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« Liberal Outrage: June 2011 | Main | Liberal Outrage: August 2011 » Liberal Outrage#compromise We also learned the following today: Maybe now's not the best time to tweet our representatives with the request that they cut government spending? Update: As Krugman says: By fnord12 | July 29, 2011, 3:26 PM | Liberal Outrage | Comments (3)| Link I know it sounds insane, but Brad Delong, Matthew Yglesias, and Yale constitutional scholar Jack Balkin all think that Obama can continue to pay the bills by minting gigantic platinum coins. Look, this may be crazy, but it's right there in the constitution. And when you have this nonsensical debt ceiling law (to authorize payments for spending you already authorized in the budget bill) and opponents who are not willing to compromise, you need to be able to show that you've got an alternative so you're negotiating from a position of strength. By fnord12 | July 29, 2011, 10:58 AM | Liberal Outrage | Comments (3)| Link I'm not a regular reader of alicublog (it's usually more snark than info), but there is so much gold in these two posts i may have to start. By fnord12 | July 28, 2011, 10:40 AM | Liberal Outrage | Link And get that earthship with the super huge windmill and greenhouse cause when the sun wakes up, we're gonna be in trouble. Communications satellites will be knocked offline. Financial transactions, timed and transmitted via those satellite, will fail, causing millions or billions in losses. The GPS system will go wonky. Astronauts on the space station will huddle in a shielded module, as they have done three times in the past decade due to "space weather," the scientific term for all of the sun's freaky activity. Flights between North America and Asia, over the North Pole, will have to be rerouted, as they were in April during a weak solar storm at a cost to the airlines of $100,000 a flight. And oil pipelines, particularly in Alaska and Canada, will suffer corrosion as they, like power lines, conduct electricity from the solar storm. But the biggest impact will be on the modern marvel known as the power grid. And experts warn that the grid is not ready. In 2008, the National Academy of Sciences stated that an 1859-level storm could knock out power in parts of the northeastern and northwestern United States for months, even years. Report co-author John Kappenmann estimated that about 135 million Americans would be forced to revert to a pre-electric lifestyle or relocate. Water systems would fail. Food would spoil. Thousands could die. The solar activity is expected to peak between 2013 and 2014. Whether or not a solar storm of this magnitude will occur during this cycle is unknown. Hopefully not, since, as usual, we're not ready. The president of the North American Electric Reliability Corp (who came up with this name? it's terrible) is already downplaying the the severity of the threat, saying "the idea of 130 million people out of power for 10 years is an overstatement." Ok, but how about being out of power for 5 years? Or 1 year? You know how much we whine when we have a power outage that last hours? You think we can deal with years, let alone days? It's summer right now, so picture not having any a/c (unless you're me, this is prolly a horrifying prospect). Also, water systems would fail - no clean water. I might not need air conditioning, but by god, i NEED clean water. So...let's go. By min | July 28, 2011, 8:29 AM | Liberal Outrage | Comments (2)| Link Now that i've gotten my rant out of the way (and no, i don't feel better), here is an interesting observation: Indeed, the current "crisis" is a manufactured one. Of course the United States needs to get its fiscal house in order. Of course the debt has ballooned to threatening levels. But the problem remains long-term and mostly about ensuring job growth and bending down the health care cost curve. Still, it is not clear what the scale of the catastrophe could be should Congress fail to raise the debt ceiling. Some investment banks speculate that the market reaction might not be as bad as people think, with government going into a very short-lived shutdown, voter anger forcing Congress to get its act together, and the market rolling its eyes even if it dumps some bonds. Not that i think we should legislate based on how the stock market reacts, but this goes along with what Krugman said: better to default and see what happens than cut Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. By fnord12 | July 26, 2011, 11:41 AM | Liberal Outrage | Link James Buchanan literally had the country fall apart during his term of office. George W. Bush had September 11th, Katrina, at least one war under phoney pretenses, and the greatest economic collapse this side of the Great Depression. For that matter, Hoover had the Great Depression. So maybe i'm being hyperbolic. But how did we get to the point where our choices are either more economic collapse or cutting our social safety programs? The average duration of unemployment today is nine months and employers are not hiring people with gaps in their employment records. Those people are without insurance. Many are hanging on the best they can until they can go on Medicare. Many are on Medicaid. And Obama wants to raise the Medicare age to compromise with Republicans on what should be a routine vote? Cut Medicaid? Cut social security (which isn't even a factor in the debt debate)? And let's remember that whether Obama "wins" or "loses", those unemployed people aren't being helped. This is entirely the wrong issue to be discussing right now. Obama hasn't made that point. He's still talking about "when times are tough, families tighten their belts, and the government needs to do the same" which is exactly wrong. Obama is now urging voters to contact their congresspeople and demand that we make this grand compromise. No thanks! But where was this call to arms for a larger stimulus package that would have reduced unemployment? For a public option that would have reduced medical costs - which is the main cause of our long term debt? Krugman says we've got a known danger and an unknown danger and we might as well go with the unknown. There's also the theory that the entire debt ceiling law is unconstitutional and the Treasury can just continue paying its bills regardless. So a smart or clever or brave president still has options, and therefore bargaining power. But Obama keeps going to the Republicans with "here's everything you want", which just encourages them to ask for even more. So we're screwed. Let me be clear*: The Republicans are obviously the ones who are causing this mess. But Republican opposition should have been anticipated months and years ago. Instead it's been endless attempts at a compromise, on every issue, and that's entirely Obama's fault. It's a failure of leadership. Update: Yglesias takes issue with people blaming the president. Says blame congress instead. And i do blame all the Democrats for being cowards and chumps. But Obama is the leader of the party. It's his cautious strategy that informs Congressional Dems' tactics. By fnord12 | July 26, 2011, 10:40 AM | Liberal Outrage | Link The Democrats stupidly agreed to extend the Bush tax cuts in 2010 (with no agreement that the Republicans would in turn extend the debt ceiling; here's Tom Tomorrow on that). If the Democrats want to increase revenue, they have to do nothing and let the tax cut extension expire in 2012. They don't have to make a deal with the Republicans, unless you really think Wall Street will let the US Government default on its loans. By fnord12 | July 22, 2011, 12:47 PM | Liberal Outrage | Link Often hear liberals say that they don't want to raise taxes, they just want to reform the tax system. It always sounded like weaselly nonsense to me, but Ezra Klein explains: Also, if you like Ezra Klein to explain things to you, here's the debt ceiling issue explained in a one post, including its history. One thing he doesn't mention that i think is worth repeating is that the debt ceiling was raised 7 times during the Bush II administration. By fnord12 | July 22, 2011, 12:35 PM | Liberal Outrage | Link Paul Krugman gets creative: Then Obama apologizes, says that his advisers have learned that there is no such country as Ruritania, and cancels the program. But we still have the new roads and rail links; plus, the surge in housing demand is now self-sustaining, and the economy remains strong. Of course, we could do all this without the Ruritanian threat; but we won't. By fnord12 | July 21, 2011, 11:22 AM | Liberal Outrage | Link When i see headlines like "Obama Embraces 'Gang of Six' Deficit Plan", i wonder if the people who dub these Gangs of Six and Gangs of Twelve and what have you realize that the original Gang of Four were a group of Chinese communists who are blamed for the worst parts of the Cultural Revolution and were subsequently arrested after a failed coup attempt (they later went on to form a kick-ass post-punk band, so it wasn't all bad). When i look at what these US gangs do, it's probably not a bad comparison. The "Gang of Twelve" ensured that Bush's right-wing judges got approved. The "Gang of Six" is ensuring that the Erskine/Bowles Debt Commission plan is enacted along with the debt ceiling vote. There was another "Gang" (i forget how many) that ensured that Obama's healthcare bill would suck. But these gangs are generally discussed with approval in the media so i think it's funny that they're named after a group that was originally part of the mainstream power structure that eventually got branded as traitors and arrested. Can't wait. By fnord12 | July 20, 2011, 7:32 AM | Liberal Outrage | Link Krugman nots that Cordray has no better shot of getting past the Republican filibuster than Warren did, and then says: By fnord12 | July 18, 2011, 10:45 AM | Liberal Outrage | Comments (1)| Link In this article about "self-organising networks", I came across this wonderful line: Hottentot. By min | July 1, 2011, 1:39 PM | Liberal Outrage
& Ummm... Other? | Comments (1)| Link « Liberal Outrage: June 2011 | Main | Liberal Outrage: August 2011 » |