One person who might provoke me to throw a brick through my television set is former Bush Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson. Nonetheless, I agree with him here:
Republicans stand at a crossroads. With Donald Trump as the presumptive presidential nominee, we are witnessing a populist hijacking of one of the United States’ great political parties. The GOP, in putting Trump at the top of the ticket, is endorsing a brand of populism rooted in ignorance, prejudice, fear and isolationism. This troubles me deeply as a Republican, but it troubles me even more as an American. Enough is enough. It’s time to put country before party and say it together: Never Trump.
Of course, other than the isolationism, the party Paulson describes is the same one in which he served. I’d call it a lot of things, but I wouldn’t call it ‘great.’
You can trace a start of the GOP descent into unreason with the financial crisis. It is worth remembering there were more no GOP votes against TARP than Democratic ones.
TARP was a product of the Great Depression: you don’t let a financial crisis spread. The implementation of TARP was awful, and the failure to hold those accountable was inexhaustible.
But a vote against TARP was far worse than a vote for BREXIT.
I suspect there is a little score settling by Paulson here.
TARP was the crowning achievement of neoliberalism. The people were screwed and the 0.01% saved. The banks should have been broken and the depositors paid off up to (NOT beyond) the FDIC limit. Then Glass-steagal should have been re-implemented.
Listening to bankers or VC investors (in interviews, or when they appear before a congressional subcomittee or write self-pitying editorials) is incredible.
They really have internalized a Rube-Goldberg mechanism of sophistry wherein the health of the entire economy is directly dependent on them personally skimming billions from every business. They think that the economy will fall apart if they’re not personally enriched — they talk about “stockholder value” but even that turns out to be a euphemism for themselves. They think the purpose of all labor and commerce, everywhere, is to make bankers and investors wealthy.
I’ve been wondering how relevant that might be to their reaction to Brexit. Is it really the end of the world, or maybe more the beginning of then end of the world as they know it?
Tip of the hat to Bob, down thread, who posted a link that partly addresses my question:
https:/www.rt.com/business-projects/348345-richest-people-losses-brexit
I disagree. The one percenters may have been saved, but so were a bunch of other folks whose retirement assets were invested in the institutions that were saved. As a one had recently retired after 30 years working in the back office of national financial services firm, I’d seen first hand several financial crises and none of them approached what we were witnessing that September weekend in 2008. Tarp and Paulson, with the support of Democrats like Pelosi and Barney Frank,along with Bernanke and the Fed, saved the American economy from sinking to Depression era levels.
We can all complain that those who benefited most but who were also responsible as a result of their insatiable greed, should have been punished. Certainly they could have been grateful and eschewed the arrogance. They weren’t, but I am still confident that these measures did what they were supposed to do.
Bullshit! It saved the banks and their executives. It did nothing for the real economy except cause a chain of bankruptcies and foreclosures.
So, what were you doing during the 2008 and 2009 period that gives you such insight? I can tell you for sure that saving the banking system saved my retirement assets. I didn’t retire with a golden parachute either. I can assure you that by every account I read that by saving the Auto Industry saved hundreds of thousands of job. I can tell you that driving down the road in this rural red state gave evidence to the existence of some “Rebuilding America” projects. It wasn’t enough, but it accomplished lots. It was not perfect, but there was no way that it could have been given the political climate. It’s failures stem from the fact that it didn’t go far enough.
I remember so clearly comments made by many of those Republican voting citizens living in the world I inhabit. They were against any and all bailouts. This one person was a civil service employee at the nearby Air Force base, where she and her husband, both natives of the Midwest and raised around union jobs, opined that she was opposed to helping GM and the autoworkers. This is the level of thinking. You can say that TARP was a massive failure, but it most assuredly was not. It didn’t go far enough, but it did save the banking system, thereby saving All OF US
Here’s something I found worthwhile reading:
http://harvardpolitics.com/arusa/the-bank-bailout-in-perspective/
My personal observations about the comments here of late is that a great majority of them reside in a black and white cynical world. The world is gray and there can be good in actions and people whom we reflexively revile. The increasing inability to acknowledge that truism is making the reading of the comments a most unrewarding experience. It used to be a learning one.
The contra argument…http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2012/08/top-economists-iceland-did-it-right-everyone-else-is-doing-it
-wrong.html
Curious, many, many retirees have lost their pensions through vampiric hedge fund machinations in private industry. The under-reported irony is that PUBLIC pension funds are complicit in giving power to the hedgies though their heavy investment at one time. They are supposedly getting out of that business now.
There isn’t a Keynesian economist alive who didn’t think TARP was necessary.
In your usage I don’t really know what neo-liberalism means.
The Stimulus, yes. The bank bailouts? some debate on just how that was done. And QE??? Making private debt public? Tarp was only part of it. (http://whatifpost.com/tarp-vs-the-stimulus.htm)
As I recall TARP was only the beginning. The Fed supported the insolvent banks, AIG, investment banks, even foreign banks to the tune of $16 T. (one estimate was $24 T.) Heavens only knows what would otherwise have happened. They ( the administration) did indeed miss a chance to bust up the five largest banks and put some of those executives and those in the mortgage industry in jail.
The AIG “insolvency” was a backdoor way to shove a couple hundred million to the banks and have AIG pick up the tab because over time their operating units were solid enough that they could.
It’s true that we don’t know how it would have worked out for AIG without the federal loans. Those credit default swaps that hobbled AIG had surfaced a year earlier, 2007, and took down bond guarantee companies. MBIA survived through bankruptcy and the NY State Ins. commissioner was involved in settling all those claims with the payout being a small fraction of the face value of the swaps. The AIG payouts ranged all the way up to 100% of face value.
Should state that AIG has no excuse for having guaranteed those swaps. It’s illegal under NY law for multi-line insurers to cover such risks. That’s not an obscure regulation and it explains why AIG was the only insurance company that got caught up in the great default swap mess.
TARP was used to bailout GM.
And it made money.
We now Know GDP contracted far more than was understood at the time. Even some of the estimates by Stiglitz dramatically underestimated the size of the stimulus needed.
As bad as people thought they were – it was actaully worse.
Opposing TARP was like joining the economic flat earth society.
A smart comment in retrospect…”What if the TARP money that was handed to the big banks had included a requirement that those banks use it to fund the business, commercial and construction loans that were already on the bank’s books? This would likely have led to fewer jobs lost, fewer businesses going under, and fewer mortgages foreclosed. Instead, banks like NCB, bought with TARP funds by PNC, managed their loans by using “at will” or “on demand” clauses to destroy good projects by simply calling the loans, putting hundreds of workers out of work, destroying businesses, and damaging smaller banks who had made loans to multiple tiers of businesses and individuals doing related work on the projects funded by those big loans.
Too late for many, the WH is just beginning to recognize that, in order for the job market to improve, small businesses need loans to run their operations. What if our leaders stopped the rhetoric and took the time to consider the whole picture, to consider the intended and unintended consequences of their acts.”
There were two problems:
I think it is fair to say Bernanke didn’t appreciate this. The basic thing I have learned since all of this is how bad it all really was – way worse than we suspected. Hell GE was calling the Treasury and saying they might have problems making payroll in 6 months.
You can say we didn’t have a second Great Depression because we learned from the first, and there is a lot to say.
The next time this happens we need to be much tougher with the banks and the leaders of those institutions.
I will get killed for saying this – but history will regard the Bush Administration response from October of 2008 as enlightened. To be sure, they created the mess to begin with. But their response was consistent with the lessons learned from ’29: don’t let banks fail, loosen and not tighten the money supply, bailout key economic institutions (GM).
And the hard right will never forgive Bush for it.
Not letting the world economy crash and burn was better than givin’ to all them neoliberals out of spite and principle?
You must be a neoliberal, and of course, a neocon.
Why do you hate America? Why are you a Hitlery supporter?
We still have not come to terms with the failure of any policies to restore health to Main Street. A decade of stagnation in THAT economy is horrible management. But we are patting ourselves on the back.
Wqge stagnation resulting form globalization and automation preceded the financial crisis. That stagnation for the most part continues and prevented a robust recovery.
The gig economy.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/louisefron/2014/08/20/tackling-the-real-unemployment-rate-12-6/#dd370541
e12f
Never forget…
In the midst of the greatest economic downturn since the Great Depression, one political party chose – JANUARY 20, 2009
to commit ECONOMIC TREASON against this country.
Ah, yes,
http://www.unitevoters.com/callittreason.htm
Yeah, but, like, there were some Democratic politicians who said they wouldn’t vote for, like, the public option, so both parties are entirely corrupt and we should all stay home in November.
To show that big bad old meanie Democratic party who’s boss.
Also: Hitlery.
This is what Paulson finds particularly appalling about Trump? Assuming Trump is actually telling us the truth about what he’d do as president (not very likely, I admit) this is what I call “a stopped clock being right twice a day”.
No matter what, they always have their heads screwed on backwards.
“Austerity”; cutting “entitlements” (which is a clever piece of linguistic trickery, as I’ve remarked many times: the word literally means “what you’re entitled to” but the way they use it, the meaning shifts to feelings of “entitlement,” meaning, undeserved-yet-wanted special treatment of spoiled people); defense spending; keeping the economy out of the hands of liberals who “ruin it” (despite a century of overwhelming contrary evidence); “law and order”; “family values”…
The same litany of bullshit code-language has been baked into the conservative mind so completely that even when they’re trying to think clearly and get out of the boxes they’re trapped in, they can’t.
It’s like Steve Martin’s joke at the Oscars, introducing the sexy Brazilian actor: “I would do anything to look like him…except, of course, eating right and exercising regularly.” When you’ve got your head screwed on backwards so that the obvious solutions are unavailable, you can’t solve problems even if you want to.
That’s all true enough (as is your second comment in this thread), but who is hanging with people like this? (People that very likely were privy what HRC’s said in those private tete-a-tetes.
I’m too lazy to find the links, but Trump had that “epic” meeting with Paul Ryan a few weeks back wherein Ryan – admittedly somewhat reluctantly – endorsed Herr Trump and made some make-nice noises about him. There are links out there where one can read that Trump’s “deal” with Ryan was to assure Ryan that he, Trump, was ready, willing and eager to cut and gut Social Security & Medicare. Trump is rumored to have told Ryan: pay no attention to what I say to the idiots out there on the campaign trail about “saving” SS & Medicare… that’s Just. To. Get. Their. Votes.
Paulson knows this, too, which is why this is doubly disingenuous from that parasitic spooge bucket.
Always going after Main Street’s earnings. ALWAYS.
Bastards. Their greed is disgusting.
But Paulson’s heard with his own ears what HRC really hopes to accomplish wrt entitlements and he can better trust that than whatever Trump may or may not have said in private with Ryan.
Oh yeah. Probably that’s true. No argument. Plus I’ve also said all along that my personal opinion (which is worthless) is that the Never Trump Elites, like Paulson, are just pissed off bc Trump is horning in on their grift. Trump will, first & foremost, make sure that HE gets the king’s ransom. That’s what worries Paulson. Hillary is Paulson & Kissinger’s poodle. Hillary will get hers, but her puppet masters will ensure that they get THEIRs first. With Trump? Less of sure bet.
Sure he’s horning in on their grift. And what does that say about the millions of supporters that see Trump as some kind of savior?
Consider that he endorses Clinton. What does that tell you? Consider that Obama twice that we know of tried to cut these in a “Grand Bargain” what does that tell you?
That you have to pull a lever for (D) in November like a zombie? Yeah, right!
He seems nice.
Increasing WAGES would solve entitlement problems. They suffer from 30 yrs of underpayment.
Debt deflation is our problem, not entitlements. Debt servicing further reduces the amount of discretionary spending for the 99% and enriches the 1% of asset holders.
See my comments above (not that they’re anything special; I’m just doggedly reiterating the same points we all repeatedly make here and elsewhere).
No matter what, these people will always believe that “the economy” (which, for them, always means the stock market; they can’t see any other economy) thrives if and only if we cut spending (except military spending), deregulate, and cut taxes (especially for the rich).
They will believe this no matter how much damage it does; no matter how many of their own constituents’ lives are destroyed; no matter how much overwhelming evidence that these policies not only don’t work but fail catastrophically.
There is no way to make them not believe it.
Yes, they do believe that. They are true captains of industry and it follows that they, not the government or some dead guy named Keynes, are the ones who control the economy. So get out of the way and let them do it. If they fuck it up, then come bail them out and give it,back to,them.
SEE Lofgren’s new book, Deep State
Yeah — nice guys like Kissinger and Paulson (and Peterson, etc.) are exactly the type of important people that HRC supporters prize for their team. Without any appreciation (awareness, knowledge) that it puts their team to the right of Richard Nixon.
No, we tolerate them because they’re part of the package.
We know exactly what they are and hate it, but we understand the realities of the day and the futility of magical thinking about hypothetical other candidates and governments that can’t possibly exist in this day and age. Yes, I know the public likes Warren and Sanders, and I think it’s wonderful; it’s an incredibly hopeful development (both in terms of the public dialog and in terms of actual policy). But we’re still some distance away from anyone like that topping a national ticket — the systemic resistance is still too strong. I don’t know how much more concrete evidence of this anyone could possibly want, in the wake of the 2016 primaries.
Really? Seems to me that a good definition of magical thinking is “tolerating them because they are a part of the package” and expecting that they won’t have any power and that your leader doesn’t share their worldview and political economy orientation.
Sound like the sort of stinkin thinkin back in ’72 when GOP voters claimed that it was fine for Nixon to hang out with crooks and racists because he wasn’t like that and wouldn’t be influenced by them.
Doesn’t seem to me that your understanding of “the realities …” is all that astute.
I never said she’s not heavily under their influence or that they won’t directly affect how she governs or that she doesn’t “share their worldview and political economy orientation” — you made that up. Of course it’s bad! All of that is God-awful.
But I can’t see any way it can be changed or fixed. The magical thinking I’m referring to is the part where we stop supporting her (meaning, not just genuinely advocating a Clinton presidency, as I am, but also evangelizing or even actively campaigning for her) or decide we “can’t” vote for her because of these shortcomings.
What are we supposed to do? Vote for Trump? Vote for Sanders? Not vote? Disregard every good result of her winning because of the bad results? You tell me what you think we should do.
(And, if it’s “have a discussion about what’s wrong with her,” fine with me — but that’s not what you’re doing. You’re constantly interjecting “the bad news” as if we don’t already know it, don’t believe it, or don’t care…none of which are true.)
Are you honest when you advocate for her? State that she and her associates are dreadful, nothing good will come from her presidency, but none of that can possibly be as bad as the opposition. Or do you pull out a bunch of misleading propaganda type arguments?
I’ve been rolling my eyes about Trump for three decades since a good friend told me that he was reading “Art of the Deal.” (Okay this friend is a Tory, but he’s a good guy and not irrational, and I understand that his politics is a family legacy which is why we mostly avoided the topic. However, he was also respectful of my leftie views and never subjected me to the sort of bullying and mocking that I’ve experienced here over the past year from HRC folks.) I don’t need to lie or distort anything I say about Trump to communicate my opinion of him. But I see no reason to lie or distort anything or anyone to persuade others to share my opinions. I respect others to make their own decisions and only ask that they give me the opportunity to speak honestly and authentically.
At the professional level, I can say that I have some (not much) respect for HRC. That’s often enough when I have no respect for her competitor. OTOH, I don’t want to wake up four years from now to see the fruition of the grand bargain, TPP, a bombed out Tehran, renewed Cold War with hot spots, and more income/wealth inequality (from more of the same contributing factors). When I could have had incompetent buffoon strutting around but getting nothing done for four years. These neoliberal corporate globalists from Thatcher on have been very bad for the people. (Not including Nixon in that because his agenda didn’t include destroying the New Deal; he was merely a corporate globalist and preferred covert military actions in accordance with his time when the public wasn’t up for more overt military engagements.)
Her moves on FP staffing and positioning are giving me heartburn.
“OTOH, I don’t want to wake up four years from now to see the fruition of the grand bargain, TPP, a bombed out Tehran, renewed Cold War with hot spots, and more income/wealth inequality (from more of the same contributing factors). When I could have had incompetent buffoon strutting around but getting nothing done for four years.”
Yes, as a matter of fact, I do exactly that.
It’s usually not difficult because the person I’m attempting to sway is usually a Republican (who’s been conditioned by decades of targeted propaganda into “hating” Clinton in a very cursory way); in those cases I just say, “Come on; she’s practically one of yours! Pro banks; pro war…just imagine there’s an ‘R’ next to her name!”
When talking to progressives who are going to stay home or write in Sanders’ name…well, I don’t usually encounter such people, but when I do, I just make the same argument I’m making here.
Despite what you’re insinuating, there’s nothing dishonest or delusional about my Clinton support — I’ve explained this clearly but you seem to be having trouble with it. I genuinely want her to win. Is a Clinton Presidency worse than hundreds of imaginary, better scenarios we can invent in our minds? Of course. But on this planet, right now, she must win. I see no other reasonable solution.
Heh! I’m gonna try that line on my brother in law. – come on, she’s practically one of yours. But it won’t work. He positively hates her, Obama and me for being on the left.
You could draw him a left/right continuum and fill-in place names on point on that scale.
On taxation/domestic economic policy:
(left) LBJ/McGovern/HHH –(left center) Ike — (center) Nixon/Ford/Carter — (right) Reagan/Bush/WJC/GWB/Obama — (far right) Cruz/Johnson
all mixed up: Trump.
The ACA, Dodd/Frank, tax increases on the top marginal income rate, the Lilly Ledbetter Act, a proactive Labor Department and NLRB, the largest fiscal stimulus in the history of the United States, overseeing an FCC which classified the Internet as a utility, raising wages for workers under Federal contract, multiple long-term extensions of unemployment and other social insurance programs, and attempts to pass immigration reform thru Congress and execute an aggressive Executive order financially empowering millions of immigrants; all this, while fighting the most obstructionist opposition party of our lifetimes, place Obama on the right.
Sounds legit.
Oh, and get a load of this assessment:
all mixed up: Trump.
Reality calls:
http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/2016/05/17/Experts-Weigh-Donald-Trump-s-Tax-Plan-and-Find-It-Wanting
http://www.crfb.org/papers/adding-donald-trumps-campaign-proposals-so-far/
http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2016/05/12/trump_advisor_says_he_might_social_security_and_medic
are.html
If he were to become President, Trump would execute domestic policies which would enrich him, give him more power, and create a completely unsustainable Federal debt. He doesn’t represent a path for reducing economic inequality or providing social justice. His campaign proposals move around depending on who he spoke with in the last hour, but he’s not all mixed up about who would benefit from his Presidency and who would not.
Without a viable option to replace them, even his opposition to trade deals would likely hurt more Ameicans than help them.
Well, I’m 65, Jordan. Don’t know how old you are, but I only have a few years left and the Dems’ swing to the right looks pretty permanent to me. What used to be the DLC now controls the DNC. If Hillary is president you will, I hope, defend her triangulations, her handouts to the wealthy and her endless wars, because I don’t want to hear any Clinton supporter say, “Gee, I didn’t know she and her hubby received billions from the .1%.” Or, “Gee, I didn’t know that she’d get us into a shooting war with Russia.” Or, “Gee, I thought she’d protect social security.” Or, “Gee, I thought she’d improve Obamacare.”
I can see that the only reasonable solution for you is Hillary. And, quite honestly, the fix was in from the beginning, and she really has been selected by the elite. Because she is a Democrat, I see her destroying what remains of the Left in the US. I see more suffering for working class people.
I hope you show up here in a year or so and tell me how I was wrong about her. No matter, she will be the next president, so let’s hope I’m wrong and you’re right.
Respectfully, you are not paying any attention to what I’m saying.
I am not “defending” her. There will not be a moment when I suddenly realize I was “wrong” about her, because I have absolutely no illusions about what she’ll do.
You say you “can see that the only reasonable solution for [me] is Hillary.” What, exactly, are you advising I do? (Same question I asked Marie3.)
Support Trump? Write in Sanders? Stay home? Why would I do any of these things? There are two people who could be inaugurated next January; I prefer one to the other (by a wide margin); so do you. What other factors are there? I truly don’t understand what you’re advocating.
(As I said to Marie3, if it’s a conversation, then fine; let’s have that conversation. But you’re apparently interested in dissuading me from supporting her or voting for her, evidently because I need to be educated about what she’s “really” going to do; this is not necessary, as I keep trying to get across.)
I live in Oregon and the state will go for Clinton. There is no danger that she’ll lose here on account of me not voting for her. Maybe you live in a state where it matters, but it doesn’t matter here. So I can actually vote for Jill Stein, or someone else on the left. I won’t jeopardize the coronation.
I’ll also have a clear conscience when she starts her next war, or when she screws over the working class.
I’d hope that most voters who are appalled at Clinton as the candidate of the Democratic Party do the same if they are afforded the opportunity.
It matters if Jill Stein gets 1% or 5%. The more she gets on the margin the more the DNC is put on notice. Right now the future Democratic Party doesn’t even have to care about how we vote. I suspect that without extensive campaign finance reform most candidates of either major party will feel no obligation to their constituencies, but rather to their financiers.
I guess I haven’t fallen for the fear that’s being generated against Trump. Really, if anything she and her State Dept. crowd are so much scarier.
If a Clinton presidency is “scarier” to you than a Trump victory, I’m not sure we’ve got much to talk about — that’s pretty much a disqualifying statement.
Yes, fringe candidates getting lots of votes is important — I applauded everything Sanders did (up to a certain point, a couple weeks ago) for this reason. I liked the way that Jesse Jackson influenced the Dukakis convention and platform (I was right out of college at the time and I remember it very well), and there’s a lot to be said for how Sanders has influenced Clinton.
Beyond that, I admit the whole “conscience” thing puzzles me. Of what value is it, when a politician is doing awful things, to be able to say (to onesself, or out loud), “I didn’t vote for him/her”? What difference does it make? I’m not being facetious; I genuinely don’t get it. (I’m not putting the onus on you; lots of people obviously think this way.) Voting is not symbolic; is the essence of expediency.
Who has already promised us a war against Russia? That’s scarier than Trump insulting the Queen of England.
Purity of essence is a real thing to some people.
Info offered:
https:/cdn2.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/ClSN8jc7Cl08FO42P4HYTARgJQQ=/1000×0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn0.vox-c
dn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/1005760/lesswargraph.0.png
Study from the same organization which produced this graph, the Human Security Report Project:
https:
/cdn2.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/ClSN8jc7Cl08FO42P4HYTARgJQQ=/1000×0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn0.vox-c
dn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/1005760/lesswargraph.0.png
Sample from study:
“With respect to war, the changes in the post-Cold War period have been substantial. Not only have major wars become very rare but the number of battle deaths around the world also decreased as the Cold War wound down in the second half of the 1980s.
The New Peace of the post-Cold War period is also a central focus of Joshua Goldstein’s Winning the War on War. Goldstein writes:
‘In the first half of the twentieth century, world wars killed tens of millions and
left whole continents in ruins. In the second half of that century, during the Cold
War, proxy wars killed millions, and the world feared a nuclear war that could have
wiped out our species. Now, in the early twenty-first century, the worst wars, such
as Iraq, kill hundreds of thousands. We fear terrorist attacks that could destroy a
city, but not life on the planet. The fatalities still represent a large number and the
impacts of wars are still catastrophic for those caught in them, but overall, war has
diminished dramatically.’
The declines in the number and deadliness of wars, both between states and within
them, that these and other studies have documented are relatively new phenomena and
there is no guarantee that they will persist, a point stressed by both Pinker and Goldstein–
and the HSR. But, as Chapter 1 of the 2009/2010 HSR pointed out, the factors driving the
decline in interstate war are unlikely to disappear. The two most important are:
The greatly strengthened normative proscription against resorting to war, except in
self-defence or with the authorization of the UN Security Council.
The dramatically increased costs and decreased benefits of interstate war..”
Comments requested.
Those are marvelous statistics. On what planet do they apply? Certainly not in the Middle East.
Did you read the study? The authors take on specific arguments dissenters have offered.
So if enough people vote for Stein or Johnson or not at all and the House gets to decide, who will they choose?
Zombie Reagan!
OK, Bernie didn’t win the primary. But he’s got 1,900 delegates to Hillary’s 2,200 or so — and all of those 1,900 + delegates are Democrats. He won 45% of pledged delagates, 22 states and cam very close in several more. Running against one of the most heavily backed, well-known candidates in history.
So if that doesn’t mean America is ready for Sanders, it means America is damn close anyway. Do you think that is going to vanish overnight? Do you think it should? Well, how would you help to keep it going?
Bernie is leading a reform movement from the inside. Fuck Hillary. OK, vote for her if you have to. The important point is that she’s far from the only thing happening. And with all her plutocratic backing, she cannot do just anything she likes if we keep the pressure up.
I know there are lots of Hillary supporters who like Bernie, etc. The problem is, these people are wasting too much time trying to convince themselves how good Hillary actually is, and how quaint and useless Bernie supposedly is (well-intentioned, of course), and too much time fighting against Bernie supporters for largely imaginary (= Hillary spin) reasons.
You say America’s not ready. America is more ready than any time in the last 50 years, and is getting readier and readier every day. And it’s not going to happen overnight. Bernie is not just campaigning for the 2016 nomination, he’s campaigning for the future of this country.
“The important point is that (Hillary)’s far from the only thing happening. And with all her plutocratic backing, she cannot do just anything she likes if we keep the pressure up.”
Thanks for this. Too true.
How many people are Hillary supporters, and how many people are going to vote for Hillary because here in objective, observable reality Hillary is miles better than right-wing authoritarian wielding Strongman Trump?
As a Sanders supporter and voter, I wish Sanders was the nominee. But, unfortunately, I’m stuck here, every god-damn-day, in objective, observable reality, where I have exactly two options to choose from to influence who becomes the next President. So, because I’m not a lunatic, and because I’m stuck here in objective, observable reality, I’ll vote Clinton.
Now, the really nice thing about your comment, is that instead of just bitching and whining and making sure to use the word neoliberal at least 7.6 times, you’ve actually mentioned a -wait for it- solution!
When people just sit and bitch and complain and attack attack attack anyone who disagrees with them about why Strongman Trump is more dangerous than Hitlery, it’s a cop-out. Voting for Jill Stein and Mickey P. Mouse, Esq. has the same exact effect on who becomes President – none.
And sorry, y’all, but the Democratic party isn’t going to be “put on notice”, and no UnbiasedElectionArbitersTM exist who will see to it that if Clinton and Trump fail to get whatever magical percent of registered voters, that Sanders wins by default…hooray Democratic Socialism!
Almost none of the Sanders dead-enders here propose solutions besides sitting at home, or voting for Mouse, or writing strongly worded blog comments with at least 7.6 uses of the word neoliberalism.
The job of everyone on the left is to push Clinton left, as hard as we can. Washing your hands of the election, err, CoronationTM of Clinton is a weak sauce cop-out.
This is a first-past-the-post electoral system here in the US. Vote accordingly, or go watch Storage Wars and remind us of how Pure you are.
Jordan, in a year if Hillary starts an air war in Syria, puts boots on the ground in Libya, causes an armed confrontation against the Russians, and then “fixes” social security the way Hank Paulson wants it, will you tolerate it? You know, because Kissinger and Paulson et al are part of the package?
Of course I’ll tolerate it — what other option will I have? Move to another planet? Shoot myself?
When called upon to march in the streets, write magazine articles or online commentary criticizing the President, vote for referenda or for candidates who stand for better policies, I will do each of these things (as I have in the past).
Am I going to wish I’d voted for Trump or Sanders? Am I going to regret supporting her? Of course not. I am “tolerating” Clinton’s objectionable qualities and policies insofar as I want her to be the President rather than anyone else who’s running, by a wide margin.
Yes, Obama’s worse policies will be extended (hopefully along with his best). That’s democracy; that’s reality. It literally makes no difference how I feel about this except to the extent I participate in my society and how I vote.
A good article that speaks to much of what is under discussion, Thoughts on the sociology of Brexit
Gads, “even the” farking IMF is admitting neoliberalism is a total failure as an economic engine for general prosperity. Admittedly, they still BEHAVE as if neoliberalism is in good standing for the colonies, but they might be getting there as far as the home countries are concerned…
Marie, mino, here are the people who really suffered from Brexit. Shed a tear for them:
https:/www.rt.com/business-projects/348345-richest-people-losses-brexit
I wonder, does the IMF know exactly what they are talking about when they write a paper with “Neoliberal” in the title?
There’s knowing in an academic sort of sense and then there’s “knowing.” Behavior generates from the latter and papers acknowledging that something’s not quite working correctly is based on the former.
Even the tame economists are giving our Western economies the side eye.
That’s because in the academic sense of knowing, they can see that ratios necessary for minimal stability and growth are now in the review mirror with unbridled greed driving the bus towards the cliff.
Wish this could make me feel happy — but we know their pain is but a response to a sudden shock loss and they’ll recover quickly as their losses are trickled down to the plebes. Sometimes, like in the aftermath of the great recession, they come out on the other side in better than ever shape.
It’s also going to empower ethno-nationalists and fascists throughout Europe, even more so than they already have been. Further, Cameron is bad, his likely successors are worse. They’re going to go for the jugular with respect to NHS.
When you control the media you control the narrative. The acts of concentrating wealth are what brought us to this cliff, and BREXIT is a handy tool because it can be used by the people who write our history.
As I’ve said many times, in this downward spiral you get two choices, a socialism that addresses the needs of the many, or you get fascism. Right now the two choices offered to Americans are both fascist. H. Clinton’s backers are no different than the corporatists and bankers that backed Mussolini and Hitler. They make money on war, they make money on cheap labor, they drink the tears of the oppressed, and I don’t think we can cry enough to satisfy their thirst.
Keep pouring out the poison.
More Americans think Hillary is a Communist than there are Americans who think of her as a Fascist. Of course, there are those who just pick up incendiary terms and hurl them around indiscriminately. Some of those people call her, and the President, and the Democratic Party, Communist and Fascist simultaneously.
You are controlled by alternative media which are successfully persuading you to support their narrative. In that way, it’s not a different concept from people who accept MSM frames uncritically.
I wish you would view these “Clinton is a Fascist” claims more critically, but you’ll do as you choose.
That too. However, why do we also assume that the rightwing fascists are gonna emerge as the victors of this forthcoming mess? The numbers from this primary season is evidence that the left outnumbers those jackasses. Unfortunately in the near term is looks as if we have to live through a few years of the DNC-RNC synthesis. Together they should be able to bring down the house faster then they managed to do over the years as they quibbled over minor details.
Seems to be a bit different in the UK. They’ve already figured that the Lib-Dems are useless and a Blairite of any prominence doesn’t exist to formalize that a Labour-Tory synthesis. So, they have to choose between Boris (Thatcher on super-steriods) or that socialist guy.
The right is organized. The left is not, and they’re busy with knives out for Corbyn from the very beginning, undermining him at every turn. Basically, most of the criticisms I’ve seen amount to “He wouldn’t lie that the EU enforces a neoliberal order, put on a happy face, and stand with Cameron who brought the mess on the country”.
Well, if the far right (Boris) were so well organized, why did he fail to carry his home turf?
If the right (Cameron( were organized, why did he lose.
Labour is organized; it’s just that not so many peopke are interested in buy what they’re selling, warmed over Blairism.
Trump did demonstrated that if the product looks and sounds fresh, not so much organization is required.
I haven’t a clue how effective Corbyn will be on the UK national stage. And it’s possible that Labour will find a way to take him out in favor of another one of their losers. But at some point — as Republicans demonstrated this year — voters have had a enough of the elite chosen losers.
Did you catch the Brexit strange bedfellows in N. Irelanc?
Robert Hutton:
Billmon:
Related but sort of overlooked in the past few days:
“The Tories ordered up the austerity, not the ECB.”
Beatings will continue until moral improves.
Corbyn was badly damaged – he may be out by the end of July.
Combating the effects of globalization require coordination at the national level: absent that corporations will simply play off one government against the other.
I would say that banking and finance are not enough of a basis to do what they are supposedly trying to do — unite Europe.
I say “supposedly” because the truth is, it was always about banks and money. The rest is window dressing.
One might start here:
https://www.amazon.com/Tower-Basel-Shadowy-History-Secret/dp/1610393813
Further thought:
Yes, I know that the EU is widely viewed as a bulwark against xenophobia, racism, etc.
But then again, was it not the displacements caused by the EU that fanned the flames of (already existing) xenophobia, racism, etc.?
This is why the European left is ambivalent about Brexit. They favor internationalism, but they also know perfectly well that the EU is run by an undemocratic oligarchy, primarily for its own benefit, and that Brexit was largely a reaction to that.
My own view is that a sense of nationality is absolutely natural and normal, just as normal as speaking a particular language and having particular customs. Hyper-nationalism comes about when unseen decision makers put too much pressure on the little guy. Who’s really at fault ?
Nice people like Carol Browner and Paul Booth — representing LCV and AFSCME — apparently can’t be arsed to vote for the Democratic platform to protect pensions or put a price on carbon.
This is why people continue to lose faith in institutions. If a union rep and an environmental rep can’t even support measures to protect their respective interests and demand the Dems support it, what purpose do they have except their own self-enrichment and power? Oh, right: fundraising.
Just tolerate it, seabe. It’s part of the package.
Obama trumped getting the TTP in the platform. Would probably have been a very temporary victory anyway, no doubt.
Marie, I just signed up for HRC’s campaign giveaway of a plane ticket to see Hamilton with HRC herself. If I win, I get to take another person. Would you like to join me?
He seems really nice, just like Alan Greenspan who has similar advice/warning yesterday on CNBC. It never ceases to puzzle me why these financial wizards see entitlements as going bust. It can never happen, I say again, never happen if the government does not want it to. It’s like the government going bankrupt. It is impossible. So why not give the social security fund a bond for say $ 1 T and move on.
they don’t see entitlements as going bust. They see entitlements are reducing the slice of the pie that the elites get. They’ve been preaching this hogwash since FDR/Frances Perkins initiated Social Security legislation. And this hogwash slowed down the initial reach and implementation of of the legislation. They are duplicitous courtiers that hate “the people.”
I wouldn’t say hate. Do you hate a fly? That’s how they see the people, as something to be swatted. Otherwise they wouldn’t be so stunned when the people reject them.
Fair enough, but we don’t a good word for that.
I don’t mind saying they hate us. They have a penchant for creating lies and stories to tell us why we can’t do things, like increase SS or have single payer health care, or have a real war on poverty. What do you call people who do that anyway? Misguided I suppose. Maybe just a little more.
They have a penchant for creating lies and distortions to get support for all the bad thing that they want. The “Leave” campaign blamed the EU for austerity and by leaving, the NHS budget would increase by 350 million pounds. Blatant lies. Just like GWB and Bliar’s lies about WMD. Not any better on this side of the pond.
Despise, look down, hold us in contempt. There are so many ways to describe their ability to not consider people who hold little wealth or power.
I think they want to control their lessers to ensure they will always and forever be the elite. And they despise taxes. So they love to run numbers that show twenty some years from now the outflows from the fund will exceed the income bc the population is aging and hence the fund will go bust. And then the beggars would come looking for help from them. Now they would let you pay more social security taxes to avoid that. But that only means they pay less bc the government uses that money in the general fund and gives,the fund a bond. They lie. And then they turn around get to pay less taxes. Let the peasants pay for it. We need to believe what Al Gore said. There is no such thing as a lock box of cash. There is a,lock box of IOUs from the Treasury. So let the Treasury put another bond in there,to,avoid the need to beg for more money. Money is the easiest thing for the governemt to create. That is how they can run a war on a credit card and then tell us the debt is too high. How do they know that? Assholes!
They despise taxes because that reduces the amount of their wealth and it’s through their wealth that they maintain their status and power.
Conceptually, those SS IOUs represent, for the most part, borrowings by corporations and individual with high income over the past three decades. It allowed them all that time to make money on non-interest bearing borrowings. So, if they’re so smart and savvy, they should oodles of money and no difficulty paying it all back. This goes to why the architect of the SS reform act of ’83, Daniel Moynihan, said at the end of his life that doing nothing would have been preferable.
Moynihan was right. There was no need to do anything and there is no need to do anything now except to line the pockets of the wealthy with more tax money they avoid paying. We need to stop letting the elites and their mouthpieces like the Peterson Institute, Greenspan and Paulson herd us all into paying more into the damn fund. It is utterly unnecessary unless of course, you are rich and want to use that money to avoid paying your fair share of taxes. The elites can be counted on to try to retain forever and ever what wealth they have. So they create stories to herd us all into their way of thinking about those horrible debts we are creating and the takers among us. Lies, just lies.
There is an accounting issue that seems to get skirted in all the Social Security “solutions” by both the left and the right.
Moynihan did get half of the future problem correct. The baby boom generation was larger than Generation X, and therefore, the “pay=go” wasn’t going to work well during the baby boom retirement years. So, paying/saving extra over the upcoming thirty years would smooth it all out. Then the program could return to paygo. (A second huge baby bubble wasn’t anticipated, but that might be what has been created with the Millenial Gen; well, assuming a baby bust which may not happen.)
What Moynihan overlooked is that federal dollars are fungible. That those excess SS collections would be “spent” because there was no mechanism for saving them. (For some time Wall St. has been clamoring to take those excess dollars and invest them. A non-starter because their fees would eat up too big a chunk and would also not be adequately protected.) Then, as with today, there were no shortage of viable lending options for the surplus that would be repaid with fair interest rate over thirty years and would also contribute to growing the economy and creating jobs. However, getting the equation correct requires a lot of still and a certain amount of intuition because dislocating existing arrangements with big chunks of new money can easily lead to waste, fraud, and abuse.
One of the favorite prescriptions on the left is to end the earnings cap on taxable SS income. In the near term that would increase the surplus, create by Fed to SS IOUs, and increase the national debt. IMO this is a bad idea for several reasons.
No, not eliminated but raised a bit to its former equivalency, eh? I don’t want to see SS lose its egalitarianism. Which is where I suspect it is headed.
SSSupplemental was designed to handle poverty cases. Tinker with THAT!
That is not my solution. I,would do away with payroll taxes. Period. Full stop. Maybe have the Treasury give the fund a 20 T bond or so on the basis the country will still be around to use it and future generations should have it. Then the elites would have to pay for their wars and such.
I would extend the payroll tax to cover money over the cap of 100-110 K that now exists. Raise the top income tax until it equals what it was before Reagan.
Absolutely right about fiscal strength. And you know what has brought down the fiscal strength of the Great Powers for 500 years? IMPERIAL OVERSTRETCH. Just one of the reasons the Bush Wars pissed me off. Every dollar spent is one that cant be used to keep our economy bigger than China’s.
Trim that massive war machine, tax the rentier elites that bring only limited value. Invest in projects to create and strengthen a broad based productive class instead of saddling them with debts owned by the elite. That will give you a fiscal house lined with steel.
They did have Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt. They started heading south with Harding and Hoover. Eisnehower was a war hero if not a great president. From then on it’s been down hill.
Corey Robin Neera and Me: Two Theses about the American Ruling Class and One About Neera Tanden
Don’t say that nobody ever told you. Also recommend reading Cheryl Mills Judicial Watch depo. When “I don’t know” and filibustering didn’t work, she retreated to a “I always try to do a good job” stance (could almost see the tear welling up in her eyes from her words).
Well, she is a damn shoo-in for the post, no?
All of them are shoo-ins for one high level position or another. Expect the Executive branch to be stuffed with elite private school educated, mini-Maggie Thatchers.
Corey Robin has lost his damn mind. Tanden is clearly telling the truth about this meaningless, idiotic kerfuffle. Sorry he can’t be Matt Bruenig’s avenging flying monkey, but them’s the breaks.
How is she telling the truth? She’s lying about it all!! Did you read what he wrote?
Funny he doesn’t think so and called YOU out on his blog for your crass spin operation you were trying to run there;
I generally think we need more (leftist) populism in our country and MUCH more anti-globalization, but the Trumpists are clearly out for revenge on everyone they’ve ever felt slighted.
“The GOP, in putting Trump at the top of the ticket, is endorsing a brand of populism rooted in ignorance, prejudice, fear and isolationism. This troubles me deeply as a Republican, but it troubles me even more as an American. Enough is enough. It’s time to put country before party and say it together: Never Trump.”
What a load of horse hockey! The GOP, including Paulson, are totally responsible for the rise of Trump, and they’ve been responsible for the past half century, at least, for deliberately creating the propaganda and other processes that led directly to this Exact Outcome.
Over 30 years of the Southern Strategy on steriods, Hate Radio, Fox, “Christian” broadcasting, and Paulson has the brass iron balls to stand there nakedly braying about how this is shocking and a terrible thing? Oh really??? Cry me a river, Hank. You’re probably just pissed off because Trump has found a way to horn in YOUR grift, and you’re mad that he’s not sharing.
F*ck Paulson. Disgusting parasite.
From Paulson’s op-ed in WaPo:
“It doesn’t surprise me when a socialist such as Bernie Sanders sees no need to fix our entitlement programs. But I find it particularly appalling that Trump, a businessman, tells us he won’t touch Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.”
First, Sanders has spent a lot of time talking about fixing our entitlement programs. You know, fixing them for the beneficiaries, as opposed to fixing them for the bankers.
Hmm. Trump says he won’t touch entitlements, but Hillary’s big bank endorser supports Hillary because she’ll presumably “fix” social security? Trump doesn’t promise endless war? Hillary and her people have announced armed confrontation with Russia in Syria.
Gee, I’m retired and I don’t want to see the planet incinerated. Should I go along with this banker?
Trump promised Paul Ryan that he’d go after Social Security & Medicare. Don’t be deceived by that. Trump told Ryan that he, Trump, is telling his fanboyz that he’ll “save” Soc Sec & Medicare just to get their votes.
I have no idea whether Trump would wage War with anyone or not. He has complained about the waste of the Iraq War, but Trump’s “promises,” imo, are meaningless. It’s hard to say what he’d do.
Clinton, though? Yeah, huge War Hawk. Always has been; never changed. Anyone who thinks Hillary isn’t simply itching to start a conflagration is living in dreamland. Robert Kagan is sponsoring some kind of fund raiser for her. Do the math.
So: Trump v Clinton? Whadda horrible choice. Really really really really SUCKS.
Actually, the big problem with Trump is that after an entire primary season I have no idea where Trump stands.
But one could say that about Clinton too. And Paulson has probably heard what Hillary said at one of those Goldman Sachs meetings, so you have to expect some truth from Hank.
If the rich GOP Jeb Bush supporters all voted for HRC, I wonder if it would flip any states.
They were in power for 5 presidential terms, but their power derived from idiots who neither understood nor benefitted from their economic policies. Now that Trump has separated them from their voting bloc, their public statements are almost irrelevant. Of course, their behind the scenes bribery of politicians remains as toxic and effective as ever.
One might say that Clinton will get most of her votes from idiots (or a kinder word) who neither understand nor benefit from her economic policies.
They should just admit it -all you gotta be is WHITE
…………………………………………..
found at POU:
MonieTalks
Y’all…
The new angle spreading among white Evangelical America is that Trump has just accepted Christ…he is a “baby Christian” according to Dr. James Dobson.
…….”How recent?” asked Anthony, clearly surprised and encouraged by Dobson’s statement.
“I don’t know when it was, but it has not been long,” replied Dobson. “I believe he really made a commitment. But he’s a baby Christian. We all need to be praying for him, especially if there’s a possibility of him being the next executive officer.”
Dobson underscored that Trump as a “baby Christian” simply doesn’t yet know how to speak about his faith.
Well, with everything else they believe, the Trump conversion cannot be too big a pill to swallow.
I won’t believe it until Trump handles snakes.
A Note About Trumpism, From the Real America
For the past week my wife Deb and I have been in western Kansas — Dodge City mainly, also Garden City, briefly Spearville. There will be a lot more to report in coming days on the economic, cultural, and political news from this part of the country. What you see above is something that touches all of those themes: me talking with Kevin Heeke, the mayor of Spearville, about the hundreds of wind turbines that have transformed the economy of the wheat- and corn-farming regions in this extremely windy part of the country.
…………………………………………………………………..
These cities of western Kansas, Dodge City and Garden City, are both now majority-Latino. People from Mexico are the biggest single immigrant group, and they are here mainly for work in the area’s big meat-packing plants. Others are from Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Cuba, and more recently Somalia and Sudan, among other countries. You might think of Kansas as stereotypical whitebread America. It’s pure America, all right — but American in the truest sense, comprising people who have come from various corners of the world to improve their fortunes.
Every single person we’ve met here — Anglo and Latino, African and Burmese and other, old and young, native-born and immigrant, male and female, well-educated and barely literate, working three jobs and retired and still in school–of all these people, we’ve asked the same questions. Namely: how has Kansas handled this shift in demography? And how does it sound, in this politically and culturally conservative part of the country, to hear the national discussion about “building a wall,” about making America “a real country again,” of the presumptive Republican nominee saying even today that Americans are “angry over borders, they’re angry over people coming into the country and taking over, nobody even knows who they are.”
And every single person we have spoken with — Anglo and Latino and other, old and young, native-born and immigrant, and so on down the list — every one of them has said: We need each other! There is work in this community that we all need to do. We can choose to embrace the world, or we can fade and die. And we choose to embrace it. (The unemployment rate in this area, by the way, is under 3 percent, and every business we’ve talked with has “help wanted” notices out.)
This is in small-town western Kansas. And it is what we have heard in every discussion. I could give 50 examples, and eventually will, but here is one for now. A white man who grew up in this area, and works in construction, told us a few days ago: I wasn’t sure about the change in town. It’s different. But these people want to work. They want a better life for their children. We need them. Without them, we would shrivel up.
Curious, Western Kansas is the most Republican part of the state. I’d imagine most of those people are voting for Trump, not HRC.
People from Mexico are the biggest single immigrant group, and they are here mainly for work in the area’s big meat-packing plants. Others are from Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Cuba, and more recently Somalia and Sudan, among other countries.
How many of them are eligible to vote? Given the countries listed, I bet very few of them are. I’d bet, sadly, that a lot of them don’t have papers. That they’re probably getting taken advantage of, as we know all too well about other meat-packing plants elsewhere. Hopefully they’re on the way to getting papers and becoming citizens!!
we are witnessing a populist hijacking of one of the United States’ great political parties
You know, all these smart people in the GOP and yet such a blind spot. You get the impression that they imagine Trump did this all by himself – that without Trump everything would be hunky dory. They don’t get that Trump is exactly the candidate the majority of GOP voters want – he says everything they want. Trump IS the GOP – no not the leadership, but the voters.
Then he mentioned cutting Social Security and other services. No, shithead, your base doesn’t like that either. They kept voting for your party because you promised – quietly of course – to stick it to the darkies and wetbacks – and also that until very recently the Democratic leadership fell hook, line, and sinker for the Very Serious Person gambit and was in favor of slashing those programs too.
Rummy’s a fan. And he’s even revisiting his greatest hits:
Trump is a known unknown.
Can’t say I disagree with that assessment. The implications, on the other hand.
Roqayah Chamseddine:
And not a single Republican was there forcing them to agree with Republicans.
MINNEAPOLIS – Congressman Keith Ellison (D-MN) released the following statement after the Democratic Platform Drafting Committee completed its work in St. Louis, Missouri, forwarding a draft platform to the full Platform Committee which will meet in Orlando on July 8:
“It was an honor to participate in the Platform Drafting Committee with my fellow appointees. The platform draft is the strongest progressive statement to come from the Democratic Party in years. I hope it can be made even stronger in Orlando. The party is responding to the energy and values expressed clearly in this primary election.
“I am disappointed that my amendment to take a strong stand against the Trans-Pacific Partnership – a position shared by both Secretary Clinton and Senator Sanders – was not included. I hope this amendment will be adopted in Orlando.
“The platform does, though, contain many meaningful and historic positions including: calling for urgently needed voting reforms, rejecting the vilification of Muslim-Americans, ending the death penalty, enacting a financial transactions tax to curb excessive speculation, expanding Social Security, banning golden parachutes for taking government jobs, establishing a new surtax on multimillionaires, allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices, using government contracts to support good jobs, honoring and strengthening our relationships with Tribal Sovereign Nations, passing a modernized Glass-Steagall law, and moving our economy to 100% clean energy by 2050. These are significant accomplishments that move our party firmly toward justice, fairness, and inclusion.”
aspiring litigant
@samknight1
Makes zero sense Dems wouldn’t put opposition to TPP in platform. Only 28 House Dems supported, 3/4 of Senate Caucus opposed.
Just watch those cards flip when it counts.
“What could I do?” Clinton sighs. “They made me do it.”
Meanwhile, the Democratic Party Platform has come out for TPP and came out against the $15 minimum wage. Surprise surprise.
http://downwithtyranny.blogspot.com/2016/06/does-system-forcing-choice-between.html