Sorry, its been a while since posting. Its hard to type when you are curled up in the fetal position. Today was the first day I felt semi-normal in four days. I’v either been working, working on my course, or trying to sleep. I still have not been able to get a decent nights sleep which probably contributed to my overall state of bad feeling.
One of the the things I have been doing though is watching the whole debt ceiling debate-and following the more inane commentary from people who ought to know better. Plenty of people out there with so called “facts” the problem is most of them are simply incorrect. Specifically:
1) The effect of the Bush Tax cuts on our deficit were minimal
2) Tax cuts grow the economy
3) Entitlement spending is killing us.
I have come to the conclusion that for many of these folks they are motivated by three things: 1) They think they are secure in their jobs so the effects of a default will not be noticed on them. 2) Which leads to why they think taxes are so bad-even without truly understanding that they themselves did not benefit so much from the Bush Taxes, unless they are making a lot more money than I think they are and 3) they hate Obama so much-that they don’t care if the country gets dragged through the financial mud, so long as he gets the blame for it.
The last bit is particularly troubling because for the most part-they tend to be underestimating the havoc a government default will cause on the markets and on their own lives. Many of these people making those types of comments truly think “it can’t happen to them”.
I have a news flash for them-it can and it will. Remember that when you get no retirment check on the 1st of September.
These people have been so inculcated by the noise of our talk radio based society-and the in general poor economic education the average American gets-that cannot comprhend what the facts truly are. And when you do point the facts out, they simply look at you like you are deluded.
Its all Obama faults-can’t you see that?
It does not matter whose fault it is sweetheart-it matters now about getting a vote to pass the debt ceiling raise.
My favorite metaphor for the stimulus, like many things, comes from sports. In baseball, the Recovery Act would be a seven-run seventh inning for a team losing by ten runs. It was a big inning, but not enough to pull ahead. The housing crisis was the ten-run deficit. Not only did it freeze the real estate industry, but also it stunned businesses and families who had spent the former decade powering the economy with debt and credit. Today we’re dealing with the big freeze.
Like the metaphor? Hate the metaphor? It doesn’t matter. In politics, where perception is reality, the perceived failure of the stimulus is indistinguishable from actual failure. Even before the 2010 election turned the House deep red, the case for more spending had been poisoned not only on the right, but among moderates of the Democratic Party, and across the country, as polls indicated. In an off-the-record Treasury event for reporters, one top official conceded to me that the economy was horrible but “nothing was possible,” because the case for more spending had been killed by the slow recovery.
The spending side argument has disappeared, replaced with a very McCain-ish sounding plea for government to live “within its means” today, even with unemployment stuck at 9 percent. The only acceptable stimulus left comes from taxes. For better or worse, we are witnessing a profound Republicanization of Washington economic policy.
Which brings us back to the debt ceiling vote. The deficit is a problem but it is not the problem. Unemployment and lack of revenue are.
And the chattering class of GOP supporters simply refuse to believe that-even though the facts proving it are plain in front of them.
If you go to http://www.realclearmarkets.com OR realclearpolitics.com there are plethora of “experts” on the debt/deficit etc etc..even dour Klugman, of course , weighs in…
And all 30 of them have 40 opinions..who to believe?
who is “right’?
I hope you feel better…have you tried kimchi?
Sorry Skippy. That isn’t how we feel at all. We don’t make as much money as you surmise and we sure as Hell don’t look forward to higher interest rates… But it is pretty easy for you and Mr. Obama and idiots in Congress to say “just borrow more money” to pay for things we do not need to be paying for…
That means I don’t need a Dept of Education telling someone what my kids are required to learn about minorities, gays, black militants, and refuse to teach about non minority history like the Civil War, or American Revolution, or the Depression. I don’t need an ATF that sends guns to drug lords to use to kill Border Patrol and DEA agents with them. All so they can institute laws restricting the purchase of legal weapons in the US. I don’t need the rocket scientists in charge telling me that we have to stop building carriers and buying F-22s because we don’t need them because Grandma needs a hip replacement instead. I’ll take care of Grandma. My government is supposed to make sure there is still a country for Grandma to live in.
I don’t need some jerk telling me that I am racist or heartless for not wanting to use my payroll taxes fund things which they weren’t supposed to fund outside of Social Security or Medicare. And I don’t need the country broke and suffering the consequences you think will happen without truthfully telling Americans that they need to raise the Medicare and Social Security eligibility age to 72 or even 75 to make us solvent. Because if they did that, we wouldn’t have to borrow any money at all.
Your characterization is incorrect, and you simply agree to perpetuate the problems which caused the country’s debt to skyrocket and to put the country you once served in the position it is in now. Sorry, but you are wrong….
Subsunk
SS-I think you missed a couple of dog whistle points.
I am not wrong-I just have a very different view of what the responsibility of the individual and government is than you do. I don’t want to live in your Galtian paradise.
And I sure as hell don’t want to be told I have to work till I am 75. Fuck that. Not when the money exists now to do a few things:
1) Start converting Social Security to a CPF scheme. It would take 35 years or so-but it would ultimately get the government out of the retirement business.
2) Have a mandated health insurance program like they do in Singapore. Make it have teeth like they do and both indivduals and companies have to contribute.
3) Do a very throughough retrenchment of our overseas presence. We would have the money we need for defense, especially if it was gaged against the actual threat, not the mythical one.