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Robert Reich's Supercapitalism (book review)
- 53260 reads
Unemployment: A Realistic Forecast
- 24365 reads
Global trade slows to a crawl
- 13852 reads
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- 953586 reads
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- 191546 reads
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As ludicrous as it sounds, this is the Plan du Jour coming from the Inmates of the House of Representatives (representative of What?). As some are no doubt aware, an Ammendment to the U.S. Constitution requires 2/3 majorities in each House and ratification by 3/4s of the States. All this will happen by next Tuesday. That is the plan to prevent a default on U.S. Debt by the Retrograde Mutant Inmates.
NYT
"
After a caucus meeting to round up the votes needed for House passage, Republicans said that Speaker John A. Boehner had agreed to modify his plan, which raises the debt ceiling only enough to last a few months, to make the next round of spending cuts and debt relief contingent on Congressional approval of a balanced-budget amendment to the Constitution.
"
Now they're trying to do it again. Paul Krugman posted an article today in which he said "The facts of the crisis over the debt ceiling aren't complicated. Republicans have, in effect, taken America hostage." If Obama caves to them he will have shown himself unworthy of a second term. He can begin to show some courage by taking a firm position on the non-extension of the Bush tax cuts.
Sure it got partially co-opted by Corporate players, but the Tea Party was initially formed to punish the bailed-out banksters. The economic arm of the American-Israeli empire, you might say.
The empire has been waging immoral ineffectual overextended supercostly war on the Islamic world for a couple decades while engaging in affirmative action home ownership, dishonestly bundled cds's; an offshoot thereof, loose border control, outsourcing jobs en masse and all manner of retrograde activity.
Numerian is dead spot on about the fiscal effect of sucking out $4Trillion or over 25% of GDP. We know this
but there is a belief out there that cuts will inspire
businsess confidence, the Confidence Fairy. All empirical evidence this year shows the opposite, cuts at the state level of around $200Billion and growing
are taking out equal percentages of GDP dollar for dollar. The history of 1937 is instructive.
What if they get their way? A rollback of the Welfare
State is a perfect storm of social upheaval. The cuts demanded by the Retrograde Mutants will turn us back to a time just before 1937 when America had 3 avowed socialist State Houses - Wisconsin,Minnesota and Louisiana. FDR constantly cited the the socialist state houses as a reason to pass Social Security, "Relief", and big increases in the Corporate Income tax rate and a doubling of the Capital Gains Tax Rate.
The modern Welfare State is a sea wall keeping out the raging storm of social revolution. Bismark, Lloyd George, Clemenceau, FDR all understood this and created
this Sea Wall. The reasoning of the welfare state is conservative, and capitalist, not radical or socialist.
The Retrograde Mutants will never understand this or much else about history. Put your finger to the winds,
the perfect storm is coming.
I discovered some major abuses of the comment ratings. We're none too serious about ratings around here, more they are used to say, "hey, I agree with you", or "I read your comment" and so on.
Seems some anonymous whatever was abusing and downrating comments. So, if you see a bunch of negatives, just rate 'em up, we were attacked.
That makes a lot of sense. At this point, I'd be happy to see him send Congress home and call for new elections;) Stop the wars, cold, repeal the Bush cuts. Bingo, we're in great shape. Thanks for making sense in short order!
They are without conscience. They will commit a crime, not paying debts when the money is there. They will compound that by trashing the US and, to a degree, the world economy just to make a point. The Tea Party driven plot has about 20% support, reflected in the support for the Republicans in the House.
Pew Research Poll 7/20-24 Congressional Approval Republicans/Democrats
Approve 24%/30%
Disapprove 66%/60%
In absolute terms, their position fails.
They're 12 points behind the Democrats. But it's their stand alone numbers that matter. They failed, miserably. The failure of corporate media to lay out the consequences of a default is the only thing keeping the Tea Party Republicans above 20% (their bedrock number). Nihilism has a certain cachet but fades as one approaches a real cliff.
PollingReport.com
Here is another way to look at public support. There's a clear plurality supporting the president. The 11 point difference matches up with the difference betweeen Republicans and Democrats in the congressional poll.
Having not made their case, they're going to trash the party. They're finished.
TBD is a post on what all of these inventories really mean since they have consistently been such a large part of quarterly GDP.
Good for you Numerian. The fact these people ignore 1+1=2 has led me to completely ignore them. How can only deal with people who cannot recognize the most basic finance and economic laws, logic?
Considering the current mess, it's about time we expose their economic fiction, full stop head on.
Behind their fiction is a full bore agenda to destroy all social safety nets of any kind.
These people have no problems stepping over and on the dead bodies of Americans through economic insanity and cruelty.
The Tea Party has one goal and one goal only; to destroy the Presidency, and if that requires them to destroy the country as well, so be it. They are now our country's biggest terrorist threat, as shown here >> http://wp.me/pNmlT-Ii
The 22% unemployment rate is calculated by taking the U6 number and then adding the long term unemployed discouraged workers which have not been counted since 1994. The site Shadowstats has an unemployment calculation that includes the long term discouraged which is listed as SGS. Check out the site www.shadowstats.com.
Very good observation. Congress moved immediately to bail out the banks yet when it comes to the United States government and nation, block a rescue at every turn.
Is this just another move to fascism? Or corporatism? Because if this game to blow up the credit rating of the gov't is successful, won't the banks be in full control then? Because they have stellar borrowing capabilities (thanks to the gov't backstop) and are considered too big to fail while the gov't will now be considered capable of failing.
At this point, Obama should announce that there will be no extension of the Bush tax cuts on his watch and that he will use his veto pen generously. With the prospect of lower taxes now and higher taxes later, maybe some of that cash will come out of the corporate treasuries, especially if there is a meaningful jobs credit.
the poor, Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid. This is a continuation of the attacks on the people taken to a new level with Bankruptcy Reform under Bush. Keep piling on debt, impoverish the people, make them sick, degrade them and blame them for what they're making you do.
If there is some partial reality to this drama by the Republicans,then Obama wins. He will play chicken more effectively and win without having to do cuts. He'll look like a hero for 2012, get the cuts down the road, and stomp all over the House for the net few months. (Recall how Obama and his people obliterated Trump, turned him into a laughing stock).
The very unlikely wild card is actual default. The financial elite fails to make the calls to their employees in the House or House members either don't get calls or fail to follow the instruction set. That puts Congress in the position of committing fraud. It can meet the obligations of the United States but willfully refuses. If Obama has a means to override them, it is his obligation to do so in order to prevent fraud by Congress.
Democracy has been distorted for a long time due to massive piles of cash dumped into campaigns, cronyism, a judiciary that ignores the law when it has to in order to reach its goals, wars based on lies, presidential directives to US citizens with the 'terra' label, etc. This very unlikely scenario would ruin everything for the storyline that has worked so well. There is too much to be lost of it ensues.
I'll take the first option, attack and beat down those with the least time on earth, least money, and least power.
The new version of "The Crazies" is actually the better of his two efforts. It pretty much sums up the problem. When the crazies run the show we are in dire need of help.
If Obama doesn't do it, he may be setting himself and his vice-president up for impeachment, even if he wins in 2012. Now, let's see, after the president and the vice-president, who is in line for the White House?
I know this is far out, but all of contemporary politics is far out. Not just what has happened in the last three years -- it's what has happened over the last 20 years now. Who knows at this point?
When there is no compromise on default in a time of war, what can we suppose except that it is a struggle for absolute power, no holds barred.
"Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely."
The US prints new money out of thin air to fund the outsourcing of jobs, factories, technology transfers overseas which help to build up the Chinese military, infrastructure spending abroad, military bases and military conflicts overseas and the consumption of foreign made goods from protectionist countries.
Companies such as GE, GM, Dell, Boeing and etc. are all planning to invest hundreds of billions of dollars in China over the next decade. A lot of these multinationals that have record profits from the money printing out of thin air stimulus packages are taking these newly printed dollars created out of thin air to invest in manufacturing plants and R&D research facilities overseas. This is why not many new jobs are being created in the US with all the increased budget deficits that have been monetized.
A solution would be for every state to follow the North Dakota model. It is the only State in the US that has a State Bank where they keep their tax funds. By having their own bank, they recycle the tax funds within the State to create jobs and fund industrial activity by having the ability to create credit. North Dakota is the only state in the US that regularly has high GDP growth, low unemployment, regular budget surpluses, low bankruptcy rates, low foreclosure rates and low crime.
It makes sense why they are successful. They grant credit to fund industrial activity within the State, unlike the Federal government that creates new money out of thin air to fund the outsourcing of jobs.
but there have been so many things that I just couldn't believe happened in the last 3 years, who knows at this point.
Caught between the "good cop" and the "bad cop," facing either default or ever deeper hits to the U.S. economy and to the middle class, we may be looking at some form of military dictatorship within the next few years, perhaps as early as next month.
Paul Craig Roberts considers this to be a risk greater than the risk of increasing debt.
In 'Is America Caught in The Closed Mind Trap?' (OpEdNews, July 27, 2011), Roberts writes:
I think that financial markets would probably welcome the news that Obama has invoked the PATRIOT Act to declare an emergency, and probably most Americans would like to see the current Congress sent packing. Certainly FOX addicts and Tea Partiers would be smugly satisfied to discuss within their own circle how right they have been all along about Obama's designs to become Ruler of Earth. It would then be a matter of Obama announcing that the debt ceiling has been removed, that he would not run again in 2012, and that he is capping the price of gas at something like $5/gallon. It Obama doesn't take such action, the country could be electing a Republican in 2012 who is willing to declare the emergency that may very well be too obvious to deny by 2013.
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