US POLITICS SPRING 2011: Let's just call off this country.

meh

a) the idea that Republicans are gonna be able spin the oodles of debt-ceiling-related damage onto Obama's shoulders seems dubious at best to me
b) don't forget who's originally designed to benefit from all these free-market congame: businesses. I would think it very unlikely that, businesses havin so much to lose, they would allow Republicans to put ideology above looking after their interests (esp considering how ultimately malleable their ideology has proven to be ie the thinly disguised tax increases discussed upthread)

the 'who gets blamed' game would happen at a volume about 100x times less than the 'holy fuck the global economy is grinding to a halt' game

a) the idea that Republicans are gonna be able spin the oodles of debt-ceiling-related damage onto Obama's shoulders seems dubious at best to me

I don't think we live in the same country

Yep. No matter what happens, Republicans will blame Obama and the lamestream media will quote and amplify it. I think Obama still deserves to get blamed-- but in a different manner. Obama's gonna cave to Republican demands for spending cuts only because making a stand for getting rid of tax breaks and for raising taxes on the rich might, in the views of his insular big business-friendly staff, make him look less like a post-partisan fair kind of guy to 'independent' voters. Obama will claim victory by agreeing to a trillion less in cuts than the far-right extremists want.

the 'who gets blamed' game would happen at a volume about 100x times less than the 'holy fuck the global economy is grinding to a halt' game

― ~edgy~ (goole), Thursday, June 23, 2011 3:20 PM (36 minutes ago)

well sure but the 2012 election is still going to happen

so gonna happen

a) the idea that Republicans are gonna be able spin the oodles of debt-ceiling-related damage onto Obama's shoulders seems dubious at best to me

I don't think we live in the same country

― chupacabra - a delicious burrito (DJP), Thursday, June 23, 2011 3:24 PM (55 minutes ago) Bookmark

let me rephrase this: I think that sending the country & world into a massive bottomless poverty spiral will have ramifications of such immensity that there's no way Obama would be able to shoulder all of the blowback. Now whether Tea Partiers are sane enough to perceive this or not is I guess open to debate

are other countries paying attention to this? cause it sounds like this is globally catastrophic..

(I make it sound like O is intentionally taking on the blame for Tea Party's screwups; I don't think that's the case)

are other countries paying attention to this? cause it sounds like this is globally catastrophic..

sorta wonder about this tbh! are embassies going crazy? are other treasury ministers going apeshit? it's not like the european central bank(s) have covered themselves in glory over the past 2 years...

probably they're assuming the old churchill dictum: "they'll do the right thing after trying everything else"

i'm pretty sure that american debt ceiling shenanigans have about 1000 times less relevance to the global economy than what's happening in greece right now

really?

cuz I'm pretty sure our debt is bigger than the entire economy of Greece

i know i'm straying a bit off topic and may also be showing my parochialism but the greek situation - and by extension, the irish, portuguese, spanish situations - is being talked about quite openly as a crisis of the very concept of democratic sovereignty. (of course this exact situation obtained in countless latin american countries over the past 20 years but nobody gave a shit because that was the_global_south.) and the horrible thing is, in greece, every single option is bad. everybody says well, they'll just need to swallow another, further dose of austerity - but i really get the feeling that greeks would actually attempt to kill their leaders if that happened. people like to talk about the global economy being "on the brink" but in greece they're already far beyond it. in contrast this dance in congress over the (self-imposed) debt ceiling and whether moody's will or won't downgrade us bonds (hint: they won't) doesn't seem very important. of course, i'm talking about the Real World and i do realize that it may have vast importance in the beltway.

naw man that does sound p heavy

in a nutshell: does anyone actually think the US will default on its bond obligations? no. greece though? uhhhhh yeah. and the greek economy is a bit larger than lehman brothers.

i think everyone knows the greek people are going to suffer no matter what

really seems to me like 'greek panic' or 'greek blame' is a kind of moral/political inability to realize that northern european publics are going to have to suck it up too. each piece of debt has two parties, the lender banks were just as 'profligate and undisciplined' as those lazy mediterraneans, and no they weren't acting in the best interests of their nations' peoples either.

i mean, a lot of people are probably saying this too. the greek state is not the thing that people are really afraid of collapsing, it's the institutions that are so upside down that a shock will produce too much miserable fallout to locate entirely on someone else... am i not right?

well youll all be excited to know that niall ferguson is pretty sure the ottoman empire is going to return

that was a little garbled:

greece goes down, kind of a big deal in itself, but needn't be 'systemic'
european banks get yanked down the drain with them
then it's the banks begging their governments for rescue directly, not the 'greeks'

what could be masked as a nationalist problem quickly becomes revealed as essentially a class problem

i will admit that when i heard about some of the benefits of being greek i was like damn

6 weeks paid vacation, retirement at 53!!!!

6 weeks vacation is pretty normal in Europe. the average Greek retirement age is higher than Germany's.

isn't that par for the course throughout Europe?

xpost

anyway bottom line, i'm sure the US debt ceiling issue is actually important for a number of political and even economic reasons but i'm also pretty sure it's not a global catastrophe in the making.

as for the teabags/GOP not being able to spin any negative effects re the debt ceiling onto Obama and the Dems: they did it successfully for the 2008 financial meltdown. they'll do it again to Obama and the Dems if it comes to that.

as a crisis of the very concept of democratic sovereignty.

Rather like globalization was. It's not a crisis of global sovereignty; that started when you borrowed money from foreign lenders. No-one forced anybody to borrow money? No-one told these countries not to adhere to the deficit rules of joining the Euro (though having France and Italy flagrantly snub them didn't help). It's a crisis of performance. It's a crisis of politics. You fuck up, you either pay back or no-one wants to do business w/you again. For all the indignados out there, where were your protests when your governments were spending money they didn't have unsustainably? Your protests are almost meaningless now 'cause all any government can do is determine the degree to which you are all screwed now.

at dinner tonight with ~~~Europeans~~~ Greece was the hot topic & the consensus is that this is a dangerous game between the same olde powers of Europe, another case of war by other means...the danger a reversion to military dictatorship in a Eurozone country & then who knows, since there's some history here with that sort of thing.

@umairh
umair haque
No, Greece is not "like Lehman Brothers". Bankers' "bailouts" didn't involve decades of "austerity" and misery.
2 minutes ago via TweetDeck Favorite Retweet Reply

For all the indignados out there, where were your protests when your governments were spending money they didn't have unsustainably?

as if govt press releases were full of details of illegitimate contracts, credit default swaps, etc! i mean at some point you trust that the Really Serious Dudes who say that everything is going swimmingly know what they are talking about. everybody bought it.

as for the really big, obvious wastes of money like the olympics, there were plenty of protests, i.e. http://athens.indymedia.org/front.php3?lang=el&article_id=247524

we'd all greece like $97670978078097087 each if they just would copyright their language

As a second-generation Greek, I'm so just so proud that we're on the leading edge of worldwide economic collapse.

from Daily Show:

Greek debt is US $44,000 per citizen
US debt is $45,000

Go Greece! I know we can catch up.

might need to start a war or three

per-capita GDP (PPP) - World Bank

US $47,284
Greece $28,256

what would the Spartans say

"sparta"

So when is Obama gonna give in to Cantor and Boehner and their demands re tax related items...Perhaps when Obama and Boehner golf again (see below)

Washington Post
Congressional Republicans abruptly pulled out of debt-reduction talks with the White House on Thursday and demanded that President Obama meet directly with GOP leaders to resolve an impasse over taxes.

With the clock ticking toward an Aug. 2 deadline, senior Republicans said negotiations led by Vice President Biden had ceased making headway as congressional Democrats pressed for as much as $400 billion in new taxes on corporations and the nation’s wealthiest households.

“We’ve known from the beginning that tax hikes would be a poison pill to any debt-reduction proposal,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said in a speech on the Senate floor. “Those who are proposing them now either know this or they need to realize it quickly.”

In a joint statement with Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.), his representative in the talks, McConnell said: “President Obama needs to decide between his goal of higher taxes, or a bipartisan plan to address our deficit. He can’t have both.”

McConnell and House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) said the talks could not move forward unless Obama takes taxes off the table. Democrats called the move irresponsible and showed no sign of backing down from the fight.

The campaign arm for House Democrats quickly issued a fundraising letter accusing Republicans of quitting the talks because they “aren’t willing to budge on ending tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires.”

“The only way to make sure we begin to live within our means is by coming together behind a balanced approach that finds real savings across the budget — including domestic spending, defense spending, mandatory spending, and loopholes in the tax code,” Biden said in a statement. “We all need to make sacrifices, and that includes the most fortunate among us.”

Progress made

The breakdown of the talks comes after seven weeks of negotiations that all sides say made real progress toward a plan to restrain the swollen national debt. Biden and six lawmakers from both parties had tentatively agreed to more than $1 trillion in savings and had begun to tackle the toughest issues: Democratic demands for higher taxes and spending cuts at the Pentagon, and Republican demands for sharp cuts to health and retirement programs.

Those issues were never likely to be resolved without head-to-head talks involving Obama, Boehner and other congressional leaders. Thursday’s developments may merely serve to hasten the moment of truth.

“The next phase is in the hands of (party) leaders, who need to determine the scope of an agreement that can tackle the problem and attract bipartisan support,” Biden said. “For now, the talks are in abeyance as we await that guidance.”

Asked what comes next, Boehner said the ball is in the president’s court.

“I would expect to hear from him,” Boehner told reporters, adding that his emissary to the talks, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.), “has made it clear that these conversations could continue if they take the tax hikes out of the conversation.”

Private channels have already been opened between the White House and Republicans on Capitol Hill. Wednesday evening, Obama met with Boehner at the White House, inviting him to follow up “on conversations they had on the golf course on Saturday,” according to White House press secretary Jay Carney. Neither Carney nor Boehner’s office would comment further on the meeting.

conservative wonk thinks obama will win the debt ceiling fight

http://www.nationalreview.com/agenda/270398/why-white-house-will-win-debt-limit-standoff-josh-barro

...because state legislatures of any party breakdown are going to be on the hook for the money if the feds don't pony up

ie not only wall street but 'main street' will be (are? i haven't heard of anything like this so far) agitating for it to happen

Did you read the commenters' first sentence?

"It's also as if you don't understand the purpose of the government of the United States. " classic line there

yeah the guy (josh barro) is not exactly popular over there right now, which makes me think he's probably more right than wrong

i mean:

http://www.nationalreview.com/agenda/270390/we-dont-need-balance-budget-ever-josh-barro

I still don't think Obama will let it get that far. He'll blink and give Cantor what he wants before there's a debt limit crisis

That is extremely interesting and has things I hadn't thought of in it. I was just trying to get across to my mom how government borrowing/fiscal operations aren't like personal or household ones, and that guy makes some points I wish I'd used.

yeah, a government doesn't die in 70-some years, is the big one!

I was thinking more about markets, money/valuations of things such that the money gets "moved around" without actually existing, and so on, but the whole "not saving for retirement" thing is WAY more basic and grasp-able.

a conservative on one of the other websites i visit

No tax increases were a precondition for the talks. That the talks will fail because the Democrats now insist on raising taxes is no big surprise. Got gold?

How higher taxes are awesome, sez Bruce Bartlett.

http://28.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_llxzboNVHC1qbhetko1_400.gif
eric cantor, today

Better late than never, I guess. If only he had thought this decades ago. I still will never forgive Bartlett for his role in the Reagan administration and for helping to draft the Kemp-Roth tax bill, which ultimately formed the basis of Ronald Reagan's 1981 tax cut. Bartlett's book, "Reaganomics: Supply-Side Economics in Action" appeared in 1981

that's a x-post.