It’s Tuesday in America
IBD’s Capital and Markets blog says that even President Obama’s supporters can’t believe he is trying to solve the deficit problem, as he added $1.5 trillion to it in exchange for a promise to reduce spending by $1.1 trillion in ten years. Deficit reduction is spend now, pay part of it back later.
President Obama’s 2012 budget plan went over like a lead balloon, and not just with Republicans.
This week may be a teachable moment for the gentry liberals and Obamacons who swooned over Obama in 2008. They thought that someone so smart, so reasonable-sounding, so much like them would be the one to chart a course to fiscal sanity.
They accepted the years of massive deficits during the recession. But by the 2012, he would finally start to put the budget on a path to a sustainable future, right?
Instead, he ignored his own fiscal commission and punting on America’s entitlement crisis. As Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank noted, Obama kicked the can again.
Andrew Sullivan said Obama’s budget was “deeply unserious.” Slate’s John Dickerson argued that Obama must be working on a secret plan because the one he released was so lame.
The prospect of a government shutdown if the Republicans actually try to cut spending has now been raised. “President Obama warned of stopped Social Security checks and issued a formal veto threat Tuesday to the Republican spending plan currently being debated in the House, setting the stage for a potential government shutdown next month.” OK, so maybe the President isn’t working on cutting the deficit. He’s working on the PR, he’s working on the pork, but politicians from Chicago don’t do deficit reductions.
Can’t stop the music. Nobody believes you can stop the music, because it’s been playing in Washington for so long. But suppose the music stopped and the rest of the world kept dancing? What if the world was now marching to some other drummer than the talking points on the morning shows? Jennifer Rubin, writing in the Washington Post, seems to argue that President Obama is a small town politician who can’t see anything except in terms of the traditional variables of pork and PR. Let’s make a deal. All the rest is distraction.
the administration is now playing the role of bystander, apparently unaware that our passivity communicates a lack of interest in, and, indeed, wariness of, democratic movements.
The Times also suggests that the administration views international events, even monumental ones, as mere distractions … This president plainly sees his domestic mission as paramount and all else as secondary.
Which would be nice if it still worked. Maybe in the past reality could be seen as distaction. But not any more. The Canadian Press reports that oil prices are up on the backs of continued unrest in the Middle East. Now Libya, Bahrain, Iran, Algeria, Yemen, Jordan, Syria, Sudan, Egypt, Tunisia are experiencing or are feeling the tremors of the unrest sweeping the region. Oil prices from the Middle East drive the price at the pump, especially when you’ve clamped a moratorium on drilling.
All of these events will hit Main Street in the wallet, and not much of it can easily be controlled by Harry Reid or Barack Obama.They can shut the government down as much as they want and still won’t change the price of oil. Zbigniew Brzezinski, speaking on Morning Joe, said Al Jazeera had more influence in the Egyptian crisis than Barack Obama.Obama the bystander. That might appear to change after the IMF presents Washington with a proposal to bail out Egypt and Tunisia, whose economies were previously on the rocks and whose unrest has intensified these conditions. Then it will be Obama the donor, but still the bystander.
The political turmoil is already clearly having an effect on the economies, particularly tourism and foreign direct investment, which will lower budget revenues, Ahmed said.
“There will be a hit on growth,” Ahmed said. He said that, based on government figures, Egyptian growth in the first half of this year is likely fall to 2% to 2.5% from around 5.5% in the second half of last year. He said it is unclear how long it will take for the economies to recover, given the uncertain political situation.
Ahmed said the authorities in the two countries–and in the Middle East and North African regions as a whole–need to better target their safety nets to the poor, particularly focusing on food subsidies. Safety-net programs currently target products, such as food and fuel. Instead, the authorities should focus on reaching the poorest populations, and not distributing the subsidies across the entire economy.
Who’s going to pay for this? Don’t ask because if somebody does then President Obama can simply stop mailing Social Security checks to grandma until everyone sees reason. Can’t stop the music. There’s nothing in the world which can’t be solved, as Jennifer Rubin observes, with more PR and more pork barrel. But wait, what day is it today? J. Wellington Wimpy captured the Federal Government’s attitude towards problems in his famous line. “I’ll gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today”. President Obama’s problem is that it’s finally Tuesday in America. It’s Tuesday all over the world and nobody has given much thought to what happens when the dread day finally arrives. Well they did once, but that was long ago.
Rick: If it’s December 1941 in Casablanca, what time is it in New York?
Sam: What? My watch stopped.
Rick: I’d bet they’re asleep in New York. I’d bet they’re asleep all over America.
Not asleep. Just watching Lady Gaga.
“No Way In” print edition at Amazon
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Taibbi asks,” Why isn’t Wall Street in prison…?”
The fantastic bust-out of our banks by their top tier employees goes on unabated.
Cumulatively these fellows have looted over a trillion dollars in unearned income.
As I’ve posted before: the money is walking out the front door!
If that money was put back into Tier 1 equity the banks would be solvent!
This entire sequence of immoral conduct is pure Bourbon. ( The House of Bourbon, that is. )
Could it simply be the case that he is incompetent?
b @ 1: what you said.
–
but politicians from Chicago don’t do deficit reductions
exactamundo, skippy don’t do numbers, and I mean that literally. I presume that, in this, Obambus is like my high school friend, a liberal arts type, who managed to get a big 300 on the SAT math score. Now, a 300 score means you would have trouble making change for a dollar or counting your shoes, and my friend was much, much smarter than that. my theory is he simply decided going in that he don’t do no numbers, and he didn’t do them. nobody is forcing Obambus to do the math, him being el presidente and all, and he ain’t doing it. in the way of sycophants through time, the advisers that win are the ones with the most persuasive lips, and numbers don’t pursuade skippy they just bore him. His assertions about Obamacare have been gibberish from day one.
btw, I don’t hold this against all politicians from Chicago, I presume most are far more numerate, the better to count their bribes.
if you want to hold it against someone, how about the MSM types, who can’t ALL be as stupid and ill-served as the president … though perhaps they really enjoy trying to emulate him, and of course are disinclined to look for, see, or point out even his most obvious flaws. So much for the free press.
Blert:
I assume you mean Matt Taibi, a man I’d usually disagree with as much as I do with Michael Moore, but he asks a pertinent question.
The term “bust-out” you refer to comes from “Goodfellas,” and perhaps also “The Sopranos,” right? It seems apt to me.
Josh, at the time I was in college (70′s-80′s) it was a badge of honor among the budding young lefty PC humanities & social science crowd to declare out loud at a gathering, “I-i-i-i-i’m not a m-a-a-a-ath person”.
I wonder how many of those types are employed by the current administration, now.
I think the whole system is incompetent. It has consistently promoted the wrong kind of people, responded to the wrong stimuli and delivered the responses and the result is the current mess. Obama has “gamed” the system and because the rules are broken, it delivers the wrong outputs.
Systems are re-made by defeat and crisis. So the current system will probably have to collapse or come near to it before a real change is precipitated. What specific form the crisis will take can’t be predicted. Like events in the Middle East when it comes, it will take everyone by surprise.
Niall Ferguson argues that most revolutions end in terror, repression and chaos before they shake out. So to have a happy ending, the important thing is to have a functioning civic society that will step up and pick up the pieces in a non-Bolshevik way. If this kind of crisis comes to either Europe or America, the likely shatter point will be at the Federal and the EU level and the residuals will be the underlying nations and in the case of the US, probably the several states.
That is, if neither the EU nor the Federal government can navigate its way out of the crisis. But the deficit problem suggests it can’t, because the super-sized bureaucracy is itself the problem. So in one form or the other only a collapse of the inflated parts of the problem will result in a basic solution. So someday the music will stop playing, with all the good and bad that disruption implies.
Josh:
Innumeracy among federal bureaucrats is rampant. I have seen with my own eyes (literally) the spectacularly incompetent way some feds allocate money in their project or department budgets, and it mirrors Obama’s overall budget. Entire segments of a project are left unfunded, while “vanity items” (expenditures a director may have a passion for) receive a lavish slice of the allocated funds. Insane and reckless. I have been denied much-needed personell hires or equipment acquisitions because a superior has decided to fund a grant or website, or something, that excited him/her and they think would help their career (or crush it when someone above them has any common sense and is paying attention). This is roughly the equivalent of the “bust out” process that Blert alludes to in #1 above.
If things go here like they went in Egypt, and judging from the friendly fire Ubu’s been taking lately, the Emperor may be about to be de-pantsed.
This president plainly sees his domestic mission as paramount and all else as secondary.
He sees his “domestic mission” apparently as paralyzing opponents, through Alinskyite tactics of identify freeze and destroy, and stampeding reluctant supporters with a combination of bribery, threats and rhetorical panic.
the authorities should focus on reaching the poorest populations
From Robert Heinlein’s “Stranger In a Strange Land”
… a bold new policy including increased grants in aid to families with more than …
3. Josh…
I can’t speak to recent test scores…
But in that long ago land of my youth SATs were normed around 500. That particular number comes from the Bell Curve/ Normal Curve/ Gaussian Distribution.
500 = 1000 x 0.50 on the curve === means absolute middle of the pack.
Clever, no?
Next
600 = one full Standard Deviation UP
400 = one full Standard Deviation Down
700 = two UP
800 = three UP
Only 17 scores out of 10,000 exist beyond three standard deviations UP. ( & likewise DOWN )
THAT’S why scoring stopped. Even getting 700s is very impressive. It’s thin on the curve up there.
Your buddy was spectacular: he probably signed his name correctly and got as far as 2+3=5 before quitting.
My personal best was 800 in 1/6 the allotted time. I don’t know how that’d be scored. I was at the limit of my bubbling speed, so I doubt that particular test’s result has been replicated.
——
All of the other standardized college tests use normalization so that every student’s pecking order is simple Simon to the school authorities at a glance.
Cheers.
It has consistently promoted the wrong kind of people, responded to the wrong stimuli and delivered the responses and the result is the current mess. Obama has “gamed” the system and because the rules are broken, it delivers the wrong outputs.
As I was explaining to Josh I have seen this phenomenon mirrored at the micro level within those portions of the bureaucracy I have worked in. If the little bureaucrats are doing this, then what hope is there for this system to NOT waste vast sums?
In the set of examples I used in #7, where I stated that sections of a project or division would be left unfunded by misallocation, money was simply borrowed from elsewhere to make up for the blunder-or-ego-induced shortfall. Cost overrruns at the microlevel, and it all adds up.
What I observe on a daily basis is that these folks treat the money as their plaything. The immaturity, irresponsibility and recklessness by managers in the federal bureaucracy is scandalous.
Apparently Wall Street folks, knowing the feds will bail them out of tight spots, exhibit similar behavior when confronted with vast sums of OPM.
Niall Ferguson is, of course, correct that most revolutions end in terror, repression and chaos…Few that have really made a mark ended otherwise and they had some of the elements Niall suggests…1688 and 1776. Both Revolutions were Anglocentric (I hope that is a word). I’ve no faith Egypt will be an exception. We’ve seen the lifespan of the Cedar and Orange revolutions and the results are not comforting. And yes…boat people in Italy (alreadt?!?).
Maybe the US as world police is passe…it would be useful if we recognized it and moved on to retrieving our own energy resources (we do have a lot), controlling our border, and unleashing the American genius for generating wealth. I’m afraid that must greater catastrophes will occur before we can assume our creditialist leadership accept that the population of their country just wants to succeed on their own terms.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XNry6m3Kwo
a bit of banality….
“Not asleep. Just watching Lady Gaga.”
And the difference is?
The Obomination learned his ‘nomics from Marx. No amount of evidence will prove him wrong.
I would like to note that those that voted for him are worse off then those that didn’t. Saw my first “Miss Me?” bumper stcker this morning. Truck driving brother said there are “Miss Me” billboards springing up all over out west. So the question is can the O keep blaming Bush for HIS economy? Or have the voters learned their lesson?
Well it does look like various bubbles are bursting finally. I know that I live in a right wing bubble and I listen less and less directly to the left. It is starting to look like though, that some on the left are starting to realize that they have been living in a bubble. Perhaps they are becomming aware that their iron rice bowl is starting to rust through?
I just watched the C-Span video of Chris Christie’s address to the AEI. He makes the point that the public is aware that they have been lied to repeatedly and are tired of it.
I am not so sure this spending/banking mess is about competence or math ability.
The big banks simply broke the law in so many different ways it’s hard to count. Likewise, the Democrats are expert in reinterpreting the law in ways no sane person could have expected when the laws were enacted originally. The law means nothing to these people. It’s a toy to be manipulated. Obama right now is ignoring any number of court decisions on oil drilling, Obamacare, etc.
Yep, Obama is not the sharpest tool in the Democrats’ shed. But he gives a good speech, and he has the media to cover for him on the details. It’s all in the spin. He can lie all he wants, put out delusional budget numbers and break any number of laws; the media will never call him on it.
Obama’s cure for the Panic of 08 has been much worse than the disease. Time to point that out. And then, get back to basics: don’t spend much more than you make, levy only sensible taxes, enact and enforce only sensible regulations, return to sound banking principles, and enforce our Constitutional protections. Do that and we will be in much better shape. Bernacke, the Big Banks, much of Wall Street, and a lot of the bureaucracy will be gone and we can get back to repairing our economy.
Yea, and start by adopting 2008 budget as a ceiling for this year. For this to happen, there should be different people in both branches of gov.
W,
Very nicely written and timely thread.
On the last thread I posted several articles from what are hopefully reliable sources that speak to many of the fine points you made…(another compliment and we can legally get married in California)
I don’t really have much new. All of Bernake’s moves have been a diaster, following the disaster Greenspan’s prow wake left. It really all goes back to the FED and the closed stock corporation it is and the secrecy under which it operates.
If in this “free” society we can’t drive a stake through the heart of this beast it will continue making huge amounts of money for a very few people and the remainder of us can go hang.
Our government has abrogated it’s responsibility, becoming an uber-Hamiltonian economic model if not completely given over to Marxist economics , which translates to “fly by the seat of my pants”
The economics profession has an unfortunate tendency to view recent experience in the narrow window provided by standard datasets. With a few notable exceptions, cross-country empirical studies on financial crises typically begin in 1980 and are limited in-several other important respects. Yet an event that is rare in a three decade span may not be all that rare when placed in a broader context.
Various datasets reveal that the phenomenon of serial default is a universal rite of passage through history for nearly all countries as they pass through the emerging market state of development. This includes not only Latin America, but Asia, the Middle East and Europe. Also high inflation, currency crashes, and debasements often go hand-in-hand with default. Last, but not least, the historically, significant waves of increased capital mobility are often followed by a string of domestic banking crises.
The near universality of episodes of serial default and high inflation in emerging markets, extending to Asia, Africa, and until not so long ago, Europe. It shows that global debt crises have often radiated from the centre through commodity prices, capital flows, interest rates, and shocks to investor confidence. It also shows that the popular notion that today’s emerging markets are breaking new ground in their extensive reliance on domestic debt markets, is hardly new.
To the central theme – - the “this time is different syndrome. There is a view today that both countries and creditors have learned from their mistakes. Thanks to better-informed macroeconomic policies and more discriminating lending practices, it is argued, the world is not likely to again see a major wave of defaults. Indeed, an often-cited reason these days why “this time it’s different” for the emerging markets is that governments there are relying more on domestic debt financing.
Such celebration may be premature. Capital flow/default cycles have been around since at least 1800….if not before. Technology has changed, the height of humans has changed, and fashions have changed. Yet the ability of governments and investors to delude themselves, giving rise to periodic bouts of euphoria that usually end in tears, seems to have remained a constant. Economist Charles Kindelberger who wisely titled the first chapter of his classic book ‘Financial Crisis: A Hardy Perennial.’
The recessions that follow in the wake of big financial crises tend to last far longer than normal downturns, and to cause considerably more damage. If the United States follows the norm of recent crises, as it has until now, output may take four years to return to its pre-crisis level. Unemployment will continue to rise for three more years, reaching 11–12 percent in 2011.
One must read This Time it’s Different;Eight Centuries of Economic Folly
Remedial readers may want to stick to watching Caddyshack re-runs.
The unthinkable is starting to happen. One university in NV is going to close shop and fire all its tenured professors because it’s not getting the funding it used to. By and by some people will discover that assured pensions they were counting on aren’t going to be forthcoming, and that indexes to inflation can’t kick in. States which are in bankrupt are now paying their short-term debts in IOUs. Social Security must now borrow to pay out. How long can this go on?
The obvious answer is ‘not much longer’. Obama’s budget isn’t in trouble with Congress. It’s in trouble with arithmetic. It’s in trouble with a shrinking tax base and rising energy prices. Maybe you can’t fight city hall, but not even city hall can fight reality.
At some point the realization that the system can’t deliver sets in. This has the curious effect of freeing people from having to defer to it. Who gives a damn about dissing the political boss if he can’t pay you anyhow? He becomes a windbag dispensing empty promises and stupid boasts. But everyone knows he’s got no more game because they saw his wife at the hock shop and they know it’s over.
This collapse of prestige is happening already. The President has become a bystander to events he pretends to control. But only the claques still affect to believe it.
AND NOBODY SAW IT COMING?
We’re close to Judgement Day. And Judgement Day is Inevitable. I really don’t care if America does go BANKRUPT. Why? Because this is America and most of what made her GREAT are still here. Ok…so it’s a little DUMBED DOWN. But there are still enough of the GREATEST GENERATION people still in business, who still want this country to reclaim it’s place in the world, that BANKRUPTCY will amount to a SMALL INCONVIENCE.
Who will really be hurt by an AMERICA that goes BUST? Our enemies, China, the peoples of the Middle East, the EU! Now it will be America’s turn to be Argentina and have everybody else in the world over a barrel.
AMERICA WILL COME BACK YET AGAIN. Just remember what Jimmy Carter did to this country back in the 70′s, (I hope he is a reader of The Belmont Club). And what happened. REAGAN happened..that’s what. If BANKRUPTCY means that illegals will leave because jobs will dry up and China’s economy follows suit, who the hell cares. WE’RE BANKRUPT ANYWAY. And China……..didn’t they help Pakistan develop nukes? China should never get paid back just for building the nukes that will probably end up being used on US cities.
According to Spangler, the ME is erupting because of wheat prices. How about a bushel of wheat for a barrel of oil. NO……..Then eat your stickin OIL.
So my 401k will drop. I know my fellow Americans…….we are the original COMEBACK KIDS. You doubt?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DRm5WcjOikQ
I’m sure that all of the members of Obama’s deficit reduction panel must appreciate him giving them the finger for all of their good work. I imagine that his margin of error with people in DC must be wearing dangerously thin.
What is OBAMA thinking. His budget for 2012 is going to make him look stupid.
W: This collapse of prestige is happening already. The President has become a bystander to events he pretends to control.
In contrast to Bush-43, who controlled the borders and prevented all terror attacks from hitting US shores, who controlled the budget and kept us from adding $4.33 trillion to the US debt, who controlled housing regulations and kept us from having a bubble, who controlled gas prices and kept them from hitting $4.75 in Eureka, CA, who kept us out of two land wars in Asia, who kept us out of two recessions on his watch, who didn’t see New Orleans wiped off the face of the Earth… (deep breath)…
Teresita will now inform us how a President can, except for his own deep character flaws, command the winds and the tides of a Force 5 hurricane to cease and desist, and expect humble obedience and the applause of the MSM.
#18. wretchard
How very true. The problem is that when this happens the ones who were most dependent upon the political bosses and are unwilling or incapable of making an honest living will search for a new boss. And the new boss will not be gauged upon his actual power to make water into wine, but only upon the beauty of his promises.
Those who live upon a diet of economic fantasy cannot easily be weaned from it. Its kind of like being an alcoholic–you may stop drinking, but you will always be an alcoholic, and you might fall off the wagon at any time.
Re. “REAGAN happened..that’s what.” He did not “happen”. He was there for a long time before as well as Goldwater. The establishment and the populace were scared of both before Jimmy wrecked almost everything. The prob. is that I do not see any Reagan or Goldwater around and it takes time for such figure to appear.
#23 Teresita said…[G.W. Bush] prevented all terror attacks from hitting US shores…
February 16, 2011 – 5:49 pm
The sad thing is…you really believe this stuff…like wow…wow…
A cloud has descended on the Left Coast, from Canada to Mexico. Yes, it is the scourge of secondhand smoke from medicinal marijuana. And it destroys “the little gray cells” faster than air can fill the void.
…see you are no longer on the blog roll-of-honor at the neighbor’s…Did you get frequent flyer miles for all those departures?
We are sufficiently well along to create a testable hypothesis, a kind of stress gauge for this crisis. Here are some of the things I believe that we’ll see.
1. A saturation of the “international system’s engagement queue”. Their actions, like the aid package to Tunisia and Egypt, will actually never happen because they’ll be overtaken by even newer events. I should add that President Obama has been scheduled to visit Australia for some time now. I predicted he would never get around to it.
2. A realization, maybe by March or April, that there’s no political event at which both the domestic and international crises can converge. For the US, the next nearest corresponding political event at which to raise these issues is 2012. Internationally they should be raised right now. But without a competent US President, the international system is itself paralyzed. There is no common understanding, let alone response to events in the Middle East, nor to the fast approaching problems of sovereign debt, food prices, energy prices or the Euro’s troubles. Things are paralyzed by the lack of a functioning mechanism to resolve them within the framework of the “international system”.
With no focusing event, there’s nothing to do but watch the stress gauge build over the next couple of months. What are we watching for?
Responses. Right now everybody is just as confused as anybody else. But in a short time, there’ll be the first attempts at trying to play. If the 2 above eventuate, the short-term game will belong to the system that can improvise a response in the dysfunction. In other words, look for informal initiatives to solve some of the problems which are going right past the batter.
This could take the form of danger — challenges both domestic and international, but tentative in the short run. But they will also take the form of opportunity. We’ll see neither the eagle nor the serpent, but the eagle’s or the serpent’s egg.
26. grrr
Re. “REAGAN happened..that’s what.” He did not “happen”. He was there for a long time before as well as Goldwater. The establishment and the populace were scared of both before Jimmy wrecked almost everything. The prob. is that I do not see any Reagan or Goldwater around and it takes time for such figure to appear.
Obamo is the Wrong President, at the wrong time.
Reagan, yes he was there for a long time. Agreed. But what brought him to the presidency? Was it because he was “the Great Communicator?” I don’t believe that he would have become president if Jimmy Carter didn’t almost destroy this country. Americans lived through the Carter years realizing the country was DYING A SLOW DEATH under his leadership. Now we feel the same thing about OBAMA. BUT ONLY WORSE. Someone from the Republican Party, or Tea Party will step up and be another REAGAN. I know it.
By the way…….I voted for Jimmy Carter. Blame me. But, I learned my lesson. I left the Democratic Party after what Jimmy did. It does take a lot to admit that.
Obama could take a simple step to help reduce oil prices and reduce our dependence upon the Middle East by having the state Dept grant final approval to the Keystone XL oil pipeline expansion which will allow much more Canadian oil sands oil to flow to cushing, OK. Also the line will cut across the Bakken and Niobrara formations in ND, SD and NE. There is lots of oil available in the Bakken, but can’t get out of ND very easily due to limited transportation infrastructure. As the major oil companies ramp up their drilling programs over the next two to three years, the added volumes will be staggering. That will have a significant stimulative impact on the economy, create jobs and generate tax revenue for the Feds and states. However, it thwarts Obama’s adjenda of pushing up energy prices to make Wind and Solar more compeditive so it will continue to be held up by state due to technical issues.
One can only look away from reality for so long; the ticking clock doesn’t care that you ignore it. Undeterred, it just keeps on ticking until the hour strikes.
The ticking clock cares not that we
May choose to watch the hands
Move silent as the restless sea
While rage in foreign lands
Bids fair to change the face of what
We thought of as our world
We pay no heed the land of Tut
Is Islamist imperiled
The Middle East goes up in flames
None care the reason why
Obama smiles and plays his games
Adjourning sine die
Belgium, August, 1914:
“The country was smiling and
beautiful. In the fields the women (for the men were at the front) were
gathering the crops, the stacks of golden grain stretched from village
to village. The houses in these were white-washed and, the better to
advertise chocolates, liqueurs, and automobile tires, were painted a
cobalt blue; their roofs were of red tiles, and they sat in gardens of
purple cabbages or gaudy hollyhocks. In the orchards the pear-trees
were bent with fruit. We never lacked for food; always, when we lost
the trail and “checked,” or burst a tire, there was an inn with fruit-trees
trained to lie flat against the wall, or to spread over arbors and
trellises. Beneath these, close by the roadside, we sat and drank red
wine, and devoured omelets and vast slabs of rye bread. At night we
raced back to the city, through twelve miles of parks, to enamelled
bathtubs, shaded electric light, and iced champagne; while before our
table passed all the night life of a great city. And for suffering these
hardships of war our papers paid us large sums.”
WITH THE ALLIES
by
RICHARD HARDING DAVIS
http://www.fullbooks.com/With-the-Allies1.html
Teresita will now inform us how a President can, except for his own deep character flaws, command the winds and the tides of a Force 5 hurricane to cease and desist, and expect humble obedience and the applause of the MSM.
I’m Taoist. I believe that no President, left or right, commands the winds and waves or the vagaries of the business cycle. So when a left-wing President is criticized for “letting” world events get out of control, that standard should either be retrojected onto previous right-wing presidents, or abandoned as the absurdity it is.
“Presidents may run for office on ideological platforms and promised policies, but their presidency is actually defined by the encounter between fortune and virtue, between the improbable and the unexpected – the thing that neither their ideology nor their proposals prepared them for – and their response. The president’s job is to anticipate what will happen, minimize the unpredictability, then respond to the unexpected with cunning and power”
– The Next Decade, George Friedman
10/blert: “My personal best was 800 in 1/6 the allotted time. I don’t know how that’d be scored. I was at the limit of my bubbling speed, so I doubt that particular test’s result has been replicated.”
I am impressed, and I would not accuse you of hyperbole. When I took the GRE’s at Harvard as an undergraduate engineer from Columbia, I completed the first Math section in under 10 minutes and put my head down on the desk to rest up for the more challenging verbal or logic portion that was likely to follow. We had a break after that section and I was approached by a slightly older woman, who plaintively looked me in the eye and said something to the effect of “Wasn’t that math impossible? I was ready to cry. I saw you quit after only a few minutes.” I only replied by saying, “Um, no. I finished it and was tired from getting up so early to drive in to get here in time to take the test.” That was the wrong thing to say. She started SCREAMING at me in the hallway. Something about how she needed to score well and was trying to get a PhD in English and it was unfair she had to compete with an engineering type, blah blah blah. People looked at me like I had stabbed her or something. And honestly, at that point, I considered using my #2 pencil to give her something to really scream about. I too scored an 800 on the Math section. It was the same stuff they tested me on 4 years earlier on the SAT’s! I loved standardized tests.
Taoteching 74:
If you realize that all things change,
there is nothing you will try to hold on to.
If you aren’t afraid of dying,
there is nothing you can’t achieve.
Trying to control the future
is like trying to take the master carpenter’s place.
When you handle the master carpenter’s tools,
chances are that you’ll cut your hand.
u @ 15: I am not so sure this spending/banking mess is about competence or math ability.
The big banks simply broke the law in so many different ways it’s hard to count.
But one has to believe that if they did the math right, they would not have broken the laws in the way that they did, only to be pulled from utter disaster by the fed printing trillions. However, in their case, they probably looked at alternative mathematical models, and for some reason (ha!) chose the one that made them more short-term money, no matter the possible downsides. You do the math.
–
w @ 18: The obvious answer is ‘not much longer’. Obama’s budget isn’t in trouble with Congress. It’s in trouble with arithmetic. It’s in trouble with a shrinking tax base and rising energy prices. Maybe you can’t fight city hall, but not even city hall can fight reality.
That’s what I’ve been saying (and saying, …) about Obamacare, that Pelosi and company or whatever, the numbers don’t even begin to work. Nobody cares. This seems a major theme of our times – not just Obama but the entire system doesn’t care if the numbers work. Numbers are for geeks, H-1Bs, losers. Maybe Republicans.
When oil prices spiked to $150/barrel, when they stayed above $80/barrel, we were in deep goo, that was Jan 2008. That the other bubbles burst in Feb 2008 wasn’t quite a direct causal chain, but it wasn’t quite an accident, either. What with all the other fun, that still hasn’t worked its way through the system, yet. Food prices are a part of that, even without drought or ethanol.
Finally, it may be that city hall *can* fight reality, as long as they print money over here, and it disappears from the system over there. For the first time in history the economy is a “dissipative system” that can reach equilibrium with a constant flow. Maybe. If that’s not true, we’re in real, serious trouble and pretty soon now.
To repeat my old refrain — hoping that this is a fresh audience — it’s foreign acceptance that dictates when the hyperinflation hits the fan.
Stage one of this hyperinflation saw Russia, China and Iran jump ship. They no longer permit dollarization of their economies.
That is a staggering event — and it goes un-noted by the financial press. It’s not even in the financial blogs. It’s HUGE.
It’s a necessary precursor for fulsome rejection of our currency and ALL dollar debt, not just government debt.
Roll that around in your minds.
Yes, it would mean that America would have to reverse roles and stump up alternate pledge-assets. Stuff like gold.
Such an event ALWAYS occurs at lightning speed. ( lightening speed ? )
——
The only thing the Republicans can do is expose the criminals and stop the boon. That is the limit of their House power.
The way to increase the tax base is to impose import tariffs, ASAP. Nothing crazy — just enough to stop the mania of shipping manufacturing over to our strategic enemy: Red China.
Exporting jobs to Red China is an entirely different proposition than exporting jobs to Japan.
In economic terms Japan is our wife. Divorce is unthinkable. Without the American market Japan completely implodes. She also can’t feed herself — it’s not even close.
All of which means that America + Japan + Canada is the hyper economic power of the planet.
Until Red China becomes China it is imperative that the trio hang together.
Australia and New Zealand are our wingmen. As long as this Pacific crew rows together life will be pacific.
Europe is infested with an economic parasite: the ummah. She invited it in and must detox herself.
Fracking is America’s gift to Europe. It will permit energy independence to lands perverted by energy dependence.
Once rid of the dependence amazing political events will unfold. Even sheep will grow manes. ( not mange )
There is a downside. Putin & Co will lose their chokehold. Tragic, absolutely tragic.
The upside is that horizontal drilling with intelligent rigs will increase Russian oil reserves to startling levels. You DO know that Russia has far more oil than Arabia, don’t you?
Peak Oil, my eye.
Now that politics is shifting the stuff is being found all over at a remarkable tempo. At current prices Canadian tar sands are a gusher of profit. They are multiples of Arabian potential. Think on it.
more well-documented and well-reasoned financial doom and gloom
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2011/02/028385.php
WHERE IS OUR FREE PRESS?
We’re it, folks.
–
And even these guys don’t seem to get it, that THIS IS NOT A FISCAL PROBLEM, IT IS STRUCTURAL BECAUSE OF GLOBALIZATION, ALL ALL ALL JOBS MOVED TO CHINA.
And that’s strictly for cost reasons, Mr. Krugperson, not because our kidz ain’t reedin.
Wretchard @28
The focusing event you speak of must logically be one directly affecting energy supplies–oil–to dramatically spike prices of fuel.
Something along the lines of a doubling in gas prices in the US would drag the economy to a halt in a matter of weeks or days. Even such an event, however, might not move the current administration in any specific direction, given Obama’s disassociation from the people and antipathy toward economic activity overall.
And, this focusing event becomes more and more likely as time passes without more appropriate action. Today we read that the US was at least attempting to forestall using its veto on a UN Palestinian resolution by… yes, strongly condemning Israel for building homes on legally owned land. Head I win, tails you lose for the ME radical set. That feedback loop lacks any governors at this point and so inevitably something will fracture to US economic detriment.
Teresita, Tao is balance. It is possible to disagree on exactly where that balance lies in presidential leadership while observing the current administration falls on the extreme of effective passivity and incompetence. Bush need not, and should not, be set at the opposite end: this is the great fallacy of the media.
–JC
dPercy @ 12: Niall Ferguson is, of course, correct that most revolutions end in terror, repression and chaos…Few that have really made a mark ended otherwise and they had some of the elements Niall suggests…1688 and 1776.
1776 was not a “revolution.” Calling it the “Revolutionary War” is a later Leftist construct, basically to hijack it to their cause. The true name is the War of Independence (July 4th is Independence Day, not Revolution Day). It was an attempt to free a people from an oppressive tyrant, but it did not attempt to re-organize society in any way. The revolutions in France, Russia, China, Cambodia, et al sought to change the structure of society and indeed the very nature of man. The Iranian Revolution also radically changed that society. Whether Egypt is a “revolution” or a “war of independence” remains to be seen.
Bush need not, and should not, be set at the opposite end: this is the great fallacy of the media.
Indeed. One might also add, for Teresita, that what has Bush got to do with it? I find it amusing how people defend Obama by saying “oh but Bush did this and that…” Yes, and he was roundly chastised from his Right for all eight years. Certainly, Belmont was no Bush cheering section on many issues, including most of those T. sites (find me anyone here who was giving rousing support for Bush on immigration, for cripes sake).
Regardless, no matter how big a Bush supporter one may have been, that does nothing to invalidate any criticism of Obama. You might as well protest my saying that Lady Gaga makes lousy music by saying the Beatles put out some great albums. They sure did, and so what?
And finally, T, New Orleans was not “wiped off the face of the earth.” It’s still there.
#41. peterike
I don’t know that I necessarily agree with your terminology but I think I agree with your meaning. The American revolution was essentially about the colonists wanting to retain the rights of Englishmen as they were known at that time. But to this end, without the political structure that maintained it in England, they had to create something else. And so they did.
Re: “Blame me. ” Why should I blame you? I came to this country when Carter was pres. and one of the first thing I saw were red flags at gas stations. My first thought was that I made a wrong turn somewhere and came to the wrong country.:)
BTW, if you can read Soviet Union newspapers of late 60th-70th you will find that their most hated US politicians were Goldwater and Reagan (together with British M. Thatcher).
unsk/15; re Obama’s cure for the Panic of 08 has been much worse than the disease. Time to point that out
If i may say, that so understates the facts of the entire collapse, i had to dig back and resurrect this American Thinker September 2008 piece, as an excellent compression of the familiar cloud of half-connected factoids.
We at belmont may think we know this story, but i’m not sure most folks have been ready for it until, say, the last month or so.
So, so very sad to note it was written before the 2008 election.
http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/09/barack_obama_and_the_strategy.html
***
Not a jot nor tittle of the crisis has been a surprise to this top echelon of government –except perhaps that the people and the Dollar have proven more durable than they expected, extending the amount of time needed to destroy the Constitution and the currency, and driving them ergo to try for more time and cooperation, a drive we see in the current feint toward the center.
***
More of the topic explored:
33. ⚢ Teresita, There is a huge difference between the forces of nature and those of humans. Liberals are confused by that since they don’t acknowledge the concept of free will. Katrina was a natural disaster exacerbated by the choices of the Mayor and Governor. The tide of misery raising across the world is man-made. Critically placed people made the wrong choices. Nothing to do with nature. Different choices by a few people would have avoided this looming disaster. No choices would have prevented Katrina. Different choices could have lessened (ameliorated) the effects of Katrina, but by law those choices were not Bush’s to make.
POTUS makes the most important decisions in the world. Decider-in-chief. Yes, those famous 3AM phone calls. Only this POTUS isn’t. He is voting present. All nations look to the USA before they make their choices. One of the first questions any despot asks himself is ‘what will the USA do’? It’s part of the superpower thing. So a do nothing POTUS creates a power vacuum that is more harmful then what ever the original problem was. We(the human race) don’t really know what triggers natural disasters but most human disasters are triggered by power vacuums. A bad decision is better then no decision. That is because no decision is still a decision and it has no chance of being the right decision.
Blert @ 38
I had occasion to visit for several days. Six years ago now so substantial growth since.
Take a spin on Google Earth. Just follow the yellow brick road and the river North
56 43′ 53.90″N
111 23′ 49.61″W
All last year we talked about how Obama would try to do what clinton did in 1005-6. That was totally pee on the Newt and his congress for making budget cuts and then take the credit for the improving economy to win the presidential sweeps.
What’s interesting is that everyone already knows that this is the game that Obama is playing with his current budget proposal. This is all the morning and afternoon radio jocks talked about. This evening, the fox news anchors made the same points.
Oreilly tonight was doing nothing but baying about the dangers of the deficit and how O had completely checked out. There was nothing like fox news in 1995.
Rush this afternoon compared the obama admin trying to do what clinton did in 1995-6 to a bunch of people who had had a great party. They try to do the same party again. And somehow the second time the same magic doesn’t appear..
The first thing that the Egyptian military will do is to divy up the spoils of Mubarak’s business empire. Its not likely he’ll be able to keep it when he’s not president. But this will likely take all their energy for the next year. Whoever is positioned to divy up Mubarak’s asserts will get the levers of power. Likely too, mubarak’s asserts will be used to buy the loyalty of the new generation of lieutenants coming up. That is, if the serpents are wise.
More interesting news out of the US oil patch. Apparently in the last 12 months the success of fracking natural gas has inspired the oil engineers to try the same methods on oil. The results have been successful.
…,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
New Drilling Method Opens Vast U.S. Oil Fields
Published February 10, 2011
| Associated Press
A new drilling technique is opening up vast fields of previously out-of-reach oil in the western United States, helping reverse a two-decade decline in domestic production of crude.
Companies are investing billions of dollars to get at oil deposits scattered across North Dakota, Colorado, Texas and California. By 2015, oil executives and analysts say, the new fields could yield as much as 2 million barrels of oil a day — more than the entire Gulf of Mexico produces now.
This new drilling is expected to raise U.S. production by at least 20 percent over the next five years. And within 10 years, it could help reduce oil imports by more than half, advancing a goal that has long eluded policymakers.
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/02/10/new-drilling-method-opens-vast-oil-fields/#ixzz1EBrgDubt
…………………….
My wag is that judging by the way the way recoverable natural gas reserve numbers rose over the last three years–the numbers cited above will also rise
perhaps more so — because of new software being developed which takes the guesswork out of finding oil underground.
http://www.findingpetroleum.com/n/NEOS_GeoSolutions_raises_60M/d617e95d.aspx
http://www.energyandcapital.com/articles/far-off-energy-advances-today/1417
the great burning visage of Allah the Muslim Brother will inhale, and all the Egyptian army will flow in. Remember Moses and the Red Sea –Egyptian armies do not stand against the almighty.
http://jammiewearingfool.blogspot.com/2011/02/issa-subpoenas-friends-of-angelo.html
((quote from:
After last month’s shooting of a congresswoman, President Obama urged more civility. How civil is it to destroy a congressional oversight committee chairman for practicing oversight?
Democrats have tapped the political operative known as Dr. Death to lead a character assassination operation against Darrell Issa, chairman of the House Committee on Government Reform and Oversight.
Averell “Ace” Smith of San Francisco’s liberal Democratic consulting firm SCN Strategies, a “cutthroat” operative who won the California and Texas Democratic primaries for Hillary Clinton in 2008, will leave “no stone unturned in digging into Issa’s personal and business history,” SCN told Politico this week.
Why Issa? Because the California Republican is asking 180 federal agencies to explain their voluminous Freedom of Information Act request refusals in detail.
He intends to stop government-funded studies of condoms, yoga, video games for the elderly and whether marijuana and malt liquor mix well.
And he demands to know how $160 million in taxpayer money ended up being spent defending Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac’s former executives in fraud lawsuits.
Someone so intent on digging up the bodies has to be stopped — or discredited. And so the man the San Francisco Chronicle calls “the Dr. Death of Political Opposition Research” is establishing an entity called “the Third Lantern” to dig into Issa’s personal life and attack him on TV and radio. It follows an already-existing anti-Issa website, “Courage Campaign.”
Democratic strategist and Smith friend Chris Lehane told the Los Angeles Times that “Ace is a Michael Corleone” because he knows “under which rib to insert the knife.” Former Democratic strategist Clint Reilly told the Chronicle: “I’ve seen him walk into a room and the opposition candidate will literally start mumbling.” Real estate developer Steve Soboroff told the L.A. Times, “Ace is very mischievous, in a dark way.”
Maybe someone ought to look under Ace’s bed. I bet he’s got a private life he’d like to keep private. Lehane is one of the sleaziest operatives out there. If he says Smith is a bad guy, believe him.
end quote))
This is breathtaking. Breathtaking that a political party would so baldly, unabashedly, openly, attack the person of a politician from the other party trying to do his duty. This is one step away from banana republic actual hit man politics. The democrats have gone ’round the bend.
Naw, i don’t think democratic politicians drift into evil. I think evil people drift into democratic politics.
A saturation of the “international system’s engagement queue”.
I think you’re right. And I think Egypt was maybe the first really big example of this. We’re going to see a series of crises brew up and either resolve themselves or spill over into something worse, all without any International, or at least Western, intervention.
Maybe I can add a testable hypothesis. Sometime before 2012, Russia, China, Iran or *maybe* one of the South American countries, will launch a unilateral response to the sort of international event traditonally the US, the UN, or some Euro-ish agency would have responded to. They’ll do it because they see something they can grab while the grabbin’s good, and nobody else on the international scene is able to get the wheels turning in time.
I’m a little uncertain, because all the candidates have various problems of their own that might hold them back, but on the other hand, one of them might figure a little imperialism will cure their ills.
A saturation of the “international system’s engagement queue”.
W, JMH
Agree with you both: the queue; it will be Egypt; with carpetbaggers as wild cards.
But I’ll be more specific about Egypt. When it dawns on the protesters that Egypt’s New Dawn cannot be afforded, and that America is broke and can’t afford their New Dawn either, expect a huge influx of ‘asylum-seekers’ on the shores of Greece.
The most broke country in Europe will cry even poorer, and then the EU will fold as the Germans refuse to pay. Some damn fool thing in the Peloponnese.
ADE
Completely Off Topic:
WHERE IS ZOMBIE?
Teresita,
A Taoist?
You have more Bible quotes in blog threads than anyone I have read.
Why don’t you quote the, Tao Te Ching, Zhuangzi, Daozang and the other writngs of your faith?
“isms” revisited
While thinking of Taoism and the Carpenter’s tools, I ran across this. Watch every second and allow yourself expression.
Everyday, we should remind ourselves of man’s (our own) unlimited capacity for both good and evil. It does put things into perspective.
When good men do nothing, evil WILL prevail.
While Egypt is in process of amending its constitution, wouldn’t it be nice if some Western leader suggested that they include a provision that “no person shall be deprived of life, liberty or property respecting private or public expression of religious belief” ?
Is a leap into modernity with a constitutional protection that you cannot legally be murdered for leaving Islam too much to ask from the “moderate” Muslims?
This is the perfect opportunity to actually begin one of those meaningful dialogues we so often hear about from our erstwhile leaders.
Will nobody say it?
Habu: You have more Bible quotes in blog threads than anyone I have read.
I’m a student of many religions, and often in righty blogs, the audience at least pays lip service to the Bible.
Why don’t you quote the, Tao Te Ching, Zhuangzi, Daozang and the other writngs of your faith?
Daojia is philosophical Taoism. That’s me. Daojiao is religious Taoism, and is what you describe as a “faith”.
Allen: When good men do nothing, evil WILL prevail.
Taoteching 5:
The Tao doesn’t take sides;
it gives birth to both good and evil.
The Master doesn’t take sides;
she welcomes both saints and sinners.
The Tao is like a bellows:
it is empty yet infinitely capable.
The more you use it, the more it produces;
the more you talk of it, the less you understand.
Hold on to the center.
O’s PR Report.
O’s gonna get youse, youse dirty Mohammedan rats.
…-
“Obama demands Egypt round up thugs who brutalized CBS reporter”
“In an e-mail exchange with The Post, Rosen apologized.
“It is never OK for a man to mock the sexual abuse or humiliation of women,” he said. “If I saw her I would try to find a way to apologize.”
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/international/hunt_for_cairo_maniacs_VEeDflrbOX6uZBtKNXlpOI
When good men do nothing, evil WILL prevail.
CBS complicit in news coverup
“Having 200 “good guys” gang assault a female reporter while screaming “Jew! Jew!” doesn’t fit the narrative. Is that why CBS sat on the story?
Or is it the cultural issue? A rape in a bar is a sex crime. But a pack of political protesters who rape a “Jew” in public is a story about culture.”
Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) talks about Wisconsin public workers protesting against a bill that has them make a contribution to their pension and health care benefits. It also eliminates collective bargaining.
“It’s not asking a lot, it’s still about half of what private sector pensions do and health care packages do. So he’s [the Governor is] basically saying, I want you public workers to pay have of what our private sector counterparts and he’s getting riots — it’s like Cairo has moved to Madison these days,” Rep. Ryan told MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.”
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2011/02/17/rep_paul_ryan_on_wisconsin_protests_like_cairo_moved_to_madison.html
In sharp reversal, U.S. agrees to rebuke Israel in Security Council
“The U.S. concession comes as the Middle East is facing a massive wave of popular demonstrations that have brought down the leaders of Tunisia and Egypt and are posing a challenge to governments in Algeria, Bahrain, and Iran.”
…the solution: publically throw Israel under the bus…brilliant move…While at it, let’s scuttle the Fifth Fleet…
#61 allen
Let us not forget that the same week that the Leader of the Free World said that “we should not interfere in Iran” while citizens were being gunned down in the streets, he found the interest and time to comment on Jerusalem zoning laws.
I am hopeful (hoping anyway) that Obama is the apogee of the Age of Idiocy.
Why can’ the repubs use a divide and conquer strategy on spending?
Since it would be politically very bad for the Social Security checks to stop, why not pass a funding resolution for SS and Medicare and send it to the Senate and 0bama on it’s own? Make them be the ones to block the funding?
This would allow more time to cut the discretionary spending and if much of the Government gets shut down, so what?
Re shutting down the Government:
I seem to recall the Government being shut down briefly in the 80s and the Press jumped on Reagan for ‘Shutting down Government’. Then when it happened again in the 90s under Clinton it was suddenly Gingrich that was shutting the Government down. Peculiar how it is never the dems fault.
O.K. Getoffmylawn, I’ll bite. I’m having trouble figuring out your cryptic posts but, being a map guy, I looked up the coordinates and the satelite picture. Still don’t know. The Kearl Oil Sands? The diamond mine? What? and why did you want me to look. And what does the YouTube video have to do with it? Wouldn’t it be easier to just say what you want to say?
The Long War Journal says no but–in the comments section of the Long War Journal there is some speculation that the Pakistanis holding Raymond Davis is the reason there is a lull in the drone war. Might also have something to do with the events in egypt and elsewhere in the middle east.
In the 1980′s officials called it getting off the skyline.
Wretchard: “…the residuals will be the underlying nations and in the case of the US, probably the several states.”
Here in Idaho, the lower house of the state legislature just the other day voted to nullify Obamacare.
Maybe the residuals will finally pull together.
#62 Peter Boston
Hope springs eternal, but on this one I am not holding my breath or betting the farm. That this man is president of the United States is illustrative of the disintegration of Americanism. Like some Romans, we may have to watch painfully as a series of neer-do-wells irreparably damage our beloved nation.
Lest my head explode, will no one tell this imbicile that the Fifth Fleet is anchored in Bahrain? My hope is that the commander of the Fifth Fleet is smarter than his boss and has a “Plan B” beyond “Do it till your satisfied.”
I am surprised to see the surprise when a “community organizer” (as if such were possible outside A Village) joins the side of the disturbers. “Bro O” relates. Which is not to say that almost all the Islamic governments should not be brought down. They should, in my opinion. But bringing something down is not at all the same as finding its tolerable replacement – the two often being mutally exclusive. And this is the problem: an amateur, coming from an abusive childhood and marital background, does what comes naturally – he yields to emotionally hurtful abuse and in the process abandons morality and rationality to curry favor. Here’s a hint: the unnecessary and expensive “working vacations” probably are not the plans of O; instead, a significant other may have hit the jackpot of landing in the office of the mother of all travel agencies (and she gets to dress for the part).
It’s distressing to say this, but I’m glad Obama is totally incompetent. He’d be able to do a lot more damage otherwise.
#51
How civil is it to destroy a congressional oversight committee chairman for practicing oversight?
Sorta like asking, “How civil was the Civil War”…?
——
And from the department of: “Getting there just in time before liquidation”(?):
http://www.jpost.com/Headlines/Article.aspx?id=208671
So how much should we charge ‘em for liberation?….
ex, Obama is merely the puppet. It’s the puppetmaster who is the smart and diabolical one. This whole mess has been orchestrated, from the gas spike before the 2008 election to the financial meltdown in September 2008.
When Google execs brag about causing worldwide instability and forcing up the price of oil, it doesn’t matter how dumb Obama is.
bob @ 54: I’ve wondered the same, but I think he, she, or it has lost interest in the pajamas media outlet, or maybe in the zombie persona entirely. I hope he, she, or it is OK.
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/16/how-goldman-killed-a-i-g-and-other-stories/?ref=opinion
C@49: New Drilling Method Opens Vast U.S. Oil Fields
My Bismarck Hillbillies reality show is getting closer.
#203 Bob Murphy
Re: #24 Teresita…That’s crap
Indeed! Thanks, Bob Murphy.
She is trying to avoid admitting that it is a typically Muslim policy to release, by either the front or backdoor of the prison, the killers of Israelis/Jews/Zionists – in the instance, seven Jewish school girls living in Israel. To do so would erode her sandcastle of moral relativism; i.e. they are just like us, only browner.
Hmmm…Not quite like us…When a monster here murders seven little girls, he goes to death row or to solitary confinement for life, assuming he survives arrest. (Granted, in Scotland, if the murderer is a Muslim functionary, he will get 11 months per murder and an early release home for sniffles). In the Muslim world, the Justice Minister of Jordan (think US Attorney General here) gets out in the street with religious fanatics and demands the monster’s immediate release. As even a fool can see, there is no similarity whatsoever. Note: I said “fool” – a fascist propagandist, posing as a Taoist, is something else – something loathsome and despicable.
J’accuse !
Buddy @ 51
Averell “Ace” Smith and SCN Strategies.
Thanks for the tip Buddy. I’ll remember the name.
Eagle,” This whole mess has been orchestrated”,
I think that is the best way to look at this whole mess. It is an integrated, orchestrated attack on the USA and our role in the world. And the puppetmaster(s) behind it all are very smart and very powerful.
We are in a war and we haven’t recognized it yet.
O’s magic carpet.
“From anarchy to totalitarianism is one Persian step.”
…-
“The mob & after”
[...]
“Neither Western nor Arab mass media can be so easily blamed for their own effective bias, since they cannot easily enter Iran to report. It is only because Egypt presented the more open society, that its government was so vulnerable. The ayatollahs continue to imprison, torture, and hang leaders of the Iranian uprisings, but this is hardly reported. Whereas, in Egypt, a demonstrator knocked down by a charging camel triggers a planetary avalanche of outrage.
But balance would only have been possible in some lost world, where editors still controlled the diffusion of news, were capable of reviewing events broadly, and adjusting their coverage to compensate. Perhaps that world never existed; for it also required an audience that was patient, and mature; and a political order in which those who reduced events to canting phrases like “Cry freedom!” were ostracized, when not merely ignored.
The whole Middle East is dissolving into chaos, with unpredictable, even unimaginable, consequences. Perhaps worse, thanks largely to the same “social media,” in combination with mainstream reporting focused sensationally on spectacle alone, our response dissolves into a similar incoherence.”
http://davidwarrenonline.com/
73. YBR
Continental: Bakken’s giant scope underappreciated
Feb 16, 2011
By OGJ editors
HOUSTON, Feb. 16 — The Bakken play in the Williston basin could become the world’s largest discovery in the last 30-40 years, a senior manager at Continental Resources Inc. said Feb. 16.
Ultimate recovery from the overall play is now estimated at 24 billion bbl of oil, compared with US reserves of nearly 20 billion bbl, he told the NAPE Expo in Houston.
The 24 billion bbl figure is five times the US Geological Survey’s 2008 estimate and compares with the 151 million bbl the survey put forth as recently as the mid-1990s, said Jack Stark, Continental senior vice-president, exploration (OGJ, Apr. 21, 2008, p. 37).
Close to 2 billion bbl of the 24 billion will come from the underlying Three Forks, which Continental helped prove to be a separate reservoir, Stark noted (OGJ Online, July 10, 2008).
The increases resulted as technology evolved over a 20-year span from marginal or uneconomic vertical wells to open hole stimulations in single, dual, and trilaterals to liners with staged fracs that are resulting in 50% rates of return today, Stark said. Industry also began drilling into the Middle Bakken dolomite, which is more porous and permeable than the upper and lower Bakken shale source rocks.
Production exceeds 400,000 b/d including Montana and North Dakota, Stark estimated, and smaller volumes are being produced in Canada. So recovery of that volume of oil will take years.
http://www.ogj.com/index/article-display/4715529408/articles/oil-gas-journal/drilling-production-2/20100/february-2011/continental_-bakken.html?cmpid=EnlEDFebruary172011
Dennis @ 64
Hello there Dennis.
No frustration intended but still, I accept responsibility for any
miscommunication on my part.
There’s neither veiled insult nor triumphalism inherent in the post.
More simply, I’m a map geek.
The ability to simply name a geographic location and take a visual tour is, to me, frikkin’ magic. Same with coloured moving pictures flying through the air.
Knowing how its done is neither here nor there.(swidt)
It was a repeated reference, I’d been there, I pulled out 14 wheels of slides.
Yeah, I’m that guy.
I placed the fat little hand on the centre of the bridge over the Athabaska River connecting the two halves of Fort McMurray, Alberta…read the numbers and shazaam.
Earlier someone posted coordinates for prison complexes in North Korea.
Strangely enough, Google street views were unavailable at that time.
I’m certain that’s being rectified even as I speak.
Carry on regardless
HeyYouKids
C@78 cite from OGJ: So recovery of that volume of [Bakken] oil will take years.
It’s been a roller coaster ride. The extended family got excited when the oil rigs moved in. Then the USGS went negative, which I admit got my attention because they tend to be a sober bunch. Now, lately, the estimates are back up, but the enviros are uncomfortable with frakking.
It’s not like we’re gonna stop buying our weekly lottery tickets or anything.
But the imagery brings a smile to my face – a whole lot of good old Norwegian, German and mixed mutt farmers would hit the big time.
Charles @ 49: Regarding technological innovation in the petroleum industry:
This is what America does best — innovate. And Obama and all his minions or puppet masters who talk about the government creating jobs and wealth — they cannot hold a candle to the innovative spirit in America. And they don’t understand that, or won’t understand that, as they continue to stand in the way of economic growth in America. Fortunately, this administration and the big bucks behind it are incapable of totally stomping out innovation. This is the only way I can face each new day after reading the destruction being rained upon us by the left: in the knowledge that America is larger, smarter and more innovative than our domestic enemies understand. That’s not to say I don’t look forward to the possibility that certain personalities will slip on a banana peel today and crack their head on a curb. F
They are not like us at all…
SEAL, Mike Monsoor, Congressional Medal of Honor
Mikey Monsoor memorial footage
Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.
Update to Charles #60:
Teh Won is taking the side of the Wisconsin unions (is anyone at BC surprised?)
“Some of what I’ve heard coming out of Wisconsin, where you’re just making it harder for public employees to collectively bargain, generally seems like more of an assault on unions. I think it’s very important for us to understand that public employees, they’re our neighbors, they’re our friends.”
From the news article: “Walker has said that if lawmakers don’t agree to his plan, he will be forced to lay off 6,000 of the state’s 170,000 workers.
The reaction has been intense in Madison, which is one of the great strongholds of organized labor and liberalism in the nation. Ten thousand labor activists jammed the state capitol, chanting and screaming at lawmakers. Schools have been shut down as unionized teachers conducted an organized ‘sick out’ and brought their students to join the march against Walker. . . .
Obama’s home state of Illinois has the worst budget problem in the nation, driven largely by massively underfunded pension plans for state workers. But Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn is bucking the trend of austerity.
Quinn, wearing an African Kente cloth in honor of black history month, laid out a $52.7 billion budget proposal Wednesday that would increase spending by $1.7 billion and borrow $8.75 billion with bonds backed by new taxes approved last month that double rates.”
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/02/17/obama-sides-state-government-unions-cuts/
Well, I just hope those screaming teachers in Madison are all wearing Kente cloth so the kids dragged along as “protestors” get a history lesson on the side.
It’s the questions that hold the key, like why is the water to the Central Valley shut off in the midst of a food spike, or why is the EPA shutting down oil and coal in the midst of ME instability and a spike in oil prices.
Or is George Soros working with the CIA? Why is he so obsessively fixated on Fox News? Why the threats?
Or why was George Bush so angry that he vowed to bring the perpetrators of the financial meltdown to justice, and that’s the last we heard of that.
Why is Google bragging about its involvement in the Egyptian crisis? Why are we ignoring our Southern border? Why did Obama back dictatorships in the Southern Hemisphere? Is Obama’s failure to lead, failure to attack economic problems a ploy? Is he laying a trap for the Republicans, or a trap for something more sinister.
Why the histrionics over the writing of the healthcare bill? Another trap? Force the hand of the footdraggers? Why the punt on the budget? Why was the budget not prepared by the Democrats?
Why suddenly are Europeans speaking out on multiculturalism? Is George Soros still funding democracy in Eastern Europe? Why are they so quiet? What is Russia up to?
Are we really broke or is Wall Street in cahoots with government on a big roll of the dice?
What is really causing the commodities spike?
What is the Fed really doing?
What is the purpose of all of these ploys, global events?
What or who is all this chaos trying to expose, eliminate?
Wretchard #6
“So to have a happy ending, the important thing is to have a functioning civic society that will step up and pick up the pieces in a non-Bolshevik way.”
I would note that this is exactly what Glenn Beck spent most of 2010 on. I thought it was a little bit of a reach at first, but now, given what some guy on TV can and cannot do, I think it might turn out to have been the best thing that he could have done from his position.
You assume there is a sinister connection. You might be right, I personally don’t believe in co-ink-see-dink( coincidence ).
On the other hand one should never attribute to malice what can be explained by incompetence.
If you are actually interested go thru your list and See who is responseible then check their history on-line to see if they are incompetent. You will be surprised to see how many “experts” stumble from one disaster to the next. Decades ago, experts became experts by demonstrating expertise. Nowadays credentials will do. No expertise needed. Just the right school and a powerful patron.
stoi/86; never attribute to malice what can be explained by incompetence
true enough, but the two affect one another. If you want to sicken the castle, hire incompetent cooks and sell them toxic ingredients. Then you can watch innocently from afar as the defenses break down.
Hemingway has a quote, something along the lines of ‘all wars are caused by someone not protecting their treasure’.
This is a hopeful story.
The new Repubs in WI are trying to bring a little reality into public spending by chopping some public employee union perks. All the Democrat legislators ran and hid because there is a requirement that at least one D be present for the vote.
The governor sent the cops out to drag them back.
I heard recently from a friend in Wyoming, that he knows a little old lady at his church who lives on a ranch north of town (her elderly husband passed away). One day six months ago, two strange men walked across her property. She drove out to see them and ask what they were doing trespassing. One of the men pulled out a check book and offered to write her a check for $500,000 right then and there if she would let them drill (using this horizontal drilling technique as per the Bakken field), they were that sure that they would hit oil. And apparently she is not alone. This is happening all over the state. I get the feeling that there is an emerging “oil boom” starting to happen out in the Rocky Mountain West, and we easterners for some reason are not aware it’s even happening, but it is.
Erased erroneous post.
bell curve@89: Same story in the Western Canadian oil patch – see New Age For Old Oil.
#90 teresita
Like a dog to the bait.
Charles@60
Wisconsin’s “greek moment” is unfolding. Great plays by the Guv! of WI, and the state’s reps! Looks like the will is there, and the thinking caps are on.
Not OT, I just finished listening to Peter Robinson’s interview with William Voegeli here. It was an half-hour well-spent. Voegeli’s conclusion – that Conservatism must accept the welfare state’s perpetual existence, is incontrovertible really: the Leviathan, it appears, is Liberty’s necessary Nemesis, and we ought to get used to sharing a bed with it. What Voegeli seems to be saying is, that to debate percentage changes in NPR funding, or in “education” funding or in salary-increases for first responders (which is where Obama’d like the debate to dwell), is actually to be distracted from the several other uncontroversial, legislative avenues for attenuating Leviathan’s growth across the board.
While trying to wriggle my meso-morph’s build into Voegili’s ecto-morphic pragmatism, the act suggested to me a two-pronged strategy that checks Obama’s latest spending spree, but does so without stepping into the rhetorical traps purposefully planted in his proposed budget. The strategy focuses its energy first on the causes of the accretion of burdensome, inefficient government agencies and laws in general, and second on the victimized, trapped and coerced status of law-abiding tax payers. The first illuminates, in a general, impersonal manner, the calcareous accruing drag that government has larded onto the citizens’ ships since WWII and seeks to remedy it. The second magnifies the taxpaying citizens’ plight by emphasizing that tax revenues are the font of the government’s largess, and that should they dry up, only the gun remains between this redistributive government, its foreign creditors, its leagues of entitlement-indigents, and its earnest productive citizens.
So, accepting (as Voegeli urges us to) that modern congresses MUST, by their nature proffer progressive, bureaucratic measures, AND, acknowledging furthermore that the nation currently lacks an institutional mechanism that regularly purges out-dated legislation, leading to an inoperative, out-dated and expensive bureaucratic load on the nation’s fisks – AND that occasionally Wretchard indulges us in crystal-ball ruminations at his site, I propose these two solutions:
1. “Automatic Sunset Clause” All Federal bills funding any Federal agency, be it a new agency or an old one, will demand that the recipient agency must amend its charter to include an “Automatic Sunset Clause.” This clause will automatically repeal the legislation creating the agency after a certain, discreet term (my niece recommends 15 years, I like ten), unless, after the same term and an independent audit, it can re-justify itself anew to the citizens’ government in the face of new budgetary, economic and political realities.
My prediction is, if adopted, not only would the same political “re-up” political dynamics that we’re seeing both parties exploit with the Bush tax-cuts get applied to every piece of legislation that the President signs, but this clause would also, silver-bullet-like, kill the media-do-gooder industries that accrue to perpetual legislation. For example, if Affirmative Action’d faced this clause, my bet is, not only would it not have survived the Rodney King riots, but the whole shakedown industry from the NAACP on through to Jackson/Sharpton’s Rainbow Push Coalition, and aaaaaall the ancillary tag-along pathologies (like the Duke 88′s rush to judgment, and the continued hire of Cornell West at Harvard, and even the academic perversion of “ethnic studies”) would never have felt confident enough of a legislative precedent’s historical value to establish reputations and pop-industries on top of it.
The states may find this regularized sunsetting attractive, and should choose to add it to their own state’s funding bills.
2. “Tax Payer’s Holiday” To be provocative, I say we make it April 22, the same day “the Earth” gets its day. Whatever the calendar day, let alone, the symbol of enacting a national holiday for tax-payers might be enough to generate the needed visibility to temper demands on the public purse. We have Labor Day to memorialize workers. We have Memorial Day to memorialize our fallen soldiers. We have Mothers Day to commemorate tender roast pork roasts with apple sauce and hot peach cobbler. And we even have President’s Day to commemorate, in general, our Presidents. The Tax-payer, somehow, somewhere, somewhen, has been forgotten, and yet the state cannot run without him.
And this needs fixing. Because right now, the tax payer is to DC’s current crop of elites what herds of cattle are to a Masai ruler. The statists never deny they intend to bleed this captive herd to nourish the growth of their patronage, they only debate about how much blood the herd can yield to the state’s favorites before the cows succumb to blood-loss. Some in government idealize a “perfect” tax harvest-capacity, whereby, so long as the taking is moderated – this by a method left undefined, the cattle can subsist quite humanely to be bled another day. Still others actually desire to bleed segments of our economy to death, as necessary, to cull the herd selectively, using punitive tax-loads to achieve their husbandry ends.
Both are extremely perverted idealogies, and they deserve a national calendar holiday to remind the rest of us about it.
To close, Voegeli seems to be warning Conservatives that pounding-on as though government in and of itself is the problem is not an effective strategy for blocking its expansion. I’m inclined to credit this tactical position. In fact, one could argue it is the quantity of government – its “glut” if you will, that is the real problem, and in doing so avoid the “good-program-bad-program quagmire altogether. I propose that a better, forward leaning approach would allow America’s conservatives to dare the governmentalists to “take their best shot.” “Go ahead Progressives, Bilderberg Group, Soros, Democrats, Maurice Strong, or whoever!” we’d be able to say, “experiment with fringe Austrian hermeneutics and imported post-Colonial fads, and Masai tribal allocation-systems masked as British economic virtue, if you must. In fact, and only by our grace, have so many of them that you choke on them. Go ahead! But beware that your legacy will die in ten, fifteen, or twenty-five years automatically, with your legislation’s pre-ordained sunset, and it’ll be one more forgotten law hidden under reams of new, temporary codes, all deemed themselves to sunset in short time (heck, faced with this lack of promised, historical prestige, most of today’s careerist politicians wouldn’t even enter law-making in the first place.).
There’s nothing like the sound of the air leaking out of a government-bubble. It’s like the steady buzz of a million japanese gardeners working busily to keep Leviathan clipped, nipped and tight, like a tidy box-wood hedge.
92. Bait? So you admit trolling W’s esteemed blog.
“Could it simply be the case that he is incompetent?”
Incompetence can be dealt with. Malfeasance can be dealt with.
But the two in combination can be lethal.
As Long as we are bragging, MY SAT was 1600. 800 on both math and language. My scores in the GCT/ARI the military gave EVERYONE during boot camp are the ones I brag about. I maxed them, getting 144 out of a possible 144. That is why they sent me to Canoe U.(Annapolis).
Means nothing. IQ tests were designed to determine one’s ability to learn. The were first used on a mass basis in WW1. By WW2 US Military was taking in about 15 million ( in the end 12 because they didn’t need the full Montey, since the war didn’t last that long). Stanford got the contract ( they did the WW1 test) to measure learning abilities so the military could have the ones with the best learning skills in the jobs that required the most learning.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligence_quotient
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford-Binet_Intelligence_Scales
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Army_Alpha#History
The tests have changed over time. That makes them even more dubious.
Remember “talent can, Genius must”. Any standardised test might spot talent, none will spot genius.
No test measures for effort or will. Except maybe the test that is life.
I would guess that most of the regular posters at BC, as well as our illustrious host, were in that top 1%. Some of us Are in that top 1% of the 1%.
So what? There is a big difference between intelligent and smart. They may be synonyms but that is only because Rojet was a smart guy but not very intelligent.
Intelligent people learn, smart people figure it out. I have known to many intelligent people that couldn’t figure out how to pour water out of a boot with the directions written on the heel. Then there are those that by instinct pour the water out without being able to read the directions on the boot heel. As long as we have gotten to reading direction, Think about Wretcherd doing well enough on the SAT’s to get into one of the most prestigious Universities in the world,
What would your SAT’s be if you took the test in Tagalog?
Stoicheion,
“That is why they sent me to Canoe U”
What class?
96/Sto,
I never broke thru 1500. But was happy with being above 1400.
A friend took the Hebrew SAT test as a spoof our senior year at HS – he had never studied a verb of it. And he made a 650 on it! Just by eenie-meenie-minie-moe’in it.
It was the joke making the rounds in our dorms that Spring.
…speaking of Tagalog, Manny Pacquiao, the world’s greatest fighter and one of the half dozen all-time greats in many (manny?) estimations, was on tv yesterday, coming out of a private meeting he’d been summoned/invited to with Obama in the white house. His English is passable –pretty good for a fighter, hey –and turns out he’s a congressman back home. Right on, Manny Pacq!
PS, okay, going a little deeper here, the guy is smiling-open-friendly, and gives off that humble ‘i’m nothing special’ vibe in warm waves of sunshine. Not a hint of a top fighter’s ‘attitude’ as we’ve learned to expect it. How did his mammy and pappy do that?
Peter Boston #88: Latest word is that the Wisc Dems have fled across State lines, thus foiling the Gov’s ability to clamp them in irons and have them legislate froma set of stocks.
But it is obvious to me what should be done: They only need ONE Democrat to make it legal so have ONE Repub switch sides.
Interesting little news item today, In the 2010 Federal CRA bill a Repub suggested removing the funding for some “community outreach” programs, ones that include money for outfits like ACORN.
A Dem stood up, outraged, and called the action “dispicable.” It was voted down.
But the Repub got the idea in the first place from Obama, in whose 2011 budget the same line item is zeroed out…..
Re: SAT, ACT, LSAT, MSAT, etc (or as Ed.Ds say, ect)
I stayed at a Holiday Inn…
RWE…
I thought it was impossible to reach a quorum with just nineteen legislators.
They don’t need a Democrat… they need just a body.
Peter Boston,
Re: trolling (Is that a bad thing?)
“Early non-internet related use of trolling for actions deliberately performed to provoke a reaction can be found in the military; by 1972 the term trolling for MiGs was documented in use by US Navy pilots in Vietnam.”
There is fair and honest debate. Reasonable men can reasonably disagree and move on. Then there is Teresita. If ever there were a troll, it is she.
I have commented on this site for years. Indeed, longer than Teresita. Indeed, when Teresita’s avatar was “Ruby” or “Zena” or whatever. She has gone through more personas than I can track. However, each had one thing in common: a desire to pierce 1/2″ molybdenum steel with a lobster fork – eventually, inevitably followed by a “slam the door moment” – eventually, inevitably followed by a “break down the door, ‘Here’s Johnny’ moment”.
Anyhooo…steady as she goes…
Just sayin’
–well, i’m for free speech, not for freeze peach. it’s like having a female reporter in the locker room, with a submachine gun. all ya gotta do is stay low and behind something.
Latest word is that the Wisc Dems have fled across State lines, thus foiling the Gov’s ability to clamp them in irons and have them legislate from a set of stocks.
Some photos of the protesting Wisconsin teachers’ illiteracy and ignorance of history here (including one with a most un-PC cigarette):
http://hotair.com/archives/2011/02/17/the-historical-illiteracy-of-wisconsin-teachers/
Apropos of going AWOL across state lines, IIRC, the Dems in the Texas state legislature pulled the same stunt a few years back.
Apropos of going AWOL across state lines, IIRC, the Dems in the Texas state legislature pulled the same stunt a few years back.
It was said at the time that when the Dems debarked the bus in OKC that the average IQ of both states took a jump upward.
100. RWE
It is not a party based quorum, just bodies. It happens that the Democrats have just enough to deny a quorum by one vote. From a blogger in Madison, not only have the Democrats/union goons been demonstrating outside, they have penetrated the capitol building and are blocking movement inside [even CNN admits that there has been a sit-in inside]. In these times when the Democrats are insisting on “civility” [i.e. Conservative surrender] and the banning of those evil violent images, there are signs with Gov. Walker’s picture in rifle crosshairs and the caption, “Reload”.
There are also recall petitions [I was surprised that Wisconsin, being a Leftist stronghold, had recall since Democrats hate interference from the serfs.] being organized against those senators [there is question as to whether the TEA Party is getting involved in this] and possible class action suits against the teachers and the unions. There are at least 15 school districts shut down by wildcat strikes; which puts a financial burden on parents, and some of those that are open have taken the students to the demonstration. This being done without permission from the parents [remember all those permission slips you had to sign for your kids every time they did anything outside the school grounds?], to a political demonstration where there is the possibility of violence. I suspect that the school district and the unions might find themselves on the wrong end of lawsuits. In fact, if they took the children without permission, criminal charges may be in play. I encourage the citizens in Wisconsin to engage in lawfare against the Unions and the Democrats. It is about time they were on the receiving end.
Subotai Bahadur
UPDATE: from GATEWAY PUNDIT
The Rockford Illinois TEA Party reports that they found the fugitive Democrat State Senators at a Rockford, Ill. Best Western Motel. There was a demonstration, and the legislators fled in panic. From GATEWAY PUNDIT:
TALLY HO!
Subotai Bahadur
re: hold (social security, fed gov writ large) checks hostage.
Seems to me that if the federal government is shut down the states can just keep their tax receipts and use that (without the 40% federal handling fee for “passing it back”) to care of their own elderly and dependent that don’t have families to fall back on.. where the local government asks those in demonstrable trouble – “what do you absolutely need?” and not “what unfunded promise did the federal politicians default on so we can make it up to you?” Especially now that 95% of the under 40 citizens polled believe none of the federal government entitlement promises can be kept – a return to local political management (local politics is also accountable politics) and charity will be a step up.
Younger families will (and are already) realizing that a 3rd (or 4th) child is the best old-age insurance, and the local community will step up and help out where there’s tragedy, both with charity and government where required (more policing to sort the indolent from the truly needy). A German told me recently that the local governments there (their states are more powerful than their federal government) still demand that families take care of their elderly – they get a bill if they leave it to the state. Plus they still have government withholding of church tithes in some communities (oh my).
We can and will adjust once we commit more than a few percent of our collective attention to the issues – which will only happen when the majority of the population discovers just how badly the feds have screwed up… because we literally hit a wall.
The placards of demonstrating Wisconsin teachers are making them look like they should never have been teachers to begin with. Fire them all, rehire the good ones.
One of the leaders was just on tv, and answered the question ”wasn’t there just an election?” with ”but this is about the children’s right to an education”. For this guy, bring back the stocks and dunking stool.
Well, as it was presented in the news, it was not a quorum issue but rather that they needed at least one Democrat to pass the law. A quorum makes more sense.
Y’all will recall that the Texas Democrats pulled that same crap last year.
On TV they were inviewing a Democrat who was complaining about the Repub Governor of Wisc, and saying “It seems to me this state is made up of blue collar workers and what the governor is doing is just destroying them.” Now this is evidence of mental illness. How are blue collar workers being destroyed because the governor is insisting that State workers pay more of their own retirement investment costs? By the way, the Governor of FL is doing exactly the same thing here.
Here we had the head of one city’s municipal worker’s union saying, “No one would want to work here except for the medical and retirement benefits.” I would wager you they would have no problem finding workers that would want to work there now. That city and the adjacent areas have been IDed by Forbes Magazine as “the worst place in the US to find a job.”