Janet Daley writes:

Contrary to what the Obama Democrats claimed, the face-off in Congress did not mean that the nation’s politics were “dysfunctional”. The politics of the US were functioning precisely as the Founding Fathers intended: the legislature was acting as a check on the power of the executive.

...

The Tea Party faction within the Republican party was demanding that, before any further steps were taken, there must be a debate about where all this was going. They had seen the future toward which they were being pushed, and it didnÂ’t work. They were convinced that the entitlement culture and benefits programmes which the Democrats were determined to preserve and extend with tax rises could only lead to the diminution of that robust economic freedom that had created the American historical miracle.

And, again contrary to prevailing wisdom, their view is not naive and parochial: it is corroborated by the European experience. By rights, it should be Europe that is immersed in this debate, but its leaders are so steeped in the sacred texts of social democracy that they cannot admit the force of the contradictions which they are now hopelessly trying to evade.

...

We have arrived at the endgame of what was an untenable doctrine: to pay for the kind of entitlements that populations have been led to expect by their politicians, the wealth-creating sector has to be taxed to a degree that makes it almost impossible for it to create the wealth that is needed to pay for the entitlements that populations have been led to expect, etc, etc.

The only way that state benefit programmes could be extended in the ways that are forecast for Europe’s ageing population would be by government seizing all the levers of the economy and producing as much (externally) worthless currency as was needed – in the manner of the old Soviet Union.

That is the problem. So profound is its challenge to the received wisdom of postwar Western democratic life that it is unutterable in the EU circles in which the crucial decisions are being made – or rather, not being made.

Debt and population growth have long permitted America to avoid making difficult, binary-type decisions about which path to choose: low-tax, dynamic capitialism or high-tax, redistributive socialism.

We chose both, and hence did not choose at all. The only reason the math worked (to the extent it worked) is that we were constantly screwing over a cohort that had no voice in our politics -- our children, but also, our future selves.

We were taxing our future selves. Our present selves did not pay for all the accumulated debt. Our future selves would.

People have a bad habit of screwing over their future selves. They procrastinate, for example, even though they know at the end of the day they'll wind up doing all that work anyway, but now under the gun to boot; but people do this to themselves every day.

For years the county refused to make a choice because it felt there was no need to; at the end of the day, the Republicans could secure their top priority (lower taxes) by simply agreeing to debt on the future citizens of the county, and Democrats could secure their top priority (more socialist welfare spending) by doing the same, and it all worked.

Until it didn't. Until we simply could not borrow any further.

Now, finally, we are having to choose.

It's going to be a difficult debate, but it will be the first time these issues have been truly debated since maybe the 1930s.

So of course there will be acrimony. Of course there will be tough talk.

The media's preferred political model of "everyone agree to just move a little bit more to socialism, in a quiet, dignified tone of voice" will not work any longer.

Because we've been avoiding cutting anyone's kitty for a long time -- choosing instead to punt the debt to our older selves, our children, and their children -- we just really haven't had this kind of debate in a long time, in which there will be clear losers in this process.

For a long time we've just chosen to spare currently living people any loss and instead throw all of the loss on to ourselves at some future point.

But the future is now. There's no one else to shift the losses to. The losses will have to come out of someone's skin, because we've already piled up $16 trillion in debt (and rising).

There is going to be acrimony, because at some point someone is going to take a haircut.

And not in the future, either.

Posted by: Ace at 01:27 PM | Comments (475)
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Bad.

“Once we took out Friday’s lows, it was like a trapdoor opened,” Art Cashin, director of floor operations at UBS Financial Services told CNBC. “This is very heavy volume again and that tells me that we’ve got people liquidating to raise cash.

Incidentally:

Moody's repeated a warning it could downgrade the United States before 2013 if the fiscal or economic outlook weakened significantly.

One funny thing: Remember when all the smart set made fun of Glenn Beck's audience for buying up gold...?

Yeah. They don't talk about that anymore, do they?

Rush: "Barackaclypse Now;" "Debt Man Walking."

Says Obama can be "landslided" in 2012.

Posted by: Ace at 12:17 PM | Comments (451)
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The tapes are being released by Caroline Kennedy.

First of all, noting the hypocrisy here, Dave @ Garfield Ridge notes that Caroline Kennedy pressured ABC to cancel what was, by all accounts, a good documentary on the JFK years, because she felt it didn't, I guess, indulge in the fantasy of Camelot.

So now she's releasing these tapes? Airing more dirty laundry?

I think the explanation is that she's going to get paid, one way or another, off these tapes. She'll do a book.

Those who think that Kennedy was killed by a massive conspiracy between the government and Texas oil tycoons now get some support from the victim's wife.

Jackie Onassis believed that Lyndon B Johnson and a cabal of Texas tycoons were involved in the assassination of her husband John F Kennedy, ‘explosive’ recordings are set to reveal.

...

She became convinced that the then vice president, along with businessmen in the South, had orchestrated the Dallas shooting, with gunman Lee Harvey Oswald – long claimed to have been a lone assassin – merely part of a much larger conspiracy.

...

The tapes were recorded with leading historian Arthur Schlesinger Jnr within months of the assassination on November 22, 1963, and had been sealed in a vault at the Kennedy Library in Boston.

This is odd timing. I thought that the conspiracy theorizing among the public did not get into swing until years after the assassination. And yet Jackie O was ground zero for the conspiracies, only months after the killing.

It just might be then that she was an important conduit for all of this. She might be Patient Zero for the viral conspiracy.

The other odd timing is that while the tapes were intended to be released 50 years after her death, Caroline is releasing them early, only 17 years after.

Again, getting paid.

The tapes will also reveal that Jackie strongly suspected her husband of having an affair with a 19 year old White House intern (Jackie found the underwear in their bedroom). And, supposedly in retaliation, she then had affairs with film star William Holden and Fiat founder Gianelli Agnelli.

Let me repeat Dave's point that Caroline killed that mini-series, supposedly to protect her family's reputation.

To protect her family's reputation? Or to preserve her status as first-to-market with tasty revelations?

Posted by: Ace at 11:53 AM | Comments (198)
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The AFT poses as more concerned about parents' desire for more control over the schools than does the Connecticut Education Association, which is more unabashedly teachers first, teachers last, teachers always.

The AFT pretended to be conciliatory with concerned parents on a "trigger" law, which would create power for parents to mandate changes in a school should it be failing for several years in a row.

But lobbyists for the AFT were actually working hard to kill the bill by making it so watered-down and weak as to not function at all in the way the parents intended.

And one lobbyist who was successful in undermining the law bragged about it on his website.

Parents are outraged over news that a lobbyist for the American Federation of Teachers bragged about watering down an education-reform bill at the AFTÂ’s national conference last month.

...

At the AFT’s national conference last month, a lobbyist for the union described the state chapter’s successful efforts to weaken the legislation in a presentation entitled, “How Connecticut Diffused [sic] the Parent Trigger.” In it, the lobbyist recounted how the AFT initially tried to “kill the bill” but later decided to “engage the opposition” to mitigate its effect.

In the slides, the lobbyist noted that the AFT dragged the Connecticut Education Association “kicking and screaming” into line and that “parent trigger advocates . . . were not at the table.”

Eventually, legislators settled on a measure that set up “school governance councils” on which parents would hold most of the seats but which had only “authority to recommend reconstitution in [the] third year of poor performance.”

Also among the slides, first reported by Dropout Nation, was the lobbyist’s reminder that “school governance council” “is a misnomer.” “They are advisory and do not have true governing authority,” the slide reassured its readers.

At some point people's eagerness to be deceived and ill-used is their own fault.

Posted by: Ace at 11:17 AM | Comments (95)
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On Twitter, Larry Sabato (the pollster) opines:

Obviously this is Obama's low point. Whether he recovers depends on unemployment and GDP more than SuperCommittee debt proposal.

I'm not so sure this is "obvious." People have a weird psychological compulsion to predict the future being essentially like the current moment. So to Sabato, "obviously" the economy will not deteriorate further; there will be no second recession. In his mind, whether he knows it or not, he "predicts" continue sputtering growth of 1-1.5%.

That may happen. But the alternate scenarios -- an improvement, or, especially, a further collapse -- seem more likely.

If this is Obama's actual low point, he may benefit from it in 2012. Perversely, he has made such a catastrophic mess of things he virtually has no place to go but up.

He may reduce the public's expectations so much -- get them, as Ming the Merciless said, to be satisfied with less -- that simply avoiding a complete collapse of the US economy will be marked as a positive accomplishment in his favor.

I don't think that is likely, but the situation is becoming so bad that any marginal improvement (or simple stabilization) could wind up reassuring people.

Of course, Sabato might simply be wrong from the starting premise. Maybe Obama's actual low point is yet to come.

And God save our nation if that is the case.

Posted by: Ace at 10:49 AM | Comments (331)
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He did not (IIRC) actually have the stones to blame Republicans by name -- but he did blame them by reference, claiming he had warned the nation that a "lengthy debate" about the debt limit could have dire consequences, including an economic slowdown.

Unmentioned is why he and the Democrats couldn't yield more quickly on spending cuts in order to avert this outcome which he claims, retrospectively, he prophecized.

He called for, yet again, a "long-term, balanced approach" to tackling the debt crisis, the signature element of which is "tax reform," by which he means tax hikes. He also noted the need for "modest" adjustments to Medicare.

As usual, he did not explain what these "modest" adjustments might be.

He concluded with a rah-rah that "America will always be a triple A" country, and that these problems are eminently "solvable."

For good measure, he noted that there are some things a President just can't control, such as "earthquakes" and economic slowdowns in other parts of the world, but that we can control our own response to these "disruptions." (Like, for example: Tax reform.)

One of the most absurd parts of the statement was when he averred "we all know what we need to do" (or words to that effect) and that political plans were plentiful; we only lack "political will."

This from the man who continues to refuse to offer his own plan, with real numbers, and real cuts, and real political guts.

He says we all know what we have to do, and yet he refuses to state what exactly that is. We just know.

Will he be finally unveiling a plan? No. In the coming weeks, he says he will offer "recommendations" -- the same pablum with no numbers, the same gauzy "principles" designed via focus-group to be so vague as to be meaningless (and hence to alienate no voters, but also advance no actual agenda).

Leadership.

Posted by: Ace at 10:18 AM | Comments (279)
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Video below.

When Axelrod objects that the country was in a different place when Obama said that, Schieffer responds, “We are, things are worse than they were."

Axelrod maps out his 2012 election strategy. It's not unexpected or clever-- Obama has no actual outcomes to run on, so he will have to run on policy choices.

Axelrod sets up 2012 as the choice between tax cuts and "training" for workers and "investments" in green jobs and the rest of it.

There are obvious problems with this strategy.

They actually did most of this crap, not in the strong form command economy way they might prefer, but at least to fair extent. It didn't work.

I've written before about general political goods and partisan political goods. Partisan political goods are ideological things you can accomplish simply with the votes in Congress and/or the stroke of the President's pen -- stuff like enacting the Mexico City policy, or repealing it, or raising taxes on the rich, or resisting those higher tax rates.

This stuff is pretty easily accomplished, as long as you have the votes. But this stuff also is pitched to the base, not to the independents. Independents, being only vaguely ideological, don't care a great deal about these things.

They care about what I call general political goods, stuff that's good no matter what your politics. Prosperity and peace, mainly, but it could include common sense reforms which are widely appreciated, good government type stuff.

Obama has delivered not a single general political good. His only accomplishments, to the extent they're accomplishments at all, are in the area of partisan political goods, stuff the liberal base likes, but which conservatives hate, and independents don't care about very much (or, as is the case with ObamaCare, actively oppose).

He has not delivered peace. Given the War on Terror, no president could, but Obama has not won a war, nor turned one around. He hasn't even managed to avoid being drawn into a third war.

The economy is in horrible shape and we may be entering a second recession, by the technical definition. (I know a lot of people object that the recession never ended, and that's a fair point, but based on the technical definition (a recession begins with two quarters of negative GDP growth and ends with (I think) two quarters of positive GDP growth) we did, but are now headed, it seems, for Obama's very own recession.)

The debt is monstrous.

He can't even run effectively on the neutral, general political good of being a strong leader or good manager of government -- he is neither.

So he can't run on any of these things which appeal to all people, no matter what their political stripes. Instead he must run only on a legislative laundry list, a series of laws already passed that people aren't thrilled with and a series of new legislative proposals which are ideological in nature.

His self-conception of Hero of the Left precludes him from even running on a Clinton-style menu of micro-initiatives (many of which might have symbolic appeal to independents, like Clinton's daffy, but apparently popular, agitation for school uniforms).

I spend a lot of time being frustrated with independents for not finally deciding which of the two conceptions of government they want.

There is an upside for us this cycle, though, in the muddle of independents' politics. That upside is that they tend not to vote on theory and ideology, but instead chiefly on practical results.

Does Obama have any practical positive results? Apart from killing bin Ladin (a decision, of course, that not a single GOP candidate would have opposed, except for Ron Paul), he has not a single one.

Almost Below 11,000... The market is scared.

more...

Posted by: Ace at 09:21 AM | Comments (411)
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Just a statement.

It isn't hard to predict what he'll say. He'll say I told you so, I was right. He will stress that he warned us about the danger of failing to get a Grand Bargain, and that how failing to do so would result in a downgrade.

Actually, he said nothing of the sort; he was fixated single-minded only a default, not a downgrade, and only pushed for a deal that would take him through 2013. That was his non-negotiable term (which turned out to have wiggle room in it).

Among the things he won't address is why he did not accept Boehner's $800 billion in revenues (in exchange for something like $2.5 trillion in cuts), which would have gotten us near S&P's recommended $4 trillion in cuts. He won't discuss how he blew this offer up by demanding more -- which may have been deliberate; that might have been Harry Reid's call, to make sure there'd be no tax increases (political trouble for Democrats) and also no significant cuts and reforms (both of those are also big trouble for Democrats).

And, of course, he will not present a plan. He can't. He doesn't have one. And he can't present an "Obama plan" because the numbers will give away the fact that his horseshit about corporate jets are trivial, and the "balanced approach" he speaks of vaguely must mean a broad tax increase on what most people consider the middle class.

Prediction: Obama will demand that Congress hurry up and pass the second tranche debt reduction package within a month or two.

Which, in itself, is not an awful idea.

However, he will himself of course be MIA for this mission. Votin' present. And then he'll set up the political narrative that all delays in this procedure are due to Tea Party Terrorists who resist... a balanced approach.

A balanced approach he dare not actually commit to paper.

Posted by: Ace at 08:55 AM | Comments (464)
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Disagreeing? 55%. Which is a majority but not much of one.

Fifty-five percent (55%) of Likely U.S. Voters, in fact, say members of the Tea Party are not economic terrorists. A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that just 29% believe Tea Party members have been terrorists during the budget debates, while another 16% are undecided.

Perhaps tellingly, while 53% of Democrats view Tea Party members as terrorists, 57% of voters not affiliated with either major party disagree, as do 74% of Republicans.

Still, a plurality (43%) of all voters think the Tea Party has made things worse of the country in the budget debates in Congress. Thirty-two percent (32%) say the Tea Party has made things better for America, and 14% say itÂ’s had no impact. Eleven percent (11%) are undecided.

Just to note, 29% is usually considered a fringe point of view. Certainly if 29% on the right believe something, with most others disagreeing (or being undecided), the media dismisses it as "fringe."

But ah, when the media happens to be part of that fringe... then it's not fringe anymore. Then it becomes Just Common Sense.

Posted by: Ace at 08:38 AM | Comments (127)
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Just a ridiculously cut-copy-paste bit of stealing from Ace's earlier post on this subject:

It isn't just about Wisconsin's future, but the nation's.

You can donate to the Wisconsin GOP here, or to a group called Frontline Wisconsin.

And if money is tight, donate volunteering time. There will be a liberal army in Wisconsin to drive the vote. We cannot just sit back and hope our voters show up too.

PPP's WeAreWisconsin(D)/DailyKos(DD+) poll results below: more...

Posted by: CAC at 07:55 AM | Comments (72)
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