Kick The Can

Please Remain On The Line. We Appreciate Your Patience.

The Great Curmudgeon, June 18, 2011: Read 'Em And Weep

Our Very Serious People can't raise taxes on rich people. They can't raise taxes on corporations. They can't allow the current "Lil' Boots" tax cuts to expire. They can't institute a VAT or or any other form of taxation. At all.

They can't do anything that would take a dime away from the Owners that might help dig us out of the hole they've led us to, and put us in.

They can reduce "entitlement" spending. They can put restrictions and changes to Medicare and Social Security benefits on the table -- and, once the line has been crossed in altering these programs, Little Rupert and the Very Serious People's echo chamber will broadcast, 24 X 7: There Is No Longer A Third Rail In American Politics.

Then, after the usual "One Friedman Unit" has passed and it's assumed the stupid Lumpen voting population has forgotten all about it, there will be continuing discussion driven by the Rethugs for "transition" to a "more equitable" voucher system that could replace Medicare (which they tell us is bankrupt anyway, even if that's a lie), and to "provide alternatives" to Social Security (which they tell us will run out of money, soon, even if that's another lie) and "transition" the savings of Seniors to the safety and surety of the casinos Markets.

Then, there's this: Digby quotes The Other (Non Joe) Klein:

[Ezra Klein:] Michael Gerson describes what top Republicans are saying will be in the final budget deal: A package of immediate and specific budget cuts; budget caps reaching out five years to reassure conservatives that tough budget decisions will be made in the future; Medicare reforms short of the House approach; no tax increases — a Republican red line — but perhaps additional revenue from the elimination of tax expenditures.

I’m hearing mostly the same thing. The debt-ceiling deal looks like it’ll be almost entirely composed of cuts and caps. Whatever revenues are in it will be token contributions, at best. There won’t be structural reforms to Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, and there won’t be a pass at tax reform. The budget caps will make automatic cuts to spending if we’re not on a path to primary balance by 2014. The big question with the cap is whether it just makes automatic cuts to spending or it also raises taxes. It’s not obvious to me why the Democrats would fold on that last point, but they might.

What this means is that Democrats and Republicans have agreed that the “grand bargain” isn’t spending cuts for tax revenues, but entitlement reforms for tax revenues.

Digby herself continues:

what this really means is that the Democrats wanted to make the parameters of the 2012 budget fight around entitlement cuts and allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire as scheduled. And apparently they want to be forced to cut spending radically in the second term. In other words, a big win for the austerity fetishists...

Obama will say that he's shown great leadership by being willing to rein in spending and will run on allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire as the Democratic "win" in the Grand Bargain --- but only if he's re-elected. The Republicans will say that Obama's profligate spending has exacerbated the unemployment crisis and that raising taxes when the economy is sputtering will make things even worse.

Who knows what people will believe?... whichever jersey you wear, and whatever problems you have with the policies, you'll be told to clap louder --- to drown out the sound of the plutocrats' laughter.

My favorite part is that the Grand Bargain which Gerson and Klein describe, and Digby commented on, is just a trade -- allowing the Bush Tax Cuts (which primarily benefit the top ten per cent of our population) to expire in 2012, in exchange for massive spending cuts to social programs and "entitlements".

In this, all The Wealthy will give up is an easy mechanism (which Lil' Boots, one of their own, handed them) to increase their wealth. They only have to give up the potential to have Even More. They will not suffer reduction in their standards of living in any real way.

By comparison, The People will lose things which are concrete -- real services and benefits -- without which they will have to find a way to pay for them, while their wages remain stagnant.

Some will be able to pay for daycare as they work two or more jobs; for healthcare as it continues to rise in price and degrade in quality; for help to aging parents; for their children's college educations. Meanwhile, their ability to save for their own retirement or make major purchases will be reduced.

The Middle Class will continue to disappear. State governments and municipalities will continue to reduce services. The quality of living for most people will be reduced, in real and quantitative ways.

The most vulnerable in our society -- the elderly, the sick; children -- won't be able to afford to replace what they're losing. I guess they'll just die, or go hungry, or join a gang.

The People, not The Wealthy, will suffer: This is what in fact will occur by continuing to choose Austerity -- spending cuts, rather than taxation and economic stimulus to create jobs. Not that it seems to matter to our bright, clever, and wise Very Serious People. All they talk about is about what won't be done. Cut everything; keep the banks and investment houses afloat; make the goddamn peasants pay for it all. They want their precious entitlements, let 'em work for it and shut their damn mouths, if they love this place so much.

For you and I, the only alternatives we're really offered are "Hope" "God" and, "Patience", and perhaps a soup line or two. In the meantime, Shut up and don't complain. Mind your own business. You Might Not Be Able To Go Home Because You've Lost It, But You Can't Stay Here; Move Along. Millions will wake up every morning, thinking: I don't know how much longer I can go on.

Meanwhile, it'll be just another day in Paradise for our Owners -- So pretty; so soft and gentle, and filled with wonderful possibilities: Where shall we go today?

This the future Our Very Serious People are shaping. Enjoy!

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Even More Very Exceptionally Stupefyingly Horrifically Titanically Bad Things

Japan: Gone For Pizza, Back in 27,011 AD

Reports from the TEPCO Fukashima Daiichi nuclear complex over the past few weeks have slowly revealed that damage to the cores in three of the reactors has been exceptionally severe. Tokyo Power Company officials indicated that in two of the reactors, their cores had not only melted down, but melted through the steel containment vessels.

In addition, TEPCO admitted it had misreported the amounts of radioactive material released during the first week of the crisis, after the earthquake and tsunami. Apparently, the release in the first seven days was 230% greater than all the radioactivity released in the 75 days that followed.

Cooling the amazingly hot blobs of radioactive material is apparently being done by simply pumping millions of gallons of (mostly sea)water into areas where the blobs came to rest, and hoping for the best. Even so, TEPCO's public statements have been upbeat, even hopeful -- though, gosh: They did call the continuing crisis "regrettable".

However, nuclear industry experts outside Japan and the United States have said they believe the crisis is more severe than anyone, certainly the Japanese government and TEPCO, are admitting -- and one, in an interview with Al-Jazeera, called it "the biggest industrial catastrophe in the history of mankind".

"[TEPCO] recalculated the amount of radiation released, but the news is really not talking about this," [said Arnold Gundersen, a licensed reactor operator with 39 years of nuclear power engineering experience, managing and coordinating projects at 70 nuclear power plants around the US]...

"Units one through three have nuclear waste on the floor, the melted core, that has plutonium in it, and that has to be removed from the environment for hundreds of thousands of years," he said. "Somehow, robotically, they will have to go in there and manage to put it in a container and store it for infinity, and that technology doesn't exist..."

"We are discovering hot particles everywhere in Japan, even in Tokyo," he said. "Scientists are finding these everywhere. Over the last 90 days these hot particles have continued to fall and are being deposited in high concentrations. A lot of people are picking these up in car engine air filters."

Radioactive air filters from cars in Fukushima prefecture and Tokyo are now common, and Gundersen says his sources are finding radioactive air filters in the greater Seattle area of the US as well...

"These get stuck in your lungs or GI tract, and they are a constant irritant," he explained, "One cigarette doesn't get you, but over time they do. These [hot particles] can cause cancer, but you can't measure them with a Geiger counter. Clearly people in Fukushima prefecture have breathed in a large amount of these particles. Clearly the upper West Coast of the US has people being affected. That area got hit pretty heavy in April."

Assuming Gunderson's analysis is correct, why isn't the media doing more to present the facts, particularly if there will be a continuing health hazard?

"We have 20 nuclear cores exposed, the fuel pools have several cores each, that is 20 times the potential to be released than Chernobyl," said Gundersen. "The data I'm seeing shows that we are finding hot spots further away than we had from Chernobyl, and the amount of radiation in many of them was the amount that caused areas to be declared no-man's-land for Chernobyl. We are seeing square kilometers being found 60 to 70 kilometers away from the reactor. You can't clean all this up. We still have radioactive wild boar in Germany, 30 years after Chernobyl."

But, TEPCO's criminally insane management and the Japanese government have shown a pattern of lying about not revealing, understating and misreporting details of the reactor crisis since it began, so I'm not surprised. I would really like to know how much we were dusted with here on the West Coast, however, and what kind of danger we will continue to be in...

But that's probably asking too much of our media, or our government.

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Ich Hab' So Heimweh Nach Dem Kurfürstendamm

Berlin Webcam Near the Zeughaus, Looking Southwest Down The
Unter den Linden To The Brandenburger Tor; Neue Wache Hidden
On The Right, And 'Alte Fritz' In The Traffic Island At Center

Google Earth View Showing Approximate Position Of Webcam (Red
'X') And The General Berlin Vicinity (©2011 Aero West/Google;
Click For Larger Image. It's Easy And Fun!)

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Breaking The Rules

Revenge Of The Dogma

Barry Ritholtz, at his The Big Picture, mentioned a column by Fareed Zakaria at Time magazine online, "How Today's Conservatism Lost Touch With Reality".

Unlike the abstract theories of Marxism and socialism [Zakaria writes], (Conservatism) started not from an imagined society but from the world as it actually exists...

Watching this election campaign, one wonders what has happened to that tradition... I would like to see lower rates in the context of tax simplification and reform, but what is the evidence that tax cuts are the best path to revive the U.S. economy? ... The U.S. is among the lowest taxed of the big industrial economies. So the case that America is grinding to a halt because of high taxation is not based on facts but is simply a theoretical assertion...

Many Republican businessmen have told me that the Obama Administration is the most hostile to business in 50 years. Really? ... right now any discussion of government involvement in the economy — even to build vital infrastructure — is impossible because it is a cardinal tenet of the new conservatism that such involvement is always and forever bad. Meanwhile, across the globe, the world's fastest-growing economy, China, has managed to use government involvement to create growth and jobs for three decades.

Ritholtz's criticism of Zakaria's (actually very mild) article boils down to What, you only just noticed that assertions of mainstream conservatives are not based in reality? Gimme a break!

Barry deals with facts as well as the popular delusion of crowds in his chosen profession. I believe the massive disconnect between the world marketed to us by a mainstream media, and the Real World you and I can plainly see in front of us, rightfully annoys him.

For his observation that the earth is round, serious people are showering Zakaria with effusive praise. While the reality based observations are long overdue, it is embarrassing that we feel so compelled to applaud it. People seem to be forgetting: This is what media is supposed to do... What does it say about our damaged US democracy and its wounded 4th Estate (aka corporate media) that merely making an obvious assertion is news? ...

The right wing has long embraced magical thinking. You can see it across a spectrum of thought: It is a short hop from believing that Supply Side Tax Cuts are self funding to all other manner of nonsense. From denying Evolution to managing Health Care costs to Global Warming, it is a continuum.

Making no-plan invasions of other countries is the natural progression of such magical thinking. If your beliefs are righteous enough, then the outcome is assured by a munificent deity.

As a personal belief system, that may be fine, but as government philosophy, it makes for horrific policy decisions.

The Retreat from Empiricism has been detailed over the years, but not by the mainstream media. It has been the alternative press — websites, blogs, critics outside of the mainstream — who have stated the obvious for many, many years. Somehow, the Media missed nearly all of it. It wasn’t until after the Katrina disaster that the scales fell from Press’ eyes. Suddenly, in the middle of George W. Bush’ second term, the Press found their voice. Years after 9/11, after the national terror alert was manipulated for political purposes, long after the Nation was lied into a war of choice through dishonest and deceptive means at great cost in blood and treasure, did the Media found [sic] its voice.

Barry talks about the MSM's reaction to the disaster of Katrina -- the television images of the rooftop stranded and the drifting dead, set against Lil' Boots playing the guitar and strutting in front of teevee cameras; while his mother chuckled that the disaster "worked out very well" for its principally black victims -- as though it were a watershed moment. I'm a lot less sure.

MSM coverage of the tragedy in New Orleans was singular (NBC's Brian Willams, his voice shaking with outrage as he broadcast live, was the high water mark, and no pun intended), and so was the willingness of the media to state clearly that Bush administration's response was, like almost everything it touched, incompetent and ad hoc (Little Rupert's Fox, alone among the media outlets, refused to do so, of course). But the media "finding its voice" didn't continue beyond that sad autumn of 2005. And New Orleans still hasn't recovered.

The terrible synergy between advertising revenue and people buying stuff is still the driving force behind global media -- it isn't about accuracy in reporting; it's about dollars. If the MSM were concerned about truth, 'American Idol' would be the exception, not the rule, and we'd have wall-to-wall cable news programs: The History Channel on steroids, informing people about -- well, the truth.

Instead, cable teevee is about entertainment; or, "news as entertainment". Reporting facts as accurately as possible -- telling the truth -- is the exception. It's what most people in The News Game tell themselves their profession is all about, so they can make their house payments; when all we really get is Hannity, Matthews, Bill-O, Beck and Blitzer. With commercials, aber natürlich.

When telling the truth is seen as "a potential money-maker"; well, then people will talk about this brave, New Business Model In Media as if it were a notion never before invented, and not a response to generations of lying and manipulation for political influence and profit.

Until it becomes unprofitable to sell lies and illusion, it's still Little Rupert's world. We just live in it.

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That Simple

Random Barking

I said this before, and simply wanted to repeat myself:

Without jobs, no one can buy anything. People will not be able to pay their mortgage loans and car loans and credit card debt. As people don't buy things Businesses lose revenue. They will fire more employees. Unemployment rises, and the cycle continues. I mean, it actually is just that simple.

But I'm only a Dog, and no one listens to me.

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Debt Ceiling Russian Roulette

Fear Hunter

Something about the game of 'Debt Chicken' being played out between the Rethugs, and the Democrats (Aber Ganz Ohne Rücken), reminded me of Michael Cimino's 1978 film The Deer Hunter -- which included a long sequence where Robert DiNiro and Christopher Walken, taken captive by the VC/NVA, are forced to play Russian roulette (see the whole clip here at UTub).

The idea of someone being forced to play a game that involves putting a gun to the country's head, just for hysterically stupid political posturing, was an image I couldn't get rid of...

Mehr: This post is based on one, small part of an earlier creation by Max Udargo, which you should definitely see here. Max is the creator of Burton & Jefferson, and Peterbuilt Nixon, and is a much funnier dog than I am.

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A Reprint: Our Lords At Play In The Fields

How Brightly They Do Shine
[A Reprint From July 10, 2010, As 'The Season' Approaches]

"It is pretty hard to tell what does bring happiness; poverty and wealth have both failed." —Kin Hubbard, Offered As The "Quote Of The Day" On The Big Picture Website, July 10, 2010

Barry Ritholtz, whose blog I look at frequently, is an investment advisor whose take on America's class of super-rich occasionally rotates between gently mocking derision and moderate envy.

I've never been able to figure out what prompts him to gravitate in one direction or another, but I think the idea is that in his universe, it's no sin to be rich -- but it is if you were dishonest and rapacious about it.

If the quote above, gracing Barry's website this morning, was posed to him as a choice, Barry wouldn't be voting for Poverty. Quite the opposite. Neither would the poor little guy above (How's Poverty working out for him, by the way?). The happy people above don't have to choose wealth; they're too busy shopping.

While that kind of choice would hardly be news (most persons would choose physical comfort over penury), for the kind of world he lives in, Barry understands it's those with money to invest who butter his bread. Just something to keep in mind.


Barry Ritholtz: Good Head For Da Numbers, Dis Guy

Barry's a smart guy, believes as strongly in free-trade capitalism as one can, believes that business is about psychology and competition; and feels that predicting in advance the tidal shifts of money washing around in the markets is The Great Game, and it's all about Making The Right Call, because that's what other people pay him for: He's a principal in a modestly-sized investment advisory business in New York, and he blogs about the kinds of data, the solid (and suspect) numbers, and utterances and divinations of Big Names in the financial world.

Apparently, Barry and his Firm do rather well (God forbid it should be otherwise), and while I don't like the fish tank Barry's chosen to swim in or many of its other creatures, as a former financial analyst Dog, I can appreciate the idea of making decisions based on the most reliable data, and because he seems more fact-based than not I at least pay attention to his take on things.

It's my guess that Ritholtz feels too much of the Free Markets' decision-making is based on misleading interpretation of data provided by government and business, and poor analysis of the real data that is available -- all of which obscures what is really going on behind the curtain. I can appreciate that.

And, he's been critical of the greed and excess that effectively destroyed America's Middle Class, and has so heavily weighted The Game in favor of our Masters Of The Universe©. Barry was sounding skepticism, and then an an alarm, about the Markets and the underlying derivative/real estate Mambo long before the crash.

He's even written a book about it, Bailout Nation. It's a good book, and I recommend it. It's not a Manifesto, and it focuses on what happened in the last days of the Lil-Boots Bush regime, and the early days of Obama's administration -- and how the U.S. Government has effectively paid taxpayer's money to save failed financial organizations led by greedy, sociopathic losers; hence, the 'Bailout' in the title.

[Please Note: Those are my characterizations of the times and events, by the way, not Ritholtz's. His research is solid and his occasionally acerbic observations are worth the price of admission. Buy the book; you'll learn things.]


Cover Of Bailout Nation (via SamSederShow)

To sum up: I appreciate Ritzholtz' drive for accuracy, and seeking better fact-based methodologies for sussing out market trends: Again, it's what he's paid for. At the same time, I don't much care for the industry he's a part of; it's my right to wrinkle my nose and growl at it, deep in my throat, as much as it's his right to jump in his particular tank and swim.

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Barry and his family are in The Hamptons for their Summer vacation. The fact that you may not know or care where the Hamptons are is an indication of your Wal-Mart-shopping, Beer-Swilling, Mall-trolling, Fox-News-believing, worker-bee, Drone-peasant status.


For You: Trip To Cardiovascular Surgeon You Can't Afford
Is Not Included

The Hamptons are an area that encompasses the eastern end of New York's Long Island, and above that, across the Long Island Sound, the south shore of Connecticut. It's a fabled place of summer fun for the wealthy, and a tradition for the East Coast's Hereditary (and Noveau) Rich -- just like Taking That Second Job, and Wondering How To Tell The Kids We're Losing Our Home are for the rest of us.

The actual Wealthy -- Old-Money Bluebloods and the Mega-Noveau Riche Hedge Fund Managers, Pop-Rock Starz Of The Moment, and Hollywood Mega-producers -- own homes there. There are no McMansions for these people,who manage the architects and designers they hire, and are concerned with "getting it right". They don't have to live within a construction budget imposed on them by a loan officer, and don't have to (Ca-Ching!) refinance to upgrade. They can afford what they want, right away.


The Bright Spot: Global Warming's Rising Sea Levels Will Put
All These Places Underwater In The Next Few Decades, Or Sooner

The less (but still respectably) rich who can't afford a Second Residence (not yet; but we have hopes for them; yes, we do) can lease a home in the area for the three-month Season (for some high-end properties, the cost is over $100K per month), then return to their co-op apartments in the West Seventies or trendy lofts in Soho and TriBeca.


Rich Hamptons Girlz, Partying With Their Kind Until Dawn

And, Barry is there, in the thick of it all. He blogs about it -- as much to proudly announce Je sui Arriveste!, as to report the season's activity an indicator that America's Elders and Betters have started 'living large' once again. The fear of appearing to be too conspicuous in their consumption -- of being heard to grunt too loudly at the trough -- seems to have abated since the 'unpleasantness' of 2008.

Out here in the playground of the rich and famous [Barry tells us], the schism between the two Americas is about as clear as one can ever see.

[Please Note: The photos below are not part of Ritzholtz' blog post. They, and their captions, are part of Before Nine and added as visual counterpoints.]

The slowing economic growth may be what most people are focusing on, but the brutally apparent trend here is on luxe spending. Conspicuous consumption may have had its setbacks the past few years, but it's on full display out here.


For Them: So Pretty, And Softshell Crabs A La Stone Creek;
And, The Best Cardiovascular Surgeons Money Can Buy

We went to several very nice, quite pricey restaurants. In Quogue, the Stone Creek Inn on Tuesday night at 8:30 was jammed. The parking lot was a teenage boy’s wet dream: Bentley GTs, Maserati Quattroportes, Ferrari SuperAmerica (dude, what was with that ugly gray?). Out here, 911s are de rigeur, and MB S550s are cars you give the nannies; they all get parked in the back. The restaurant was filled with beautiful people wearing designer clothes, oodles of jewelry (middle aged white guys should never use the word bling).

Oh, and way too much plastic surgery — everyone had a kinda surprised look on their faces.



2009 Maserati Quattroporte (Top); 2009 Bentley Continental
GT (Bottom); Barely Legal Mistresses, Always Optional

On Wednesday night, Starr Boggs in Westhampton Beach was jammed. It was a different crowd — more family, less “fabulousness.” Perhaps it had something to do with their prix fixe only menu (Sun, Tue, Wed) — both joints are 5 stars, but Starr Boggs cost about half of Stone Creek, where I didn’t get the sense that anyone ordered from the prix fixe menu.

...I found it particularly notable that the mid-line restaurants were only half filled; the action was all higher end places...

At East End Jet Ski, the girl who worked there said they had been reasonably busy. BTW, if you are thinking about dropping $5,000 on a waverunner, spend $75. Its great fun for a half hour, but I am less sure I would want to spend a summer on one . . .

Regardless, whatever disinclination to spend the wealthy may have had in 2008 and early 2009, it has been banished here.

We're defined by our choices and actions. I guess, with all due respect, we choose to invest our lives in what we believe most important -- the wealthy (certainly, those Ritholtz describes) have already done that. It's about, you know -- bread, and butter, and all that.

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Let It All Fall Down

The United States Of Money

“The world has changed,” Mr. Obama said. “And for a lot of our friends and neighbors, that change has been painful. Today the single most serious economic problem we face is getting people back to work.” After his remarks ... Mr. Obama met with members of the jobs council he created [to discuss]... a few ideas the council is exploring to increase employment.

But none of the ideas, which included setting up job training initiatives, providing loans to small businesses and trying to increase tourism, contained any groundbreaking proposals. They said they would deliver recommendations in September focusing on “fast-growth” companies, small businesses and the competitiveness of the country’s infrastructure. [New York Times]

If you have any curiosity left about where things are, go and read this.

A few weeks before announcing his re-election campaign, President Obama convened two dozen Wall Street executives, many of them longtime donors, in the White House’s Blue Room... Mr. Obama, who enraged many financial industry executives a year and a half ago by labeling them “fat cats” and criticizing their bonuses, followed up the meeting with phone calls to those who could not attend.

The event... kicked off an aggressive push by Mr. Obama to win back the allegiance of one of his most vital sources of campaign cash — in part by trying to convince Wall Street that his policies, far from undercutting the investor class, have helped bring banks and financial markets back to health.

Then, have a look at this. Keep in mind that the Supreme Court majority which delivered this ruling are the same honorable people who declared Corporations are really just like individuals, and after kicking Citizens United to the curb, roared that money from corporations (including foreign corporations) can be funneled into America's political parties and campaigns without limits.

And we're just waiting for the Rightist bloc of Roberts / Alito / Scalia / Thomas / Kennedy to repeal Roe v. Wade, and declare that Wisconsin's Rethug brownshirts were perfectly correct in busting unions.

With Justice Clarence Thomas writing for a 5-to-4 majority, the Supreme Court has made it much harder for private lawsuits to succeed against mutual fund malefactors, even when they have admitted to lying and cheating.

The court ruled that the only entity that can be held liable in a private lawsuit for “any untrue statement of a material fact” is the one whose name the statement is presented under. That’s so even if the entity presenting the statement is a business trust — basically a dummy corporation — with no assets, while its owner has the cash [This frees the 'Owner' from any liability for harm or loss that came from a reliance on 'untrue statements' made by the dummy business trust].

Afterwards, you should peruse this.

It is obvious that Elizabeth Warren should head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau... [however, she] happens to be applying pressure on what is turning out to be a central fault line for this Administration.

[The Obama administration] bought the bankster line that giving them first priority on “fix the economy” money would not only appease this key donor group, but it would also work out just fine on the economic front. Enough peasants would be lifted up along with the financiers’ yachts that the economy would be, if not in rude health, at least enough on the mend to assure an Obama re-election.

But that is not how things are working out, as we know all too well. The President is waking up to the fact that if the jobless situation is as bad as it is now next year (and it is possible it will be worse), his reelection bid is going to become quite complicated...

And the gap between the banks’ demands and what the great unwashed populace wants is widening.

Eat Your Pie. Every Bite.

A lawyer and diplomat for the House of Savoy in the 18th century may not have coined the phrase, but once noted (as did the father of one of my closest friends, proving common wisdom has long legs) that Peoples get the governments they deserve.

It isn't Santayana ("Those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it"), but the sentiments are similar -- Only the insane perform the same acts, and expect different outcomes.

The Savoyard wouldn't have known about modern political states, but he would have known about Rome, Greece, Babylon and the Holy Roman Empire. As part of an Italian city-state, he would have known about the Borgias and Medicis, and Renaissance power politics. He probably would have read his Heroditus, Pliny the Younger, Marcus Aurelius, Machiavelli and Dante. We have Digby, Bill McBride, and a few other wise Cassandras.

In the 1977 film, Close Encounters Of The Third Kind, a mysterious power outage darkens part of the Midwest and appears to be spreading. Two engineer-supervisors at a power plant are shown talking about how to stop what appears to be a widening outage.

"We should isolate it," says the first (I'm paraphrasing here). "Work the [power] grid, find the break."

"No, no; let it all fall down," says the other supervisor. "Let it all go down, and pick up the pieces afterwards."

Perhaps that's where we're headed. And the failure of Obama may lead to another ten years of rule by a President Mittens (or worse, a President Grand TurtleBear Bachmann, or a President Gingrich) -- a vapid, stupid, faith-based future, filled with strip mines and oil platforms, fouled water and air; the only Darwin being taught will be the institutionalized social Darwinism of a dog-eat-dog culture.

Perhaps, then, some of us will remember that Herr Obama's choice to Have More War, Fluff the Banksters; ignore long-term massive unemployment; and embrace the kind of Medicare-limiting, Social-Security-privatizing Austerity the Tea Partei demands was utterly short-sighted, corrupt, and a narrow political solution which made the resurgance of the Right possible: Peoples get the governments they deserve.

Watching The Accident Happen

In trying to maintain Democratic leadership of the government and ensure a second term, Obama believes he's neutralized criticism that as a 'liberal', he's soft on National Security. He assumed that giving the Banksters everything they wanted, and giving Congressional Republicans (goaded further Rightwards by the Tea Partei) what they want, that magically, it Would All Become Really Pretty In Downtown America. But that isn't what's happening.

Perhaps we'll become like France in the Thirties, with the government polarized and paralyzed; like Italy under El Capo di Buffoono Berlusconi, or Russia under Putin -- a nation with a thin layer of unimaginably wealthy Oligarchs, the Owner Class, and everyone else... while Little Rupert's and Comcast's media tell us 24X7 that someday, we can be an Owner, too.

Perhaps it will all fall down. I'd hope not, because that would mean the end of the 'American Experiment'. But life in America now, from a certain point of view, is watching the slow-motion accident: People are screaming from the sidelines, Take action, take action; yet nothing happens. The Crash, right now, appears so avoidable; but when it comes, it will seem inevitable.

At this point, I don't care about the political maneuvering; I only want Herr Obama to do what's right by people. He was elected to serve The people -- all the people, not ten per cent. Not the hedge fund managers he's cozying up to, but the unemployed single mother with three children in Newark, the unemployed construction or manufacturing worker, and to hell with the Banksters.

In the end, he may be seen as more a Warren Harding than a Hoover, and we'll all pay for his lack of vision -- some, if the GOP/Tea Partei return triumphantly to power, will pay more heavily than others.

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Oh What A ______ Morning

From CR this morning: The swell fun we've talked about here from time to time, or Why Greece Matters. You may not need coffee afterwards.

From Landon Thomas at the NY Times: In Greece, Some See a New Lehman:

Bond traders and officials at the European Central Bank have been unified in their warnings that a restructuring of Greece’s debt would set off an investor panic similar to the one that followed the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers.

... if they are forced to take a loss, and the ratings agencies declare Greece in default, investors [might] start selling in a panic. And they [might] not sell just the bonds of countries struggling with debt — Portugal, Ireland, Spain and Italy.
...
According to a recent report by Fitch, as of February, 44.3 percent of prime money market funds in the United States were invested in the short-term debt of European banks.
...
Citing recent data from the Bank for International Settlements, the blog points out that in the event of a Greek default, direct creditors would be on the hook for 70 percent of the losses, with credit default insurance picking up the rest. Thus, if one includes credit default exposure, American exposure to Greece increases from $7.3 billion to $41.4 billion [Emphasis added].

In a nutshell, it means that the international finance community has been playing with Credit Default Swaps around the Greek and Eurozone debt situation (Calculated Risk pointed readers to other information which clarifies why this matters).

Thomas', uh, "money quote" described the current situation as

... though banks and other investors have done much to pare their Greek holdings in the last year, if they are forced to take a loss, and the ratings agencies declare Greece in default, investors would start selling in a panic. And they would not sell just the bonds of countries struggling with debt — Portugal, Ireland, Spain and Italy. In a hasty retreat into cash, traders would unload more liquid assets as well, everything from high-grade corporate bonds to American and emerging market equities — as occurred in 2008 after Lehman failed.

The chance that Markets can plummet is always present in a complex structure of interrelated and interdependent finances and obligations -- but the likelihood that it will happen rises as major players in that system take on more risk... meaning, they get greedy, and sloppy, dealing with other people's money. And it's always been easier for that crowd to take risks with what isn't theirs.

Between 1998 and 2007, America created a gigantic time bomb in the form of a real-estate, credit-swap, Mortgage-Backed-Securities Ponzi scheme -- in addition to the suicidal idiocy of Lil' Boots' tax cuts and an utterly unnecessary invasion of Iraq; a mountain of hidden debt was created in those short, "Go-Go" Bush years. The 'Market', that weirdly half-mythical beast which lives in the basement of our consciousness, has been living in the shadow of that debt ever since.

One great truth about the 'financial crisis' (though that term doesn't seem adequate to describe it) is that the Trillions in debt that were created are still hiding on the balance sheets of banks and investment houses around the world -- and that governments and the global finance sector have been engaged in a desperate attempt to stave off A Reckoning, find some overall solution to resolve, "unwind" all that debt ever since.

However, it's not simple. Think of a series of interconnected sculptures made from rocks, precariously balanced on each other. The more complicated the system, the more opportunities for an "event": The situation with Greece could be the stone that slips, the electron that breaks free and trips the chain reaction that I feel analysts have been dreading since the Crash of 2008 -- and many had predicted this crisis, years in advance.

Perhaps now it's a little clearer why the Wealthy© have been grabbing all the money they can get their hands on, as quickly as possible... because if Greece's debt can't be dealt with -- and Portugal's, and Spain's, and Ireland's -- then it's possible that the Great Depression, and global political instability of the 1930's, will end up looking like a lawn party by comparison.

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Not What You Want To Think About, Either

Und Immer Noch Einmal:

Yes; I understand that we will have to vote for Obama, even if he isn't a particularly Progressive President and has caved to the Banksters and is doing squat to see that people who are unemployed (and the average length of time they have been is forty weeks) have jobs and, like so many Democrats in the Potomac Village have all the spine of the Great Hamster Of Alsace.

Obligatory Cute Small Animal Photo In Middle Of Blog Rant:
The Great Hamster Of Alsace (You Thought We Were Kidding)

Yes, I will walk into a voting booth in 2012 and mark my ballot for Mr. Obama, because, as always seems to be the case, it's that or face a wonderful life in the New Germany.

I do understand that even four years of someone like Sarah Palin or Grand TurtleBear Bachmann would outdo in ferocity and venom, in sheer Crazy, the nine years of Lil' Boots:

In a recent post about the Quitta from Wassila, Andrew Sullivan predicted how she would run against President Obama:

Pundits speak of her lack of professional organization. What they don’t speak of so often is her willingness to say and do things very few politicians will. She will play the race card powerfully, often and repeatedly. She will run a campaign against Obama as an un-American. She will run on hatred of elites, will turn every sad gaffe, lie or untruth into “truth”, she will deploy religious motifs more effectively than any Republican candidate in modern times. In the last campaign she accused Obama of being a friend of terrorists, and was prevented from using Jeremiah Wright in the last few weeks of the campaign. She will make the Willie Horton ad look like happytalk.

I think Sully is spot on with this observation when it comes to Palin, but the sad fact is that the same could be said about any of the Republican candidates climbing into the clown car. To “win” they will—each and everyone—say and do things that push them into moral twilight. Many have already taken the ferry across the Acheron and are working hard to secure real estate in one of the nine circles.

When the clown show is over and the [circus clown] car is emptied — one clown will be the Republican nominee and that clown will live down to Sully’s worst fears of a Palin campaign. Pushing white resentment and fear is the only path the GOP has to defeat President Obama and whichever clown emerges will embrace that Palin path. It will be ugly.

I think the best way to view the emerging 2012 Republican filed is to be amused and yet, terrified by the evolving spectacle. The very real possibility that any of these clown car occupants could actually win control of the White House in 2012 should frighten you enough to be ready to work like hell to defeat these fucksticks in 2012.

So: Vote Hopey-Changey, 2012. I don't have to like it, though. And there's always the chance that he'll be able to live up to the vision of a Progressive leader I hoped he would be. But, I'm only a Dog, and no one listens to me.

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