Ezra on why we are doomed. Formatting mine.
I didn’t say we hadn’t spent 18 percent of GDP since the 1960s. I said we hadn’t spent 18 percent of the previous year’s GDP since the 1960s. That’s because S.J.Res.10 says we can’t spend more than “18 percent of the gross domestic product of the United States for the calendar year ending before the beginning of such fiscal year.”
The reason they do that is clear enough: we don’t know what GDP will be in any given year until the year has ended, and you can’t set your budget as a percentage of a number you don’t actually know.
But 18 percent of last year’s GDP is not the same as 18 percent of GDP. Because the economy and the population grow each year, GDP grows each year. If you use current estimates, 18 percent of last year’s GDP is likely to be something like 16.7 percent of this year’s GDP. The last year we cleared that bar was 1956. In 1965 and 1966, however, we were in the 17 percent range, which I considered close enough to count as “the last time we were anywhere near there.”
It’s telling, I think, that the Cut, Cap and Balance proposal is much more extreme than most conservatives realize. These are pretty dramatic changes to want to make to both the Constitution and the American state, and it’s not clear to me that many of their proponents really understand them, or their implications.
Dear jeebus, eywah and the flying pasta monster: can you make it so that people who set the national agenda have some basic grasp of how policy works? Also the people who report it. That would be so great. Sorry about that thing I did in tenth grade.
***Update***
Also, the suicide squad. Too.
Han's Big Snark Solo
I got to give it to Ezra, that is the nicest way you can say, “These fucking morons have no clue what they are doing.”
Personally, I’d be a tad more blunt.
But Cut, Cap and Deceive will never pass. I don’t think we are doomed by the GOP’s reckless stupidity and willful ignorance; but I think the GOP may be.
Poopyman
Prepare to be disappointed, because from what I’ve observed over the past couple of decades, schools haven’t done their jobs.
It’s gonna be a rough ride.
Poopyman
@ Han:
Blunt is the only way to get the message through, IMO. But that would be shrill.
Lee
Hate to go OT but I’m looking for the link on whitehouse.gov with Obama’s plan.
One of the posters linked to it when the Republican’s were whining about Obama’s lack of a plan.
Anyone have it?
thanks,
Han's Big Snark Solo
@Poopyman: You are probably correct. We shouldn’t be shrill. So maybe I’d say something like, “These inbred troglodytes couldn’t find their asses with both hands and a map and if we don’t remove them from power this country will be the laughing stock of the world. Do you want the French people to, rightly, look down on us? No? Then kick these nincompoops to the curb.”
Must. Not. Be. Shrill.
Bulworth
This is a feature, not a bug.
General Stuck
It really is a fundamental misunderstanding, and in basic opposition to prime elements of our founding document. It comes from a permanent dichotomy in world view that has always been in this country, and has manifested itself in any number of ways.
The budget battle is a proxy for lingering nostalgia for a more aristocratic existence, that runs counter to any number of concepts of economic and social equality the constitution clearly proscribes. And the underlying anxieties of race and supremacy, only intensifies this conflict, and will increase as we become a more multi cultural and race country.
The good news is, there seems to be a solid block of approval for President Obama, that is sticking with him through thick and thin, and a bad economy.
The wingnuts that understand their shrinking majority, don’t care much anymore for niceties of democracy, and those that never understood, are out on the street sporting Don’t Tread On Me Signs, and wailing about how they want their country back. It is all about winning at all costs now, with a scary undercurrent from the right wing that is unmistakable, or else we will bring it all down.
And then there is the wingnut effect
AAA Bonds
I’ll point out that whether or not he’s right here, Ezra doesn’t really have a grasp on how policy works, especially when he’s reporting on it.
Yevgraf
Interestingly, this is all in an era of soaring profits. Between the parsimonious attitude toward underling compensation, the sneering disdain for the pressure felt by stagnantly paid underlings, the reckless commodity speculation and the facile blame being placed on evil “regulation” as being the cause for all this unrest, the MOUs have really done a great job of swinging the pendulum to the point where they could collapse their own edifices as Marx impliedly predicted.
A mixed market state smooths out those edges, and prevents the accumulation of too much power in the hands of a few, either left or right – the problem with the accumulation of that power is the magnification of the effect of poor decisionmaking.
For historical examples, look at Russia in the first decade and a half of the 20th century, then look at Stalin in the 30s, then look at Hitler’s cabal.
dr. bloor
Why is Ezra concerned about the GDP growing from year to year with an 18% cap? The economy is going to have all the vitality of a dead mackerel bumping up against a dock under that plan.
Davis X. Machina
Ignorant = authentic. Authentic = election. If you incentivize something, you get more of it.
AAA Bonds
@Yevgraf:
I think that liberal political thinkers have repeatedly underplayed the positive effects of mediated envy in society, mainly because Rawls was really freaked out by the concept.
I believe that if we don’t have a society that mediates envy, and specifically relative deprivation, into stability through some amount of redistribution, the risk of violent revolution greatly increases. And pace some of my critics on here, I don’t actually think that violent revolution is a good idea in most circumstances.
...now I try to be amused
Between home schooling and Christian private schools, I expect a significant part of the 27-percenters will have known nothing but epistemic closure.
Isidor
Pretty telling that when I saw the article title “Congress Under Siege” I assumed without hesitation that it must be about the US. Nah, it was about India…
patrick II
@dr. bloor:
Agreed. The effect of less government spending necessitated by this amendment in each year of a down business cycle will further accelerate the downward spiral. Government now acts as as a counter to the business cycle. When the economy slows down government spending goes up (welfare, food stanps, etc.) If they both trend downward in tandem the first large downward business cycle we hit will take us straight to a depression.
Trollenschlongen
Bill Clinton says he would,without hesitation, invoke the 14th amendment to raise the debt ceiling, and dare the fucking pukes to impeach him.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/19/bill-clinton-debt-ceiling_n_902266.html
Why hasn’t Obama made it clear that he will do this, or by any other means necessary ensure that the ceiling is raised and that the U.S. will NOT default on its obligations? Wouldn’t taking this action now, and refusing to negotiate with Republicans, instead insisting on a clean bill unfettered by bullshit, reassure the markets and citizens and thus stabilize the economy? Why is he willing to let this uncertainty and growing sense of panic metastasize?
NonyNony
@AAA Bonds
I hate to say it, but it took me a long time to figure out that this wasn’t blazing bleeding obvious to everyone. I think I figured this one out in High School when we read about the Depression/WWII era and I just figured that everyone had figured it out since if you combined that era with the lessons of the French Revolution it’s a pretty fucking obvious dynamic. I feel kind of stupid that it took me until the “Gingrich Revolution” to realize that, no, the elites in this country actually do NOT understand the actual dangers that a society that is vastly separated between haves and have-nots poses to the haves.
...now I try to be amused
Perhaps Obama is engaging in brinksmanship as much as the Republicans are?
Davis X. Machina
@NonyNony: It’s a calculated risk. They’re betting on the inertia of the have-nots, and the fact that the US is the Saudi Arabia of bright-shiny things.
So far, there’s nothing to say they haven’t backed the right horse.
It’s a mini-max problem, really. There’s an point where your tree-house is really, really nice, but the folks you pulled the ladder up on haven’t gone shopping for chainsaws yet.
Poopyman
@NonyNony:
“It can’t happen here” is still deeply ingrained in our culture, even in the prospective bearers of the pitchforks. It’s gonna take a while before that barrier comes down, but if the current economic model doesn’t change, I’m afraid it eventually will.
Villago Delenda Est
Violent revolution is NOT a good idea, for any number of reasons, to include that you have no notion of how it’s going to turn out. Look at the results of the French and Russian revolutions…tyrannies that refined the worst tendencies of the regimes they replaced.
Yet, this is what the current crop of “conservatives” seem to want to happen. Which is why they’re the last thing from conservative. They’re doing everything that they can think of to destabilize society…the exact opposite of what actual conservatives try to do, which is take actions to enhance stability to preserve the existing order…which include things like mediating envy, as AAA Bonds indicates. Screaming “mine, mine, MINE!” like your standard three year old does not help this at all.
AAA Bonds
The longer this goes on, the shittier the Republicans look. Polls back this up, at least right now.
I’m not a fan of risking the bond markets on that, even for another extra day. But that’s at least part of the thinking behind the White House pushing for a bill right up to the deadline.
Davis X. Machina
@…now I try to be amused: A clean bill unfettered by bullshit lost in May. It only got 97 votes. And there are more than 97 Democrats in the House.
Nylund
It reminds me of how many of the right-wingers I meet here in Texas think we can get my just fine spending the same amount (in nominal dollars) that we did in 2000 (or some other past year). They remark about how that was a good year. They entirely neglect the fact that inflation has changed the real value of those nominal amounts and that population, demographics, and the size of the economy have changed considerably in the last decade. They ignore wars, ignore how changes in unemployment alter revenues and costs, and ignore changes in the tax code.
They really don’t understand exponential growth (in both the economy and population) or the difference between real and nominal dollars, or the affects of any major policies.
We’re having accounting conversations with people who are entirely enumerate. These are people whose estimate of the age of the universe is off by tens of billions.
The Snarxist Formerly Known As Kryptik
So when do we officially reach “Doomed” status, because at this point, it’s looking more and more like an inevitability even if there is some kind of deal reached because whatever deal is made will almost necessarily fuck everyone but the rich over yet again.
Poopyman
@Villago:
That’s the legal definition of Sedition, yet I don’t hear anyone bringing that term up. Again, too shrill.
AAA Bonds
@Villago Delenda Est:
I don’t like the glowing phrase “Burkean conservative” at all, considering that if you’re truly Burkean you can’t possibly be in favor of the American system of government, but: no one in Congress is more anti-Burkean right now than the Republicans.
One big part of conservatism is usually to pay the fuck attention when the established economic interests of your country tell you that you’re about to mess them up. Even Hitler managed this one, which is why “National Socialism” never actually attempted socialism.
gene108
Unless math/science lovers go into journalism, there’s little chance it will change.
Journalism is an industry, whose college curriculum is tailored for people to avoid as much math and science as possible.
When numbers get thrown around these people, mentally, run away screaming because they just don’t like dealing with numbers.
If we could convince colleges that everyone in journalism needed a semester of calculus, two courses in economics – macro and micro, statistics, and 3-4 courses in one science – Chem 101, physical chemistry, organic chemistry I&II – so they get grounded in how a scientists obtain and evaluate information, it would do this country a huge favor.
Yevgraf
@AAA Bonds
The operating theory would be this:
As laissez faire policies result in greater accumulation of wealth and concomitant decisionmaking power in the hands of a few, the benign (and relatively benign) decisionmakers will suffer two separate consequences – the first being that not all of their decisions will be good ones, and the second, that well-meaning will be shoved aside by those with malign intent. As this occurs, the consequences to the macro economy as a whole will be disastrous, thereby bringing about the conditions requisite for societal instability and potential revolt.
In a heavily armed society, that will result in initial phases is armed, violent repression of dissent, with a later phase of militaristic adventurism that will have to be put down by united opposition forces.
I just hope that when the UN forces have to address this, that they limit their nuclear attacks to places like Plano, the Nashville suburbs, the northern suburbs of Atlanta, Colorado Springs, Orange County CA, the I-5 corridor, central PA and southern Ohio….
AAA Bonds
I don’t like the glowing phrase “Burkean conservative” at all, considering that if you’re truly Burkean you can’t possibly be in favor of the American system of government, but: no one in Congress is more anti-Burkean right now than the Republicans.
One big part of conservatism is usually to pay the fuck attention when the established economic interests of your country tell you that you’re about to mess them up. Even Hitler managed this one, which is why “National S*cialism” never actually attempted s*cialism.
AAA Bonds
I don’t like the glowing phrase “Burkean conservative” at all, considering that if you’re truly Burkean you can’t possibly be in favor of the American system of government, but: no one in Congress is more anti-Burkean right now than the Republicans.
One big part of conservatism is usually to pay the fuck attention when the established economic interests of your country tell you that you’re about to mess them up. Even H*tler managed this one, which is why “National S*cial*sm” never actually attempted s*cial*sm.
Villago Delenda Est
It’s the MBA mentality. Move the sliders a little bit to optimize profit. Never mind that the sliders cannot be fixed, that you’re in a dynamic, not a static, situation like you were back in your classroom.
Idiots.
The Moar You Know
There really isn’t any. All you have to do is hire some thick-necked low-IQ underachievers, give them a uniform and a gun, and tell ’em that they’re better than anyone else in the country. Throw ’em a few extra pennies so they can flaunt their elite status over their fellow peons, and you can sleep in your billion-dollar mansion with all the doors open. You’re untouchable. Your hired sides of beef will die to protect you – literally.
Best-paid public employees in California are prison guards and cops. That’s no accident.
Poopyman
BTW and OT, this made me smile:
Linky goes to La Figa under FDL. You’ve been warned.
LGRooney
I love this resolution! They give nod to their supply side idiocy that tax decreases increase revenue in the last clause of Section 4, limiting the ability to raise taxes (if I’m reading it right).
And, they specifically prohibit waivers to Section 4 in times of war, i.e., they cover their Hussein-tied-to-al-Qaeda asses, by essentially demanding we put defense emergencies on the credit card. And they do it twice! Can someone point out the difference between the two following Sections?
Must check that judicial taxation thing!
Bunch of morans!
patrick II
@Nylund:
I think you meant innumerate. But maybe you just meant people who are countable.
cleek
@Trollenschlongen:
perhaps he’s not so reckless as Bill Clinton. or perhaps Bill Clinton is just talking shit.
Mr Stagger Lee
I got wingnut friend peddling some conservative petition congratulating the brave superpatriots who are pushing cap, cut, and balance. You know fuck it, let us exercise this wingnut bullshit on them first. How about cut their medicare, SS, any farm subsidies, if their is any military bases in the red districts close them. All veterans who embrace this, fine say goodbye to your VA, and any military pension or disability, and when you are suffering don’t come to me, go to your massa Charles and David Koch, beg alms from Rush.
Fuck You and the ragged broom handle shoved up you!
Sorry for the cussing
AAA Bonds
@Davis X. Machina:
I think what the poster was saying is that Obama should openly state that unless a clean bill is passed, he will raise the ceiling by himself, regardless, and stare down any Constitutional challenge as per Bill Clinton’s statement in the National Memo story. (Not that I’m endorsing this, but the poster’s reply was to the story about Clinton.)
Additionally, a couple folks have already pointed out on other threads that one reason the “clean bill” didn’t have that support is because Congress needed to put that bill to a vote to proceed with the debate, but if any bill to raise the debt ceiling looked like it was going to pass but didn’t, it could cause a market panic.
NonyNony
@The Moar You Know
This is fundamentally untrue and we KNOW from history that it is untrue.
Hired thugs can only do so much. When the mob comes to your door with Mdme. Guillotine out in the square your thugs can slow them down but history says they ain’t a guarantee.
Whether the idiots know it or not, they’re making an insane gamble. They’re probably figuring it’s their kids or their grandkids who will have to pay the price and there’s quite a bit of “the masses are simple-minded sheep” going on. But people in the US are only complacent because the majority is well fed, clothed, housed and entertained. Change those dynamics and I would give it less than a year before things start to crumble.
AAA Bonds
@LGRooney:
Section 6 involves a declaration of war, proving that it’s a total vanity clause with no application whatsoever to contemporary America.
:D
Davis X. Machina
It’s been the American way for a century and a half: “I can always hire one-half of the working class to kill the other half.” — Jay Gould.
Bender
Ezra gets caught beclowning himself yet again by not understanding/ willfully lying about CC&B (and backing that ridiculous CAP graphic), now backpedals furiously by… still not understanding the law.
Neither of those Resolutions he waves around as being “mentioned” (the choice of this weak word should’ve tipped you that he was lying to you) in CC&B are specifically necessary provisions. Even Klein notes there can be “variants” of the “mentioned” bills, and then goes on acting like the 18% is written in stone. The Cut, Cap and Balance bill actually caps spending at 21.7 percent of GDP for 2013, 20.8 for 2014, 20.2 for 2015, 20.1 for 2016, 19.9 for 2017, 19.7 for 2018, and 19.9 percent for 2019 through 2021.
Look, we can’t make Ezra smart enough to understand CC&B. We can’t make him stop lying for partisan advantage. We can’t legislate that.
Well, at least he can count on good parrots like John to wad his My Little Pony Underoos at this OUTRAGEOUS maybe-sometimes-as-much-as 1.3% GDP discrepancy which doesn’t really exist. “Those Republicans are soooooo poopyheads!”
Mnemosyne
And that would get the Republicans to pass a clean bill … how, again? Heck, it gets them out of the hole they’ve dug for themselves because they can start screaming about the evil president violating the Constitution while the press ignores their actions of the past 6 months.
I think Mr. Clinton is having a hard time realizing that his “triangulation” strategy has run its course, but I don’t think he’s the only Democrat who hasn’t gotten it yet.
catclub
Gene108 @ 27 Do you think Sarah Palin would have her journalism degree if they did that?
NonyNony
@cleek
Or perhaps Clinton is playing “tough cop” to Obama’s “mild cop”.
Seriously – they’re playing their parts. Clinton is pointing out the extremes that Obama can take so that Obama doesn’t have to.
Does anyone really think that Obama coming out with the heavy hand NOW and committing to just saying “Fuck you Congress I’m in charge and I’m just going to pay our bills like the Constitution says” would help anything? No – it would just get the Congresscritters riled up and nothing would happen except that the discussion would shift away from “when is Congress going to do their fucking jobs and pass something” to “OMG OBAMA’S A DICTATOR! HE JUST DECLARED MARTIAL LAW! SCARY BLACK MAN IS USURPING THE POWER OF CONGRESS!!!!!”
I imagine he’s waiting until Congress has completely proven themselves incapable of governing on this before he steps in and gives the “calm the fuck down, market” speech where he either a) presents a plan like the one the Clinton suggests or b) tells everyone that there will be a government services shutdown to ensure that the full faith and credit of the US government is not called into question or c) some other plan that none of us have sussed out yet.
Whatever plan he chooses will depend on what his advisors tell him he can get away with Constitutionally and what his advisors tell him will be best for his re-election politically. An outright default is not going to happen because it fails both of those tests.
AAA Bonds
@The Moar You Know:
Those folks may or may not be prepared to engage in actual civil war a la the Tsarist “lifeguard”. If not, their resistance to mob violence will be fleeting once the state can no longer control it. Incentives change rapidly when order breaks down.
Much of the result depends on how the wealthy pool their resources and how well they plan for collective defense of their property in the event of revolution. Wealthy individuals, by themselves, will find the price of protection approaches infinity.
AAA Bonds
@Mnemosyne:
I think you’re replying to the wrong person?
catclub
NonyNony @ 37 “But people in the US are only complacent because the majority is well fed, clothed, housed and entertained. Change those dynamics and I would give it less than a year before things start to crumble.”
Unemployment in the US was about 25% and we did not get a revolution. It was 47% in germany. It is presently 9 (or 16%) with a bigger safety net than in 1932. We are still a long way away. _But I have an idea about the sign posts on the way._
wrb
Uneducated morons or highly-educated cultists?
Krugman, in his blog:
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@NonyNony:
I agree with this but my concern – along with many more knowledgeable folks, I suspect -is how much damage skittish markets will do. We’re already seeing some effects with increased layoffs as the corporate sector prepares for the potential havoc.
AAA Bonds
If I were wealthy, I’d be moving money out of America as quickly as I can. Like all of them already are.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
Bender
And once again, you’re counting trees while the forest is being burnt down. The point is that any percentage is the previous year’s percentage, not the current year. So there will never be as much money as they think there is. And what happens after 2021?
gwangung
Just a thought. Stating your strategy beforehand and letting your opponents know what it is may not be the best move all the time. RIght or not, this is a President that keeps options open until the last possible moment and doesn’t entrench himself into a position early.
Yevgraf
@AAA Bonds
Something I’ve noticed lately – the wealthy fuckers do seem to have longer lifespans than most, even with obviously shitty health habits (the Hunt brothers, Fats Limbaugh and Cheney being the more prominent examples). Modern medical care does wonders for them, given the unlimited budgets available. Their bunker mentalities provide them an extra layer of physical protection from the public consequences of their actions as well.
AAA Bonds
@wrb:
I agree wholeheartedly.
Once again, people who refuse to read “right-wing” thinkers will never understand what’s going on in this country. The opposition has spent decades cultivating a counter-intelligentsia through private donations and hijacked public institutions.
Krugman has the dubious advantage of working in a discipline where avoiding the right wing is the same as retirement, so he’s usually a good person to read on the topic.
Kirk Spencer
Basically, because Obama halfway agrees.
Obama is not a liberal. He’s a centrist.
He’s a believer in the freshwater economic theories — not the more extreme Austrian/Misean variants, but the basic Hayekian principles that run in opposition to Keynesian principles.
Much hay is made of how Obama made that speech against raising the debt ceiling in 2006 and now wants it. What people don’t realize is that Obama still believes in the points he made in that speech. He recognizes raising the ceiling is a necessity to avoid crashing things, but still thinks the government spends way too much money and needs to bring costs down.
He’s not the Obama we want, he’s the Obama we have.
General Stuck
It can’t be overstated, just how deep the chaos and pathology of today’s GOP runs. Democrats, and Obama, are dealing with maniacs behaving like coke heads on a month long binge, that are talking out of their asses when not out of both sides of their mouths. It would be comical and comforting to a democrat, if the stakes weren’t existential. So we are left with the courage of a republican speaker of the house, to save the day. A guy that breaks out into tears with every breathless sunset.
It is what I feared from the beginning, that the GOP is so dysfunctional right now, the biggest danger is not what they do, but don’t do when it needs doing, and by accident they start the chain reaction to a dystopian tomorrow for the entire world.
Yevgraf
I’ve been reading about the experiences of William Dodd, US Ambassador to Germany from 1933 to 1937. If you look at the underlying rhetoric that fully transformed Weimar into fascism, the rhetoric and methods were truly teatard, and in their own way, constituted a revolution without the overtly armed overthrow of the government.
AAA Bonds
@catclub:
My belief is that it is exceptionally hard to predict tipping points, and the only thing we can do with the knowledge we have is mitigate risks. Someone is always saying that revolution is around the corner, and someone is always saying that we’re not there yet, and one of them is always right.
jwb
Poopyman: No, too blunt or shrill and they just tune you out.
Tim F.
@Bender.
Pro tip: a troll is smart enough to understand a point but chooses not to get it. That’s how you tell them from the honestly mistaken.
The House passed one relevant bill this week. That bill demands that Congress pass a Constitutional amendment, S. J. RES. 10, before it allows the debt ceiling to increase. That amendment states exactly what Ezra says that it states. 18 percent of the previous year’s GDP.
Now I will regret feeding the troll…
Yevgraf
@AAA Bonds
I’ll throw this bit of “Jericho” scare out there – let us not forget that we have our very own heavily nuclear armed Tribulation Air Force in shiny, clean blue uniforms that do nothing but suck up money while flying shiny clean airplanes and underground bunkers, whose loyaties are right now very questionable and very white oriented. They’ve not been, for the most part, tied up deeply in our conflicts with nations and movements of furrin’ talkin’ brown people, so they’re not real attuned to the miseries and deprivations of conflict.
tomvox1
Can’t believe Gillespie would fail to have his facts straight or willfully misconstrue them to further his anti-government ideology…
chopper
@62:
why talk about the constitutional amendment? it’s not like that would be binding at all.
PreservedKillick
Counter-intelligensia, sure. Also an outright disdain for “experts” and university learning and so on. Just look at Palin.
All of this, BTW, should remind everyone of some other event in history.
The Cultural Revolution.
Ordovician Bighorn Dolomite (formerly rarely seen poster Fe E)
@Gene108 27
Damn, I wish I’d thought of saying that.
I actually work in hegher ed, so I think I’ll mention this in the hallways and just see what sort of reaction I get.
Of course, just because they’ll hate it, doesn’t mean it isn’t a damn good idea.
Lydgate
I’ll take him going down (the bathtub!) if I can’t have Rove, Rummy, and Bush.
Lydgate
Forgot Cheney. He may be dead already, though.
wrb
hip hop:
Big damage already, I believe.
Someone the other day argued that 9% unemployment was only a concern to the 9% so didn’t really affect reelection prospects.
I disagree- it is a huge concern to everyone with real estate assets, as they are told the market won’t recover until unemployment does. I think we are seeing a strong possibility of a value collapse that could see many Americans lose much or all of their savings and their prospects for retirement. This could make it unlikely for any incumbent to be reelected.
A lot of developers and owners were structured to survive a “normal” recession of 2 or 3 years and a lot of lenders were willing to forebear if their was light visible ahead, if things might get better next year. Until this spring people seemed to believe that will be better “next year.” Now they don’t seem to, and are increasingly pulling the plug, at least based on my unscientific observations. If there isn’t hope, people don’t pick up bargains because they start looking at the vector- “it is cheaper this month than last so why won’t it be cheaper yet next month?” And we find ourselves in a market that has no floor. The clown show in Washington is doing a great job of convincing people that there is no reason to think it will get better.
Unless the administration does something radical to give the market lots of hope things could be very ugly by election day.
wrb
Exactly.
We may get a revolution, but the plutocrats aren’t too worried because they are pretty confident in this new world of modern media they’ve been able to convince the people that they are on the same side and liberals are those they need to come for with fork and flame.
catclub
wrb @ 70 “… they start looking at the vector- “it is cheaper this month than last so why won’t it be cheaper yet next month?” ”
And at the same time the bond vigilantes tell us that hyperinflation is right around the corner and we need to raise interest rates and stop QE2. Fun times.
Taylor
Unofficial unemployment was closer to 40%.
And don’t kid yourself. If it weren’t for FDR, this country could have gone in a very frightening direction.
Think MacArthur pulling a James Matoon Scott….
I think of Obama as basically a Kerensky. Not sure who Lenin is yet, but as Kulagin said about some of the clowns in the Duma in the 90s, they’re just preparing us for the Real Thing (who of course turned out to be Emperor Putin).
My guess is, the plan is to give Obama another term to tear apart the Democrats and tank the economy with his kowtowing to Wall Street, and then let Jeb ascend to the throne that is rightfully his.
The national security state will of course still be in place for him.
elmo
WRT Obama and the 14-amendment option: I am not sure how, exactly, he would go about doing what Clinton proposes. Direct the Treasury to issue more bonds? Great. But now you have to have a Treasury auction, don’t you? Who’s going to buy them?
Rick Taylor
__
I have not in general been happy with the strategy the President has used, but in this case it makes sense to me that he wouldn’t to announce ahead of time any intention to ignore the debt ceiling. Invoking the 14th amendment should be a measure of last resort. Selling bonds in the midst of a constitutional crises, complete with likely impeachment proceedings might not reassure investors that treasury bonds are safe. If the President announced he would ignore the debt ceiling if it wasn’t raised, Republicans would have little impetus to make any sort of deal. If Republicans continue on their present course, I certainly hope he does invoke the constitutional option, but I think he’s doing the right thing in not bringing it up until he has to. Oh the other hand, it might be good to have some prominent popular Democratic politician push the idea so it doesn’t catch everyone by surprise if he does have to use it. Bill Clinton, maybe?
AAA Bonds
@Rick Taylor:
That makes sense.
AlladinsLamp
TABOR, by other means.
The Colorado example.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxpayer_Bill_of_Rights
Carol from CO
Did alec write the CC&B bill?
Carol from CO
@AlladinsLamp
What are the chances of it being rolled back on the November ballot?
HyperIon
From Will Rogers’ “Bacon, Beans and Limousines” speech:
Bender
And? I mean, if we used crystal-ball projections of next year’s GDP, then there would be whines about that (and the numbers would no doubt be politicized and inaccurate).
I understand Klein’s concern about government spending falling a bit below the %age cap w/r/t present GDP, but frankly, that’s a runaway GDP-growth “problem” we’d all love to have. In 2009, by the way, we’d have had the reverse problem — we’d have been basing spending on the previous years’s higher GDP.
Plus, the caps (which I delineated earlier) are high enough not to reach Klein’s stated levels…AND there’s language in CC&B (which I’m not happy about) that Congress can go over the cap with a vote.
Really, this is much ado about virtually nothing. Just a reason for Tim to pull out his old “poopyhead GOP” shtick, while forgetting that Slow Ezra has been clowned on this issue since the get-go. (Of course, since you guys never venture outside the hive-mind, you have no clue of this…)
Besides, “Do you have a degree in Economics?”
Bender
@Tim F.
You’re wrong, Tim.
The caps are clearly delineated in the text of CC&B. They are as I stated, and they are (on noes) based on CBO projections of the next year’s GDP.
* 2012, 22.5% of GDP.
* 2013, 21.7% of GDP.
* 2014, 20.8% of GDP.
* 2015, 20.2% of GDP.
* 2016, 20.2% of GDP.
* 2017, 20.0% of GDP.
* 2018, 19.7% of GDP.
* 2019, 19.9% of GDP.
* 2020, 19.9% of GDP.
* 2021, 19.9% of GDP.