A Gallup poll suggests that President Obama’s problems are not simply the result of poor messaging and not ‘acting tough’ with Congress. “A new low of 26% of Americans approve of President Barack Obama’s handling of the economy, down 11 percentage points since Gallup last measured it in mid-May and well below his previous low of 35% in November 2010.”
A multi-year chart shows a consistent decline. This isn’t the track of a fundamentally successful President having an occasional bad day (or as he puts it a “run of bad luck”). It is the picture of cumulative system failure; where today is worse than yesterday and tomorrow worse than today.
Heading for Crush Depth
The Bin Laden bounce is gone. Gallup continues. “Americans’ approval of Obama on Afghanistan is down 15 points since mid-May, the most of any issue Gallup tracked during this period, though the resulting 38% approval rating is not the lowest he’s seen on this issue.” Gallup continues. “Democrats Alone Back Obama’s Performance on the Issues … President Obama’s approval rating has dwindled in recent weeks to the point that it is barely hugging the 40% line.”
While the President’s political handlers will doubtless try to blame “messaging” or “communication problems” or “terrorism” by the Tea Party these should be lies uttered for public consumption only. Unless they want to drink their own Kool Aid they must internally recognize that the President’s problems go beyond bad speechwriting, falling Presidential seals or misaligned teleprompters. No fixing of camera angles, application of makeup, focus group studies, advertising campaigns, celebrity endorsements or lighting can right this list. The instruments aren’t lying. The ship is really going down.
The solution must therefore be to govern and not to campaign. Unfortunately campaigning is all the President knows how to do. And the press knew it, even in 2008. But they blew off their own forebodings by reasoning that competent campaigning implied management expertise and therefore, executive excellence. Now it is apparent that the President cannot talk his way out of the problem. What must he do?
The usual solution to this dilemma is for the President to hire talent. FDR, who President Obama’s advisers often liken him to, knew better in most cases than to try and run World War 2 by himself. He let people like George Marshall do that. Donald Trump has recently attacked President Obama for “taking more vacations than any human being I’ve ever seen”. But maybe this is precisely what he needs to do.
Yet talent will get you nowhere unless it is guided by a rational strategy. George Marshall succeeded largely because he spent his time fighting Hitler, not tilting at windmills. It won’t do to declare, as Yogi Berra once said, that “we’re lost but we’re making good time.” You can’t be indifferent to heading if you hope to get somewhere. No amount of executive expertise can turn around an economy by emphasizing carbon trading, declaring CO2 a menace to mankind, pandering to unions and getting chummy with crony capitalists. “The mother of all Keynesian contractions is coming in 2013 — when all these tax cuts expire, when all this stimulus is gone.” That’s the wrong way to recovery and the problem is that the President thinks it’s the way to the future.
Yet if President Obama were to orient himself and realize that regulation stifled business and gave clear orders to competent managers to clear them away, instead of messing with a gaggle of impotent “czars”, then he might well go on vacation — and deserve it. Set the right course, hire someone who knows up from down and eat that ice-cream cone.
Unfortunately the hour is late for that. The Black Caucus has finally said it is tired of his talk. More than any other group it has experienced the greatest disappointment. Instead of singing “Happy Days are Here Again”, the 50% unemployment rate among Black Youth means the more likely song is “Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?” Assuming dimes still bought anything. Maxine Waters said it was to time to unleash her on the President.
During a sometimes-raucous session of what’s being called the “For the People” Jobs Initiative tour, a key member of the Congressional Black Caucus told an audience in Detroit Tuesday that the CBC doesn’t put pressure on President Obama because he is loved by black voters. But at the same time, Rep. Maxine Waters said, members of the CBC are becoming increasingly tired and frustrated by Obama’s performance on the issue of jobs. Even as she expressed support for the president, Waters virtually invited the crowd to “unleash us” to pressure Obama for action.
“We don’t put pressure on the president,” Waters told the audience at Wayne County Community College. “Let me tell you why. We don’t put pressure on the president because ya’ll love the president. You love the president. You’re very proud to have a black man — first time in the history of the United States of America. If we go after the president too hard, you’re going after us.”
It’s a generous offer, but unleashing her would be a violation of the Geneva Convention and no one, not even the President’s worst political enemies, could be so cruel as to wish that. More to the point it would be the wrong idea. She has neither the talent nor the right ideas the President needs to turn things around. What Waters can claim to be is part of the problem. Maybe she should take a vacation too.
Messaging problems. Tower to Leslie Nielsen.
Shirley we’ll hit the ground much harder than that.
What Waters and most other blacks like her mean when they say “more jobs” is “more government money for me, Al Sharpton, Jackson pere et fils, to pass out to our cronies and tuck away somewhere.”
Not the kind of thing you’d get if you asked Herman Caine or Thomas Sowell.
Who are heck are the 26%, and do they actually think he is doing a good job, or are they just benefiting personally from his administration?
Hey, I think most would admit that Maxine Waters would make a much better president than Obambus. Was a time back when, when Ms. Waters seemed a promising politician. She hasn’t entirely lived up to it, more like she retired on the job ten years ago, but she has ten times the energy and probably five times the brains of Obama, whatever she has or hasn’t done with them.
The solution must therefore be to govern and not to campaign. Unfortunately campaigning is all the President knows how to do. And the press knew it, even in 2008.
The press doesn’t know stuff, that’s not their job. And it’s a presumption of Marxism that The People, any one of them, is as fit to rule, or manage, or play center for the Lakers, as any other, since it is the immanent Will Of The People that really governs, though that carries little weight with your local bookie regarding NBA outcomes. So, getting back to our idealized government, electing a biography, even a synthetic one, is not a danger or a deriliction but a delight if not a duty. Indeed, the same way we run the schools so Johnnie gets a blue ribbon just for showing up, well, or a Nobel Prize just in case he decides to show up, well, I mean, y’know, and that’s us all over.
A multi-year chart shows a consistent decline. This isn’t the track of a fundamentally successful President having an occasional bad day (or as he puts it a “run of bad luck”). It is the picture of cumulative system failure; where today is worse than yesterday and tomorrow worse than today.
Well, *I* agree with that analysis. But couldn’t it also be a clear indication that the pernicious influence of George Double-yew Bush has simply never been effectively countered, so Obama hasn’t had his chance yet? If we don’t wake up before we hit the bottom, we’ll die in our sleep! Aiiiieeee! sorry there, seem to be channeling Howard Dean.
Whoever becomes the GOP standard bearer must bill themselves as the “Jobs President,” and the GOP must call itself the “Jobs Party.” They must point to those GOP-led red states with the job and economic growth. Jobs 24/7.
There are other issues that concern the voters, and those concerns are not marginal, but first and foremost the GOP must promise to unleash the American economy, from drilling and mining to lifting the onerous restrictions on small businesses, and everything in between. Even other issues must be addressed in terms of jobs and the economy. Obamacare and the EPA’s unlawful Cap & Trade must be portrayed (accurately) as holding American economic progress back.
Be interesting to have Allen West’s opinion of Maxine Waters’ latest. He wasn’t afraid to take on Wasserman Schultz last month.
This has been perennial problem with “messaging” by leftists. They know they cannot sell their actual message, so they disguise it with bows and unicorn poop. But the bows untie and the package opens and poop begins to stink. They cannot continue to explain it away, so then it is the messengers fault.
1. Joe Biden suddenly has “health problems” and resigns
2. Hillary is confirmed as VP by Harry Reid’s Senate and House RINO squishes.
3. Obama suddenly develops Libyan Terrorist Cancer (the kind that gives you 3 months to live so you get out of jail free for at least two years)
4. The GOP candidate suddenly has a real fight on his hands.
OK, the Geneva Convention crack about Rep. Waters made me laugh out loud. Yeah, I’d hate to release Maxine on my worst enemy, but on my country’s worst enemy I might make an exception.
Frankly, BHO’s “infrastructure” component of his “Stimulus Package” had Public support. Otherwise, he can’t point to effective spending. The chart reveals early perceptions that he was throwing money at problems, rather than solving them. That isn’t Presidential.
Hmmm…Rick Perry is looking closer to the Center, than peripherals like the Tea Party group. That would make him more electable. Certainly, he has long detached from the insane GWB spend-don’t-tax mob. Maybe he is a work in progress. As long as he doesn’t pander to the excessive moralizing of the shriekers, he will increase Public confidence. Even right-wing activists see Perry support as broad based.
http://frontpagemag.com/2011/08/17/5-myths-about-rick-perry/print/
I wish Perry would consult scholars on muhammadanism’s 1400 Genocide war against Western Civilization. That would restrain him from sending huge land armies to Asia’s dirtiest specks.
This is what would happen in a parliamentary system, without the feigned health problems or fake cancer. In fact this happened recently in Australia where the Labor party ditched Kevin Rudd because his poll numbers were tanking and replaced him with the ‘historic’ Julia Gillard.
But in a Presidential system the changeover will require mounting a Primary Challenge to President Obama. And to do that today means igniting a civil war in the Democratic Party. It would be fun to watch, for sure, but not for the Democrats. And yet it may be what the Democratic Party has to do to survive.
The real significance of the Tea Party, when historians finally get to describing it, is that it was process of renewal, a subclinical civil war fought on the conservative side that aimed to takeover the GOP, or at least to amend it. It had the advantage of starting years ago so that many of its effects are now manifesting themselves. Even if the Tea Party itself never fields a single candidate it has “mainstreamed” ideas which are now coming into their own.
But President Obama served to trap the Democratic Party in a dead end. Just how dead is going to be chronicled by the polls. Six more months of that Gallup trend and that’ll be it. No one will even pretend that President Obama can viably run for re-election.
So as I said in an earlier thread, it opens a window for the Clintons who benefit by Obama’s fall in stature, provided he doesn’t fall too far. If he slips completely he takes everyone with them into the abyss. Given that, the President’s retreat to his base (“getting tough” and “no longer standing above the fray”) means he’s going into a 360 perimeter with some Claymores aimed squarely at the direction from which the Clintons may come.
Waters probably senses this and knows that with the President’s coalition now dwindling or breeding Judases, this is the moment of maximum leverage. So her “offer to unleash herself” is probably a not so subtle way of reminding poor President Obama that when the chips are down, he can at least rely on Maxine Waters and her crew, provided the price is right.
The hard reality of politics is that the the specks you see in the sky are either Elijah’s chariot coming to bear you to the heavens or buzzards flying down to pick your carcass clean. Everyone loves a winner. A loser is on his own.
I wonder what it takes for the Democrat leadership to tell Obama that he’s finished and bring in another candidate? Lyndon B. Johnson abandoned his reelection attempt in 1968 after it became clear that Robert Kennedy would crush him in the primary elections. If Hillary ran, Obama might be induced to follow Lyndon B. Johnson’s example. However, Hillary might be thinking: “Let the Democrats crash-and-burn with Obama then I’ll be their saviour in 2012″. Of course, she would be assuming that Rick Perry was a one-term President like Obama.
Wretchard @ 11
Anyone mounting a serious primary campaign against Obama will lose 50% of the black vote to the Dems for the foreseeable future. The Left has to much invested to risk that. Hillary might actually be able to make a race out of the next election. That’s it. But if she does it, Black America will never forgive the Clintons. That’s why it won’t happen.
Y’all just consider this.
Of the 74% who disapprove of Obama’s performance there are no doubt a number that think he is too far to the RIGHT. Or at least that he is too much of a nice guy to deliver properly on their vision of a world in which they no longer have to worry about having money to pay their mortgage and put gas in their car.
I read recently of the distress of the leaders of Prince Georges County, MD, which is right next to Wash DC. It is a heavily black area and they think it just terrible that their citizens have suffered so badly from the mortgage meltdown. It does not appear that they realize that the Community Reinvestment Act and Fannie and Freddie’s hijinks were all directed toward the object of helping their population above all, and that in turn blew up the economy. No, they think themselves unfairly burdened with the disaster rather than at least partly responsible.
If the physics of buoyancy are not understood there’s always the temptation to drill holes in the hull to let the water out. There are many fixes which even though applied with the best of intentions result in the worst of outcomes. And yet it is now customary to judge people not by their competence, but by the degree of their “caring”, as if any solution were as good as another. The result is a lot of sympathy and better yet, there is even more to be sympathetic about.
Wretchard “The solution must therefore be to govern and not to campaign. Unfortunately campaigning is all the President knows how to do.” Nailed it again.
Implicit in all the posts above is the idea that there is someone among the leading democrats who would perform dramatically better than Buraq. Someone who could turn the economy around. Sorry, Charlie. No such Luck. The Democrats purged themselves of any such leader long ago. They are all at a minimum , closet Marxists. Marxists, not Socialists. In their hearts, they all believe in the coercive power of the Police State. All the big name Dems voted for Obamacare. None want to drill for oil. None want to scale back regulations. Only a few, and none close to power, want to shut down the big Banks. All need big government handouts to continue indefinitely to fulfill their promises and satisfy their ravenous constituencies.
The Democrats do not have it in them to turn this economy around. That would take someone who understands and appreciates an entrepreneurial free market and why our freedoms in the end, are the driving force behind our past economic successes. There is no such Democrat among the Leading Democrats.
I spoke to my Liberal friend Montmorency today about Obama’s plummeting poll numbers.
It just ain’t right, those polls, he sobbed
To do this to The One
He’s tried so hard and now he’s robbed
Of all that he has done
To pull this country out of debt
Brought on by Georgie Bush
A brilliant man, a god, and yet
When shoving comes to push
He gets the blame for each mishap
Jobs take a downward spike
And now there comes this missile gap
No, sorry, that was Ike
He’s given us clean air to breathe
No drilling oil for us
Just wait, you’ll see what he’ll bequeath
From his big armored bus
RWE, how could the residents of Prince Georges (or any other similar) have any responsibility or part at all when they don’t generate measureable wealth? Nope, just victims, victims only.
Of course I always say that there are no victims, just volunteers.
It has become obvious to 3/4 of the nation that Obama is the equivalent of the whiz kid in the department who got the management job on style, but can’t actually do the job. He has risen to his level of incompetence, the Peter Principle in its grandest form ever. Anyone who is not a member of the cult of Obama can see this.
I could see Obama not running again, because “the country has shown it just isn’t ready for a black President.” And Hillary would run, and would get a lot of that 74%, and the great majority of the 26%. And might win.
Anyone running for President in 2012 has both an enormous set of real domestic challenges (continued deleveraging at the state/local level combined with short term pain from layoffs) along with the issues of deleveraging most of Europe, either by default and/or by Germany hoisting this burden onto their shoulders. Neither will be good for economic activity in Europe. Any recovery is likely to be slow, slower even than that of the early 1980s.
This deleveraging mess is going to take a long time to clean up, even if no exogenous events occur. Looking back over the past ten years, there haven’t been too many years without a significant unexpected event to be dealt with.
It is not the nature of most politicians, but whoever wins needs to set the tone that we all have a lot of work ahead of us even in the best case scenario. The first step towards winning the battle is to get expectations set appropriately; there is still too much wishful thinking going on in the public sector.
It is the picture of cumulative system failure; where today is worse than yesterday and tomorrow worse than today.
The positive spin would be that with Obama each day is better than the next.
I don’t think they do charts and graphs in this White House. IIRC that was either Nixon or Carter. Maybe Ford. Anyway, you need an IQ greater then a sack of flour to do Charts and graphs. That puts them beyond the technical means of the current administration, even if their core constituency could understand them.
Nobody expects the system to fix everything, to get back to the place things were before, overnight. But people do have a sense of where things are tending. They care more about the direction of change than their absolute position on the economic grid square.
People who feel a downward trend experience fear, even when they are still solvent for the same the reason that a ship passenger dreads progressive flooding. He knows that, while things might be alright now, there will soon come a time when everyone will be clinging to the masts.
Conversely, a man in a flooded compartment will experience elation if he sees the water being pumped out because although he may presently be wet he can look forward with confidence to soon being dry.
The Gallup graph is therefore a time series of public perception on whether things were going up or down. The graph plainly shows that fewer and fewer people think things are going to get better. Its very gradualness and consistency lend it extraordinary force. Nobody is being stampeded. People are giving up their enthusiasm — letting go of hope — bit by bit; falling away one by one.
Obama’s high numbers at the outset indicated most people wanted him to succeed. They elected him, didn’t they? Unless people are truly perverse then it can only have been because they wanted him to solve the crisis they saw upon the nation. Maxine Waters wasn’t the only one who hoped Obama would succeed. After all, everyone wants a job. Everyone wants to pay the bills.
What it would take for Obama to regain electoral confidence is a change in the sign of the derivative. Things don’t have to become double plus good; but they do have to start getting better.
The fact that he can’t change the sign of the derivative is an indictment of his past policies. They haven’t worked. It’s that simple. In fact, there is every chance that the rate of change in the slope — negative to start with — may get worse. The reason to suspect it will worsen is because the President has decided to enter the blame game. That implies that’s he has lost hope on winning 2012 on the strength of a recovery. The only chance left for him is to pin the oncoming catastrophe — which even he can see — on his political opponents.
But it’s a weak hand. And really, what he does he do for an encore? If as Stockman suggests, the year 2013 is economic Armaggedon unless government changes course, why would he lash himself to the wheel only to fall into the vortex awaiting him there? Is the Presidency of a ruined nation so attractive to him that he would rather rule over a shambles then not rule at all?
The answer is apparently ‘yes’. He’s running for office already. What is the bus tour if not a campaign? It’s a curious event, but in many ways a tragic one.
The story here is Napoleonic, it is all about morale. The CBC has lost faith and wants the plebs to call the WH. That scenario will bring no succor to their constituents, the game has gone to far. Even Barry’s poll numbers are pumped up like a marginal 3rd baseman on steroids. I hope we can get to the 2012 election without a serious breakdown, but I’m not optomistic, given the financial situation in Europe. It is not “decoupled” from the US in any way, shape, or form.
Well now Krugman is channelling the small minority of BC commenters who think all we need to get out of this rut is a good war like The Good War:
http://www.breitbart.tv/paul-krugman-reccomends-military-build-up-to-fight-alien-invasion-as-remedy-for-economy/
Too bad the Chinese and Russians aren’t game. But Krugman says we can have aliens instead.
Senor Equis is starting to suspect Brother Ron is going to give Rick Perry a run for his money, if the Texas polls are anything to believe. By the time the Texas primary runs around of course the race is largely decided, but…this could be an odd year. BCers being ahead of the pack in general have already suggested there are some Dems throwing money or at least trying to get the media pretty please to pay attention to Ron Paul when even Jon Stewart mocks how badly CNN wants to ignore him.
Of course, in the short run Paul pulling Perry to the harder Right against the Bernanke (though seriously, outside of Big Media and Wall Street/Washington where is Bernanke popular?) might help Romney by scaring more Establishment bucks to him as the generic Rockefeller Republican. But like the Clintons, such plans may be too clever by half, and we could find ourselves actually wondering who will be the GOP nominee come April 2012. Perry’s only secret weapon is inviting Christie to be his veep choice thought that’s lost some luster too.
24. wretchard
What every single person on earth wants are prospects of improving their lot. Even if trends are downwards but people think their prospects for tomorrow remain good, they will be patient.
Obama is unique because he, his own perfect self, has made America a place where people now have doubts about their prospects. Only the Great Depression and the Civil War managed to match Obama’s dismal achievement.
A president who denies people their prospects for improvement has about as much chance of a second term as a chicken in a guillotine has of crossing the road.
The bus tour is obviously a series of campaign events. The White House denies this and bills it as a non-political “listening tour” for a very simple reason. Bus tours are insanely, insanely expensive. You would not believe how much they cost. Let me break it down a bit so you can see why.
The problem is you cannot cover as much ground on a bus tour as you can with an airplane, so all of your events are restricted to a smaller geographical area. And you’ve got a lot more events, because it is hard to deny a town a “whistlestop”. Every one of these events has a high price tag to make it sufficiently “presidential”. Stages and backdrops have to be built. Audio/Visual equipment has to be moved in. Support facilities for the press need to be built (as well as arranging transport and lodging for them, yes). Support facilities for the public are mandated, like porto-potties, first aid stations, water, etc. If you’ve got several events like this happening on one day in a small local area, you’re going to have a hard time finding vendors who can pull of the logisitics necessary for all this who aren’t going to charge out the wazzoo.
Then, God forbid, what if it rains? You don’t get your money back. This happened in the disastrous Dole/Kemp ’96 post-debate bus tour of New Jersey. That was a five day affair that got washed out in thunderstorms, costing the campaign millions (one cancelled event cost $400,000 alone).
But, if you’re in the White House and you classify the event as non-political, the taxpayers get the bills, not the re-elect campaign. This is why they are calling the thing non-political when it quite obviously is very much so. They want you to pay for it.
That is a great sentence, but there may a better simile, though not by much:
Perry gets my vote for his skepticism about CAGW (catastrophic anthropogenic global warming). Apparently he opined today that the science was moving strongly away from the alarmists’ scary scenarios, and that he was in no mood to pour big bucks into (futile) schemes to control CO2. This breath of fresh air has ignited the hair of the Greens and the Dems and their media enablers. Hilarious. If Perry stands fast on this issue, it will show that he has both brains and brass tackle. Further, it will give him a wonderful opportunity to put daylight between him and the wimps; and to open a strategic front with the Dems.
Because a synonym for Global Warming is Job Destruction; and this election is going to turn on who can plausibly offer the nation a strong and growing employment market.
Really is that simple.
PS: as if it needs saying, I agree with W’s take on the poll showing how the public has steadily given up on Obama. The trend is rock-solid. If one put error bars on that line, they would barely show. And because of that strong trend, there is very little chance that those who have given up on him, will ever change their minds.
w@15: There are many fixes which even though applied with the best of intentions result in the worst of outcomes.
The S&L crisis of the early 1980′s resulted in passage of the Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery, and Enforcement Act of 1989. FIRREA increased public oversight of the loan origination process (for an industry that had been deregulated under Reagan), set new capital reserve requirements (reversed by SEC in 2004), and established a CRA rating system that “increased pressure on banks to make mortgage home loans to inner-city and rural areas.”
CRA wasn’t the source of the problem. The rating system imposed on CRA mortgage loans was part of the “solution” to the S&L meltdown.
And CRA?
A study, by a legal firm which counsels financial services entities on Community Reinvestment Act compliance, found that CRA-covered institutions were less likely to make subprime loans (only 20-25% of all subprime loans), and when they did the interest rates were lower. The banks were half as likely to resell the loans to other parties.[24]
Federal Reserve Governor Randall Kroszner says the CRA isn’t to blame for the subprime mess, “First, only a small portion of subprime mortgage originations are related to the CRA. Second, CRA-related loans appear to perform comparably to other types of subprime loans. Taken together… we believe that the available evidence runs counter to the contention that the CRA contributed in any substantive way to the current mortgage crisis,” Kroszner said: “Only 6% of all the higher-priced loans were extended by CRA-covered lenders to lower-income borrowers or neighborhoods in their CRA assessment areas, the local geographies that are the primary focus for CRA evaluation purposes.”[25]
FDIC Chairman Sheila Bair disputes that the CRA was a problem “Let me ask you: where in the CRA does it say: make loans to people who can’t afford to repay? No-where! And the fact is, the lending practices that are causing problems today were driven by a desire for market share and revenue growth … pure and simple.”[26]
w @ 24: People who feel a downward trend experience fear…
Yes but I think the real fear right now, at least for me, is more like standing on a crumbling precipice. We’re not just going down, but about to crash. And Obama just stands there, playing his violin.
And, y’know, I will recite again – for all his faults, it is also true (IMHO) that Obama really *was* dealt a very bad hand. Now, it was already dealt when he entered the race, but perhaps none of us quite understood it until later in 2008 or even after his immaculation in 2009. I don’t think he, nor hardly anybody in Washington, really understands to this day just where things stand. In particular I don’t think the odious Axelrod does, who seems to be Obama’s alter ego, if not puppeteer. I don’t know if any of his remaining economic braintrust does. It’s pretty clear that fellow public nuisance and Nobel Prize winner Paul Krugman does not.
If Obama was not fronted by the likes of Pelosi and Reid, he might do better. If the MSM had not rotted to a maggoty carcass were a shadow of it’s old self, maybe we’d never have gotten Obama nor Pelosi/Reid.
His communications strategies are a product of the likes of Lakoff and Axelrod. Lakoff, at least, has no credentials on the actual mechanisms of government or economics, and Axelrod strikes me as nothing more than a first-class tool.
But I don’t believe any mere fiscal or monetary moves will make much difference now. We need structural changes: 10m jobs returned from overseas, and maybe 1,000 finance executive stripped and jailed. Or else, Paul Ryan much less Rick Perry won’t make any more progress than Obama.
Who was responsible?
Home Builders’ Loans Feel Heat:
The crisis in risky mortgage loans is shedding light on aggressive lending practices by some of the largest U.S. home builders, which stand accused of using lax standards and illegal sales tactics to arrange financing for buyers.
Last week, Beazer Homes acknowledged that its mortgage subsidiary is being investigated by federal regulators for loans made to hundreds of people who bought Beazer homes. But the complaints about loan practices go beyond Beazer.
PA Cat- West was on O’Reilly tonight (Laura Ingraham as guest host) and he used the plantation/overseer metaphor to describe how awful Waters and those who carry water for Obama in the CBC are.
It’s funny how Obama’s the FIRST BLACK PRESIDENT and yet there are elected officials blacker than him who think (know) he’s full of it. I just couldn’t stop laughing every time they talked about the bus tour. This presidency has reached the height of absurdism, the president on a BUS TOUR. Millard Fillmore on a bus tour. Eisenhower on a bus tour. John Quincy Adams on a bus tour. Wilson on a bus tour.
Just, no. Please stop. The curtain has to drop now.
Hey bro’…….. you got what you asked for!!! Quit yer bitchin’!!!
Heh! Last January I entitled a post, “The Crush Depth of Debt.”
It’s a meme!
oMan:
Yah, 99.999% of all CO2 emissions are from the oceans. People couldn’t effect that even if we wanted to.
Okay, Tropical snow caps are melting. I remember viewing a big cap on Mount Colima, Mexico, and on Mount Kilimanjaro (from the air) in the ‘seventies. I think we can agree that we are in post Ice Age warming, and that it is an extremely slow process that will advance to a tipping point, where cooling will bring us to another Ice Age in a few thousand years. Gore pointed to flooded plain cities within our generation. Maybe in about 3 centuries. Didn’t Al make $40 million from that book and film? He found he could make more from pandering, than from holding the highest office. What a saint!
How interesting it all is. The western model of the welfare state depends upon there being the needy for them to sustain. These are their customers.
The cruel paradox is that if the welfare state can manage to create a vibrant economy it will decrease the number of consumers for their essential product. Therefore it is imperative for them to throttle the economy if the people who make a living off of the welfare state want to thrive. It is either that or re-defining the definition of the needy, or a combination of both.
In the olden days the Marxists claimed that Capitalism would result in the impoverishment of the masses. The common people simply wouldn’t have food and shelter. That didn’t happen. So they shifted the idea to the notion of “relative poverty.” If the poor folks can only afford a Chevy while the rich can drive a BMW this is evil and oppressive, unless of course you are one of the bureaucrats entrusted with spreading the wealth, in which case no indulgence whatsoever should be denied you on account of your superior morals (and political connections– you can’t have one without the other).
Despite the theory, in practice its all a con game, and in practice its always been that way.
Too Many Vehicles to Count in Our First Green President’s Misery Tour
The amount of security and the length of the procession gives the impression of medeival royalty travelling out to visits the subjects.
I assume the red bus must be carrying his teleprompters.
- Quirk
jd @ 37: I don’t believe the oceans are a major source of CO2, unless you mean that talk of arctic water holding less in solution yada yada. CO2 increase in the atmosphere *is* a fact, the question is whether or when it matters (which I don’t think it does, unless it gets much worse then we simply start to choke, global warming would be the least of it). And a lot of the CO2 increase does seem to be from fossil fuels. A volcano eruption can throw it all off for years.
I’m glad Perry doesn’t fall for the AGW thing, but I hope it’s because he knows good science from bad science, and not blindly. He does seem to be saying the right things.
#34 Stephanie–
Thanks! Do you have a link, by any chance?
Perhaps McCain can loan Obama a slightly used “Straight Talk Express” sign.
No inflection point in the decline, no change in the sign of the derivative; excellent points. There’s a sound mathematical reason that the problems are *guaranteed* to continue getting worse for some time to come, and it surprises me that so few commentators seem to see it or understand it, even on the right. Economics just seems to be really hard to “get” for most of the political types.
Notice how growth has been way below expectations? And it’s not just the US – France has dropped to zero, England is going to show abysmal numbers when the effect of the riots shows up in the stats, and now even Germany is slowing to a near stop. Growth is grinding to a halt around the globe.
Here’s the problem: *ALL* of the financial projections for the future – for taxes, for expenses, for anything at all, were calculated on the basis of strong, traditional recovery style growth, 4% or higher. That growth is not going to happen – which means unemployment expenses will be HIGHER, tax receipts will be much much lower, the deficit will be massively HIGHER – in other words, every problem we have now is going to be supercharged and put on steroids over the next 12 months, precisely because we used airy-fairy economic assumptions to pretend things were a lot better than they were.
Case in point – California “balanced” it’s budget by simply assuming an extra $4 billion in revenue from the wonderful Obama recovery would show up by the end of this year. Not only is that not showing up, thanks in part to their Amazon idiocy their tax receipts are going to be lower than even a static estimate would have showed.
Budget disaster is not just *possible* – it is guaranteed. And yet one has the feeling that when the fraud (it would be fraud if any private business did it) finally comes to light, there will be much wailing and gnashing of teeth as all the pundits stand around and wail “Oh, who could possibly have seen this coming???”
Anybody with a $6.00 pocket calculator, that’s who.
@ PA Cat (6) who said “Be interesting to have Allen West’s opinion of Maxine Waters’ latest. He wasn’t afraid to take on Wasserman Schultz last month.”
Hot Air has got in on their Quote of the Day: http://bit.ly/nBYnAY
Just scroll down. It’s the last video.
#34 Stephanie
This presidency has reached the height of absurdism, the president on a BUS TOUR.
Here’s a choice bit from Althouse about Teh Won’s inept comparison of the federal budget to husband/wife disagreements about spending on his bus tour stops:
“In my house,” Obama noted, “if I said, ‘You know, Michelle, honey, we got to cut back, so we’re going to have you stop shopping completely. You can’t buy shoes; you can’t buy dresses; but I’m keeping my golf clubs.’ You know, that wouldn’t go over so well.”
In Decorah, he said: “Everybody cannot get 100 percent of what they want. Now, for those of you who are married, there is an analogy here. I basically let Michelle have 90 percent of what she wants. But, at a certain point, I have to draw the line and say, ‘Give me my little 10 percent.’ ”
Althouse’s comment: “You know what bugs me about this analogy? It’s the contempt for the intelligence of the audience. The federal budget is not the same as a household budget scaled up. A husband and wife can’t just ‘raise the debt ceiling.’ And the 10% Obama is referring to is not the avoidance of an expenditure (like the golf clubs). It’s taxes. There is nothing like that in the family budget. The husband and wife do not have the option of commanding other people to give them money… unless they rob people… in which case the wife would be right to say, no, we can’t go out robbing people. And the husband would be crazy to think he was making a modest and moderate argument by saying, ‘But honey, it’s only for 10%.’”
http://althouse.blogspot.com/2011/08/while-perry-was-playing-retro-trigger.html
#44 starling
Many thanks for the link– just watched it and enjoyed the “old soldier’s” remarks– particularly the comment about “the big Black bus isn’t going into the black community.”
But the Democrats may have to pretend so none the less. The problem, as lescoulee hints at, is that a huge chunk of the 95% of Blacks who voted for Obama will react to the Dems dumping Obama (even if Obama bows out himself) by staying home. And there’s very little chance of the Dems winning anything without those voters. Not the Presidency, not Senate seats, not governorships, not State Houses, not mayor’s races in big cities. So they may have to bite the bullet and let him go down in flames in order to avoid losing everything else.
I expect the Cornell West bit may be an attempt to avoid that. Seems kinda late though. I’m not sure the emotional investment can be unwound that easily. Seems to me at least as likely that West ends up in the same boat as Tomas Sowell or Clarence Thomas for disparaging Teh Won.
In some previous thread I wrote that the real turning point would come when the equivalent or analog of the Tea Party came up on the Left — when ‘other people’ get it on their own terms. Until that line is crossed the idea of limited government and of unleashing creativity in the private sphere will remain an ‘enemy idea’ and tainted with disloyalty. Once across the line an idea suddenly becomes thinkable and it’s a whole new ballgame.
A successful effort to shift an established meme often involves giving the ‘other side’ an exit strategy they can accept. To use that hoary old storehouse of historical analogies, the Pacific War, it is important to make people feel that inviting McArthur ashore is really the Emperor’s idea. That may not be the truth, but it saves you the trouble of subduing Japan one foxhole at a time. The real function of good fiction is to contain the truth in an outward lie. Will the Democratic coalition break, and if so, where?
It would be interesting to see if such a defection happens in this case. Not the synthetic “coffee party” which is just a front for the old leftist nostrums, but a real, say hey moment where the contrary idea acquires a legitimacy in terms of a rival creed.
I think the first signs have already come. People like David Mamet and other individuals formerly of the left have already broken ranks. What is the next step? Institutions? Or maybe it won’t happen at all. History is full of surprises.
Sometimes I think the place the Democratic coalition might break is the black community. Why? Because it is where the coalition is acting most contrary to its own basic interests. It’s held to a course by solidarity and group loyalty much more than cold calculation.
The unions will stay in it for the money. Some banksters may as well. But why should a young black man vote to stay unemployed except for the notion that he owes it to somebody to hold on to a path, no matter what? And that seems to me the most brittle of all bonds. For if once it becomes thinkable within that community to consider the alternative, the switch can be blazingly fast.
#44 starling
Many thanks for the link– really enjoyed the “old soldier’s” comments– particularly his observation that “the big black bus isn’t going into the black community.”
(Wretchard– sorry for the second post– I originally added this to my previous post before the edit function timed out, but it didn’t show up then. Now it apparently has resurfaced.)
Walt:
As I recall, Montmorency lost a fight with a tea kettle at one point while Harris, George and J were boating up the Thames.
Wretchard
The logistical problem for the Left is that so much of its support is bought and paid for. In the literal, not figurative, sense. Public sector workers, lawyers, activists, crony capitalists, the Quango quagmire – in short, the Parasite Class , are the backbone of the Dem party. They don’t get paychecks if government shrinks. They don’t eat if the money stops flowing.
Well, of course the money can’t keep flowing, but reality ain’t issuing these folks any paychecks either so they can’t get on board with that program. They are our own political equivalent of Sadaam’s Dead-enders – nowhere else to go, even if where they are sucks and the water’s rising.
Martha and the Vandellas sang their song already…
Nowhere to run to baby, nowhere to hide. Got nowhere to run to, baby. Nowhere to hide.
It’s not love I’m running from, It’s the heartaches that I know will come.
‘Cause I know you’re no good for me, but you’ve become a part of me.
From you I know I’ll never be free… So, musical interlude over, how does the Left address the logistics? My own feeling is that it simply can’t until the Right utterly breaks it and cuts the freeloaders off cold turkey. At that point, the old tax-payers vs tax-eaters paradigm falls, the GOP fractures into two new parties both committed to fiscal austerity but one favoring moral crusading* and the other favoring libertarian individualism. Former lefties split and flock to one or the other former GOP faction (one probably continues with the name Republican Party, the other may assume the Democrat brand, or create a new one, depending on the relative Goodwill balance sheet of the de facto defunct Democrat label.
* – note that I have no idea what flavor of moral crusading this may be. It could be Christian flavored, or it could be eco-PC-Oppression Studies flavored. Or it could be a combination program resulting from back-scratching and horse trading. But at this point, I think the fight over government regulation is the 2nd tier political debate, behind fiscal issues. The fiscal debate takes center stage because we’re broke, and there’s ultimately only one answer to that problem, though it looks like – a la Churchill’s observation – America will once again do the right thing, after exhausting all other possibilities. Then we’ll go back to squabbling over how much we get to tell each other how to live.
Ah, Wretchard I see I missed the end of your post (and sorry for the extra post myself).
Yes, you’re right about this. And, repeating myself from above, if the Dems lose the Black vote, they’re no longer viable. They don’t even have to lose them to the GOP, they just have to have them stay home and not vote, and Dems lose the vast majority of their elected offices. That could be how the cookie crumbles, how the Dems shatter and what leads to a brief GOP tidal wave, followed by a GOP fracture and a reforming of the parties.
Yes, yes, it wouldn’t surprise me if it went that way, especially considering the emotional investment in Obama and the bitter dissapointment that will be the ROI.
Josh @ 32 said:
“… I don’t believe any mere fiscal or monetary moves will make much difference now. We need structural changes: 10m jobs returned from overseas, and maybe 1,000 finance executive stripped and jailed. Or else, Paul Ryan much less Rick Perry won’t make any more progress than Obama.”
The leader who succeeds in dealing with America’s serious problems will need to be a straight talking, hard boiled, no nonsense bastard who is prepared to write-off the unsalvageable part of the American financial and political system in order for the remaining (much smaller) functional part to survive. We’re basically talking about a bankruptcy process where the usable fraction is auctioned off for fair value and what’s left is hauled off as trash. This process will be enormously unpopular. All of the moonbats, traitors and scumbags who created this mess in the first place will fight the process to the bitter end. However upon successful completion, the responsible leader will be placed in the same pantheon with Washington, Jefferson and Lincoln.
Josh@32: …for all his faults, it is also true (IMHO) that Obama really *was* dealt a very bad hand.
And the Pubs ran a really bad candidate in 2008. I expect that was just a coincidence.
One they won’t repeat in 2012????
“CO2 increase in the atmosphere *is* a fact, the question is whether or when it matters”
The other question is which comes first, the CO2 or the Temperature increase? Scientists can measure back about 1.2 million years through Ice core drilling. The accuracy isn’t fine enough to tell if CO2 produces temperature change or if temperature change produces CO2. Warning or evidence?
Real scientists (the sort that earn their paychecks using the scientific method daily) say they need more and better data. Dyson (the father of environmentalism) Did a 2-parter on YouTube a few years ago calling for a global research program.
I suspect Perry will go with funding a research program. Take the money from AIDS research.
Reading through the various insightful comments here, a picture developed transfixed in my mind’s eye.
I saw this “train wreck” coming. I feared for this country’s future when over 50% would attach it’s future “hope and change” to an obvious charlatan with no credible history of accomplishing anything, and to the contrary, with a long history of being in league with groups of people who have been all things destructive of this country.
Now the train wreck has hit, either prematurely to Obama’s intentions, or in spite of his truest and best beliefs. It’s hit. The locomotives have all derailed at the tressel, have been bashed upon rocks of reality, and lie in ruin. The passenger cars that are the American citizens, left, right, and center, are piling in behind the locomotives, a catastrophe is in progress that cannot be stopped, and perhaps cannot even be mitigated.
The train’s engineers, that group of Democrats, special interest groups, and Move-on-DotOrg-DotAcorn leftists that gave Obama the controls, are all politically dead, but do not yet comprehend it; dead men comprehend so little.
Yet Obama has survived. He’s still at the controls and ready to lead, a broken throttle handle in one hand, standing atop the destruction all around him. He believes: “yes we can!”. He has THE plan. He is still in control. To the citizens lying broken and suffering and dying in the passenger cars, amongst thousands of gallons of fuel oil spilling all around them, Obama appears to proclaim “Don’t worry, the WON is here. I have a plan to clean up the entire mess in a flash. Trust me.”
And then he pulls out his book of matches ….
Well, yes, I’m definitely no “Walt”, but the week has not gone well here at Lake Wobegon.
My brother-in-law has been valiantly battling to save his 20 year construction business, collapsed to 25% of it’s original size, to just keep his core, most faithful employees and their families whole while eking out just enough income to keep his family fed and in a home. He’s shutting it all down now, attempting to lease his “below-water” home, retreating with a business partner and childhood friend to a paid-for vacation home they built themselves in Arizona. He’s selling off the few assets he has left and will try to wait out the Obama Economic Depression.
Every friend and member of my family has been financially devastated since 2007. I’m the only one in my immediate family that still owns a house (or should I say, the house owns me).
With so many people around me hurting, I can’t do a damn thing but try to keep my own IT contract another couple of weeks or months, and help them out a bit where my depleted savings allows.
We just had my daughter’s wedding a few weeks ago. If it weren’t for the risks of the internet, I’d post their pictures here. She’s a beautiful Filipina-American; he a stout young Marine returning from two-tours of war. They chose a “1940’s” theme, which appears to be in vogue right now. I guess it makes some sort sense – the last “good times” people can relate to, even the young one’s who aren’t historians like my daughter – were apparently the post-depression, post-war late 1940’s. It was a pretty dream for them; hope it comes true.
However, I doubt we can make it until 2013, before we’re all on food stamps and in some government-housing-slum. Most of us are in our 40′s or 50′s too, “prime earning years” – what a joke.
I don’t hate Obama, in particular. I despise those 50% of Americans who still believe, even after all this, that it’s all George W. Bush’s fault, along with their “fatcat oilmen” and “big corporations” boogeymen. They still are true believers that folks in my income bracket should “pay more, spread the wealth around”, to 50%, 60%, 90% of income, while they pay nothing and collect government subsidies. I hate that half of America that not only believes in “something for nothing”, but that all those working 60 and 70 hours a week owe them that something. I’m really at odds with half my own damn country. Hell, half my family, the half that are not destitute, are all civil service “yes we can” Democrats.
I oft have wondered, growing up and studying about the causes of the civil war, how the average man felt about it all about 1858, or 1860. I guess now I know; I can relate. It’s almost “brother against brother” now. I also remember from my studies, that even though everyone saw it coming in retrospect, at the time, no one expected a civil war. Those old pol’s, they just sat back in the hay stacks and keep flipping those lit matches …
Now, I’m not in an “woe is me .. somebody help me” narcissist mode, but after a while, you do get tired of the battle. You realize that at age 55 yrs, there’s little hope of things being “normal” again as Americans once expected, until well after I’m in my 70′s. True economic change and recovery depends on repealing and rolling back 100,000 laws and closing 10,000 government agencies throughout local, state, and federal government. The infection exists throughout. The only solution is to dump the baby out with the bath water; to go back to the basics of government per Plato’s Republic. Let people starve before “government helps them”, but for certain, take the chains off of the American people. (NO MORE $4 per gallon gas unless it comes from an American well head, for starters, and create American produced energy everywhere, anywhere, and using all cost-effective means. F–k global warmists and other leftist extremists.)
I’ve been thinking about trying to gather together whatever capital I have left and taking my wife back to Manila, to find a cheap little house, doesn’t even need running water, and then just retire and “exist”, as best we can. Maybe run a little Sari-sari store for a little cash flow, have some San Miguel on the good days. The entire farce in Washington and Sacramento makes you just want to quit “producing” anything and just give up.
I hope to God that the rest of America isn’t as tired of all of this crap as I am. The fact is, neither the human energy nor the enterprises required to pull this country out of the depression will remain after 2013. All we’ll have is 100 years of crippling debt with no means of generating National revenue to pay it off, let alone grow a new economy.
“I think the first signs have already come. People like David Mamet and other individuals formerly of the left have already broken ranks. What is the next step? Institutions? Or maybe it won’t happen at all. History is full of surprises.” – Wretchard
Most of the Democrat constituencies are wired into the money, mostly “government money”. However, they will not leave when the money runs out unless they have some place to “leave to”. (And, “sitting home” during elections is a non-sustainable political strategy when they are perpetually broke and starving.) Heck, if someone started the proverbial “Mein Kampf” party, they could own most of the Democrat vote merely by delivering the checks. Idealism works for about 20% of that party; the rest run on pure, raw greed.
Ditto for other comments about the GOP. If the Democrats cannot survive, neither can the GOP coalitions as constituted over the past 40 years. The party is split 1/3 – 2/3s, “Moderates” to “Conservatives”. The Moderates will side with Democrat-Socialists before they will support a Conservative. The Conservatives themselves are split, as witnessed by the battle lines being drawn between certain GOP candidates. It will be interesting if Palin or Ryan join the race, to see how the GOP conservatives avoid throwing stones at each other and fracturing the conservative vote.
Even though I don’t quite believe it, in 10 years neither the Democrat nor Republican parties are likely to exist in their current form.
“Even though I don’t quite believe it, in 10 years neither the Democrat nor Republican parties are likely to exist in their current form.”
Yes and the future belongs to those who control the evolution. Or is morph a better word?
Speaking of messaging, I just ran across a quote by Marx;
“Outside a dog, a book is man’s best friend. Inside a dog it’s to dark to read.”
That would be Groucho not Karl.
Old Salt – very sorry to hear so many in your family have already been hurt, I wish things weren’t about to get worse. But I have been watching the “Train Wreck” coming, as have you, and it’s here. Ironically but inevitably, the epicenter isn’t America, but Europe. They’ve had the disease far longer, they have had it so long that everyone is shocked that they are now dying.
Americans don’t watch it, and Europeans don’t believe it, but Europe is Dying. Not some unspecified time in the future, not in some metaphorical way.
Today. Look at the markets, look at the news feed. Europe is Dying Today.
Short Sales are banned – but the markets are plunging. The ECB is pledging support – but bond rates are still climbing. This is the CreditAnstalt crisis of 1931, all over again. Europe is entering the final stall out, and not only their markets but their entire societies are going into a death spiral that they have no power to break.
The signal was the absolute failure of Merkel and Sarkozy to come up with anything but fantasy as their program. They fooled the idiot media for half a day with their happy talk. But this morning the markets are talking. And they are saying that Europe is set to Burn.
London is burning already. Italy soon to follow.
and the effect on the US? A worldwide 1931 style crash would have dragged us down with them even IF we had been doing everything right. Doing everything wrong, the way we are – well, after Europe falls, and the US economy collapses, China is sure to follow, since they depend on exports to both of us. For all of our respective failures, in the end we will all go down into the pit together. Just like last time.
1 billion pissed off, broke Chinese, blaming us for taking their economy away from them – that’s when things will really get interesting.
Short term? The only thing I got is that Gold is now going over $2500 by the end of the year. Every European with assets is pumping everything he has into gold right now – that alone is enough to drive the price.
Well, he did claim that running a campaign counts as experience:
Obama: Running campaign counts as executive experience
.. at least according to the site, but I remember hearing the same elsewhere.
tom
Prince George’s County outside of DC is the richest majority black county in the country. 40% of the people work for some level of government.
The average level in the federal government is GS-13, which pays from $89 – $115K.
A decent overview of the situation, even if it is written from the leftist POV. Just as a rising tide lifts all boats, he recognizes that the tsunami is going to sink everyone.
“Even as Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy talk, Europe’s economy slides towards disaster”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financialcrisis/8706682/Even-as-Angela-Merkel-and-Nicolas-Sarkozy-talk-Europes-economy-slides-towards-disaster.html
and meanwhile, Wall Street is crashing – again.
while gold soars – again.
In every poker game, every player faces an “all-in” moment. This is the All-In moment for gold. Next stop – $2500/oz.
It’s 3 a.m, the phone is ringing and Obama’s at the Vineyard. Don’t worry, Joe Biden can pick it up.
RE: GWB, fat cats and big cats.
Republicans need to up their game and sharpen the narrative. (Dems too.)
The current budget deficit *is* largely the result of GWB’s policies. No question about that and little to be gained by insulting the intelligence of the American people by suggesting otherwise.
I reserve use of the term “fatcat” for Wall St, but as far as the oil industry is concerned, I object to the oil-inspired policy position that led to our current relationship with Saudi Arabia, and second, I am suspicious of the industry’s commitment to responsible build-out. BP was admittedly an extreme example by the ‘bad boy’ of the oil field but the recent bellicose rhetoric from TransCanada’s CEO suggests to me that environmentally responsible build-out is the least of their concerns. That’s foolish and juvenile and dangerously and needlessly confrontational especially since the next generation of oil development will require stricter environmental controls.
As far as “big corporations” are concerned, aside from noting that the large caps are doing very very well, I have nothing but contempt for the financial sector, specifically what used to be the Big Five (now Four) of Wall St for reasons that have been fully articulated here and elsewhere.
The President can do very little to influence business cycles and even less to reverse recessions. The two traditional options – austerity and interim government spending (as per Richard Koo) have split Congress into effective deadlock. Even the balanced approach that includes revenues is marginalized into a “tax the rich” and “spread the wealth” soundbite. The balanced approach is the only rational solution and Obama had to beg for it.
What *caused* the current recession? Make no mistake about it, the current recession was stimulated by private sector irresponsibility (starting with the under-regulated S&L crisis and continuing with the housing industry’s entry into the “loan origination” business, and the Wall St engineered maneuvers during the first decade of this century) as much as poor public policy coming out of Washington (GWB’s fiscal and foreign policies) and poor monetary policy under Greenspan.
What to do?
Tax reform? That’s going to take time, given that Congress has the ability to execute at that level of competence.
Health care reform? The number one driver of the budget increases, outside of the Bush policies, was escalating health care costs (on the order of ten percent per year for the last decade.) The Dems managed to pass some legislation that *might* work but it will cost at the front end – during a recession or weak recovery. The timing and the controversial mandate remain political liabilities during a contentious time of transition.
USA remains the world’s last superpower state. You cannot run a superpower with a *small* government. The only way forward is to make government work *better,* not to emasculate it. That the current crop of Washingtonians is not up to par means that several election cycles will be required to reintroduce backbone into the governing process.
Old Salt: very sorry to hear of your troubles. May they be lighter than they seem.
I am not going to rant on about CO2 other than to note that its contribution to “greenhouse” effect (a misnomer) as measured by “global temperature” (a meaningless statistic, designed to promote the rhetorical games we’ve had to endure)…that contribution of CO2 is logarithmic. Every doubling produces the same delta T. The warmists hide the pea on that one –always claiming that the next 100 ppm of CO2 is going to be disastrous, I tell you, disastrous! They also overstate the delta T/doubling, which increasingly appears to be less than 1 degree C. In other words, if we should get the atmospheric CO2 from current 380 ppm to say 760 ppm (maybe around 2200 AD?) we would see another 1 degree bump in “global T,” whatever that means.
Enough of that. W makes another excellent point about the possible fracturing within the Dem constituency. Well, of course, different folks will feel different strokes; and when the strokes are administered with a cat-o-nine tails of penury and joblessness, they will feel them in a way that urgently forces them to act for their own self-interest, Party dogma be danged. Will urban black youth, with joblessness at 50% or more, decide to (a) vote GOP (b) form a new party (c) stay home or (d) riot?
Key question. I invite others to improve its formulation, because I worry that it is going to be a big factor over the coming year.
I am mindful of the four-post limit; and it is not my style to be a thread-hog. I just found this link (on CO2 and what it means as a “greenhouse gas”) and offer it as a kind of public service announcement. Nobody has all the answers but Happer does seem to have a clue, and it’s easy reading.
http://www.thegwpf.org/images/stories/gwpf-reports/happer-the_truth_about_greenhouse_gases.pdf
8/18 Those poll numbers and the grumbling from the left have struck home.
What to do from Martha’s Vineyard? Counterattack! The Seattle Times this morning has a puff piece on Obama’s belated move to make a (deficit) ‘jobs package’, TBA; a cynical article attacking Rick Perry ‘trying to tone down his rhetoric’ (as if!), and front page yarn on the Justice Department’s new attack on S&P. It’s hard to make any case that the MSM aren’t still Obama’s loyal guard troops, when the White House sends out the call.
A must read:
http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/08/obama_the_affirmative_action_president.html
This morning on FNC (which I saw while waiting for the doctor to tell me I was fine and to keep it up) an analyst – not a political one but an economic one – pointed out that every time Obama gives a speech about jobs and the economy, the Dow goes down. It was forecast to be down 200 points this morning. And he explained that this was not a coincidence but a reaction to Obama’s speech. I.e., when the Wing Commander starts raving about contamination of our precious bodily fluids, then it’s time to get worried.
The Dow opened 200 points down and very soon went to 300 points down.
Josh #32: “…it is also true (IMHO) that Obama really *was* dealt a very bad hand.”
But Josh, you miss the real point. Obama represented those who dealt that bad hand, from CRA to hands off Fannie and Freddie to illegal Mexican migrants who make $15K a year and qualify for $760K in loans because their credit score is not low. At least some of the Republicans tried to stop this (GWB is the prime example) and they initiated essentially none of it.
And most of the big Wall St. Bank political money went to Obama.
Obama was dealt a bad hand by his own supporters.
Josh,
Obama actually had an incredible set of opportunities handed to him, from foreign policy to economic issues to the chance to eliminate racism as a faux issue in the U.S. to illegal immigration. Being elected as the first black actually freed him to be able to take more effective measures than other individuals could do as president. All he had to do was show a mediocre level of competence, and he would have been considered a significant success. And he has failed miserably to achieve even that level.
Wall St is known for picking Washington winners.
Good link on CO2, especially the part where the author articulates the danger that the CO2 scam will compromise environmental control of real pollutants such as heavy metals, pathogens, particulates, etc in land, air, and water resources.
Insufficiently Sensitive @ 66 said:
“It’s hard to make any case that the MSM aren’t still Obama’s loyal guard troops, when the White House sends out the call.”
As a conservative, it is difficult not to be irritated by the obvious fact that the MSM has been captured by the Left and Obama is largely an MSM construct. However there are two sides to this coin. Refer to the following article about the “Taranto Principle”:
http://spectator.org/archives/2008/09/25/the-taranto-principle#
Key quote:
“According to the Taranto Principle, the media’s failure to hold left-wingers accountable for bad behavior merely encourages the left’s bad behavior to the point that its candidates are repellent to ordinary Americans.”
Obama’s election as President has clearly been a disaster for the United States. However one can make the argument that through the Taranto Principle, Obama’s failure as President will put a stake through the heart of American socialism.
My slant on this is the news media when correctly functioning is supposed to act as a “fair referee” who points out fallacies in the different political arguments and filters out political candidates who are incompetent or unfit for office. Because the news media had been captured by the Left, it no longer performed its function. The main result of this has been the polarization of American politics. Again due to the Taranto Principle, the socialists will soon find themselves laying dead on the ground with stakes in their hearts. If conservatives can gain full control of the political process and assuming the political process has not become completely broken then some sort of remedial action towards the MSM will take place, breaking the Left’s control of the MSM. One could argue that the rise of the Internet as a primary news source is part of this remedial action towards the MSM.
“The solution must therefore be to govern and not to campaign. Unfortunately campaigning is all the President knows how to do. And the press knew it, even in 2008. But they blew off their own forebodings by reasoning that competent campaigning implied management expertise and therefore, executive excellence.”
The reason the press didn’t care about his shortcomings, IMHO, is they KNEW he was just a figurehead. The Progressives who put him in place would handle the heavy lifting. Unfortunately, once they had that weight in the air, they had no idea what is was, where it went or when to use it.
10. Joe Deese
Frankly, BHO’s “infrastructure” component of his “Stimulus Package” had Public support. Otherwise, he can’t point to effective spending.
Support from the uninformed public does not make it effective. Take a look back at all of the “Infrastructure” spending over the past 5 terms including under the Bush Administration and add up the number of years it was intended to cover and costs. We should still have money for infrastructure building without the new proposals. So how is throwing more money onto the pile effective?
rwe @ 68: ok I amend my remarks: WE were dealt a bad hand, Obama wasn’t dealt anything. Obama’s focus is fixing what he was told in 1970 was broken about America. Doesn’t seem that he’s read past the headlines since 1980.
He’s an echo, not a choice.
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Markets down today, but don’t seem ready to take out recent lows, I smell PPT.
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On CO2, if I read the numbers correctly, more CO2 does NOT mean more global warming, even half of what we have now would do pretty much all the heat absorption that CO2 is going to do. Water and methane are much stronger greenhouse gases, the residual effects of more CO2 – or any CO2 – is meaningless. In case you haven’t noticed, there’s a lot of water out there. Until the EPA decides it’s a pollutant and requires you to buy a license to piss.
Wretchard suggests that because he is incompetent, the President should hire people who know how to solve problems and then go and “eat an ice cream cone.”
In my business, there’s an aphorism about managers and the subordinates they hire: “3s hire 2s, while 9s hire 10s.”. Incompetent managers tend to hire even less competent people, while competent managers tend to hire people even better than they are.
Obama is a 3. He hires 2s. Ice cream cones or not, we’re in deep trouble.
I could see Obama not running again, because “the country has shown it just isn’t ready for a black President.” And Hillary would run, and would get a lot of that 74%, and the great majority of the 26%. And might win.
If Republicans were smart and ruthless (they’re not) they would savage Hillary as the author of Obamacare’s predecesor. The two bills are almost identical in their general content, right down to the compulsory health insurance mandate and the calls for rationing health care for the elderly. They would also point to her abysmal foreign policy record. I don’t think she’d survive that combo of broadsides.
A few years ago the Republicans did a survey of their base. If you draw a Venn diagram of fiscal conservative vs social conservative the overlap is huge, the fiscal-only conservatives are a small minority and the social-only conservatives are an even smaller minority.
Outside the party it been observed that the Blacks and Hispanics tend pretty social conservative, if fiscal conservationism becomes a settled matter, they might tend to become political allies of the Republicans’ social conservatives.
YBR@63: “USA remains the world’s last superpower state. You cannot run a superpower with a *small* government.”
If that’s the case, then I move that we voluntarily and immediately cede the title of world’s last superpower to the highest bidder and get out of the business. Government has gotten so huge and convoluted and stupid that it’s far outlived its usefulness and we need to throw that baby out with the bathwater and probably the tub too while we’re at it.
I do agree with a lot of your assessment of GWB. He was a typical big-government Repub and foisted huge, long-term costs on us. I blame him for that. That said, I blame Obama for not only not fixing any of it but doubling down and making things exponentially worse.
Josh @ 73 said:
“Obama’s focus is fixing what he was told in 1970 was broken about America. Doesn’t seem that he’s read past the headlines since 1980. He’s an echo, not a choice.”
Once again we see an example of a Gramscian agitprop windup robot still trying to fulfill the prime directive that was given to it back in the 1970s. Obama’s political programming can be directly traced to his moonbat mother Stanley Ann Dunham and Saul Alinsky. The “dead communist” political narrative that Dunham and Alinsky believed in was highly fashionable in the 1970s and but has no relevance to the 2010s.
Josh also said:
“Markets down today, but don’t seem ready to take out recent lows, I smell PPT.”
The DJIA got hammered 400 points by a huge HFT spike when the markets opened. Since then the DJIA has drifted around 11,000 with low volume mainly due to the PPT. The PPT will probably try to close the DJIA today at slightly above 11,000 so they’ll have an MSM sound bite. Apparently having that sound bite is important to the PPT (part of their programming?).
As wretchard says, we are looking at a cumulative system failure. Along with many commenters here, I think that obviously the system is failing is because the system is unworkable. The system can’t work because it has been built by the “progressives” – people who deny the very nature of humanity.
Our humanity is literally in our jeans/genes and is nature’s gift. Progressives say our humanity is nature’s curse. Instead of building a system that fits our nature – including be kind to each other and helping each other out – they build a system that attempts to override our genetic gifts. They created a fictional human identity and built a system that caters to their fantasy. Surprisingly their system doesn’t work.
For example, it is basic human nature to be self sustaining and independent. Contrast with the fictional progressive human who is is helpless and must be dependent on handouts. Therefore the progressive system penalizes self sufficiency and rewards dependency. It is basic human nature to build better mouse traps. The progressive system declares war on better mouse traps and forces technological stasis or even regression. Love of adventure and discovery is part of our genetic make-up. Oh no! say the progressives. Fictional human wears helmets to bed. Human nature yearns to be free and fulfilled by seizing opportunities to make it’s own way. The progressive system insists that humans want less freedom and a life of coddled superannuation. The progressive system takes care to destroy all opportunities, except for opportunities to sustain the progressive system itself.
The progressive system that was contrived for fictional humanity is crumbling. Standing in the wings is the system of free markets and free minds that paradoxically created the conditions for its own subversion by progressives.
Perhaps we will go back to that other system and begin the cycle all over again. Take back government;live free – then create the conditions for progressives to subvert and distort the system – system falls down. It’s the Spengler (the dead guy, not the blogger) loop, or something.
Of course, one problem is that progressive genes are also a gift of nature. Mother nature – that fecund broad – is tricksy.
I can’t wait for the first WH insider tell-all book-it’s bound to be brutal. This pres. is so transparently inept and ignorant about the functioning of anything in the real world, as opposed to the world of a community agitator and a government grant shakedown artist. Never, not once has he ever been held responsible for his decisions or the natural consequences thereof. Anyone with a piece of brain lodged in their head has realized this for a long time. The media knows that in order to keep him from destroying the modern Democratic Party, they need to go to any length necessary to shill for him-to keep this nightmare of a human being afloat for these four years. You can bet that the only thing they dread more than a conservative in the WH is having to spend ’12 to ’16 keeping up their charade. They are already running low on ammunition after 2.5 years.
I wish I had a clip of Dear Leader in his first days, delegating some issue to a committee or panel, and then forcefully demanding that “I expect a report on my desk two weeks from today.” I could tell that he was saying this simply because he had seen some depiction of an actual executive giving firm deadlines and having them heeded. Needless to say, I knew that there would be no report, hell, and probably no committe either. This pressing issue which required immediate attention was never mentioned again. I bet that committee is still horselaughing at this bozo’a edict.
Mad Maxine must be out of the memo loop. Pelosi needs to remind her that Obamacare is about “jobs, jobs jobs” and that unemployment benefits and food stamps create jobs. We should pay her no mind as she is just upset that her husband’s bank for which she arranged bail-out funds is losing money like everyone else.
YBR@63: “USA remains the world’s last superpower state. You cannot run a superpower with a *small* government.”
You CAN run a superpower nation with a small FEDERAL government if you allow the states to manage issues more closely related to the populace. If only there was a document that specifically advocated this position and was shown to work effectively….something like a..like a..Constitution or something.
Despite the fact that edging Obama out for Hillary Clinton might be a good “paper” solution for Democrat problems, I don’t think at this date, that there is any way that will happen. The Democratic Party CANNOT be seen as betraying its black base, which is exactly what dumping Obama for Hillary would look like. Black Americans are that party’s most reliable source of votes, and unless that fractures FIRST, and soon, the Democratic leadership is stuck with Obama.
Still, as Wretchard says “[s]ometimes I think the place the Democratic coalition might break is the black community. Why? Because it is where the coalition is acting most contrary to its own basic interests. It’s held to a course by solidarity and group loyalty much more than cold calculation.” I think a serious effort by Republicans to attract Black votes — to help rational people to this break — would pay dividends.
That said, it hasn’t happened yet. I just don’t think there’s a Hillary option for them. Putting Hillary Clinton on the ticket as Vice President is similarly unlikely. Assuming Biden would step aside quietly, which he probably would, there is simply no reason for Mrs. Clinton to become further involved. If Obama loses in 2012, whatever Republican prevails will be facing serious political headwinds by 2016 — there’s simply no way we’re digging out far enough that quickly for the economy not to be weak, and in any case, there’s liable to be ample fodder for Demo challengers. Hillary will have been the responsible and loyal one, who did her duty to the party and the country by serving in Obama’s cabinet without complaint, she’ll have experience — she’ll be perfectly positioned for 2016.
If Obama actually wins; in contrast to 2008, it’s liable to be a negative win in the sense that he is returned because the Republican alternative to him is seen as simply too loopy. The electorate is thinking hard about firing the boss, but the alternative has to be palatable for this to work. Bush was similarly returned in 2004, despite misgivings, because people never decided they liked or trusted John Kerry.
Now an Obama win is less rosy for Hillary, simply because the odds of a change of parties after two terms are so high. Moreover, Republican gains in at least the Senate are likely; and, assuming the House does not change control again, a second Obama term is likely to be worse and more stalemated than even the present situation. A party change at the White House no later than 2016 is likely. Still, this is a better outcome for her than the inner-Party disruption likely if Obama were to be displaced for 2012.
The best situation, from the narrow viewpoint of Hillary Clinton’s ambition, is for Obama to be defeated. But she must not be seen as procuring that event.
Finally, I don’t think a serious primary challenge to Obama by Hillary or anybody else is remotely likely. The Kennedy/Carter example is still remembered — whatever the Left thinks of Obama’s efficacy as their standard bearer, they still see that they have to stay united around him so as not to give conservatives an opening. In that sense, they are better political technicians than Republicans.
The Democratic Party is the only vehicle of Progressivism. Rule or ruin — that’s it for them. They won’t endanger their own prospects by splitting. The Progressives know very well that if Obama goes down and the Republicans get the votes in Congress, it’s curtains for their agenda, probably forever. They’ll do whatever they have to do to win.
The GOP can gain traction in the black community if it targets that community smartly. I like Herman Cain but he is considered deficient for the executive role by many for a number of reasons (some of which I have to agree with). His strength is his record in business. Take a nominee like Perry and add Cain as a VP, then market Cain as the business end of the ticket specifically targeting the least affluent communities. Have a plan on how this would be accomplished, heavy on enabling them to grow themselves and NO entitlements. Heavy on trade schools to rebuild their own communities, teachers to teach their own children, and police to police their own neighborhoods. It could work, IMO.
You CAN run the world’s greatest superpower with a small government.
You may need a large military and a large “international” section of the government but at home you can simply rely on State and Local governments to handle their end. That is what is called Federalism.
But you need a certain attitude at home when dealing with special interest groups. Right now you have one that says “We can put a man on the Moon, win WWII, defend Europe, rule the seas and air and space, so then you can do such and such for me.” Michael Moore even uses this as a justification for Universal Government Provided Health Care: “Of course the goverment can do it! They won WWII didn’t they?”
Of course this kind of reasoning does not follow, but special interest groups do not want to do the long hard slow slog through their local governments and state governments and finally to DC, convincing everyone along the way that they really NEED this and that special favor. They want to go to DC, buy a politican, lobby a bureaucrat and be done with it. I’ve been up there and been lobbied by these people – and had to deal with the results of their successful lobbying efforts. “Go buy the Univ of AK a Solarium with USAF Space Research funds and then shaddup if you want to see any funding for the B-2.”
JMH/49
Googled Montmorency/tea kettle and was taken to Three Men In A Boat, published in 1889. Started reading and now I’m hooked. Delightful read. Many thanks.
Walt
YBR@63: “USA remains the world’s last superpower state. You cannot run a superpower with a *small* government.”
As RWE and Speakeasy have nicely rebutted, this idea is pure rubbish.
Big government, which caters to Big unions and Big Corporations first and foremost, is why we are in this dire fix.
Apart from military obligations and defense, I fail to see the need for a big government at all. Anyone familiar with our big government agencies knows they are extremely inefficient, grossly ineffective, opaque, corrupt and have a grotesque appetite for more and more power. But what good have they accomplished? Their reason for being is largely to feed the victim entitlement, crony union, crony environmentalist, crony bureaucratic, crony capitalist beast. Almost all new “Big Government” programs are designed to benefit only special interests. What good do “We the People” get out of this? I far as I can only taxes and ruin.
Our government in the minds of our founding fathers was supposed to be “close to the people”. The bigger and more distant our government becomes, the less responsive to the democratic informational loop it becomes. Government’s track record speaks for itself. Small cities far outperform Large Cities. Small States far outperform large bureaucratic States. And the larger our Federal bureaucracy gets the worse it performs.
Perry – McCain; very interesting.
But you get a lot more bang for the back with Perry-Rubio, targeting the succesful and growing Hispanic vote.
Make Cain Secretary of the Treasury, Romney Sec of State, and Palin Sec. of the Interior. Petraeus Sec. of Defense. Abolish most of the other cabinet posts.
announce this all at the nominating convention.
hillary is exactly as incompetent as obama, and is no threat in 2012 or any other election. no, obama is going to be taking the entire party down. my sense is they are mortally wounded as a national party.
RE: big government vs small government
My reference point is, of course, 20% GDP (holding spending and revenues roughly in balance, unlike the current 25% and 15%, respectively – anybody care to whip out a calculator and quantify how much of the current deficit is debt service on Bush policies?) It worked just fine for this country (which is not EUrope) for 50 years (including four to five recessions) until the money brokers crashed it. I don’t expect the economy to break out of slow (4% to 6%) growth until we get an energy breakout, or more likely some confluence of energy innovations with synergistic potential (ref the Portland vehicle charging stations being installed), regardless of what Washington does – or does not do. Instead of arguing austerity vs revenues, Washington should focus on passing the needed reform legislation that has already been identified and scaling back the ME operations ASAP.
88. wws
Perry – McCain
Good God No! Perry – Cain, Yes! McCain needs to retire and play golf.
I’m assuming that was an error but I could not let it go for fear someone, anyone, should ever back a McCain Presidency again.
Two quickies.
Walt @ 86: Yes, “Three Men in a Boat” is a fun ride. I would also recommend “Three Men on the Bummel,” by the same author featuring the same three English gents, only this time on a bike tour of Germany. Now mind you, this is pre-WWI Germany, so no hard feelings. The good natured ribbing of the German character is particularly hilarious (at least to this son of Germans).
There is also an excellent BBC adaptation of “TM in a Boat” featuring Tim Curry and Michael Palin that is well worth looking up. It’s delightful. It is up on YouTube, though of course broken into many segments.
Joe D @36: Regarding Mt. Kilimanjaro, the decline of the snow cap is most likely due to massive deforestation changing the moisture patterns (no moisture, no snow). You can read about it here:
http://www.worldclimatereport.com/index.php/2008/07/28/back-to-africa-kilimanjaro-update/
YBR @90
Prior to the first Bailout of 2008, the ratio of American debt to GDP under GW Bush reached roughly 63% from a low just below 60% when he took office. Since the time of the Bailout, which was largely enacted by the Democrats, the spiraling deficits under Obama ( to fiscal 2011) have caused our debt to rise to 103% of GDP, and are spiraling ever higher with no end in sight. See http://advisorperspectives.com/dshort/updates/Debt-Taxes-and-Politics.php?federal-debt-to-gdp-politics-update
Debt burden under similar interest rates would have risen to 163% (fiscal 2011) of what it was in early 2008. However, since early 2009 under the weight of several bailouts, the stimulus and other spending sprees, the Bernack at the Fed has had to resort to sleight of hand games to “fund” our debt. That is to say we haven’t sold sufficient treasuries to fund our debt.
The ability of America to fund it’s deficit because of the wild bailout, stimulus and other Obama payoff/kickback schemes has been severely compromised. While I will not try to defend Bush’s spending ( I was not in favor of many of his decisions), our debt default problem cannot really be attributed to him. Furthermore, since there is no reasonable likelihood at all that Obama will improve our debt or deficit situation, the demand for our treasuries will be further diminished.
It seems to me that Obama’s rapid decline or complete fall corrals black voters even tighter in democrat clutches. See the fear in Waters’ eyes while she asks “permission” from her supporters to give Obama Hell, so that she can slide back into the loving arms of Billary if that is where the party leads. Does anyone think that Billary bristled when all the black folks fled to Barack? Obama’s failure dooms their hopes, their dreams, and with the likes of Jackson and Sharpton, their eventual freedom to “go elsewhere.” We will see.
Maybe many black folks will come to their senses and catch the coat tails of the likes of an Allen West or a Herman Cain – their best true route out of the wilderness. He will want them to work for their dinner, however, and put them into a much better place in the greater scheme of things.
The difference between 5% and 10% unemployment is an increase of only 5%, but it doubles the drag and halves the power-to-weight ratio.
Due to population growth, the stick starts shaking at 2% Growth, not zero Growth. At zero, it’s a full stall and spinning-in.
At negative growth, that is less than zero, the power has come back up to speed the nose dive to ground.
Depending on structure and altitude, the wings may come off fairly early in the power dive, after which though you’re still alive abnd airborne, there is no more lift remotely possible.
slaves.
well, here it is.
time has arrived in anthropology land for the slaves to do whatever it is karma requires them to do.
they are flash mobbing, cuz they need to eat.
the new deal is dead.
africa has no place.
one of the cides is all they got.
suicide, fratricide or murder and mayhem is it for them.
Unsk@93:
(Repeated from Throw of the Dice thread)
Origins of Current Budget Deficit:
…………..
Total amount added to deficit (including debt service) over 2009-2019 (trillions of dollars):
Bush Tax Cuts: $5.1
Recession: $3.0
Iraq/Afghanistan Wars: $1.7
Stimulus Package: $1.1
Medicare Part D: $0.88 (est.)
Financial Rescue (TARP, F/F): $0.25
…………
We will have to agree to disagree on this subject although I will add that I am not defending Obama or his administration so much as acknowledging the gravity of the situation, which has numerous fault lines back through the history of Washington administrations, primarily Clinton and GWB, with a Fed fully committed to Efficient Market Hypothesis, and the Wall St investment houses committed to activities that would put the rest of us in jail. As I have said before, I do not believe GWB had any clue about the financial tsunami that engulfed the last days of his presidency, but his preference for delegating authority served him and the country poorly during a period of history when leadership and vision could have steered a very different course. All of which is to say, my critique is aimed at the Washington professionals more than at the individual presidents, although neither have demonstrated any particular talent for executing defensible policy at the level now required to course correct.
YBR, Estimating future deficits is a fool’s errand.
•That said, you give yourself away when you count the Bush Tax cuts. That’s static accounting. Total revenue is way down to 14.6% GDP – just under 4% GDP below post WW II average, and you want to raise taxes in the face of that? Or even count those taxes as a given? That’s the insane kind of BS has driven deficits through the roof the past several decades.
• You think the Recession costs $3 Trill.? Off the top of my head, already in lost revenue we’re at roughly $1.8T, plus unemployment insurance several hundred billion more. And we aren’t even close to returning to normal for the foreseeable future.
• The locked in increased spending from the Stimulus and other Obama payoffs could be as high as $500 B a year.
• Your Financial rescue costs don’t include the outright gifts of buying over a trillion and counting in worthless MBS, and don’t count the real cost of the Fed’s ZIRP policy. Only a Fed audit will reveal the true cost of the rescue. Fannie and Freddie are an ongoing headache worth probably more than your $250 B alone. And who is going to pay for the AIG liabilities owed Eurobanks when the Euro dies?
• You also didn’t account for Obamacare. Almost all truly non-partisan knowledgeable experts think the cost will run in the trillions – ramping up hard in 2014.
Obama has spent way,way more than Bush and is driving us up into a debt trap, a problem we did not face in 2008.
I will grant you that Bush didn’t have a clue about the financial tsunami of ’08, and clearly wasn’t minding the store from 2005 on. Not only that, he let the frauds and con men of Wall Street run wild with almost no supervision and no prosecution for their crimes.
Total amount added to deficit (including debt service) over 2009-2019 (trillions of dollars):
Bush Tax Cuts: $5.1
Scored dynamic or static? If we taxed everybody at 100% last year, that would have raised a few extra trillion to make up for the Bush Tax Cuts That Destroyed Every Living Thing.
RE: static vs dynamic scoring
Dynamic scoring is not a slam dunk. The experts weigh in:
Alan Auerbach
University of California, Berkeley
It is vital that we are diligent when distinguishing scoring from forecasting. Scoring is a direct input of the legislative process and is much more challenging, both because it must be done for every proposal and because there must be a singular numerical result. We must also carefully distinguish between the three approaches to scoring. Static-scoring methods necessarily exclude all forms of behavioral response. Micro responses are defined by a fixed baseline, that is, their assumption of fixed macro-level variables. Macro responses or dynamic-scoring methods allow for movements of this baseline.
We know that policies have macro-effects and that we can, theoretically, predict these effects. The strongest and most obvious case for macro-level response is this greater breadth of information they should theoretically provide. Moreover, micro responses may bias policymakers against tax cuts. Macro responses are, however, subject to judgment and assumptions, and they require an impractical integration of scoring and baseline estimation. Models currently used to estimate the baseline are simply not capable of providing enough detail.
Rudolph Penner
Urban Institute
In order for dynamic scoring to be practically applicable, economists must be able to generate a single figure for the purpose of gauging congressional success at reaching some quantitative target. We are far from reaching this goal and, furthermore, attempting to do so will require a tremendous amount of intellectual effort. Before economists devote their time to such an undertaking, they should decide if it is worth such an effort. They should be aware that Congress pays little attention to analytical results and has little patience for changes in the baseline. It is especially vital that we put this issue in perspective. Economic forecasts have become far less accurate than they were a decade ago-to the point of crisis. It is more important that we focus our energy on the problems associated with our current models than devote valuable intellectual resources to what is, in reality, but a marginal improvement over current methods.
……………….
Modeling Behavioral Economics kind of reminds me of buddy larsens’s line: “the mob voice summoning a customized demon.”
So if I read that correctly, because we can’t guarantee dynamic scoring to 3 decimal places, we’re better off resting in the warm bosom of static scoring, where we can sleep secure in the knowledge that it is always wrong, and often catastrophically so.
Total amount added to deficit (including debt service) over 2009-2019 (trillions of dollars):
Bush Tax Cuts: $5.1 .. – YBR
Oh my gosh, what a bunch of liberal clap-trap. How in the world can any honest man state those figures, list a TAX CUT as a cause of the deficit, without addressing the massive, uncontrolled, automatically-indexed-above-inflation DEMOCRAT CONTROLLED F**KING SPENDING!
The list of deficit causes you quoted accepts the progressive assumptions at face value, that anything less than about a 60% tax rate is essentially MONEY SPENT because it was not collected, and therefore contributes to the deficits. It’s also nutty economic static analysis, which assumes (as Lib-tards always do) that American behavior will remain unchanged, and those taxes would even be collected. If Bush’s “tax cuts” were not enacted, we’d have had this Depression 10 years early.
I have news for you, and I’m far from alone among American Citizens. The liberals and their failed policies can GO TO HELL. The DEMOCRATS ALONE have spent this nation into ruin. The GOP spenders, even guys like Stevens from Alaska, are pikers by comparison. The GOP did not build this system, the FDR-PROGRESSIVE-SOCIALISTS did.
I’ll list the real causes of the current deficit:
* 60 years of LIBERAL DEMOCRAT SOCIALIST POLICIES: $5 TRILLION
* 5 years of OBAMA’s MARXIST SOCIALST POLICIES: $8 TRILLION
* GOP RINO’s: $1 TRILLION
I’m so tired of this crap, that I’m going to start writing $5,000 and $10,000 checks to politicians and political groups this fall, retirement be damned (which it actually is).
Who says Wretchard’s board isn’t diverse.
LOL@YBR – what a nut. “Listen to the experts” @ Berkeley? What a riot! Those DAMNED PROGRESSIVE INTELLECTUALS HAVE RUINED THIS COUNTRY. I can’t wait until we cut the civil service and University payrolls by 50%, and real life hits these folks squarely between the eyes. Take the civil service pension funds at par, convert them to 401K’s, and then set em all adrift to fend for themselves. Presto: We cut long term civil service pension obligations by $Trillions.
One of my all-time favorite books. Amazing how fresh it seems, being written so long ago. And that tea kettle was full of pluck…
os/102; GREAT rant, man. does some good, too. All due respect to ybr’s attempt to be evenhanded and consensual, look at what happened after a flame-rant by CNBC token non-mafia non-commie, Rick Sentelli –he blew up on live TV over the admin’s utter ignoring re the early mortgage bailouts of the fundamental principle of moral hazard (”no controlling authority” makes it illegal? So, to hell with it, Obama can make a speech and it’ll meekly get back in Pandora’s Box and close the lid behind it?), the pure truth rant electrified millions of proto Tea partyists and got them to pick up the phone and start forming up.
2009@101: we can’t guarantee dynamic scoring to 3 decimal places, we’re better off resting in the warm bosom of static scoring
At issue is the hot hip new field of Behavioral Economics, one objective of which is to codify human behavior within an economic context. If one disputes the authority/integrity of global warming simulation models, one might want to reconsider an overly warm embrace of the dynamic models that create “fluctuating” (as oppose to static) baselines that presumably model a behavioral response to economic policy. Yikes. Look at the level of contentiousness that surrounds the simple use of multipliers.
Although the static vs dynamic issue deserves academic attention, the study in question presents an “outline” that deserves attention from voters.
Unsk@98: Estimating future deficits is a fool’s errand.
That’s why we have think tanks. You will note that the CBPP study was commissioned in response to work produced by the Heritage Foundation.
I’ll respond to one of your quantitative rebuttals below.
The locked in increased spending from the Stimulus and other Obama payoffs could be as high as $500 B a year.
From the CBPP study: By our reckoning, the combination of ARRA and these other measures account for $1.1 trillion in deficits over the 2009-2019 period (including the associated debt service). Their effects are highly concentrated in 2009 through 2011 and fade thereafter, delivering a boost to the economy during its most vulnerable period.
My view is that you are a knowledgeable poster but in this instance you’re provided no definitive cites to support the numerical assertions, as I did (and some of your critiques are definitional which lends credence to the “fool’s errand” gambit – that’s why it’s called The Dismal Science.) So I’m willing to let sleeping numbers lie (although I agree with the general outline.)
Were the events of Sept 15, 2008 engineered to influence the American elections? Good question. One thing that is certain is that any administration that “inherited” the fall-out was going to stumble in similar directions and ways. TARP and the bank bailout were passed under GWB, leaving for the next administration the sour taste of “stimulus” to help Main St. McCain, Obama or The Unsinkable Molly Brown – wouldn’t have made any difference.
OS@102: Who says Wretchard’s board isn’t diverse.
I do.
As we learned from the S&L crisis of 1982, the corporate failures of Enron, WorldCom, et al, and the financial collapse of 2008, the private sector is no more immune to operational failures than the public sector. As everyone on this board knows, recent polls put Congressional approval in the mid-teens, with Obama’s approval at 39% and dropping to low twenties. The numbers strongly suggest that Americans of all stripes are disgusted, not necessarily with government, but with *this* government – *this* including GWB, primarily for his failed ME policies, and Obama for failing to reverse the economic tides.
Both political parties are reconstituting themselves, in incremental yet ultimately productive ways. Compromising the challenge of rehabilitating Washington by deepening the ideological divides is a poor long-term strategy for rebuilding the country.
bl@104: RE Santelli and ranting
Santelli is a talented and impressive guy. But he’s wrong about taxes.
On the subject of ranting, I understand your position, but you’re wrong. (I joke.) I respond to the subject because it relates to Obama and perception. Although it’s more complicated, dealing with anger is a matter of personal style, with heavy pushes from the psychological and cognitive profiles of the individual. Catharsis is fleeting but the world is still geared towards the inevitability of despair and defeat. So the search for renewal introduces all sorts of unexpected people and events, Obama being just one example.
My impression is that his detractors object to his style as much as his substance, personal and professional as a policy-maker. The Howard Dean-like metrosexual with different tastes in music and sports is a far cry from the Texas aesthetic represented by GWB and Rick Perry. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that style is unimportant, but my view is that middle America isn’t going there. That broad swath of the country doesn’t much care if Obama hip hops or puts, but they do care about money and opportunity.
Which brings me to the 2012 elections. I think the race goes to Obama. I’m not seeing a Republican break-out candidate – even on this board – about as tight and closely knit as it gets (I was going to say small incestuous community which is how my professional field is described but I don’t think anybody is in a laughing mood) – even on this board the divisions run deep (maybe medium deep.) I am guessing that the lurkers, who vastly outnumber the posters, sit more in the middle, somewhere in the vicinity of the positions I have articulated. This bodes not at all well for the Republican slate which cannot win with a radical label pinned to its forehead. (I see some here have already noticed that and are trying to counter punch which is smart tactical rebuttal.) Religious and social issues will continue to splinter off the centrists and the independents. And there it is. Unless the Republican Party can deal with that, I don’t see a presidential win.
ybr, it’s only a ‘good question’ if you ignore tyhe arc of the personal stories of the handful of characters you will arrive at, if you start at the end of the Panic of Oh Eight and play the whole sequence in reverse. Someday i’ll prepare for your edification a ”twenty questions” approach.
That’s not necessary, buddy. I know the general outline. I meant it was appropriate to ask the question, as I think you well know.
I was opining that –well, once you’ve crossed the River Styx and find yourself in the heart of darkness surrounded by gibbering demons, it may be inappropriate to be appropriate about the asking of the question ‘is, or isn’t, there a Hell?’
But you’re right –i was being snotty, and i apologize. It’s the equanimity thing –i have some sort of bug in my drawers sometimes. I keep wondering if it would be appropriate if ‘due process’ included lynching-by-acclamation as a low-cost preventative for clogged courts working harder and harder on the smaller and smaller of the defining of the endless degrees of arc within circles-within-circles.
In my fever vision, sometimes Lady Justice drops her scales, rips off her blindfold, and throws up.
bl: It’s OK, but I agree that time’s a ‘wasting, if it hasn’t already left the station, as many here believe.
Just one final and fast point – listened to a money manager today say that the EU needs not just a monetary union but some sort of fiscal union infrastructure in order to function as a proper market. Made sense to me. Another analyst said that the even more immediate problems cannot be solved with several days of “meet and talk” but several weeks to months of negotiations – so whatever the markets are saying about the EU stalemate, they should, well, chill. Made sense to me. And yet a third analyst referenced the absence of “adults” in the negotiating rooms – both in EU and USA. Agreed with that one too.
In addition to the corruption and duplicity and intent leading in, in addition to the continued maneuvering by the ‘shadow players,’ there is a third problem flying a little low under the radar screen and that is the institutional and human inadequacy of the legitimate western world – call it the sovereign structure – for conflict resolution and decision-making. The EU watchers have already noticed the difficulty, bordering on impossibility, of a group of 17 finance ministers to reach any form of consensus – a plan with practical objectives for debt, growth, and market calming. The USA watchers have already commented about the “Super Congress” and what that means for American style government.
One has to respect the hierarchy: in the absence of bread, justice is little more than a glimmer in the eye of some would-be philosopher. Getting problem-solving practical decision-makers into these rooms is critical to moving along. The good news is that USA is better positioned, I think, to pull out a Plan, for the simple reason that we have a pretty workable financial and governmental infrastructure – what is lacking is the human resource, which can be changed. The EU is struggling with an artificial financial – and to a degree, governmental – structure that will take a much longer time to re-engineer into something more workable. Their path ahead is much rockier.
ybr, Urkel and Merkel should be summiting –but i think maybe she considers US leadership more trouble than it is worth, of late.
I expect it’s mutual, buddy.
Here’s a sarah palin campaign video. looks like she’s going to announce on sept 3
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqaE4sXZWRQ&feature=player_detailpage
That Obama ‘inherited a recession’ is only the half of the story. One can inherit something either by the owner dying of natural causes or by the owner seeing what was coming up the road and deciding to go ahead and hang himself and get it over with.
bl: That Obama ‘inherited a recession’ is only the half of the story.
Agreed (while noting the conveniently weak Republican candidate), but, imo, there is not much a president – or even Congress – can do to materially influence a business cycle, not that the 2008 event was a simple business cycle, but just staying with the point, the most Washington can do (outside of the long-term tax and regulatory reforms etc which will take several Congressional sessions if it is even possible which is a bigger subject) is set a tone and a vision. I actually think that is exactly what Obama tried to do during the debt ceiling debacle, I mean debate, which backfired badly and to his detriment. Will Palin or Bachmann (looks like Perry is out – left at the alter) provide the tone and/or the vision?
I remember Christine Todd Whitman getting so much public credit for balancing NJ’s budget. What nobody talked about was that she did so by moving the state’s pension plans into riskier investment classes. So Mr/Ms Popularity gets elected and does what with a sticky situation? Watch the hands. And pay close attention to who gets the nod for handler(s).
Charles@115: looks like she’s going to announce on sept 3
The space aliens will be pleased.
ybr/117, re Whitman & NJ, one could extend the critique to the entire western economic system, in which risk was being suppressed (i think, both deliberately, but also unconsciously, subconsciously, psychologically) by western political leaders faced with such as this and seeking amped-up growth as the ‘only way out’.
Of course, had something different been tried –even at the at the late date of the video, sooner the better but better late than never –the chance of a far better outcome than what is now in store would have zoomed into infinity.
So, your pox on both parties will need an asterisk, and not a clean crisp fair one like on Roger Maris, but a smudged, smeared, dirty one, like the one on that steroid guy with the red hair.