"The Tea Party is not actually a party, it is a cult. It will not be embraced by anywhere near a majority of the nation."
- Ken Goldsholl (writing in today's Financial Times, Weekend, Letters)
Now, barely four days after Tuesday's election which propelled the GOP to take over the House, many Tea Partyers must be scratching their heads and butts and asking what they've actually done. I can't blame them! If I had made a major vote for some hyper-inflated idea, I'd damned well expect it to be carried through and not get betrayed. But maybe TeePee nation doesn't yet know that their "takeover of the country" is at the behest of rich fatcats and hedge fund owners, not little mom and pop folks in Parcheesie, Arkansas, or Pawnee, Oklahoma.
First, we have the news that Sen. Jim DeMint plans to vote for increasing the debt ceiling past $14 TRILLION. This is the same DeMint the TPs came to worship and put on a pedestal as he backed numerous other tea party candidates, from Alaska to Nevada and Delaware. (All of whom have lost). Now, given debt and higher debt ceilings are to the typical teepee as smallpox used to be to the Indians, it is somewhat surprising we haven't heard them howling in dismay yet. But, maybe the news travels slower in TP-land, or maybe they're waiting on Faux News to inform them! (Like they did the bogus story about Obama spending "$200 million a day" for his Indian sojourn, and needing 10 percent of the Navy! )
Second, we have the other news, in this morning's Denver Post ('GOP Pins Jobless Benefits to Cuts', p. 7A) that the new Republican House promises to not extend one damned dime to help the jobless get additional benefits unless spending cuts match them dollar for dollar. The Reeps demand at least $5-6 billion in cuts per month, before they will deign to allot one single dollar to the assist the long-term unemployed - five million of whose current benefits expire by the end of February. Without those extended benefits, the continued jobless may have to consider going onto welfare by the end of February (there are still 14 million without jobs and the rate of current job production is barely keeping up with population growth, estimated at 125,000/month). In other words, the major job deficit (of ~ 8 million +) that existed just after the financial meltdown has barely been touched!
This means five million people won't be able to make simple purchases, buy food for their families or pay utility or medical bills by the end of February. If they can't get onto welfare, they'll have to try to get early Social Security (those at or near age 62), or who knows.....maybe Boehner and McConnell expect them to toss themselves off of bridges.
President Obama, meanwhile, has renewed his call for another extension (past 99 weeks) to "help those hardest hit by the downturn while generating demand in the economy."
As knowledgeable readers may know, the demand side is still sputtering: corporations are still hoarding more hundreds of billions than using it for job creation, and banks are still not lending to the extent they need to in order to free up money. This combo is what's driven the Fed to aim us toward a negative interest rate environment via "quantitative easing, 2"- predicated on an "expected" 4% inflation rate and near 1% interest, for effective: 1% - 4% = -3% interest in the bond markets.
Again, Teepee nation probably doesn't know this, but they surely will as gasoline and food prices spike, while any seniors (who also voted disproportionately for the Reeps) will see their own finances dwindle with higher medical-insurance costs, coupled with zero COLA.
Back to the jobless benefits: Democrats correctly argue the best way to address the demand side depression is deficit spending via extended unemployment benefits, not tax cuts. The first is superior because the unemployed immediately spend the money on groceries, home heating, gasoline, and bills. They pump money instantly into the demand dry economy, in other words.
Republicans argue against this by claiming that the government "had to borrow 37 cents of every dollar it spent last year" (ignoring the 55 cents of every dollar borrowed for military spending & occupations last year) and the time is now to "draw the line". Oh really? Then how in the hell can you support extending the Bush tax cuts? (Which over 10 years will amount to borrowing nearly 50 cents for every dollar spent if all are allowed to go through).
Here's the other deal: the government and Obama had NO choice than to spend that 37 cents of every dollar last year- because no other source was injecting liquidity! The economy was literally on life support- all bank lending and credit markets frozen. People weren't buying (having gone bust in the stock market, or losing their jobs) and the private sector sure as heck wasn't investing in labor or plant. If then Obama and the Ds (mainly, plus 2 Rs) had not acted decisively to shore up the financial system and stimulate the economy, we'd now be seeing negative growth (of around -5%), and an estimated 17% unemployment rate - which is close to another DEPRESSION.
In other words, the Dems and Obama saved this ungrateful nation's collective ass from what would have been a total financial debacle rivaling that in the early 1930s. Do they get credit? No! Numbskulls, instead (with no basic financial information other than what they're fed by FAUX News), call them "socialists".
But that's the paradoxical thing, isn't it? The calamity that never transpires is always the one never counted- hence never factored in - so the people in charge are never given proper credit for avoiding it! It was like over October, 19-26, 1962 and JFK choosing consciously to blockade Russian naval vessels instead of firing on them (during the Missile Crisis), or bombing and invading Cuba. Few appreciated it, until Robert McNamara gave an interview nearly 30 years later, noting that intelligence revealed that 93 IRBMs were aimed at U.S. cities at the time and would have been fired, had JFK acted rashly.
But instead of getting credit for saving our asses, what have we found? The corporate owned press-media continues to write JFK off as a "potentially great" president who "never fulfilled his destiny because of being assassinated". Give me an effing break, you clowns!
In the same way, poor Obama is dissed and dismissed, despite the fact that had he not acted the way he did (and many, such as Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman fault him for not getting a bigger stimulus) we'd all be raiding dumpsters for used cans, or the highways for road kill to cook and eat. Along with any cat food!
The country though is basically in a schizoid state, so we can't go full tilt on their choices. As Post columnist David Sirota has observed, they are merely reacting like rats trapped in a cage with two different colored doors - an analogy of our pathetic, corporate bought and sold two party system. If the rats then find one door not to their liking and closed prematurely, they scramble to the other door instead. If the voters find one party isn't to their liking, and not meeting the markers set in their minds, they knee-jerk scramble to the other, hoping for better. But in most cases, merely getting another locked door preventing any advance.
Hopefully, most voters will soon wake up from their delirium and realize it isn't Obama they're railing against, but a tilted global trade and economic system that now has them in its cross hairs. Obama never originated that system, nor did he vote on it. But I do intend to cover it in a future blog, to show readers exactly how and why the U.S. is now on a permanent downward decline, which will never be altered no matter how many times people chant "USA! USA! USA!"
That decline is embedded structurally into our whole financial system, and ensures that most of the benefits of any growth have gone toward corporate profits and mammoth increases in board room pay. Barely any has trickled to the working or middle classes, because that's how the system has been set up. As the impartial CBO (Congressional Budget Office) has noted, the incomes of the top 1% - measured in 2007 dollars - have more than doubled from $800,000 in 1990 to nearly $1.8 million this past year.
Meanwhile, the Repukes want to award these silver spooned,' to the manor born' hotshots with an additional $400,000 each for the next ten years - trying to get their gullible minions to believe they'll use it for creating new jobs, instead of diamonds, new yachts and hedge fund speculation. (Well, P.T. Barnum did say "There's a sucker born every minute!").
All the time, adding nearly $700 billion to the deficit they profess to be worried over, as they stiff actual working people who have been unemployed for going on 99 weeks, and need an extension of benefits to survive. As they will learn over the next two years, simply knee-jerk reacting to political disappointment will not solve one's problems. In most cases, emotional reaction, as opposed to careful thought, merely makes them worse. Much worse! The sad fact is that the employment numbers released after the election show a definite uptick in job production. The tragedy is that the same election results, with Reep clowns administering the money supply in the House, will now likely lead to a regression on all fronts.
Some things never change. And in a number of our most rash election results (including casting ballots for Dumbya in 2000), voters-people never fully processed that they needed to be very careful what they wish for. They thought in 2000 they'd get a prez they "could have a beer with" and ended up with an evangelical zealot who saddled them with two "wars" that will finally break the bank, literally. (While the Chinese laugh all the way to their banks with the interest payments!)
- Ken Goldsholl (writing in today's Financial Times, Weekend, Letters)
Now, barely four days after Tuesday's election which propelled the GOP to take over the House, many Tea Partyers must be scratching their heads and butts and asking what they've actually done. I can't blame them! If I had made a major vote for some hyper-inflated idea, I'd damned well expect it to be carried through and not get betrayed. But maybe TeePee nation doesn't yet know that their "takeover of the country" is at the behest of rich fatcats and hedge fund owners, not little mom and pop folks in Parcheesie, Arkansas, or Pawnee, Oklahoma.
First, we have the news that Sen. Jim DeMint plans to vote for increasing the debt ceiling past $14 TRILLION. This is the same DeMint the TPs came to worship and put on a pedestal as he backed numerous other tea party candidates, from Alaska to Nevada and Delaware. (All of whom have lost). Now, given debt and higher debt ceilings are to the typical teepee as smallpox used to be to the Indians, it is somewhat surprising we haven't heard them howling in dismay yet. But, maybe the news travels slower in TP-land, or maybe they're waiting on Faux News to inform them! (Like they did the bogus story about Obama spending "$200 million a day" for his Indian sojourn, and needing 10 percent of the Navy! )
Second, we have the other news, in this morning's Denver Post ('GOP Pins Jobless Benefits to Cuts', p. 7A) that the new Republican House promises to not extend one damned dime to help the jobless get additional benefits unless spending cuts match them dollar for dollar. The Reeps demand at least $5-6 billion in cuts per month, before they will deign to allot one single dollar to the assist the long-term unemployed - five million of whose current benefits expire by the end of February. Without those extended benefits, the continued jobless may have to consider going onto welfare by the end of February (there are still 14 million without jobs and the rate of current job production is barely keeping up with population growth, estimated at 125,000/month). In other words, the major job deficit (of ~ 8 million +) that existed just after the financial meltdown has barely been touched!
This means five million people won't be able to make simple purchases, buy food for their families or pay utility or medical bills by the end of February. If they can't get onto welfare, they'll have to try to get early Social Security (those at or near age 62), or who knows.....maybe Boehner and McConnell expect them to toss themselves off of bridges.
President Obama, meanwhile, has renewed his call for another extension (past 99 weeks) to "help those hardest hit by the downturn while generating demand in the economy."
As knowledgeable readers may know, the demand side is still sputtering: corporations are still hoarding more hundreds of billions than using it for job creation, and banks are still not lending to the extent they need to in order to free up money. This combo is what's driven the Fed to aim us toward a negative interest rate environment via "quantitative easing, 2"- predicated on an "expected" 4% inflation rate and near 1% interest, for effective: 1% - 4% = -3% interest in the bond markets.
Again, Teepee nation probably doesn't know this, but they surely will as gasoline and food prices spike, while any seniors (who also voted disproportionately for the Reeps) will see their own finances dwindle with higher medical-insurance costs, coupled with zero COLA.
Back to the jobless benefits: Democrats correctly argue the best way to address the demand side depression is deficit spending via extended unemployment benefits, not tax cuts. The first is superior because the unemployed immediately spend the money on groceries, home heating, gasoline, and bills. They pump money instantly into the demand dry economy, in other words.
Republicans argue against this by claiming that the government "had to borrow 37 cents of every dollar it spent last year" (ignoring the 55 cents of every dollar borrowed for military spending & occupations last year) and the time is now to "draw the line". Oh really? Then how in the hell can you support extending the Bush tax cuts? (Which over 10 years will amount to borrowing nearly 50 cents for every dollar spent if all are allowed to go through).
Here's the other deal: the government and Obama had NO choice than to spend that 37 cents of every dollar last year- because no other source was injecting liquidity! The economy was literally on life support- all bank lending and credit markets frozen. People weren't buying (having gone bust in the stock market, or losing their jobs) and the private sector sure as heck wasn't investing in labor or plant. If then Obama and the Ds (mainly, plus 2 Rs) had not acted decisively to shore up the financial system and stimulate the economy, we'd now be seeing negative growth (of around -5%), and an estimated 17% unemployment rate - which is close to another DEPRESSION.
In other words, the Dems and Obama saved this ungrateful nation's collective ass from what would have been a total financial debacle rivaling that in the early 1930s. Do they get credit? No! Numbskulls, instead (with no basic financial information other than what they're fed by FAUX News), call them "socialists".
But that's the paradoxical thing, isn't it? The calamity that never transpires is always the one never counted- hence never factored in - so the people in charge are never given proper credit for avoiding it! It was like over October, 19-26, 1962 and JFK choosing consciously to blockade Russian naval vessels instead of firing on them (during the Missile Crisis), or bombing and invading Cuba. Few appreciated it, until Robert McNamara gave an interview nearly 30 years later, noting that intelligence revealed that 93 IRBMs were aimed at U.S. cities at the time and would have been fired, had JFK acted rashly.
But instead of getting credit for saving our asses, what have we found? The corporate owned press-media continues to write JFK off as a "potentially great" president who "never fulfilled his destiny because of being assassinated". Give me an effing break, you clowns!
In the same way, poor Obama is dissed and dismissed, despite the fact that had he not acted the way he did (and many, such as Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman fault him for not getting a bigger stimulus) we'd all be raiding dumpsters for used cans, or the highways for road kill to cook and eat. Along with any cat food!
The country though is basically in a schizoid state, so we can't go full tilt on their choices. As Post columnist David Sirota has observed, they are merely reacting like rats trapped in a cage with two different colored doors - an analogy of our pathetic, corporate bought and sold two party system. If the rats then find one door not to their liking and closed prematurely, they scramble to the other door instead. If the voters find one party isn't to their liking, and not meeting the markers set in their minds, they knee-jerk scramble to the other, hoping for better. But in most cases, merely getting another locked door preventing any advance.
Hopefully, most voters will soon wake up from their delirium and realize it isn't Obama they're railing against, but a tilted global trade and economic system that now has them in its cross hairs. Obama never originated that system, nor did he vote on it. But I do intend to cover it in a future blog, to show readers exactly how and why the U.S. is now on a permanent downward decline, which will never be altered no matter how many times people chant "USA! USA! USA!"
That decline is embedded structurally into our whole financial system, and ensures that most of the benefits of any growth have gone toward corporate profits and mammoth increases in board room pay. Barely any has trickled to the working or middle classes, because that's how the system has been set up. As the impartial CBO (Congressional Budget Office) has noted, the incomes of the top 1% - measured in 2007 dollars - have more than doubled from $800,000 in 1990 to nearly $1.8 million this past year.
Meanwhile, the Repukes want to award these silver spooned,' to the manor born' hotshots with an additional $400,000 each for the next ten years - trying to get their gullible minions to believe they'll use it for creating new jobs, instead of diamonds, new yachts and hedge fund speculation. (Well, P.T. Barnum did say "There's a sucker born every minute!").
All the time, adding nearly $700 billion to the deficit they profess to be worried over, as they stiff actual working people who have been unemployed for going on 99 weeks, and need an extension of benefits to survive. As they will learn over the next two years, simply knee-jerk reacting to political disappointment will not solve one's problems. In most cases, emotional reaction, as opposed to careful thought, merely makes them worse. Much worse! The sad fact is that the employment numbers released after the election show a definite uptick in job production. The tragedy is that the same election results, with Reep clowns administering the money supply in the House, will now likely lead to a regression on all fronts.
Some things never change. And in a number of our most rash election results (including casting ballots for Dumbya in 2000), voters-people never fully processed that they needed to be very careful what they wish for. They thought in 2000 they'd get a prez they "could have a beer with" and ended up with an evangelical zealot who saddled them with two "wars" that will finally break the bank, literally. (While the Chinese laugh all the way to their banks with the interest payments!)
6 comments:
Hey Joker,
It's only 2 days after the election and those the Tea Party Backed aren't even in office until January 2011. As far as projecting what others say they may or may not do when in office,well that hasen't happened yet and what they are talking about still has to go for a vote.
Then you talk of extending job benefits "again". I got news for you chump, these people better wake up and get the hell out and find and take anything to pay bills, and not rely on the taxpayer for a free ride year after year.
I went thru the worst recession in the early and mid 80s and had to trek across country for work. My unemployment benefits lasted for only 6 months. I lost my car, house, bank savings, you name it. Not to mention kids to support. I did what I had to in order to survive and am a hell of alot stronger for it.
People have to learn not to depend on Uncle Sam and start doing whats necessary for themselves. If they have to take a lesser paying job or work 2 menial jobs, then so be it, I had to.
Whatever is going on now is still under the control of the same idiots that have been in office the last 2 years including the Chief clown, Obama. How many mouths could be fed on the money he's spending on his trip to India, china, and wherever else he'll be clowning around. We're talking millions of dollars a day here buddy boy. What does this moron expect to accomplish in a couple weeks overseas that he STILL has not been able to get a handle on here, you idiot.
My projection will be that until 2012 and Obama and his Obamanites are out of office it'll still take years to undo the abortion Obama put us into.
Sorry, James 'b' - for BOZO, but you are the JOKER. This is a simple question of math which obviously an idiot like you isn't capable of.
Now, let's process this, dingbat: If one has 14 million out of work, and there are only 3 million jobs available, it follows that nearly 11 million will be out of luck.
Ever tried to fill five gallons into a one gallon bucket, moron?
Clearly teepees like you and your ilk have imbibed so much kool aid it's hopeless to even have a rational debate. You morons actually believe *cutting taxes* will lower the deficit or make things better in some obscure way.
Well it will for the fat cats.
Now, take yourself some where else, and occupy your time there. This is the last space you get on this blog, fool.
Wow! Way to lambaste that imbecile, Copernicus! Any halfwit knows that if there are about five people to each job, four people will be left out. Yet this a-hole can't figure it out.
He says "these people ought to take anything" to pay bills! WTF! WHAT? If there's nothing there, even clearing up road kill, then what?
I totally agree with you about this nut who is probably like the other Tea partiers too.
I want to see how this joker is squealing when the bond traders demand austerity measures and call in all their debt markers when the republicans have already squandered their remaining ballast by giving away tax cuts.
What a pack of assholes!
Caleb Shay wrote:
"I totally agree with you about this nut who is probably like the other Tea partiers too. "
Well, at least he cleaned up his language, never mind it won't help him getting any more comments posted, since I take a poor view of those unable to think.
It also shows that it isn't my brother in OK, though the cussing was very similar. (He never lost car, house etc during any recession. So your theory there is wrong).
At least I am glad about that, as I give both my 2 bros credit for more sense than this character shows.
Hopefully, "James b" will find a nice tea party blog where he'll be right at home, as he's worn out his welcome here, especially with those last two epithet laced tirades I deleted.
James Bozo wrote:
"How many mouths could be fed on the money he's spending on his trip to India, china, and wherever else he'll be clowning around. We're talking millions of dollars a day here buddy boy"
Another case where you've got your facts messed up, 'buddy boy'. The amount being spent on the Obama trip is barely one ten thousandth of what Bush gave away in one month (to the wealthiest 1%) via his egregious tax cuts in 2003. Indeed, just the capital gains benefits, not even factoring in the reduced income tax largesse.
Also, as India now is an enormous baneficiary of new capital inflows, thanks to globalized economies of scale, we stand to benefit by establishing links with their workers - who now rival ours in their skill set.
You need to really pull your head from where the sun don't shine, james b. You could start by learning and reading more real facts with less dependence on Faux News as well as f-bombing those with whom you differ.
As I said, take your shtick, your issues, your pseudo-problems with President Obama and move them elsewhere- we don't want you here.
James Bozo wrote:
"How many mouths could be fed on the money he's spending on his trip to India, china, and wherever else he'll be clowning around. We're talking millions of dollars a day here buddy boy"
Another case where you've got your facts messed up, 'buddy boy'. The amount being spent on the Obama trip is barely one ten thousandth of what Bush gave away in one month (to the wealthiest 1%) via his egregious tax cuts in 2003. Indeed, just the capital gains benefits, not even factoring in the reduced income tax largesse.
Also, as India now is an enormous baneficiary of new capital inflows, thanks to globalized economies of scale, we stand to benefit by establishing links with their workers - who now rival ours in their skill set.
You need to really pull your head from where the sun don't shine, james b. You could start by learning and reading more real facts with less dependence on Faux News as well as f-bombing those with whom you differ.
As I said, take your shtick, your issues, your pseudo-problems with President Obama and move them elsewhere- we don't want you here.
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