Peter G. Peterson Croaks But The 99 Percent Aren't Mourning

Peter G. Peterson's obit recently appeared in the WSJ.  A reason to be sad? Hell no!

The more than half page obituary of Blackstone Group honcho Peter G. Peterson was interesting only for the amount of  WSJ space it consumed. To read it you'd think this rat was somehow on a par with George Soros in terms of social support and donations. But if you really bought that bill of goods you'd have to either have zero memory of Peterson's efforts to eviscerate social insurance - or been on too much weed. 

Recall as long as 5 years ago,  SourceWatch’s PetersonPyramid.org  pointed out that the “Campaign to Fix the Debt” was just the latest effort by Peter G. Peterson and a bunch of his billionaire pals and corporate cronies to chop away at Social Security and Medicare. All that  in the name of fixing America’s “debt problem”.  In a blog post (Jan. 24)  at the time I pointed out that the tragedy was in not getting politicos who ought to know better to castigate  him instead of endorsing  his dastardly efforts.

A number of sources at the time, including smirkingchimp.com, salon.com as well as The New York Times, exposed  Fix the Debt, as  a group of business executives and onetime legislators who had become Washington’s most visible and best-financed advocates for reining in the federal deficit.  These scumballs were exposed when troglydyte Jim McCrery, a former Louisiana congressman, urged lawmakers to "pursue entitlement cuts and tax reform", and was introduced on television as a leader of the hitherto unknown enclave.

Interestingly, McCrery made no mention  of his day job: a lobbyist at Capitol Counsel L.L.C. His clients have included the Alliance for Savings and Investment, a group of large companies pushing to maintain low tax rates on dividend income, and the Win America Campaign, a coalition of multinational corporations that lobbied for a one-time “repatriation holiday” allowing them to move offshore profits back home without paying taxes.

Fix the Debt had succeeded in confecting a "public-spirited, elder-statesman sheen to the cause of deficit reduction" according to the NY Times. Like busy little bees during the 2012  fiscal cliff negotiations,  they set up grass-roots chapters around the country, and even met with President Obama and his aides, while hosting private breakfasts for lawmakers on Capitol Hill.

Obama-  for his part-  seemed to have taken the "entitlement-reduction" Kool Aid to heart, appearing on 'Meet the Press'  on Dec. 30th, 2012,  while most of the country was getting ready for New Year's Eve. Obama strongly indicated he'd have no problem adopting the Chained CPI to reduce Social Security.  Progressives immediately reacted with predictable venom to this concession to billionaire Neolib rat Peterson's machinations.

Another Dem (more like DINO) who appeared bought out was former Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell. He had appeared on the (then) MSNBC show  'The Cycle', actually demanding  progressives accept the implementation of the Chained CPI and also extending the Medicare -qualifying age to at least 67 .  Even more liberal rage ensued, and wifey recalls me screaming at the tube, "He’s a Neoliberal FUCK!!"

Wifey concurred but chose the less colorful term 'rat' instead of any f-bombs, acknowledging his frequent appearances on all the most liberal MSNBC shows had duped us.  Rendell, meanwhile, had eagerly begun parroting  Peter G. Peterson's talking points. (Though MSNBC did not identify the former governor as such, Philadelphia magazine  noted that he was a “corporate consigliere for Greenhill & Co investment bank” and the co-chair of “Fix the Debt".)

The saddest aspect to all this is that Peterson's Fix the Debt  front group - by roping in center Right and centrist Dems - further split the Democratic Party leading to the political chasm we saw exposed (between Hillary and Bernie Sanders' supporters) in the 2016 election. That chasm arguably led to the election of Trump given that 16 percent of Sanders' supporters had become so disaffected by Hillary's Neoliberalism (established by her giving talks to Wall Streeters for pay)  that they actually voted for Trump - or Jill Stein. Having opted for political "cholera"  instead of "dysentery" they dragged all the rest of us - who were able to assess relative horrors - into the former, wholesale.

No. Peter G. Peterson will not be missed or mourned. For most of us the response is "Good riddance!"

See also:

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/richard-eskow/78375/pete-peterson-s-ghost

Excerpt:

"That legacy is marked by Pete Peterson’s long war against Social Security and Medicare, his austerity economics, and the false aura of objectivity Peterson used to promote his ideology.

Behind his carefully stage-managed veneer of bipartisanship (his team once tried to get me suspended from a publication for calling him right-wing), Peterson engaged in a decades-long war on the social contract. Programs like Social Security and Medicare were his immediate targets, but his ultimate goal was even broader: He wanted to extinguish the ideal of public goods, and put an end to the notion that certain social programs should be universal.

Peterson took conservative ideas and gave them an undeserved air of truth and neutrality. Politicians who embraced them were more likely to receive a steady flow of high-dollar contributions and gaining entrée to the right salons and alliances."

  

Paul "Munster" Ryan Admits He Wants To Gut "Entitlements" After Tax Bill Passes

Sniff, sniff..."If I don't get me way to gut entitlements after trillions are lost from this tax cut bill, I'm gonna cry me self to sleep every night!" Sniff, Sniff

Well, it didn't take very long for Paul "Eddie Munster" Ryan to fess up about the real agenda behind the execrable "tax reform" bill being rushed to Dotard's desk. In an interview this morning, the churlish whelp with the uncanny resemblance to Eddie Munster (of "Munsters" fame) plain admited what he wants to do next year with "entitlements".  Hell, this turd has been literally salivating about cutting Social Security and Medicare for the past ten years.

CBS' Norah O'Donnell straight out asked Ryan: "Will Congress take up entitlement spending next year?"  To which Munster replied:

"Yes, we will. We have to address entitlements otherwise we can't really get a handle on our future debt."

Munster Ryan actually blurted the sentence out with a straight face, despite the fact he and his compadres had just effectively added up to $1.5 TRILLION in debt by this outrageous tax cut bill .. (Made much worse by adding tweaks in the past 2 weeks that deliver 83% of all the benefits to the top 1 percent, including a real estate provision that translates into $414 b in new debt).. So get the picture here: He and his ilk are monstrously ADDING to the debt while stating they have to cut social insurance benefits next year to prevent adding to the debt. Try to wrap your brain around that bunkum.

He went on:

"We need to get this debt under control so our kids and our grand kids can get a debt free nation."

Yeppers, Eddie Munster. So you and your fellow assholes just handed corporations and the wealthiest a big chunk of permanent tax cut, corporate welfare at the cost of adding $1.5 trillion in debt - which will saddle those same "kids and grand kids" with interest on the debt (individual) payments averaging $12,000 per year each, How dumb do you think Americans really are?

And the biggest howler was yet to come:

"Number one we got to grow the economy. This tax cut bill will do that. Number two, reform entitlement programs."

Of course, the tax cuts bill will do no such thing, and we've already got prima facie evidence on that score. Most illuminating was White House economic advisor Gary Cohn's recent meeting (now gone viral)  with dozens of CEOs, and most of them giving thumbs down when he asked about potential jobs, e.g.
http://www.businessinsider.com/trump-gop-tax-plan-gary-cohn-bill-2017-11

The moderator (WSJ's John Bussey)  asked those in attendance whether they were planning to increase their business investment if the tax bill became law. The CEOs in attendance didn't seem to be on the same wavelength as Cohn.  While there was a smattering of raised hands in the auditorium, it was clear there were not as many as Cohn would have liked.  You see Cohn asking, almost embarrassed to be caught in the same room with these misfits:

"Why aren't the other hands up?"

Then, realizing he'd get no rational or decent answer, moving on to another question. So WHO is Munster trying to fool? Well, I guess the clueless dummies comprising Dotard's forlorn base of deplorables.

Ryan went on with further  bullshit:

"Back to the welfare issue, we right now are trapping people in poverty ...on welfare programs-- which prevents them from hitting their potential and getting in the work force. The problem we're going to have is with a faster growing economy is we're gonna need more people working. So we need to ease the barriers to get more people from welfare t4o work."

Of course, this is arrant horse manure - and it's again incredible Munster could blabber this out with a straight face. You have to give the guy credit for his  acting talent on live TV.  The bitter truth is there will be NO "economic growth" - certainly spawned from this tax cut bill. The CEOs have admitted (see link above) they want to create no new jobs, and automation is killing most repetitive jobs which would be the most likely for those on welfare to take.

According to one recent report (Denver Post Business, p. 1K, Dec. 3).  "over the next 13 years , 70 million workers in the U.S. will have to find another way to make money"   Again, we're informed all the jobs at risk involve repetitive tasks -  and the robots at work can already "scan Tylenol bottles and lip balm at the drugstore"   as well as "build pickups and take your grilled cheese orders at Panera Bread." McKinsey Global Institute estimates that "half the duties workers handle globally could be automated."

The bad jobs news - i.e. elimination of  more jobs for more humans - doesn't stop there. According to a WSJ  report ('Firms Leave The Bean Counting To The Robots') in the Business and Investing section (p, B5, Oct. 23) AI -based robots will soon be taking over CFO and other accounting work across the land, as well as the jobs of "accountants, bank loan officers, and insurance claims adjustors".  Even FORBES now uses an AI system called  'Quill" to pen its articles, so less need for flesh and blood  journalists.

So "Eddie Munster"  Ryan is in la-la land when he talks of all these extra jobs that those on welfare will be able to get. The brutal, unvarnished truth is that MORE welfare - or at least financial support programs (like universal basic income)-   will be needed to support the millions whose jobs are taken by automation, or were never created because of simple corporate greed.  (Preferring share buybacks to job creation).

Never mind. Eddie 'Munster' Ryan still salivates over the prospect of cuts to Medicare and Social Security.

Ryan's biggest "wet dream" ideation is to replace Medicare with a "voucher plan" though he had since altered the language to "premium support" to make it more impenetrable to the average person.  But it's the same old trash in slightly different wrapping. In the end, it's  a bare-faced, unadulterated effort to eviscerate the elderly in this country of any medical or other security. To leave them unprotected, like dogs without bones, in a vicious commercial -coercive market landscape that will laugh and howl in stitches before it remotely considers offering any insurance. Worse, the Ryan plan seeks to divide and conquer by telling current oldsters over 55  they "have nothing to fear" while leaving the horrific voucher system to "those 55 and under".

Most citations of Ryan's "premium support"  have suggested $10,000 as the top amount of money issued per year for Medicare beneficiaries. But as I already pointed out, (Dec. 15 post) if I had to operate using even a $20,000 per annum GOP voucher plan- say implemented under a pay-go cut to Medicare- I'd have ended up shelling out nearly $40,000 out of pocket for the uncovered procedures. And none of that even includes the cost for wife's hip replacement surgery, including 7 days in rehab..   Other seniors with much less in savings would be in dire straits or having to declare bankruptcy.

Ryan also seems not to learn form history, like too many others in the GOP. He now wants to also privatize Social Security - like Gee Dumbya Bush attempted back in 2005. We saw how that one came out, with the Dems taking over both Houses of Congress in 2006. Before privatizing Ryan would be quite content just to stop the COLA used now. 

This would be by implementing a chained CPI, such as buried in the Senate version of the Repuke tax bill.  The brainchild of billionaire Peter G. Peterson,  the chained CPI reckons inflation (and hence adjustments) at barely one third of the regular COLA - based on the standard CPI or Consumer Price Index. Thus, most seniors in the country will find themselves either malnourished, bankrupt  or in the poorhouse after five years.  

The use of the "chained CPI" assumes that as prices increase, consumers will buy lower cost alternatives, reducing the amount of inflation they experience via less costly choices. For example, if the price of stew beef or hamburger rises by 50 cents a pound, they'll opt for pork.  If pork prices increase by 50 cents a pound (say owing to the Chinese buying tons of corn meal for their own hogs) then consumers will move to chicken. If chicken prices rise too much they will move to cheap fish or canned tuna. If those prices rise too much....well, I guess there's always dumpster diving (Repubs have already cut the food stamp budget to the bone.)

Basically then, the chained CPI introduces a race to the bottom.  And a bottomless pit is what we are headed for unless these clowns can be derailed in their social spending cut aspirations next year. Sen. Chris Murphy (CT)  was correct when he told Maddow last night that this is all "a ransom paid to the big money, high roller GOP donors."

Make no mistake this is what Ryan and his cabal have yearned for the past dozen years. Getting a Reeptard president in,  on whose back they could ride the "entitlements cut" horsey. They, however, know not what they  do in digging their own political graves- which will be abundantly clear by this time next year. 

See also:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/nextavenue/2017/12/12/why-big-medicare-and-medicaid-cuts-are-likely/#104d009e23d8

And:

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/phil-rockstroh/76622/capitalism-s-failure-of-the-flesh-the-rise-of-the-robots