Debt Ceiling Hangover Edition

The Stock Market plunged more than 200 points despite the phony Debt Ceiling crisis being averted, proving it was a phony crisis this whole time.  It's been the recession all along, as well as projected double dip inflation, stagnation, stagflation, zero job creation and no elation.... jobless numbers expected to unexpectedly rise again this Friday when the Labor Department figures come out --  and oops, that 9.2 percent figure for June?  Likely to be revised upward..... again and again and again.

 Obama said now that Phony Debt Ceiling crisis is over, the country can start to focus on jobs.  Huh?  Congress is beating it out of town for the next five weeks. But wait! Obama's Council on Jobs and Competitiveness had a forum livestreamed from the White House website this afternoon. (I thought Joe Biden had vowed to get rid of wasteful government websites!)  Anyway, it was a bunch of CEOs lolling around on a stage commiserating about this and that and mostly about THEMSELVES.  Steve of AOL says we need a Silicon Valley States of America.  We need government to be more friendly to businesses so they can have the confidence to invest.  We need a program so all their hoarded overseas profits can be "repatriated" to evade American taxes.  There might have been talk of actual jobs instead of entrepreneurship and how the rich can get richer. I don't know.  I turned it off after 15 minutes.  It was a waste of time, and I am in austerity mode, cutting back on my government propaganda so I can save for college and win the future.


One bit of pleasantly surprising news: Kirsten Gillibrand, the junior senator from my homestate of New York, broke ranks with bank-licking Chuck Schumer and voted against the Debt Ceiling extortion bill.  From her statement:

“The fact is, there is nothing in this deal that will address the significant jobs crisis we are facing. This deal, cut behind closed doors with zero transparency, is an unbalanced approach that cuts deeply into discretionary spending while being overwhelmingly stacked in favor of large corporations who exploit loopholes and the wealthiest among us. It is simply not in the best interests of the middle class and the larger economic recovery."

Doubly surprising, given Gillibrand was the top recipient of Wall Street largesse during her campaign.  Somebody obviously read the emails and phone messages from her pissed-off constituents. (including me)  So good on Kirsten, whom I have oftimes criticized for being in the pocket of the banks.  The five other Democrats who voted against the bill in the Senate are both New Jersey senators, Frank Lautenberg and Robert Menendez, along with Tom Harkin of Iowa, Ben Nelson of Nebraska and Jeff Merkley of Oregon.  Names to remember come election time.

The Economy by Numbers in all their horrifying reality, are here.

And last but not least, by popular request, here is the link to Keith Olbermann's "Special Comment" call to action.  Enjoy.

An Exploding Kicked Can of Toxic Soda



Bullet Passing Through Soda Can (Andrew Davidhazy, Rochester Institute of Technology)

The "Super Committee" (a dozen Congress members to be tasked with cutting  a trillion-odd more from the budget as its Scroogean Christmas present to the nation later this year)  is more than just another kicked can of rancid cat food.  Since the last Cat Food Commission failed to agree on how to cure the deficit, the second commission will operate with some built-in triggers.  This kicked can may well explode into more crazy pieces than a fictionalized memoir by a junkie.

"Passage of a supersonic .22 caliber bullet through a soda can causes the fluid to expand outwards through the hole created by entry and exit and the bullet also drags a certain amount of fluid along with it. This photograph is a microsecond slice of time during this explosive event" according to the recent RIT lab experiment so vividly documented above.

Failure of the New Austerians to slash and burn an already deciminated social safety net even more by Thanksgiving will result in the equally vivid event of automatic cuts to Medicare providers.  But Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi sure did save the Medicare program itself, didn't they?  You will not be required to tear up your Medicare card at all!  You, personally, will not be affected.  If your doctor won't treat you for free, just blame your doctor.  And be sure to eat your peas for the roughage and Vitamin C.  If you cut yourself, don't go wimping out to the emergency room. Slap on a bandaid and then tear it off yourself, you wusses!

Economics writer Catherine Rampell has a cogent take on the "Committee" on today's New York Times.  She quotes a Brookings Institute fellow who compares the proposed body to a previous Congressional panel deciding which military bases to close:

“Expedited procedures count for a lot, and triggers count for a lot, if they can get them to work,” Professor (Sarah) Binder said. “All these delegated panels involve kicking the can down the road, but this one tries to make that can explode if gets kicked.”

The phony Debt Ceiling Armageddon and the austerity it enabled will give birth to a multitude of very real Armageddons in the near and distant future. Politicians have fixated on the deficit as the disease, rather than the symptom. They have mixed up cause and effect. Wall Street greed and government deregulation caused households to lose trillions in wealth, causing unemployment and foreclosures, causing lost revenue, causing the government deficit. Yet, as Paul Krugman explains, Washington is just like the medieval physician who bled patients to cure them, making them ever sicker. And come to think of it, the Plutocracy is even worse than a healer from the Dark Ages: it not only bleeds the patients dry, it drinks their blood.  I hope they all choke on it.

Bipartisanshipwreck, Part Two

Both parties are claiming the Nouveau Deal is just dandy.  I don't know, I haven't read the fine print. I have been, and shall remain, deeply suspicious and shocked and appalled and crushed. Both the White House and Boehner have been lightning quick to roll out their power point presentations., which were probably drafted in secret weeks ago so as not to pre-empt our State of Fear. The spin is spinning and it is only Monday morning.  What I find most intriguing is the possibility, though faint, that Nancy Pelosi may go all passive-aggressive rogue on Obama and not bother to whip her base to go along with him.  But this may be pure play-acting circa the "I will not vote against any plan without a public option" uproar of 2009.  The Progressive Caucus is to meet later this morning.  Stay tuned.

Paul Krugman, of course, is calling the plan a catastrophe:

For the deal itself, given the available information, is a disaster, and not just for President Obama and his party. It will damage an already depressed economy; it will probably make America’s long-run deficit problem worse, not better; and most important, by demonstrating that raw extortion works and carries no political cost, it will take America a long way down the road to banana-republic status.

What really bothers me the most about this plan, other than the fact it gives Republicans everything they want, and is being forced down our throats as a result of a manufactured shock doctrine of a crisis, is the "Committee" being formed to enforce deficit reductions.  If the rank and file of Congress go along, this Politburo (comprised of a dozen legislators, equally divided by party and chamber) will have until Thanksgiving to come up with more cuts.  Their decision will then be fast-tracked through the legislative process without debate.

The White House spin on the committee is that it will not be allowed to touch Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and programs for the poor, Pell Grants or burden working families and the middle class.  If the Republicans don't make cuts, an automatic trigger cutting Defense will be their punishment.  If the Democrats don't get with the program, there will be cuts to Medicare providers.  This seems like a gimmick in both instances.  Defense always has a way of getting itself funded through back channels.  CIA, anyone?  State Department and its mercenaries and security forces?  Of course, we won't cut off Medicare.  We'll just lower payments so much that providers will no longer accept Medicare patients.

Another thing to really hate is that the package not only does nothing to address a defacto 20 percent unemployment rate -- it contains absolutely no provisions to extend unemployment benefits.
Cynical, pathetic, abysmal, crapola, hellish.  All the negative words in the lexicon do not do our elected officials justice.  Even Bernie Sanders is calling for shared sacrifice, when we all should be clamoring for shared prosperity.  More later.  And please weigh in.  The comments sections of the NY Times are constipated with all the reader outrage waiting to erupt, but there's plenty of room here to vent, as well as over at RealityChex.com.

Bipartisanshipwreck

 

Coming Sooner or Later (movie poster treatment by Kat Garcia)

What is the point of writing anything, since the waves are crashing and the tide is turning and the ship is sinking and we are all DOOMED!?!


The New York Times was reporting that all the congress people are going to "huddle" with Obama but five minutes later the huddle fest was apparently off.  Wall Street is bearing down on Pennsylvania Avenue.  Ouch! Sounds like some real contractions in the economy, what with the GDP shrinkage and all.  The Senators are yakking it up over Catfood Commission Two, which from all indications will be the fifth branch of government empowered to pass bills/cut "entitlements" in secret, without debate and best of all, without  C-Span, once some unknown trigger is pulled. It is all quite mysterious and something we won't know for sure until it's a done deal done in a back room.  But we're not going to like it.

In case you were wondering, the fourth branch of government is Standard & Poors, that reputable credit rating agency that gave the big A-OK to toxic subprime mortgage-backed securities.  S&P is vowing to lower the national credit score unless old people are forced to stop selfishly eating and  seeking medical attention.  Oh no!  Another subprime interest rate mess.  Wall Street is now dancing on Pennsylvania Avenue's butt.

I have had enough.  I am going to cheer myself up now and watch my "Grapes of Wrath" DVD from Netflix.

Update 10:45 p.m.  The huddle cuddle muddle is back on at the White House. Dear Leader O told all the senators to wind it down for the night, so everybody go to bed while they negotiate in secret. And that goes for you, peasants!

Grabbing the Bull by the Horns



From "Day of Rage" on Wall Street, March 2011



The same folks who marched on the New York Stock Exchange last spring, and then camped out in protest for three weeks in front of City Hall earlier this summer, will be back on The Street on Aug. 2.  That's the same day the United States is due to default if the radical right wing of Congress succeeds in pulling off its internal coup d'etat.  No better way to celebrate Debt Ceiling Armageddon and let your voices be heard than to join New Yorkers Against Budget Cuts once again.

These people actually have a little money now.  A baker's dozen of them ("The Bloombergville 13") were arrested last month for disorderly conduct during their marathon street fest/sleepover.  They have $700 left over from their defense fund, and are funneling it back into their movement:  signs, bullhorns, all the paraphernalia for another peaceful but loud protest.  (The first big event was in March.  Called "Day of Rage", it attracted thousands of marchers and no corporate media coverage.  I first learned about it from  Al Jazeera.)



New York's Finest Rousts the Happy Campers from Bloombergville

Here's the official announcement for the Big Event, courtesy of New Yorkers Against Budget Cuts:

Oppose Cutbacks And Austerity Of Any Kind
Gather at 4:30: Meet At The Bull, Just South Of Broadway And Morris Street, At The North End Of Bowling Green Park
As the two U.S. political parties unite to dismantle Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security, it’s clear:
The bankers are looting decades-old peoples’ programs and the Democrats can’t help us. Obama can’t help us. Elected officials can’t help us.
It’s time for the people to meet and take the bull by the horns!
The students, union activists, and others who organized "Bloombergville" -- the three-week anti-austerity occupation on Wall Street’s doorstep -- have called for an August 2 General Assembly/Speakout on Wall Street, at the bull, from 4:30 to 7, to protest the ongoing pro-bank, anti-people cutbacks and gather into working groups to plan for the September 17 occupation of Wall Street.

This is a call for every teacher, home health aid, parent, student, tenant, librarian, city/state employee, childcare provider, nurse, patient, employed or unemployed worker or recipient of Social Security or any type of public assistance: on August 2 come to Wall Street – the scene of the crimes now being perpetrated on the people – and make your voice heard!

The current depression-level crisis is not due to lack of revenue. It’s due to theft. The trillions that the banks are sitting on right now? That’s our money. Whether through taxes; the looting of pension and social security contributions; or the wealth we created from our labor – all of that belongs to us. Come to Wall Street August 2 and strategize -- on how to get that back!

A Tale of Two Emails

I get emails all the time from one progressive group or another, asking me to call my congresspeople for one cause or another -- usually to either support or oppose some pending piece of legislation.

But today was a first from a presidential campaign asking me to help to phone-bomb the opposition and then report back to Chicage HQ to let them know "how the call went."

President Obama's campaign speech address to the American People the other night included just such a call to action, to bombard Congress and let them know we want more of that cool bipartishit and that we want to be compromised even more.  People apparently listened and crashed several congressional websites and tied up the Capitol phone lines.  Must have driven the Republican staffers nuts.

I guess the thrill has worn off, because I just got another email from Obama Campaign Chief Jim Messina.  He notes that since my own particular congressman and senators are all Democrats, I should just call John Boehner direct (202.225.0600) and then report back to Obamaland. (I guess Obama doesn't really mean it when he blames his own party, too, for their alleged bargaining intransigence. When he says he wants to take heat from his own party, I think what he really means is he wants to just bask in its glow)  From the Messina missive:

Here's what's happening: President Obama proposed the balanced approach of raising the debt ceiling paired with responsible steps to reduce our country's long-term debt --  groveling before and begging asking oil companies, corporations, and the richest Americans to do their part rather than shoving austerity down the throats of placing the entire burden on seniors and the middle class.

A deal has been close at times, but an ideological faction of House Republicans has been effectively holding our economy hostage -- making extreme demands like ending Medicare as we know it, gutting Social Security, and rejecting any compromises that might make millionaires or big corporations pay their fair share to end the obscene wealth disparity and create jobs get our debt under control.

Don't Quit Me, John

Our records show you have only Democratic representatives in Congress. But House Speaker John Boehner -- who is leading the Republicans in negotiations -- needs to hear what I want you to tell him Americans like you think.

Here's what the President said on Monday:

"The American people may have voted for divided government, but they didn't vote for a dysfunctional government. So I'm asking you all to make your voice heard. If you want a balanced approach to reducing the deficit, let your member of Congress know. If you believe we can solve this problem through compromise, send that message."

The President doesn't make a direct request of all of us like this very often. Take a minute right now to call Speaker Boehner -- then let us know how it went, so we can figure out just how dwindling out base of support really is.

Thanks,
Messina

I don't want any more compromise. I don't want a balanced approach, which stands for continued corporate welfare for the rich, with just a tad of chained CPI on my future Social Security benefits.  I don't think it's a good idea to raise the Medicare eligibility age to "balance out" the beleaguered wealthy "folks" losing mortgage deductions on their vacation homes.  We the People have been compromised enough.

Right after the Messina missive arrived, I got another email from Showdown in America also asking that I call Congress, for an entirely different reason:

You can make a real difference and change the debate in Washington today.

Call your Representative and tell them to Make Wall Street Pay their fair share to raise revenues and create jobs.

Let your Representative know you won't stand for cuts to Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare—and neither should they!

We're not in a debt crisis; we're in a revenue crisis. And it's high time the folks that broke the economy—Wall Street, Bank of America, big banks, oil companies, and big boys—paid their fair share to fix it. It's time to change the debate in Washington.

On second thought, I believe I will take Messina's advice and call Boehner..... using the script from Showdown in America.  Then I will report back to Chicago Obama HQ and and let them know what I said, and how it went.  If you, too, want to call the Weeper and complain, here's a suggested talking point: 

 Politicians never tire of tropes, and there’s one tickling many on their tongues these days: Americans want Washington to deal with its debt, just like we do in our own families. Which is funny, given that American families have never been so deeply indebted. In 2004, total U.S. family debt exceeded income for the first time since the Federal Reserve began tracking it, according to a Center for American Progress report.

It was the best of times, it is the worst of times.

Update 7/28:  I got through to Boehner's office and talked to a living person. I then reported my call to Messina.  In the answer box titled "How did (blank) respond to your request for bipartisanship in debt ceiling negotiations", I wrote: "First, I don't care about the debt ceiling phony crisis and I told her so.  I said I cared about jobs, jobs and nothing but the jobs.  I said I didn't want him and Obama reaching any Grand Bargain about my future social security benefits. She said 'Thank You Very Much.  I will see to it that the Speaker is made aware of your concerns.' (pure boilerplate constituent-speak).

From the New Deal to a Raw Deal

But do you know what people are fed up with most of all?
They’re fed up with a town where compromise has become a dirty word. They work all day long, many of them scraping by, just to put food on the table. And when these Americans come home at night, bone-tired, and turn on the news, all they see is the same partisan three-ring circus here in Washington. They see leaders who can’t seem to come together and do what it takes to make life just a little bit better for ordinary Americans. They’re offended by that. And they should be. -- Barack Obama's Speech, 7/25/11

Clueless much?


What should offend most people is the fact that Washington (and that includes Obama) has taken the humanitarian crisis of massive and unrelenting unemployment and turned it into an utterly phony Debt Ceiling/Deficit Crisis. And what passes for TV news has turned journalism on its ear.  Rather than Republican seditionists being called out for what they are, they are given equal time in the name of "fair and balanced".  The pundit class and the President are on the same page in thinking (or pretending to think) that Republicans actually have the interests of the country at heart. Begging traitors and terrorists to make deals is symptomatic not only of political weakness, but a kind of pathological complicity.  And we are supposed to  feel sorry for a beleagured president as he asks us to call Congress and demand some niceties. And help his re-election, of course.


(The fact that John Boehner lied through his teeth in his follow-up riposte should come as no surprise.  Like many a mendacious psychopath, he could probably pass a polygraph test with flying colors -- he has no conscience, no shame.)


Obama took some precious TV bully pulpit prime time and wasted it.  He could have reassured the nation and announced that he would invoke the 14th Amendment and unilaterally raise the debt ceiling. Of course, that would not have been in keeping with the maintenance of National Crisis Mode, and would have ruined the 11th hour rescue in which he unilaterally orders the Debt Ceiling raised anyway, and makes us all so grateful we will become true believers in cutting Medicare and Medicaid and Social Security to save them.  Instead of mouthing the same tired platitudes of shared family sacrifice and timidly "asking" hedge fund managers to pay just a little more, he could have called for an increase in the FICA tax on only the first hundred grand to "protect Social Security for future generations." (Congressman Dennis Kucinich is pointing to the many occasions when Candidate O promised just this option.)


Kucinich asks: "In a lifetime, will our party have journeyed from the New Deal to the Raw Deal?"


Exactly.... and the journey to perdition is commencing at such breathtaking speed, we are left sitting open-mouthed, not knowing what has even hit us. Or, as Paul Krugman put it in his blog today: "Meh, Bleh and Eek."

Update: Speaking of mendacity and cluelessness, Dean Baker now writes that Obama committed a real bad gaffe (or lied) about the origins of the deficit. Obama blamed the trillions number purely on the Bush tax cuts and wars. But according to Baker:

The huge deficits came about entirely as a result of the economic downturn brought about by the collapse of the housing bubble. This misunderstanding of the origins of the budget deficit could explain President Obama’s willingness to make large cuts to core social welfare programs, like Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.

Do you think that Obama's "misunderstanding" has anything to do with the fact that his treasury secretary, Timothy Geithner, was chairman of the NY Fed during the bubble and collapse --  that he was asleep at the switch or complicit when the banks were recklessly funding and investing in and selling toxic subprime mortgages?  Or that his current Chief of Staff, Megabanker Bill Daley, was on the board of the public/private Fannie Mae when it was buying up Countrywide mortgages and enriching its CEOs with obscene bonuses even as it too burst from the bubble of its own  greed?  The Oval Office is a corporate racket, notwithstanding the equally corrupt lunatics of the Republican wing of the Uniparty.  Obama's minions are among the tangled web of culprits who helped cause the suffering that just won't stop, the ones who left we the taxpayers holding the bag. Not only have they never been held to account, they have been rewarded with the job of running the  country.  And yet we still wonder why Obama is doing nothing about jobs for the rest of us.