I can understand this sentiment and I might have agreed with it ten years ago. I can’t agree with it today.
Some democrats starting to rumble about using debt ceiling vote to extract concessions. NO! Its irresponsible – whether GOP or Dems do it.
— Kurt Eichenwald (@kurteichenwald) June 5, 2017
It’s the job of the majority party in Congress to pass appropriations and it’s their job to pass any hike in the debt ceiling. Period. End of story. If the government shuts down, it’s 100% the majority’s fault. If we default on our loans and damage our credit rating and cause a global recession, that’s 100% the majority’s fault, too.
This is always true, but it’s especially true when the majority in Congress is controlled by the same party that is sitting in the Oval Office. Strictly speaking, the minority party is not responsible for anything and should never be asked to provide votes for anything unless they are going to get something out of it.
During the Obama years, the minority Democrats provided most of the votes for lifting the debt ceiling and they did it despite asking in vain for clean votes that didn’t advance Republican priorities. They did this because they wanted to protect the president who they knew would take most of the blame if the global economy blew up. But they don’t have a president to protect anymore and it’s up to the Republicans to do the responsible thing.
If they can ram home a debt ceiling hike with 100% their own votes, then they can cram whatever they want into the bill. If they need Democratic votes, then this time it’s the Democrats who need to see their priorities addressed.
This idea that the Democrats have to step in to prevent Republican dysfunction from blowing up the world is simple enabling. If the Republicans come to the Democrats with a completely clean bill to raise the debt ceiling, the Democrats will have to consider it. But they shouldn’t leap at the offer. They should at least initially refuse to give the Republicans what they refused to grant them.
The number one reason for this is because a failure to meet tit for tat here creates a disparity in outcomes that favors hostage taking and irresponsible governance. The number two reason is that you shouldn’t start out with your bottom line. As a negotiating tactic, you want to ask for more than you’re willing to settle for, and you also want to provide a way for the Republicans to save some face so they can make a concession without seeming to get nothing.
The Democrats should offer no votes to hike the debt ceiling unless certain of their desires are met. This will help the Republican leadership convince their most recalcitrant debt hawks that they’ll default if they don’t offer at least a clean bill. If the Republican leadership can’t come close to accomplishing this, they’ll need to make concessions. If they can come close, maybe the Dems can relent and offer the few votes they need for a clean bill.
The Democrats do need to be responsible in the end, but it’s not responsible to keep negotiating from an artificial position of weakness that just encourages bad behavior and a lack of reality-based thinking in their political opponents. If the Republican leadership proves itself truly helpless, then the Democrats should take their bounty in concessions. If they try hard and come up just short, they should get bailed out to avoid an international calamity, but no concessions should be made on the Democrats’ part.
If Trump’s election proves anything, it is that the electorate will reward irresponsible behaviour, and the more irresponsible the better.
It is the Government’s job to govern, not the opposition’s. Their role in a democracy is to advocate for alternative solutions.
The Dems opening position must be that ANY increase in the debt ceiling must be used solely to fund Dem legislative priorities such as the ACA.
Let the Republican’s fund their own priorities, or not, as the case may be.
This may sound harsh, but the electorate, too, must be made to realise that their votes (or lack of) have consequences and it is not the Dems role to bail them out when they elect absolute lunatics.
Maybe next time there won’t be quite so many pundits and electors saying “they’re all the same”.
Part of the reason the Dem party has been so toothless and ineffective compared to the GOP in recent years is that they have always been cheap to buy and roll-over.
And Trump, the self-styled ultimate deal maker knows this and holds them in contempt in direct consequence.
If you want a revolution you have to be prepared to make waves, and right now, nothing less than a revolution will do.
Sorry USA, but when you have f*cked up to the point where your only allies in the international community are Syria and Nicaragua, you have a problem, and fixing that problem is beyond “business as usual” congressional wheeling and dealing.
You have to break the system if it is ever to be fixed…
That all sounds great. But if the country defaults because both parties voted against a debt ceiling increase, then how is the public supposed to conclude that they are not all the same?
All these statements about what the majority/minority party are “supposed” to do are just words. They don’t represent anything real unless everyone agrees to them, which they don’t.
If the government defaults, the resulting pain to the country is going to be so massive that any political gain for the left is going to be scant compensation. Not to mention that most of the left’s priorities (health care, infrastructure, scientific research) will go out the window in the resulting great depression. You can’t pay for your priorities if you can’t pay for anything.
“You have to break the system if it is ever to be fixed…” Yeah, that’s the logic that got people to vote for Trump. And don’t think that once the system is broken that we’ll get some socialist paradise. A fascist dictator is far more likely. Trump will be out but say hello to Reichsfuhrer Mike Pence.
If the US exceeds the debt ceiling, then it exceeds the debt ceiling… nothing much need happen unless the President start shutting down services Congress voted to fund – and so the president bears the responsibility.
The debt ceiling is an artificial device used by deficit scolds to put the brakes on progressive spending priorities – nothing more. At worst interest rates on Government bonds will rise, but that too will be entirely a government responsibility.
Democrats can escape responsibility by doing what they should do – by voting to eliminate the debt ceiling completely. It’s unconstitutional and economic nonsense to boot.
If Dems want to be taken seriously, they have no option but to do this. Otherwise there is no point in anyone voting for them.
As a practical matter, you are wrong. If the government reaches a point where it cannot fulfill its obligations, because the money coming in is not sufficient and it does not have the authority to issue new debt, then it will be unable to make payments it has promised on existing debt. This would be default. Historically this hasn’t been very pleasant for the country in question. Ask Greece or Argentina how much they liked it. Interest rates won’t just rise for government, they will rise for all borrowers. Most likely by a lot. The consequence will be a depression. Coupled with austerity that will last for at least a decade (because that’s what governments have to do when they can no longer afford to borrow money).
But I do agree with you that Democrats should push for an elimination of the debt ceiling, which is stupid and probably unconstitutional.
Modern Monetary Theory would beg to differ…
I’d be pleased to read something on the topic, if you have a link (or a recent historical example of a default that was no big deal for the defaulting country).
Firstly, a default by a global reserve currency like the US $ has never happened before. Secondly, I’m not talking about the US defaulting on its debts – that would be unconstitutional. Constitutionally the US has no option but to pay its debts, whether by some ruse like the Trillion $ Coin or by simply printing the money. Under liquidity trap conditions, that need not even be inflationary. See also Stepanie Kelton economic advisor to Sanders, who I had the good fortune to meet in Dublin a fewyears ago.
There are those who say the trillion dollar coin is also unconstitutional since it avoids powers accorded to congress.
The government sets the interest rate and can always pay anything denominated in dollars. They own the printing presses after all. The only thing that can stop payment of interest or debt is the debt ceiling, which is an arbitrary law whose use is useless.
I wonder what happens if the government defaults. Everyone says depression but I am not so sure. The danger could be limited to foreign governments holding the debt. It will be bad so long as the debt ceiling is not raised. But once passed the government can pay all its bills and still control the interest rate. All the debt rating agencies will lower their ratings, but this is not a SA country holding foreign debt.
Treasury bonds are basically savings accounts, nothing more. If you need the money, and the gov is not paying you have a problem. But wanna bet lots of banks will buy them at an appropriate discount. I’m not sure how big a discount it will be. If I owned bonds and thought I would need the money, I would sell them before the crisis and buy them after. That said I want to hear what an MMT economist says about this whole thing since it seems overwrought to me. In fact ask yourself why we ever need to issue debt. Did they issue debt to bail out the banks?
So the only concession I would be prepared to give is elimination of the debt ceiling. Otherwise let them wrestle with it this time around.
I’m seeing a lot of wishful thinking here. I’m not an economist, but I’m pretty sure that a lot of what you and FS are saying is not true.
“The government owns the printing presses.” No, the federal reserve owns the printing presses. The U.S. treasury can only pay money if they have money in their account. That’s why, if they don’t have revenue and can’t borrow more funds, they would have to resort to a gimmick like the trillion dollar coin, which the Obama administration concluded wasn’t really feasible.
“The government controls the interest rate.” Not entirely. If investors insist on 10% return in exchange for T-bonds, then that’s the rate we will be paying.
“Treasury bonds are basically savings accounts, nothing more. If you need the money, and the gov is not paying you have a problem.” Yes. The world financial system works on the flow of money. Sure it wouldn’t matter if you and I, two minor schmoes (sorry!) don’t get the payments we expect, but if thousands of institutions and governments around the world doesn’t get the interest payments they are expecting from the U.S. treasury, then they don’t pay their creditors, who don’t pay their creditors…you see when this goes.
The fed is part of the government. There are those who want it consolidated with the Treasury but they cooperate with each other so that may not be needed.
The gov controls the interest rate on treasuries by the overnight rate and buying and selling those treasuries. Buy them and the rate goes down. Sell them and the rate goes up. You probably heard of QE. That was the fed buying up treasuries during the past recession. The fed now owns a few trillion of treasuries and plans to sell them off as they increase the overnight rate. That plan depends on the economy cooperating.
As I said it could hurt international payments but then again most banks will buy the treasuries with a discount. So I am not convinced it is that much a problem.
I don’t own any treasuries but, if I did, and if I thought I needed the money I would sell them before the crisis. You can always buy them back later. I suppose most governments could do the same thing. If there were a run that would be a problem.
If the treasury runs out of money, they cannot spend beyond the debt limit and that would trigger a recession or worse.
But recall the republicans control the government, the whole freaking thing. How far would they let this go?
Sure I am not an expert here. As I suggested I wonder “what if” and I don’t have all the answers.
The Fed is a public/private hybrid. The regional Feds are owned and largely controlled by the member banks and they have representation in the FOMC, which is the Fed body that does the things you are talking. I wrote a whole post on this some time ago.
http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2014/10/10/25335/918
The government cannot simply print the money because the structure is set up so the Fed controls this. Not the literal printing, but the expansion of the money supply, which is these days mostly electronic. To finance government deficits, the Treasury issues T-bills. The Fed can, at its discretion, buy these with effectively “printed” money. That’s what quantitative easing was. Money was effectively printed and pumped into the economy, but the mechanism still ran through nominal government debt.
If the debt ceiling is exceeded, the Treasury cannot issue those T-bills. The Fed might be willing to print the money, but there is no mechanism for the Fed to funnel that money to the Treasury that does not run through T-bills, which the debt ceiling curtails.
I may not have been clear. No one can issue money for government spending, or treasury bonds, under the current circumstances where there is, by law, a debt ceiling. ( I think there is a provision for emergency that the fed used during the recession. ) But it does not change the fact that the government has the power to print all the money it would ever need and it could, in theory, do so without any treasury bonds having to be issued – – ever. It is just a statement of fact. The government issues a fiat currency that is freely floating and so the supply is unlimited, if we choose it to be. The question of who prints it and under what conditions is a political one, not economic.
The fed is a creature of congress. The so called private ownership does not control it. If it did Janet Yellen would not be the Chairman. She is appointed by the President.
QE was used during the recession to increase the money supply by buying securities, mostly treasuries. It was believed that would improve the economy. But some believe it did nothing at all, or very little, except change one account, treasuries, for another, a savings account. I suspect it lowered the interest rate, which was one goal. Beyond that I have no firm opinion.
The way the fed and treasury work together is controlled by law and regulation, which is political. At the moment the debt ceiling prevents them from issuing new treasuries or printing new money. That law should be repealed. The debt has already been incurred when congress passed the spending bills.
The need to issue treasuries is another law and discussion but in reality we don’t need to do that either. They are similar to savings accounts.
As to the current issue,I am not in favor of doing anything to help the fools. They control the government and could easily repeal the law or pass a resolution. If the debt and interest are not paid, it could cause a crisis, the severity depending on the length and conditions. It is unconstitutional not to pay our debts. Let them deal with that.
I can’t imagine how decoupling debt issuance from printing money would work. It wouldn’t work in any recognizable way. It would blow everything up.
I really don’t think so. The treasury can only spend what has been approved by congress, whether bonds are issued or not. I know there is this meme that we would just spend willy nilly which I suppose you are referencing. But there is still a congress and they authorize spending, just like today.
Also, the fed guaranteed or loaned out some trillions ( I’ve forgotten the number and too lazy to find it. ) during the crisis to stabilize the world economy. It has all been paid back, but there were no bonds for that. My understanding was the fed has emergency power to do that. ( ??? why not the debt limit??)
Actually, I don’t have any real problem with issuing bonds, but it gets me the wrong way when it is wound up with a silly debt limit. I suppose now that my mortgage has gone past what I want to spend, I will just not pay it kind of thing. Stupid.
Bonds do provide a means of savings for pensions and investments. So there is that. But you need to invest long term or you get nothing basically. People look at our 20 odd trillion of debt and clutch their pearls, but in reality it represents the net financial assets the government has issued to the economy. Their loss, our gain so to speak.
If there were no bonds, the money would still be out there but in savings accounts or investments. Bonds seem a neat way to keep track of how much they gave away. And places like China and Japan like interest and may feel more secure than just an account at the fed. ( In reality that is all it is, but don’t tell them.) I only say it the way I do to emphasize there is no real economic reason to have bonds, as I am aware. But you can find other reasons. Nice touchy feely things.
There’s no need to have a debt limit. But there’s a reason to have new money connected to bond issuance. And T-bills are basically the hub of the wheel that makes everything else go.
I don’t see it that way. Now the treasury has to fund the budgeted expenses. When there is not enough funds, it issues bonds. With no bonds they simply have the fed replenish their account. Can you explain the reason?
I don’t think there is. In fact, a lot of the problem is that generally, when there is no quantitative easing, new money is put into the system through the multiplier effects of fractional reserve banking. The Fed sets a limit on this by controlling reserve requirements, but there are other factors like the velocity of money, and a lot of Fed action with interest rates is ultimately aimed at controlling that indirectly.
So expansion of the money supply is not necessarily tied to government debt issuance. It is tied to private debt issuance that the accounting system treats of germination of money (that’s what fractional reserve banking is). This fails whenever people at once want the money they theoretically have.
The Fed could finance some of the deficit with “printed” money and counter the expansionary, and therefore inflationary, effect by increasing reserve requirements, for example. The reason this is off the table has a lot to do with the interests and ideology of the banking industry. The notion of a banking industry supported by fees not debt, and monetary expansion achieved through expansion of the base, not multiplier effects, is something that should be at least discussed.
I do have one afterthought. If the fed can loan money to banks during a crisis, why can’t they buy up bonds as they come due in the debt limit crisis? I’m betting they can, but we never got there. Just a thought.
As I pointed out, control is divided between public and private entities. Janet Yellin is the public face, but she does not make the open market decisions, the FOMC does. In that body, Yellin gets one vote, just like 5 regional bank heads.
My understanding it the Board of Governors is composed of 7 members appointed by congress or the president. The FOMC is composed of those 7 plus 5 from the various banks. That still leaves the gov in charge for the most part.
Only if the government is united. Those 7 are specifically selected, usually from the financial industry, to be “independent” of the President or anyone else in government, and are given 14 year terms to ensure this. The bank representatives have no such culture of independence and much shorter terms. Also, although only 5 regional banks are voting members at one time, all are in the room, and can therefore influence the discussion. Treating the Fed as simply a government entity is serious distortion and furthers a deliberate misunderstanding. How would you feel if almost half the governing board of the FDA were appointed by pharmaceutical companies?
Modern Monetary Theory holds that the government can print money instead of issuing bonds and the economy will not be affected. This is moot, because the problem is a complex of laws which, if the debt ceiling isn’t lifted, will prohibit the government from either printing money or issuing bonds.
That particular aspect of MMT is entirely hypothetical and has never been tested as such. The conclusion depends on the usual suite of nonsense economic assumptions like everybody having perfect information and a perfect ability to forecast all economic activity for all eternity. Actual attempts to run governments on printed money have generally produced a mess.
So why are certain countries in Africa experiencing rampant inflation and near currency collapse because they just kept printing money, even though MMT says that shouldn’t happen?
Answer: MMT isn’t even wrong with it’s assumptions on why currency has value. (For those who don’t get the reference, it means that the answer given is so far from accurate that to call the answer wrong gives it too much credibility.)
Currency has value because of belief. People believe the currency has value, so it has value. If the seller doesn’t believe they will be able to buy anything of what the seller considers valuable with the buyers choice of currency for payment, they don’t take the payment.
This is the entire basis behind the theory of currency and currency exchange markets.
And it’s inherently irrational by nature and design.
The advent of Fiat Currency was merely the realization that belief in the value of gold and precious metals was an unnecessary abstraction that created more problems than it solved in large economies with large numbers of people.
The ideal that you can print money when ever you want to pay for everything lasts only as long as the sellers believe that the money printed holds value. When they stop believing that, and they always do, then the money no longer holds value and can’t be used to buy things.
MMT analysis says you don’t control inflation through financing with debt and balancing government budgets. Government debt, private debt, and overseas debt all interact in the money supply.
MMT says you match the money supply to economic activity not government revenues. Without considering private debt (which is astronomical in the US) and overseas debt, you cannot size government debt properly. And what you get with balanced budget fever is unemployment-creating austerity and deflation.
It is an observation of MMT that the most effective way to control inflation is through highly progressive taxation that targets FIRE sector profits and upper-end pay.
But you have to distinguished between inflation and supply-demand price increases for overuse of natural resources and labor.
The big issue is properly pricing natural resources and labor.
Only major currencies have the freedom to print money and only because their overseas balance of payments requires that amount of money to allow repayment in the currency of contract.
As the US recedes from sole supeerpower status, its freedom to print money also recedes. That is why the bloated military spending saturated with corruption has impoverished the rest of the economy. It wound up reducing our international power and it sapped our constrained financial resources.
Commodification of goods and services under the presence of money is inherently irrational to begin with. It allows the illusion that one can make money without providing full value of goods and services, a process that these days is called “crapification”.
On the African countries, they fail because they depend on other countries’ currencies too much and other countries depend on their currencies to balance accounts very little or not at all. The supply and demand of foreign exchange undoes them; international hoarding of their currency does not buffer the fact that the amount of money exceeds their economic activity.
Typically inflation occurs when an over-supply of money bids up prices of natural resources or labor that is constrained for whatever reason. A little inflation (3% was the target in the 1960s) was thought to allow liquidity of money and economic growth.
I’ve not seen any analysis on this but it is likely that the demand for money is goosed by the need to pay off compounding interest. Given the US Congress’s unwillingness to raise taxes in good times to contain inflation, compound interest on 70 years of national debt is a significant portion of US debt. If that could be estimated, it would be possible to command a debt jubilee that canceled all debts and started over. Of course, that would wipe out the incentives to capture the “mystery of compound interest”. But that is the point. People on credit cards with 20% rates and compounding are now after a decade or two of austerity facing awesome private debt, often caused by high-ticket medical procedures. Trump can repeatedly wipe out debt in bankruptcy; ordinary Americans don’t have that privilege, thanks to legislation during the Bush administration (thanks, Joe Biden, Sen-MBNA).
Lots of people think they can print money privately with cleverly-worded contracts and aggressive collection.
We have mainly an accounting problem that is choking our economic system, not as much a debt problem, or a misallocation of resources problem–except for the expenses of the global militaries of the US and in response other nations as well.
MMT doesn’t say the government can print infinitely without consequence. It does claim excessive printing will cause inflation. With the auxiliary nonsense assumption of everybody being able to forecast all possible consequences of all action into the infinite future, it does predict that printing and debt issuance will have the same effects. This is a standard assumption in economics, just to alert you to treat all standard economics claims with skepticism.
MMT’s actual claim is that the value of money is created by the government’s taxation authority. This matches up pretty well with hyperinflations, because they coincide with the collapse or abdication of taxing authority and actually run far ahead of actual printing. The real money supply typically collapses in hyperinflation for this reason.
A quibble.
The United States has thousands of nuclear missiles.
This is the “value” behind fiat currency such as the US Dollar.
100% agreed. Well said.
We are definitely going to default. I may agree with you that “It’s the job of the majority party in Congress to pass appropriations and it’s their job to pass any hike in the debt ceiling.” But Republicans do not. In their minds, they are the ones who get to demand concessions. And even if congress agrees to a debt ceiling raise, there is no guarantee that Trump will sign it.
Yep, this ship is going down.
Then they will be in violation of the constitution.
And how likely is that to bother them?
One fundamental problem, perhaps, is that one party wants to keep the ship afloat while the other is controlled by people who’ve spent decades staking claims on the lifeboats.
While doing their damnedest to steer toward the iceberg.
It is just possible our financial genius president will try to use this to renegotiate,our debt. That would really cause a shitstorm.
What in a practical sense does a US default, which is different from failure to raise the debt ceiling, mean?
In 2010, it was a temporary slap-on-the-hand credit downgrade and a slight increase in interest rates on new issues of government securities.
Given the idea that US government securities are the most conservative (safe and preserving of assets) investment there is, by comparison a default would cause the inability to properly price other investments. What would they being compared to? Chinese government bonds? Russian government bonds? Japanese government bonds?
Given the $3T in necessary infrastructure backlogs in the US, the US government has that much leeway in its debt but only as long as it starts ratcheting down the wastefulness of military spending.
There is also around $3T of corporate cash sitting on the table. Actual threat of inceased corporate taxation starts moving it into some non-financial productive investment-plant, equipment, employees. Trump policies do the opposite. There is a huge potential return on Atlantic coast offshore wind energy generation, for example. At current costs, that undercuts most of the fossil fuel and nuclear costs of East Coast utilities. The question is how fast it can be deployed without running into shortages of resources for components.
If we actually do go to default, regardless of the consequences, it will be because the “businessmen” in Congress are lousy businessmen.
Saying the democrats need to be responsible in the end undermines any negotiations. If they’re not willing to allow default why would the gop agree to any concessions? Maybe I didnt follow this part.
Anyhow as I always say the debt ceiling itself is unconstitutional. Other countries dont have it. Ignore and everyobe else will.
Tough love.
OT- imo Macron’s speech the other day was to offer hope to those in Vichy USA
David Corn has
Yeah, but most Bond villains aren’t this dumb. The closest I can think of is Professor Joe Butcher played by Wayne Newton (hey, casinos in common!) from “License to Kill,” but he was just a front man while Franz Sanchez was the actual brains of the operation. So, Bannon is the mastermind?
I’m not sure dumb covers it. he’s in a vise, as it were, and he’s cracking up. completely weird.
in my current interpretation the situation is sort of a combination between MacBeth – I guess Ivanka has to be Lady M- and a Monty Python type attempt to be the Third Reich meanwhile wreaking havoc in many ppl’s lives and many parts of the world. it would be turned down as too implausible if made for teevee movie
“a Monty Python type attempt to be the Third Reich”
Something like that exists: Brazil.
I remember that film. Been a while since I last saw it. Your characterization of the film is certainly apt.
I wrote this before when you brought this up a few months ago, but I think the bare minimum that the Democrats should demand is an end to debt ceiling farce altogether. The Republicans demand having this “debate” every few months no matter how self-destructive and stupid, and the price the Democrats should make is not having to play this game ever again.
I want to add to this to show how silly it is. The money has already been approved by congress. So saying you won’t increase the ceiling is like retroactively saying you don’t want to spend the money.
In a two-party system, Republican dysfunction is a feature not a bug. As long as Democrats cling to their place at the status quo table, then they shouldn’t be shocked when Republican extremism threatens to burn the whole place down.
The mess that Democrats need to clean up is the electoral system. Unfortunately I am afraid America will burn before Democrats learn that lesson.
Agreed. Assuming that this blows up close to a recess, I also think that the Democrats should strategically send home early a large number of Reps/Senators so as to shrink the number of potential votes that the Republicans can obtain (and ensure that the Democrats who remain are sufficiently progressive/strong-willed).
Yes!
Weird that you’d post this when in March you were singing a different tune:
/link
While I’m glad you finally agree with us that we should not enable them on the debt ceiling, just upthread you’re slagging on Dems in legislature for doing something they’ve given no indication of doing. Some accountability is in order alright.
Oh:
Top-Secret NSA Report Details Russian Hacking Effort Days Before 2016 Election
But that was when that position was necessary to slag the Democrats! Now the opposite position is necessary to slag the Democrats. Totally different situation. Jeez.
FOAD
Neither party should play politics with the debt ceiling. Democrats shouldn’t refuse to vote for a clean bill or demand concessions and neither should Republicans.
I haven’t changed.
The debt ceiling is pure politics. Phony baloney pure politics. It means absolutely nothing but a chance to tie Congress in knots.
It’s the revenue floor that is the issue. Congress loves spending and cutting taxes. Time for the 1% to pony up for the wars they like.
Of course. But that doesn’t justify giving concessions to Republicans so that their self-imposed limit can be raised. That’s just having an excuse to continue the Clinton administrations attacks on the New Deal.
Your damn right. You’re still full of it.
I was sort of hoping that an illegal alien could take your job trolling here.
People like you have ruined this site. Have fun goosestepping into the future.
Re “hacking” Funny that the Russians hacked some states for Clinton and others for Trump. Funnier still that they hacked them to produce outcomes that most pollsters predicted.
That’s only because the Russians were trying to get by on the cheap and instead of keeping guys like you on the payroll, they fired all the competent IT guys and hired a bunch of illegal aliens.
Mmmm, mmmm, mmmm. Hot ad hominems in the early morning.
Interesting the points at which arguments suddenly get personal.
Before, the line of was “anonymous sources aren’t proof, we need verified documents.” Welp baby, you bet on the wrong horse this time and debts come due. Time to pay up and take your lumps that you were fucking wrong.
Also, documents do not allege that vote tallies were hacked or targeted. Well, as far as we know yet.
Sad that a 25-year-old will be doing some hard jail time for something that declassification by the Obama administration early on could have disclosed.
It is significant that the attack was on the registration systems and not the voting systems. Some analysis of provisional ballots is in order. Bet those were destroyed after the election.
The way I read the story is that an actual hacking of the registration database for one of the 3080 counties in the US would have likely altered the registration status of voters. It is enough to sew chaos on election day to have a large number of voters being considered unregistered and have to go to provisional ballots.
The US’s decentralized voting system with multiple vendors means that putting together something just to take advantage of Trump’s primary victory would be difficult and would of necessity be limited to only the systems and jurisdications that they could penetrate.
The allegations of sequential spearphishing attacks are credible, especially for a state cyberwarfare organization.
What is interesting is the apparent failure of these attacks – until there is information to the contrary. Are people getting more sophisticated about unsolicited emails? Or is it likely that some systems were compromised, may be currently compromised, and election officials do not know about their systems?
There are some important issues that oversight, and eventually the public, need to know:
It seems to me that the first allegations that went up before and after the election by Democrats were too hyped and not guarded enough as to what the threat was. The emphasis was too much on DNC system administrators and little emphasis was laid on the general issue of spearfishing emails that would alert county workers that not just the DNC was being hacked?
We know that due to technical support clumsiness in wording John Podesta allowed a spearphishing attack of his emails. Other parts of the DNC compromise are not as clear.
Comey’s hearing will start the process of gathering other evidence that might identify the source of the operation and Trump campaign complicity in it.
Who verified this document and what does it reveal?
According to the TV news (WGN) the hackers (and WGN was careful NOT to say Russians) only retrieved lists of voters with their addresses. I thought that information was public but apparently I was wrong. In any case, that information is much more useful to domestic political parties than foreign countries.
Yes “hacking” includes breaches of security but the public perception i.e. “interference with the election” is of vote changing or deleting records. The DNC did plenty of that. No need to invoke Russians.
. . . thank you, thank you, thank you . . .
The debt ceiling is a phoney number supposedly enforcing discipline on the executive branch by making it have to go back to Congress to get authorization to borrow.
Congress, however, sets the revenues (very important reality to understand when dealing with the the GOP) and the expenses (of which a bloated national defense and war expenditures come right off the top before consideration of anything else). The public doesn’t understand either of these realities nor does it understand how the tax law is jiggered to send revenue through tax deductions, tax law gambits, and outright tax fraud into the pockets of billionaires like Trump.
Democrats should call for a repeal of the debt ceiling legislation altogether as phony thrift imposed by those who don’t want to pay the bills they voted for.
That is, there is should be only one Democratic demand for passage of a debt ceiling bill: repeal of the debt ceiling nonsense. The Republic went for 2 centuries without a debt ceiling requirement.
Exactly! Good post.
Link
Back in the way back machine circa 2008 the fed loaned out or guaranteed somewhere between $16 trillion and $29 Trillion, depending on who you chose to believe. For anyone interested here is the link. That is a lot of bucks to backstop the financial industry. Bernie even wanted to enact a law preventing them from loaning to foreign banks. Nasty man.
So let the fed help out the Gov when they hit the debt limit. Just go ahead and call it QE or some such and buy up the debt as it comes due. Problem solved.