnibus
@trollhattan: It’s their relationship with Nazis. If their great-uncle allied with Nazis in the ‘40s in order to fight the Soviets, you have a Finn. If their great-uncle simply was a Nazi in the ‘40s, you have a Swede.
jl
@Omnes Omnibus: Well, the socialist Swedes decided that saving that one particular auto company was not in the public interest in their policy for handling the recession. So, they let it go. Sometimes capitalist countries have t make hard decisions.
Kay
@FDRLincoln:
That’s interesting, thanks. It means a lot to me that Warren has a good campaign. It’s not optional. They have to have all the pieces. There will be tons of horrible things they can’t control, but they can control that.
Ladyraxterinok
@Elizabelle: I think ‘those who matter only began to take the danger of Evangrlicals to our system seriously as a result of the 2016 election.
People yelled and screamed about dominionism etc but were told they were overreacting.
People at Talk2Action had many posts about Palin’s ties to these people and how she’d been annointed by people in the New Apostolic Reformation, but the reaction was just crickets. Chrissy Stroop st her blog has personal experience posts, guest posts, and links to people who have been studying Evangelicals’ theology and political ideas, goals, effect for some time.
Their estimation of the danger posed by the people in the pews who listen to these teachings from ministers and televangelists and then vote is frightening.
karensky
@waspuppet: He was former DA in Philly and then a good mayor for Philly and the lousy governor of Pennsylvania. For several years he has been a bloviating commenter on sports and politics and a partner in a big law firm in Philly.
I am a Warren supporter but not a rabid one and a longtime political hack myself. I agree with everything Betty Cracker posted.
Omnes Omnibus
@jl: Don’t get rational with me about this issue. It won’t work. You just made the Saab-related die in a fire list. I hope you are proud of yourself.
Ruckus
@Kay
Who the hell would want to be friends with drumpy? The only way to be his friend is to listen and agree with every word out of his mouth. And let’s face it, even the worst conservative on the planet would not be up with that. OK OK the conservative that’s 25,564th from worst
Cacti
@jk:
Like when she announced the DNA test results?
jl
@Omnes Omnibus: I’m not much into different types of cars. There are cars that start and stop when you want, the turn when you want, and then there are cars that don’t (and which should be avoided). That’s about it for me on cars. Probably I was debauched by growing up a farm, or something.
In other words, I don’t understand what you are talking about.
Cacti
@Omnes Omnibus:
Oh, counselor. You’re quite adept at the straw man argument and I’d guess that you employ it regularly on the simple minds in a jury box.
Where did I say she was a partner at anywhere?
?BillinGlendaleCA
@jl:
Yeah, I’ll buy that.
FDRLincoln
@Kay: I’m for Warren myself, with Harris a close second. I think Joe and Bernie are both too old, and I have beefs with both of them on different issues, but I will gladly vote for any of the Dems over Hair Shitler.
My son, the idealistic 20-year-old, is a Berniecrat, although thankfully not a bombthrowing BernieBro.
Ladyraxterinok
@Martin: And calling in the FBI to investigate people who stole the U’s property=the emails.
Ladyraxterinok
@Roger Moore: In Germany are the doctors employees of the state or federal government? I think the govt sets their pay.
Not sure about how hospitals get needed income. But there may be few private ones.
Chris Johnson
@Aleta:
If it’s that much not a big effing deal to pay $5000 a month, he is welcome to pay me $5000 a month. Hell, I even have a Patreon for my (open source software) business, so he’s all set to do so, there’s even a mechanism in place for it. No big deal. Right?
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Chris Johnson: Yeah, 5K a month, I could really up my photography game.
Ladyraxterinok
@FDRLincoln: Do you feel comfortable saying what school?
My ex taught at IaState from 68 til he retired. My son is on staff there. Totally different division.
Ladyraxterinok
@Omnes Omnibus: If they saved their Jews, they were Dsnes, right?
Chief Oshkosh
@Brachiator:
I think you are confused with every rightwing hack monopolist, of which there are many polluting the landscape geographically, politically, and socially. Trump is the natural outcome of such ilk being allowed to procreate.
FDRLincoln
@Ladyraxterinok: Drake University in Des Moines. He’s a dual politics/sociology major and wants to be a policy guru for either the Democratic Party or a liberal think tank. He’s extremely bright and far, far more mature than I was at age 20.
Omnes Omnibus
@Cacti: So what kind of high dollar corporate attorney was she? Partner at a BigLaw firm, partner at a boutique specialty firm, or upper level counsel at a big corporation – outside of that your term doesn’t fit.
Cacti
@Omnes Omnibus:
A freelance hired gun for large corporate bankruptcies. Travelers Insurance and Dow Chemical ring any bells, counselor?
Omnes Omnibus
@Ladyraxterinok: To be fair only Denmark and Norway were invaded, and it is my understanding that Norwegians did better than many other countries. A low bar I will grant you.
Omnes Omnibus
@Cacti: Got it. A law professor who takes on some outside work in her area of expertise is now a high dollar corporate attorney, not someone following many law schools’ suggestion that professors do some actual work in their area so that they are not pure ivory tower theorists. You needn’t reply.
Butter emails!!!
@Omnes Omnibus: So I see team purity is back on the whole tact of representing the legal work records that Warren released on her own initiative again.
Cacti
@Omnes Omnibus:
Yes counselor. Racking up hundreds of thousands in billables to help large corporations limit their liability in BK proceedings makes you a high dollar corporate attorney.
Do you live in some unique jurisdiction where such work is considered pro bono publico?
You lose. Take your ball and go home.
Ruckus
@Kay:
They don’t deserve anything. OK contempt, for their selfishness, their shortsightedness, their recklessness, their racism, their stupidity…….. That should about cover it, but probably doesn’t fully do them justice.
Sab
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Swedes speak a Germanic language. Finns’ language isn’t even IndoEuropean ( but it’s very interesting.)
Omnes Omnibus
@Cacti: It seems a lot more like she was acting as a bankruptcy attorney – which you and I both know is different than a corporate attorney. Unless you want to advance a claim that any attorney who ever does any work for a corporation is a corporate attorney at which point the people who are not already pointing and laughing at you will begin to do so.
karen marie
I’m always late to the party!
I wondered why Rendell was trending on twitter yesterday but I find him so repulsive that I refused to hit the thing to find out why. He certainly hasn’t improved his standing now that I know.
*Spitting in the general direction of Rendell*
Cacti
@Omnes Omnibus:
She had a lucrative side gig as a corporate bankruptcy advisor. If it pains you to admit this, the problem isn’t me.
Citizen Alan
@Cacti:
I cannot articulate how little of a shit I give about that entire issue.
J R in WV
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Was listening to Outlaw country music channel on Sirius-XM radio this afternoon, and heard very country host tell us he was in Finland!?!?!??? Whut? How?
J R in WV
@Omnes Omnibus:
You are wasting good oxygen arguing with Cacti, who is for all intents and purposes a Russian Troll, even if they are from San Bernardino. A more determined Bernie Bro doesn’t exist outside St Petersburg intelligence offices. Bound and determined that every political person NOT Bernard Sanders, Russian Stooge, is a lackey of Big Corp, Inc!
Fool, bought and paid for, only not paid at all…