Ian Welsh

The horizon is not so far as we can see, but as far as we can imagine

Category: Barack Obama Page 11 of 13

The rule of Bush applies to Obama and Congressional Democrats

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On November 25, 2009

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Dean, the man who should have been president:

“The biggest time bomb in the short run is the Public Option. Without a Public option, basically the activists of the Democratic party sit on their hands in 2010. Obama is not on the ballot. There’s no reason to go out and vote for a Democratic Congressman or give them any money if they can’t pass a healthcare bill that’s worth anything. And that’s a huge problem for the Democrats if its not in there and so it looks like some of the, a few of the folks aren’t going to let it in there. [snip] [The Public Option] has been watered down, it’s about as as watered down as it can get and still be a real bill. So there’s not a lot left in this bill. For example, there’s really no insurance reform in this bill. … I think Sanders has got the right idea. You might as well kill this thing because the people are going to be furious if it passes if it doesn’t have a Public Option.”

Dean has carried a lot of water for Obama on health care, despite Obama’s blatant disrespect of Dean when he stepped down from DNC.  For him to being saying this is… interesting…  He’s also made the point that if Democratic Senators won’t vote with their party on procedural votes, it’s the death of fundraising for the DSCC—for years they’ve talked about getting to 60, now they have, and they still can’t pass anything that isn’t crap.  What next, 65?

2010 is shaping up very nicely for the Republicans.  Their base is motivated, the Democratic base is less and less motivated, and by 2010 will be demoralized.  The economy will not have recovered by the time of the election, Republicans have effectively demonized stimuluses and deficits, so no new meaningful stimulus is likely to pass, so there’s nothing Democrats can do to fix the job situation.  Of course, 700 billion of stimulus, done right, would have created a lot more jobs than the lousy stimulus bill Obama put through.

Not doing things right when you can, has consequences.

Imagine that.

As you sow, so shall you reap.  Pity Obama and Democrats incompetence, venality and cupidity will cause so much real world suffering.  But in 2011 at least they’ll have a good excuse for doing nothing or passing only conservative bills.  Which is good, because whenever they do something they screw it up anyway.  As with Bush, if you believe in a policy (say stimulus) the last thing you want is for Obama and this Democratic Congress to do it, because they’ll screw it up beyond measure and thus discredit it.

About Freaking Time

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On November 24, 2009

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The growing backlash against over-parenting:

That advice may seem perfectly sensible to parents bombarded by heartbreaking news stories about missing little girls and the predator next door. But too many parents, says Skenazy, have the math all wrong. Refusing to vaccinate your children, as millions now threaten to do in the case of the swine flu, is statistically reckless; on the other hand, there are no reports of a child ever being poisoned by a stranger handing out tainted Halloween candy, and the odds of being kidnapped and killed by a stranger are about 1 in 1.5 million. When parents confront you with “How can you let him go to the store alone?,” she suggests countering with “How can you let him visit your relatives?” (Some 80% of kids who are molested are victims of friends or relatives.) Or ride in the car with you? (More than 430,000 kids were injured in motor vehicles last year.) “I’m not saying that there is no danger in the world or that we shouldn’t be prepared,” she says. “But there is good and bad luck and fate and things beyond our ability to change. The way kids learn to be resourceful is by having to use their resources.

No shit.  This is a general disease in society, mind you.  Both namy-pambyism and an inability understand actual risk.  No, odds of you or anyone you know being killed by a terrorist are so close to zero as to essentially indistinguishable.  On the other hand, getting in a car is dangerous, and so is crossing the street.  Oh, and flying?  Far safer than driving.  (Although less convenient, thanks to paranoia driven security theater.)

I was a free range kid.  I walked or took the bus to school.  When I took gymnastics classes as a kid, I took a half hour bus ride—I didn’t get driven.  I had to be home for supper and for bedtime, and I had to let my parents know more or less what I was doing, but other than that, I was free to do what I wanted with my time.  If I wanted to join the soccer team, or take classes, my parents would support me in that, but they didn’t rush around signing me up for everything.  And when the bus didn’t go where I needed to get for soccer games, my father would drive me.  But only if I couldn’t get myself there myself.

In my teens I wandered through the Bangladeshi city of Dhaka by myself, as well as Kathmandu, Calcutta and Bangkok.  It never seemed to occur to my parents that I was some hothouse flower who couldn’t handle himself, and indeed, I did handle myself and I learned valuable lessons in doing so.

When I went to University in the early nineties, I already found that the suburban raised children who were my peers had had fear bred in.  Oh, they were great at high school style social politics, in-groups and out-groups, but put them on the street in downtown Toronto at 1 am, and they quaked in fear.  (For the record, I can think of few places safer than downtown Toronto at 1am, including many cities I’ve spent time in at 1pm.)

You can’t live in fear all the time. If you do, you don’t live.  And if you make your kids live in fear, then you take away their ability to live and turn them into hothouse flowers, scared of their own shadows.

In Flanders Fields

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On November 11, 2009

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In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

Lt.-Col. John McCrae

Republicans Now More Trusted than Democrats on Every Issue

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On October 27, 2009

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According to Rasmussen polling:

For the first time in recent years, voters trust Republicans more than Democrats on all 10 key electoral issues regularly tracked by Rasmussen Reports. The GOP holds double-digit advantages on five of them.

Granted that this is Rasmussen, not the most credible source.  But as they note, even they haven’t found this much Republican lean in years.

  • 49 to 35% on economic issues
  • 54 to 31% on national security
  • 50 to 31% on Iraq
  • 33 to 29% on government ethics
  • 46% to 40 on health care
  • 50% to 35% on taxes
  • 43% to 38% on eductation
  • 45% to 37% on Social Security?

Etc…  Oh, and on healthcare?

Separate polling released today shows 49% of voters nationwide say that passing no health care reform bill this year would be better than passing the plan currently working its way through Congress.

Trying to pass an unclear dog’s breakfast, easily demonized, instead of something clear, has had its cost.

And it takes real talent to be less trusted on social security, considering Bush tried to privatize it not so long ago.

On the generic Congressional ballot, Republicans are now favored 42% to 37%.  No wonder the Democratic Congress is becoming less and less willing to follow Obama’s lead.  He may not have to face voters till 2012, most of them will be staring down the barrel of voter discontent in 2010.

But the worst number is this: 73% of GOP voters nationwide think Republicans in Congress have lost touch with their voting base.

In other words, Democrats are right.  Republicans aren’t trusted.  It’s just that Democrats are trusted even less.

Trust is earned.  By making the economy work for banks and not for Americans; by refusing to put through a clean health care bill; by repeatedly not coming through on campaign promises and by not providing a clear alternative to Republicans, Democrats have lost the trust of Americans.

If Democrats want to turn this around they should simply start doing what they should have always done.  Break up the big banks, institute real bankruptcy reform and other help for real Americans, pass a medicare-for-all bill, get out of Afghanistan and push through a real and effective stimulus bill immediately paid  for it with a tax on America’s rich.

If not, as I’ve been saying for some time, they will pay a heavy price in 2010.  Americans expect results for them, not mealy mouthed platitudes, trillions for the rich and broken promises.

Miscellaneous Quick Hits

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On October 26, 2009

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There’s nothing that catches my eye today as needing a long exposition, but a number of stories worth a brief comment or two.

The Iraqi Car Bombing

Car bombs killed 136. One of the main ways the US lowered violence in Iraq was to simply pay various insurgents to stop shooting and them and other Iraqis and go kill al-Q’aeda in Iraq.  Think of it as a security tax, or protection money.  As long as you pay, no one gets hurt.  Stop paying, and violence reoccurs.  Since the US has reduced its payments and the Shia central government doesn’t want to pay, violence is flaring back up.  The government can either pay the security tax, crush the insurgents, or find some other way to get money to the Sunnis and others who feel left out and are willing to be violent about it.  Until they do, the killings will continue.

The IMF Tells the Ukraine Not to Raise Wages and Pensions

Taking money from the IMF is always like making a deal with the devil.  You may get something you want, even need, but you will pay and pay and pay.  And somehow it’s always ordinary people who pay, while the elites pretty much skate.  It’s not all on the IMF though, if the Ukraine wants to have a flat tax and also have populist pay and pension raises they’re living in a dream world.  My sympathy for individual Ukrainians is deep, my sympathy for their moronic government and idiot politicians following conservative voodoo economic cant is minimal.  (The paradigmatic example of doing what Chicago school economists recommend by the way, was Iceland.  Worked real well.)

Shipping Banks Move to Mark to Model From Mark to Market

It seems shipping banks want to value ships not based on what they can be sold for, but for what their models say their future earning potential is.  Regular banks have been doing this for a while on other sorts of assets.  Problem is that shipping traffic has fallen through the floor and a huge chunk of the world’s merchant marine is idle.  As Dagfinn Lunde of DVB Bank said “Would you buy a ship today if you could not have the price so low that you could afford to lay it up for at least two years before you earn any money?”.

An item is worth what a buyer will pay for it.

Asset Bubbles Again Already?

Wolfgang Münchau thinks so and he has some technical fixes.  When he discusses technical fixes though he can’t quite bring himself to note that if you include assets in inflation and then inflation adjust, well, suddenly bubbles become brutally obvious and central banks can’t ignore them, while crushing wages whenever the wage economy seems to have some inflation.

Japanese Industrial Production Rises 7%

Despite the strong Yen.  Hrrrm.  It’s notable that keeping the Yen weak, forever, didn’t do much for Japan.  Maybe the strong Yen isn’t so bad after all?  Much of what Japan imports is resources and inputs for manufacturing.  A higher Yen means those inputs are cheaper.  Whether that outweighs the increased Yen, I don’t know, but it’s quite possible it does.  In addition the consumer side of the economy benefits from cheaper imports of food and so on, while Japanese tend to buy Japanese consumer goods, and not foreign ones.  It could well be that a higher Yen (or at least a Yen that isn’t artificially kept low) is in Japan’s interest.

Perhaps record bonuses and no new lending is what Obama wanted

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On October 15, 2009

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Goldman Sachs is due to pay record bonuses, and the financial sector as a whole is likely to do the same.  Meanwhile, new mortgages and refinanced mortgages, as well as business lending is dead in the water.  If it isn’t government underwritten, or a credit card, forget it.

While I can’t say I predicted record bonuses this year, I and many others did predict that the bailouts wouldn’t get lending going again, because it was better for banks to keep the money on hand for buyouts and leveraged games, and many of them truly are massively impaired.

In other words, that the bailouts wouldn’t do what they were sold as doing—increase lending, was predicted.  Repeatedly.

Not much we can do when the people in charge don’t listen to those with track records, and deliberately hire those whose track records suck.

Well suck at helping ordinary people.  The people hired or retained by Obama  to run the US economy have amazing track records helping executives get paid obscenely, making sure large banks make fake profits and bailing out executives whose greed causes disasters.

Perhaps Obama hired for what he wanted, and his hires are executing policies that accomplish what Obama wants?

Take your pick.  Either Obama is an incompetent or his policies are accomplishing what he wants them to.

McChrystal continues to undercut Obama

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On September 28, 2009

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It seems McChrystal, the Afghanistan theater commander, continues to undercut Obama to the media: in this case noting that Obama has only talked to him once.

Well well.  I hope Obama is pleased that he ok’d McChrystal for the job, eh?

You reap what you sow, and Obama is getting the commander he promoted: a political officer happy to use the media to get his way, whether that hurts the Commander in Chief or not.

A lot like his mentor, Petraeus.

Petraeus and his cadre should have been been sidelined when Obama took office, for their rampant political actions during the Bush administration.  They proved they were political officers, and Republican inclined officers.

But as usual, Obama wanted to play nice with conservatives.

He’s getting what he deserves, but I’m sure he won’t learn from it, since so far he’s shown no ability to understand the fundamental point that playing nice with modern American conservatives doesn’t work.

(One might suggest that McChrystal is standing up and saying honestly what he thinks he needs to “win” the war as did General Shinseki before the Iraq war.  Even if one takes that view, he should still be canned for insubordination.    The difference between him and Shinseki,  is that Shinseki gave his testimony to Congress, he didn’t run around to the media undercutting President Bush.)

Parable of the Scorpion and the Frog

One day, a scorpion looked around at the mountain where he lived and decided that he wanted a change. So he set out on a journey through the forests and hills. He climbed over rocks and under vines and kept going until he reached a river.

The river was wide and swift, and the scorpion stopped to reconsider the situation. He couldn’t see any way across. So he ran upriver and then checked downriver, all the while thinking that he might have to turn back.

Suddenly, he saw a frog sitting in the rushes by the bank of the stream on the other side of the river. He decided to ask the frog for help getting across the stream.

“Hellooo Mr. Frog!” called the scorpion across the water, “Would you be so kind as to give me a ride on your back across the river?”

“Well now, Mr. Scorpion! How do I know that if I try to help you, you wont try to kill me?” asked the frog hesitantly.

“Because,” the scorpion replied, “If I try to kill you, then I would die too, for you see I cannot swim!”

Now this seemed to make sense to the frog. But he asked. “What about when I get close to the bank? You could still try to kill me and get back to the shore!”

“This is true,” agreed the scorpion, “But then I wouldn’t be able to get to the other side of the river!”

“Alright then…how do I know you wont just wait till we get to the other side and THEN kill me?” said the frog.

“Ahh…,” crooned the scorpion, “Because you see, once you’ve taken me to the other side of this river, I will be so grateful for your help, that it would hardly be fair to reward you with death, now would it?!”

So the frog agreed to take the scorpion across the river. He swam over to the bank and settled himself near the mud to pick up his passenger. The scorpion crawled onto the frog’s back, his sharp claws prickling into the frog’s soft hide, and the frog slid into the river. The muddy water swirled around them, but the frog stayed near the surface so the scorpion would not drown. He kicked strongly through the first half of the stream, his flippers paddling wildly against the current.

Halfway across the river, the frog suddenly felt a sharp sting in his back and, out of the corner of his eye, saw the scorpion remove his stinger from the frog’s back. A deadening numbness began to creep into his limbs.

“You fool!” croaked the frog, “Now we shall both die! Why on earth did you do that?”

The scorpion shrugged, and did a little jig on the drownings frog’s back.

“I could not help myself. It is my nature.”

Then they both sank into the muddy waters of the swiftly flowing river.

The Problem With Healthcare Reform Isn’t the American People

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On September 21, 2009

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winged_caduceusEzra Klein has an article whose thesis is that as Americans don’t directly pay the full cost of their healthcare since employers pay a large chunk, or they’re on Medicare, Medicaid or some form of socialized medicine (the military and the Veterans administration) Americans aren’t for radical change.

The problem with this is simple enough.  Polls find that a super majority of Americans, from 70% to 80% want a public option.  A straight up majority want single payer.  That certainly qualifies as radical change.

Americans may not pay the full cost of insurance, but they are well aware of the full cost of health care.  About 60% of all bankruptcies are caused by health bills, everyone who is self-employed knows the full cost, and people who get sick routinely had claims denied or lose coverage.  The full cost of healthcare becomes evident when you get sick, and the health care you thought your insurance provided doesn’t actually appear, or you have to fight tooth and nail for it.

Everyone may not have experienced these costs and problems directly, but I’d be willing to lay long odds that almost no Americans haven’t had them happen to a friend, co-worker or family member.

And so, contra-Ezra, in fact Americans are ready for radical change.  Even if you don’t consider the public option radical, single payer is, and a majority of Americans want it.  One might argue that that the intensity of desire for change is not there, that there haven’t been huge crowds in support of health care change, but the problem there is Obama has been rather wishy-washy. He isn’t offering single payer, which is what would get the hard left out in large numbers, and he isn’t even willing to say that his bill must have a strong public option.  His plan, and those offered by the House and Senate, have a mushy feel to them.  “Might pass this, might not, and we aren’t committed to it.”

It’s hard to get worked up for mush and so, by and large, people aren’t.

But still, it’s clear Americans want radical change of the health care system.  It’s the politicians who don’t.

Specifically Democratic conservative Senators like Baucus and Conrad, virtually every Republican Senator, and President Barack Obama, who ruled out radical change in the form of single payer and who won’t insist on even a bad public option, let alone a truly robust one, are the ones who don’t want radical change.

And yes, it’s probably because American politicians don’t feel the cost of health care: they’re fully covered, and virtually all of them are millionaires.

So, no, the problem isn’t American citizens not having the appetite for necessary radical change.  The problem is American politicians.

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