Ummm.... It IS the Economy, Stupid

New York Times economy writer David Leonhardt, falling in line with the  Administration's full court PR charm offensive on "How to Share the Sacrifice and Learn to Love It", has written a piece on how Team Obama thinks it can win even though the economy stinks. (Thanks, "DraftSpitzer", for sending the link).

Another article in today's Times today gushes how "buoyed" Obama is now that there is some real bipartishit coming out of Congress.  Apparently, the fact that the Uniparty can agree to impose suffering on the masses and enrich the corporations is cause for celebration.  As long as it puts the president in a good mood, what more could we peasants ask for?  To further lift him out of his doldrums, the aptly named Moody's is walking back its Debt Ceiling Doom rating threat.
   
The "Headwind" headline is ripped straight from the obsessive-compulsive brain of whatever White House PR hack writes the  speeches.  The president can't get enough of the temporary headwinds buffeting the economy and which, of course, are merely passing zephyrs in his Panglossian world vision --- the Japanese earthquake is still sending shock waves across the ocean, says he.  Then there are those rising gas prices, which actually started falling even before he unnecessarily released the oil reserves.  And those misleading, increasing unemployment numbers, which are always flukes and always so much shockingly higher than expected, even though teachers by the thousands are being laid off this summer, when school's out and nobody notices.

But this excerpt is the real giveaway that Leonhardt's piece came indirectly from Orwell's Ministry of Truth the Obama '12 machine:

The clearest statement of this idea has come from David Plouffe, Mr. Obama’s top political adviser. “The average American does not view the economy through the prism of G.D.P. or unemployment rates or even monthly jobs numbers,” Mr. Plouffe said at a recent Bloomberg Breakfast here. “People won’t vote based on the unemployment rate. They’re going to vote based on: ‘How do I feel about my own situation? Do I believe the president makes decisions based on me and my family?’ ”
Not surprisingly, Republicans seized on the comment to say the White House was out of touch. They are preparing to follow the path of not only Ronald Reagan’s 1980 campaign, but also — in slogans, if not policies — Bill Clinton’s 1992 campaign, which coined “It’s the economy, stupid.”

Actually, it wasn't  the Republicans who first seized upon Plouffe's ham-handed bluster.  The Progressive blogosphere glommed onto it first.  A recent phenomenon I have noticed is that whenever liberals take Obama to task for his latest outbreak of conservativism, Republicans seize upon the criticism, making Obama their instant victim without having to expend much effort  themselves.  Not much we can do about that, except to say over and over again to David Brooks and William Kristol and Charles Krauthhammer:  Take him -- he's yours!  He wants to rip up the social safety net as much as you do.  He is embracing the latest Baby Grand (son of big Grand) Bargain from the Gang of Six or Seven even though he hasn't even read the thing yet.  It is still in its fetal stage: two pages of bullet points.

Nowhere in his article does Leonhardt mention the pushback against Obama from his former supporters. As of 7:30 a.m. today, all 19 reader comments posted to the Leonhardt story were Obama-negatives from the usual liberal crowd.  And not one clothespin (hold your nose, lesser of two evils) voter among them.  More and more, it's not the Economy Stupide.  It's the fact that a Democratic president is thinking about cutting Social Security and Medicare and other domestic programs during what is increasingly looking like a Long Depression.

Confidence Fairytale Theater

Obama pal David Cote, the multimillionaire union-busting CEO of the criminally convicted polluter Honeywell International, went on "Meet the Press" yesterday to talk about his lack of confidence.  He's hoarding his record obscene profits, he says, because he is just too uncertain about the future.  In order to Win the Future like his president wants, he has to have reassurances from government  that it'll find a way to not tax his company's offshore billions and also do something about all that annoying regulation.  The multimillions in fines from his record number of SuperFund toxic waste sites and the radioactive sludge episode have left him feeling mighty unconfident.

 Since the topic of the Sunday talk fest was Jobs and the Economy, the alleged moderator (David Gregory) didn't bother asking Cote (which Gregory pronounced "Cootie") about his lockout of whistleblowing unions and his company's recent criminal conviction.  Nobody in the mainstream media has ever challenged him about this.  Gregory eagerly asked, "Are politics unable to meet the challenges we (meaning corporations) face?"


From the transcript, Cote's reply:  

It's the sort of thing that scares me is -- we're -- I'm -- Honeywell 's a global company , 37 billion in sales, got 130,000 people, half our sales and people outside the USA. Traveled the world a lot and the world has changed, we went from a billion participants in the global economy to four billion over the last 20 years, yet we still act like we did 20 years ago. And we need an American competitiveness agenda that gets our finances right, gets energy policy , math and science education , infrastructure, and we can't even do something like this. It's very scary as a businessman.

And later.....

I always find it interesting when I hear government say "We need to create jobs."  And I say, "No, actually, government doesn't create jobs.  Government can create an environment where jobs can be created.  And I think it's important to distinguish between the two."

Cote, who is a Republican, was supposed to have gotten his chance to ask not what he can do for his country, but what his country can do for him, at a special lunch with Democratic senators a few weeks ago.  But then Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Illinois Sen.Dick Durbin got a letter from the President of the United Steelworkers Union:

Honeywell - one of the nation’s largest multinationals - would seem a poor choice for such a discussion since the Company has engaged in a lockout of 228 USW members at Local 7-669 in Metropolis, Illinois since June 2010, seeking drastic concessions from our members. For years this Honeywell facility has put USW members and the community at risk innumerable times because of multiple health and safety standard violations cited by OSHA, the NRC and the EPA. If CEO Cote really desires to create jobs in the U.S. he could immediately create 228 good paying jobs by simply ending this disastrous lockout of our members in Metropolis, Illinois.

The meeting was subsequently cancelled. But Durbin, whose constituents include those locked-out workers, also appeared on "Meet the Press" Sunday.  Although he was in a different segment than Cote (with whom he also served on the Simpson-Bowles Deficit Reduction "Catfood" Commission) I like to imagine that the two of them met in the Green Room and exchanged pleasantries.  Both of them wholeheartedly agree, by the way, that Social Security needs to be "fixed." 


From the Durbin interview transcript, words evidently failed him as he choked up recounting the consensual awesomeness of Obama: 

SEN. DURBIN:

David, let me tell you, if you could've been in the White House Cabinet Room , as I was, for six separate meetings and watched this president of the United States patiently listen to each member of the leadership in Congress lay out their ideas of where to go and how we can do this together, if you know that he started the meeting saying, "I'm putting everything on the table so that we can have a reasonable, comprehensive approach to it," you saw real leadership in action. I can't think of another president in my memory...

MR. GREGORY:
Mm-hmm.




"It's Very Scary as a Businessman".... Now Eat Your Peas, Pod People!

 

The Friday Night Massacre, Obama-Style

In a Friday night leak designed to garner the least possible amount of attention, an unnamed White House source not authorized to speak even though he was absolutely directed to speak by his boss, has announced what we were all pretty much expecting:  Elizabeth Warren is out as chief of the consumer protection agency she herself created.

Now that he has embraced cuts to Social Security and Medicare, and the wrath of his base is sliding like water off his thick-skinned teflon persona , why not go in for the kill and stab the progressive community one more time for good measure, while they are still reeling from the shock of the past week.  And do it at arm's length, of course, right at the start of a summer weekend.

Equal Opportunity Pain

I haven't been able to find an official transcript of President Obama's press conference yet, but here are some salient points that managed to find their way into my numbed and disbelieving brain:

-- The shared sacrifice mantra.  We can't ask the "less fortunate" to suffer even more without asking the millionaires and billionaires to also suffer just a tad.  Because misery loves company.  And if Grandma has to endure starvation and eviction and want, then Billionaire Corporate Jet Owner should have to pay "just a little more" to pretend we are all fellow travelers in this Great Journey of Austerity.  Again, Obama reminds us that as a wealthy fellow himself, he too will be selflessly paying a little bit more.  So everybody shut the hell up and suffer with joy.

-- The false family-government equivalence, again. " A family doesn't run up a credit card bill because otherwise they can't send Junior to college or fix the boiler.... so neither should the government".  Bullshitsky.  Families can't print money or sell their debt to China.

-- If we Do Something Big It Will Send a Signal.  A signal to whom?  He didn't say.  The mythical fence-sitting independent voters of the Heartland?  Nah.  Wall Street and corporations making about a third more in obscene profits this quarter and thus are so skittish they're afraid to hire?  Yep.

--" I am willing to let my base hate me, so the Republicans should just welcome their base's hatred too."  Because even corrupt politicians can totally embrace the misery-loves-company meme?  No.  Obama doesn't care about Democratic voters because they will hold their noses and pick him over Michele Bachmann.  Republicans do care about their base, because it's made up in equal parts of  crazy Tea Partiers and K Street lobbyists.  More proof that Obama is the antithesis of FDR, who welcomed the hatred of the bankers and was thus labeled a "traitor to his class."  Obama kisses the feet of the base bankers who basically are his new base.

--" I am still puzzled by the Republican pattern of voting against all my proposals".  Ever heard the word disingenuous, Mr. O?  But wait, he also said he never reads articles or watches news shows about himself, so I guess he has virtually no clue about the reality of anything.  He said he has a thick skin so the articles he never reads have no effect on him anyway.  He has no idea that Mitch McConnell has said the GOP's sole goal is that he not be given a second term.  Because he doesn't watch TV.  He has no idea.....

-- We should be sure that current beneficiaries of Social Security, "as much as possible", are not effected by changes to the program.  So current recipients may be affected just a little and future ones a lot?  How very reassuring.  Raising the retirement age is just one of many measures that are on the table.  No specifics, of course.  He is open to means-testing Medicare.  He again refers to his own looming 50th birthday and golly, he is going to be getting his AARP card soon, and yep, he's one of those millionaires who might have to be means-tested!  (He fails to mention that his health care needs, present and future, will be taken care of by a VIP retirement/benefits package shared by all the miscreants of Congress).  But the stenographic press corps chuckles appreciately anyway.

-- Chuck Todd marks the 493rd time he has been called on to the exclusion of 99 percent of the other reporters in the room.  Jake Tapper may be tied with him.  I don't know.

Did I leave anything out? 

Body Language Open to Interpretation (AP )

And Now for Something Completely Silly

As Act II, Scene 74 in the melodrama that is Debt Ceiling Monster Horror Chiller Theater grinds on in Swamplandia, D.C., there's a burlesque act with really cheap seats playing out in the Heartland.  It's known as Michele Bachmann Runs for President.  In the latest episode, Michele signs an anti-pornography pledge and states that marriage is the fundamental unit of government. 

Then she has a dream in which God tells her she is destined to become Pope Queen of America.  Here, direct from her dream to our nightmare, is a sneak preview of what Michele will be wearing to her Inaugural Ball in January 2013:




Warrior Queen of the New American Theocracy

So while Barack Obama is casting himself as the second coming of Ronald Reagan and offering to sacrifice his very presidency in a heroic act of martyrdom for something not quite clear, Michele is offering us her own version of fantasy politics.  If you're bored with the roguish antics of geeky Eric Cantor, the vapid smiling of Nancy Pelosi ("President Obama was so gra-a-a-a-cious"), the tortoise-like, face-saving blinking of Mitch McConnell of the KickCan faction of the GOP, here are a few of my favorite Bachmann pearls of wisdom to get you through these hazy crazy days of summer:

I think marriage is very important, it's the fundamental unit of our government.

I'm not a deep thinker on all of this.  I wish I was.  I wish I was more knowledgeable, but I'm not a scientist.

But we also know that the very Founders that wrote these documents worked tirelessly until slavery was no more in the United States.

 It would be fun to have someone in the WhiteHouse who has worked in the private sector... and someone who understands that wealth creation is a good thing and they want more of it. Wealth is good.

We're running out of rich people in this country.

It isn't that I was born thinking I had to be president. I'm getting a lot of encouragement to run from people across the country. I don't believe this is a rash decision.

I think you may see again a rise at the federal government level for a call for the federal constitutional amendment, because people want to make sure that this definition of marriage remains secure, because after all, the family is the fundamental unit of government. 

Notice that the first and last quotes seem to equate the words "marriage" and "family" as the fundamental government units in Michele's brain --  possibly displacing the executive and judicial branches.  Of course, these words are thinly disguised code in the right wing dictionary of homophobonics. "Ex-gay" is another fun phrase. It makes about as much sense as unwed mother Bristol Palin's revirgination abstinence miracle.  But as Michele readily admits, she is no deep thinker and no scientist, and therein lies her populist appeal.  Freedom from thought is one of the hallmarks of fascism. 

Biblical Rope-A-Dope or Grand Guignol Bargain?

Biblical Brinkmanship (Caravaggio)

The ongoing melodrama of Debt Ceiling Armageddon reminds me of the Old Testament legend of Abraham and Isaac.  Obama the sage patriarch is acting on a dare from the magical Deity (Republican Deficit Hawk) to sacrifice his beloved son (the New Deal social safety net) on the  altar of austerity to prove his worthiness.  At the last minute, of course, a deal is reached. "Never mind," chuckles some Better Angel. "The Wall Street god hath blinked. Thou just established thy cred.  Now goest thou and lead the people through the desert of a second term." 


The latest horror story to emerge from the closed-door talks is that Obama is offering to raise the Medicare eligibility age to 67, in keeping with the recent shocking proposal from Sens. Joe Liebermann and Tom Coburn.  Lawrence O'Donnell has an interesting theory on why the president is seemingly out-partying the Tea Party -- it's all part of what he calls "the most masterful rope-a-dope ever performed by a president against an opposition party in Congress." 


I wish I could believe that, but I don't.  Even if true that Obama is only pretending to put Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid on the chopping block to bluffingly appease the gods of a supply-side economic theory that was debunked decades ago, it's a cruel tactic.  There are millions of uninsured and underinsured people just counting the days till they reach 65.  Raising the retirement age, cutting benefits through a bait and switch change in cost of living calculations,  cavalierly suggesting that as long as we're trimming the waste, we might as well throw the New Deal under the bus too -- it's just boggles the mind.  It is either the most complete betrayal of democracy by a Democratic president in history, or it's a giant practical joke/game of chicken at the expense of the peace of mind of countless suffering people. From Monday's press conference:

"We keep on talking about this stuff and we have these high-minded pronouncements about how we've got to get control of the deficit and how we owe it to our children and our grandchildren. Well, let's step up. Let's do it. I'm prepared to do it. I'm prepared to take on significant heat from my party to get something done. And I expect the other side should be willing to do the same thing -- if they mean what they say that this is important."

The Raise-the-Age plan would not even put that much of a dent in the deficit -- so just like the phony Reaganomics talking point that tax cuts pay for themselves, the Obama Trial Balloon serves mainly an ideological purpose.   The Congressional Budget Office found that raising the Medicare age to 67 would save only $124.8 billion between 2014 and 2021.... sounds like a lot, but it's really only a drop removed from the Medicare budget.


And if the provision ends up in Obama's so-called Grand Bargain, or even the Half-Grand Boehner Bargain, Democrats not only will lose any political capital they gained from their defeat of Paul Ryan's Mediscare voucher plan -- they'll be partially accepting it.  Raising the age would force 65 and 66-year-olds (or, if they're lucky, their employers) to continue buying private insurance . According to the Kaiser Family Foundation,  raising the eligibility age would  “result in an estimated net increase of $5.6 billion in out-of-pocket costs for 65- and 66-year-olds, and $4.5 billion in employer retiree health-care costs.” Also, the influx of older people into the state exchanges created under the Affordable Care Act would increase premiums by an estimated three percent.

Obama to Ryan: Can I Borrow This?

 Moreover, according to the Congressional Budget Office, the proposal would not even decrease Medicare spending that much, because younger Medicare beneficiaries are healthier than older ones and don't cost the system nearly as much as the average beneficiary. 

In other words, keep the statistically healthier mid-60s age group in the claws of private insurance companies for the longest possible time to maximize their profits while they're pretending to save taxpayers money. It's a classic case of bait and switch.  Heads they win, tails we lose.  All the "savings" (premiums) go to the predatory private insurers and the politicians they have bought and paid for.  Only the people will pay -- assuming, of course, they have any money.


Make no mistake.  The Grand Bargain, if it passes, should be renamed the Grand Guignol Bargain. Under it, more people will unnecessarily die waiting for their Medicare to kick in. If Obama had any humanity, he'd call for lowering the age, not raising it. If we as a nation had any humanity, we would have Medicare for All.

A Plan of Gruesome Grandiosity

A Futuristic Movement of Monstrous Proportions

Barack and Michelle Obama today announced they are combining their theme songs -- "Winning the Future" and "Let's Move" into one all-purpose slogan in keeping with the current austerity campaign to trim government waste.

The President wants to Win the Future by investing in green jobs -- preferably low-wage and non-union, so we can out-compete the rest of the Third World.  Michelle wants us to eat less and exercise more.  As the President is so fond of obsessively and fallaciously saying, families and governments are exactly the same -- overweight slackers who need to tighten our belts.

So what if this month's spike in the unemployment rate is mainly due to the massive national layoffs of teachers and other public workers?  So what if boards of education throughout the land are being forced to shorten the school week to three or four days?  The kids are becoming nothing more than bloated desk potatoes anyway.  They need to get out more, stay healthy for the below-minimum wage jobs of the future. 

And what about those senior citizens?  Everybody knows your metabolism slows down as you get older. So that's why Obama and his Republican co-conspirators bipartisan negotiators have come up with the nifty idea of chained consumer price formulae.  Once you start collecting your Social Security -- if the politicians have their way, at around 68 or 70 -- you will oh so gradually see a decrease in  benefits.... say, about the cost of only a bite of that candy bar you know you don't really need, every single month for the rest of your life.  So if and when you make it to 95, you'll be as thin as a rail and down to only one meal a day on the few hundred a month you'll then be collecting.  You see, the President cares about your well-being.  He knows change is hard.  Father Knows Best.  ( And if you didn't sign his fatherhood pledge last month, you're just being a selfish ideologue.)

That's why the President is not sweating the rising unemployment rate.  The headwinds of the crappy economy are evaporating all his sweat, and they should be cooling you down too.  By Election Day, joblessness may be up to 13 percent -- but not to worry.  It's a structural thing, the new normal, and it's all according to plan.  The corporations really do want to keep jobs here, but they just don't have the confidence yet.  Wages here are still way too high.  Why pay somebody $8 an hour when they can get a Bangladeshi child to do the same thing for pennies?

The idea is to turn the United States into such a great Third World Country that other nations will start offshoring their jobs to us.  It's already happening in Sweden and the "right to work" (anti-union) state of Virginia:

Swedish corporate leaders, ironically, are now trying to exploit those wider U.S. gaps. IKEA pays its factory workers in Sweden a minimum $19 an hour. In Virginia, IKEA workers doing the same exact work start at $8. IKEA looks on the United States, local union organizer Bill Street matter-of-factly observed earlier this month, “the way that most people in the U.S. look at Mexico.” (Labor Notes).

Anti-immigration advocates love to complain that Mexicans cross the border to steal our low-paying restaurant and migrant farm jobs, have their anchor babies and grab up all our wonderful free health care.  How ironic that Mexico is a major medical tourism destination for Americans with no or crappy health coverage.  For example, the cost of a knee replacement in Mexico is $10.500 compared to $25,000 here. And there are recovery center options at seaside resorts, too.  Anyway, illegal immigration is actually slowing down because word is finally getting out in Mexico that the American economy really, really stinks. Again, all according to plan. Immigration reform legislation may not even be needed.

But I digress.  This is all a Grand Plan, for our own good.  The Social Safety Net is overrated.  We're just trapped in that net like a bunch of flailing fish who are too stupid to know what's good for us.  The President is going to slash that net and allow us to escape into the Deep, free at last.



Flagellation of the Willing