Far East Cynic

The S.O. and I went to see the Smurf’s movie today. It was actually better than I expected. It is a pretty well done movie and not just for kids. ( Its PG after all).

And after over 30 years-I finally learned how Smurfette came to be the only girl among 99 guys.

And so, its time resurrect all the Smurf jokes:

TELEVISION ANNOUNCER: We now return to the Smurfs…
(on television screen)
Smurf #1: Hey, did you have a good time last night?
Smurf #2: Smurf-tacular!
Smurf #1: Yeah, I saw you leave with Smurfette.
Smurf #2: Oh man, as soon as we got out of the bar, she started smurfing me.
Smurf #1: Shut the Smurf up!
Smurf #2: Yeah!
Smurf #1: Right in the Smurfing parking lot?
Smurf #2: Smurf-Yeah!
Smurf #1: Oh! That is freaking Smurf!

Want to get rich? Play poker with Obama-you will make a fortune! This so called deal will kill any hope of a recovery. Enjoy life in a totally self created depression, teabaggers. I wish you the joy of Grover Norquist while it lasts.

New York Times columnist Paul Krugman said Sunday that the debt deal will worsen the current unemployment situation and the nation’s long-run fiscal situation.

“From the perspective of a rational person — in other words a progressive — we shouldn’t be talking about spending cuts at all now,” Krugman said during a roundtable discussion on ABCNews’ This Week With Christiane Amanpour. “We have 9 percent unemployment. These spending cuts are going to worsen unemployment. It’s even going to hold the long-run fiscal picture because we have a situation where more and more people are becoming permanent long-term unemployed.”

Krugman’s not alone in his opinion: Last week, economic forecasting firm Macroeconomic Advisors analyzed Republican and Democratic debt proposals and said either plan would significantly slow economic growth if enacted.

“We used to talk about the Japanese and lost decade,” Krugman continued. “We’ll look at them as a role model. They did better than we’re doing. this is going to go on. I have nobody I know who thinks the unemployment rate will be below 8 percent at the end of next year. With the spending cuts it might be above 9 percent at the end of next year. There is no light at the end of this tunnel. We’re having a debate in Washington, all about, ‘Gee, we’ll make the economy worse, but will we make it worse on 90 percent of the Republicans’ terms or 100 percent of Republicans’ terms?’ The answer is 100 percent.”

What is especially frustrating is knowing it does not have to be this way-the fire extinguisher on the increasing debt is within our reach, and we refuse to touch it.Just repealing the Bush tax cuts would stop deficit growth in its tracks. Well thought out spending cuts, including defense-triggered in major part by leaving Afghanistan and Iraq immediately and having a review of our global strategy with an eye to retrenchment-would probably do the rest.

Oh and while you were watching Congress kneel down to the goons in the Tea Party, the FAA has been limping along and the government has been losing 30,000,000 dollars a day in revenue.

It is madness.

Thomas Bushlack explores a lost idea in American governance-that of  doing what is best for the common good. He argues, quite persuasively that despite their assertions to the contrary-the current Tea Party position is anything but “Christian” in its basis:

What would bringing the language of the common good back into the discussion accomplish? For one thing, it would re-establish the principle that government has a necessary role to play in seeking the common good (not the only role, but still a necessary one). It would also allow us to recognize that in times of economic hardship sometimes government spending is the last resort to help spur the economy. This principle, established by John Maynard Keynes and until very recently accepted by those on the right and the left, would remind us that the time to cut programs and spending is not during an economic downturn, but rather once the economy has rebounded enough to pick up the slack currently left by the high unemployment rate.

Ultimately, the far-right ideology that controls the terms of this debate is going to fail for one simple reason: it won’t work. Imagine walking into an interview for a job as a manager or CEO of a firm and telling them that you think your primary role is to do as little as possible and let your employees each pursue their own narrow self-interest to the exclusion of everyone else in the firm – the interview committee would think you’ve gone mad. But this is precisely what politicians on the far right are asking of voters right now. The best of American democracy has always fostered political experimentation and pragmatic results over ideology, but in our current situation the experiment being run by the far right is playing Russian roulette with our common good, and will have disastrous consequences for our economy.

The mantra “job-killing taxes” that has been repeated ad nauseum only hits at one part of the truth. Some taxes can inhibit economic growth and job creation, but others can stimulate economic growth and enhance the common good. It is impossible to believe that closing corporate tax loopholes and asking more of the top wage-earners is going to be worse than the kind of political and economic instability that would ensue following a government default on its debt. Ultimately, those hit the hardest by this experiment will be those who are already most vulnerable (see Tobias Winright’s post from July 18th). In a climate such as this, Christians – and all people of good will – have a responsibility to continue to uphold the principle of the common good as the foundation of our political life together in society, even if it appears that very few are capable of hearing the message right now.

The other day, Jon Stewart had a fascinating interview with Juan Williams. While I think Stewart was too dismissive of the corrosive effects of associating yourself with an organization that is as polarizing as Fox News- he is right on the mark about the sad state of the blogosphere these days. If you are pressed for time, just go to the 5:30 mark and listen to the end:

With this new program. (H/T to the Daily Beast)

Social Security Reform Bill Encourages Americans To Live Faster, Die Younger

The Pirates are in first place-and its not the begining of the season. Go BUCS!

I’m going to take a break for a while and clear my head. I’ll be not blogging for about a week or so.

I am mentally tired and need a break.

And to put it frankly I am too depressed right now to think straight.

This is unbelievable.

In a slap at the fading and officially out-of-favor tradition of racy, sarcastic and irreverent aviation call signs, a just-retired Navy fighter squadron commanding officer was censured by Navy Secretary Ray Mabus Wednesday for failing to halt and subsequently condoning the hazing of a junior officer at a 2009 call sign review board where assembled officers voted to call the officer “Romo’s Bitch,” the Navy announced late Friday.

The “shoeification” of Naval Aviation continues.

And how we got to this point. With the markets getting ready to implode it is probably worth a quick review. Fortunately the New York Times has done the math for us:

Despite what antigovernment conservatives say, non-defense discretionary spending on areas like foreign aid, education and food safety was not a driving factor in creating the deficits. In fact, such spending, accounting for only 15 percent of the budget, has been basically flat as a share of the economy for decades. Cutting it simply will not fill the deficit hole.

Take a look at this chart:

You should come away with two inescapable conclusions-the United States increased it’s spendng at exactly the same time it drastically decreased its revenue.

Now look at the policy decisions that each president made:

The Times explains it in clear detail:

The second graph shows that under Mr. Bush, tax cuts and war spending were the biggest policy drivers of the swing from projected surpluses to deficits from 2002 to 2009. Budget estimates that didn’t foresee the recessions in 2001 and in 2008 and 2009 also contributed to deficits. Mr. Obama’s policies, taken out to 2017, add to deficits, but not by nearly as much. 

A few lessons can be drawn from the numbers. First, the Bush tax cuts have had a huge damaging effect. If all of them expired as scheduled at the end of 2012, future deficits would be cut by about half, to sustainable levels. Second, a healthy budget requires a healthy economy; recessions wreak havoc by reducing tax revenue. Government has to spur demand and create jobs in a deep downturn, even though doing so worsens the deficit in the short run. Third, spending cuts alone will not close the gap. The chronic revenue shortfalls from serial tax cuts are simply too deep to fill with spending cuts alone. Taxes have to go up.

In future decades, when rising health costs with an aging population hit the budget in full force, deficits are projected to be far deeper than they are now. Effective health care reform, and a willingness to pay more taxes, will be the biggest factors in controlling those deficits.

People in later years will justifiablly ask: What in the hell were we thinking?

It has been noted by some-that I may have gone too far in my anger against our evil members of Congress. That is probably a legitimate beef.

I am very angry about the debt ceiling debate. The GOP’s position is completely unreasonable. They are more concerned about appeasing a group of selfish individuals than doing what is right for the nation as a whole. I firmly believe that.

Nonetheless-as a blogger-I have a responsibility to curb my temper.  Sometimes-especially after a few beers I forget that, because I quite passionate about things I believe in. Fixing the United States and getting our disparate populace to understand that the world has changed is one of those issues.  My comments went to far regarding what fate is deserved by our erstwhile Representatives in Washington. Craig Hooper has rightly called out Uncle Dumbo on that score-he probably needs to make the same comment about me. I went too far in my rhetoric. Bloggers have a responsibility to be good stewards of civic behavior.  Anti-government rhetoric, “wink-wink” anti-government incitement and calls for violence must not find a place in America’s milblog community.

For that-I apologize to you my readers. It was wrong.

But I will continue to write about the debt ceiling debate-because it is personal to me. But I will try harder to be more temperate. That I did not do so earlier is my fault and I sincerely apologize.

I get to go home tomorrow! It is only for a about a fortnight or so-and then I will be right back here in Bucharest.

I got up early-went to breakfast-then came back and went back to bed. Somehow I think I should not have bothered to get up. But I was hungry.

I then realized that I needed to do some shopping-when the S.O. was over here last year, she really liked the Romanian wines. So I bought three bottles and am now trying to figure out how to pack them so they don’t break. My choices? Domeniul Coronai Pinot Noir-2009 and two different versions of  Feteasca Neagra one from a winery called Halewood and the other is Beciul Domnesc. One is 2006 and one is 2009.

I got on the subway-and went to Parcul Tartunuili which is in southern Bucharest. Its a big park-as big as its more famous sister park Herestrau.

The thing about Romanian parks is that they were once great it would appear-but they have suffered through years of neglect. The park benches are warped and in disrepair. They look uncomfortable. The same is true of the grass. It needs cutting but it is not. There is a reason for that-Romania is in the middle of a massive austerity program, the kind our Galtian overlords want to impose on us. It has been painful on the Romanian people. The Romanian officers I am working with-are very underpaid for the work they do.

And the parks, to me, kind of highlight the problems with this. They clearly were once great and beautiful. But they have been allowed to atrophy.  And its sad in a many ways.

James Fallows makes a great point-its time to put the blame where it belongs. On the spoiled children of the GOP who would rather take the economy down than do the right thing.

It may be time for President Obama to give a “This is bullshit” speech about the debt-ceiling negotiations. Merrill Goozner has done an item worth noticing. It’s a proposed Presidential Address next week about the folly of Congress failing to authorize an increase in the debt ceiling, to pay for programs and tax cuts that Congress has already voted to enact.

I am sick of hearing the preaching from the hypocrites. I am angry and you should be too. The middle class is being destroyed-by sheer greed on the part of sick, twisted people who have no understanding of the facts or memory of history. 

While the House Republicans say they are representing “The American People,” they actually represent only those who voted for them, in relatively small numbers, in the 2010 midterm elections. When Peggy Noonan invokes “the old America” culture, she is referring to a time and way of life shared and longed for by at best a minority of Americans. We won’t go back to the 50′s-and one should remember that in the 50′s Eisenhower had the balls to face down the assholes in his own party-who wanted to undo the New Deal. We have no one now with similar commitment. And so we are in the mess we are in.

The debt ceiling has to be raised. I am sick of useless assholes who defend any other position. It is wrong. 

Far-right conservatives who harbor a radically different vision—of a much smaller government without the wherewithal to provide this kind of safety net—now control the House of Representatives and the Republican Party. In the debt ceiling debate, they have rejected long-term solutions that have conceded most of what they demand. They want it all.

I  say no—I acknowledge that we must reduce the debt but in ways that do not kill economic growth or gut entitlement. Much is subject to compromise, but not our future as a great nation.

UPDATE! The more I think about it-this post should never have been written by me. Accordingly I have deleted all of my own text-leaving nothing any more. Judging by the way the markets are tanking today-we are in for a long bumpy ride, and the fact that is self inflicted damage still does not make extermist rhetoric right. I am really bothered by my failure to maintain a correct demeanor-and it will not happen again. I am 100% in the wrong here-and apologies are owed to many people, most especially Curtis and URR.

Is probably an oncoming freight train. Still-the idea of Willard finally moving on from PACOM is a good one-and it would appear it may actually be safe to go back to Naples again:

Adm. Jon Greenert, the current vice chief of naval operations, was formally nominated Thursday to be the 30th CNO by Defense Secretary Leon Panetta. The nomination comes atop a slew of flag moves:

• Vice Adm. Mark Ferguson, the chief of naval personnel, was nominated to replace Greenert as VCNO, a position that comes with four stars. Ferguson is a 1978 Naval Academy graduate and a nuclear-trained surfare warfare officer. He has commanded destroyer Benfold and Destroyer Squadron 18.

• Vice Adm. Cecil Haney was tapped to take command of U.S. Pacific Command, relieving Adm. Robert Willard. If confirmed, Haney would be the second African-American naval officer to wear four stars. Haney, now the deputy commander of U.S. Strategic Command, is a 1978 academy grad and submariner. He has commanded attack submarine Honolulu and Submarine Squadron 1.

• Vice Adm. Harry Harris, the 6th Fleet commander, was nominated for assistant to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the Pentagon and was recommended for reappointment to vice admiral. Harris is a 1978 academy graduate and naval flight officer who was born in Yokosuka, Japan.

• Vice Adm. Scott Buskirk, the 7th Fleet commander, was nominated to be chief of naval personnel and would be reappointed to vice admiral. Buskirk is a submariner and 1979 academy grad.

• Buskirk’s relief at 7th Fleet would be Rear Adm. Scott Swift, who is director for operations at U.S. Pacific Command. Swift, a graduate of San Diego State, was recommended for a third star. He entered the Navy in 1979 through the Aviation Reserve Officer Candidate program and commanded Carrier Air Wing 14 and Carrier Strike Group 9.