1/ Great advice for the President from Paul Krugman - don't let the Republicans hold you hostage on raising the debt ceiling.....call their bluff.
What is implicit but which Krugman doesn't mention is the thought of defaulting on US debt terrifies the banking oligarchs, so whether he knows it or not Obama has the plutocracy on his side.....
Whole column below......
OP-ED COLUMNIST
America Held Hostage
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: May 15, 2011
Six months ago President Obama faced a hostage situation. Republicans threatened to block an extension of middle-class tax cuts unless Mr. Obama gave in and extended tax cuts for the rich too. And the president essentially folded, giving the G.O.P. everything it wanted.
Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times
Paul Krugman
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Times Topic: Federal Debt Limit (Debt Ceiling)
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Now, predictably, the hostage-takers are back: blackmail worked well last December, so why not try it again? This time House Republicans say they will refuse to raise the debt ceiling — a step that could inflict major economic damage — unless Mr. Obama agrees to large spending cuts, even as they rule out any tax increase whatsoever. And the question becomes what, if anything, will get the president to say no.
The debt ceiling itself is a strange feature of U.S. law: since Congress must vote to authorize spending and choose tax rates, why have a second vote on whether to allow the borrowing that these spending and taxation policies imply? In practice, however, legislators have historically been willing to raise the debt ceiling as necessary, so this quirk in our system hasn’t mattered very much — until now.
What has changed? The answer is the radicalization of the Republican Party. Normally, a party controlling neither the White House nor the Senate would acknowledge that it isn’t in a position to impose its agenda on the nation. But the modern G.O.P. doesn’t believe in following normal rules.
So what will happen if the ceiling isn’t raised? It has become fashionable on the right to assert that it would be no big deal. On Saturday the editorial page of The Wall Street Journal ridiculed those worried about the consequences of hitting the ceiling as the “Armageddon lobby.”
It’s hard to know whether the “what, us worry?” types believe what they’re saying, or whether they’re just staking out a bargaining position. But in any case, they’re almost surely wrong: seriously bad consequences will follow if the debt ceiling isn’t raised.
For if we hit the debt ceiling, the government will be forced to stop paying roughly a third of its bills, because that’s the share of spending currently financed by borrowing. So will it stop sending out Social Security checks? Will it stop paying doctors and hospitals that treat Medicare patients? Will it stop paying the contractors supplying fuel and munitions to our military? Or will it stop paying interest on the debt?
Don’t say “none of the above.” As I’ve written before, the federal government is basically an insurance company with an army, so I’ve just described all the major components of federal spending. At least one, and probably several, of these components will face payment stoppages if federal borrowing is cut off.
And what would such payment stops do to the economy? Nothing good. Consumer spending would probably crash, as nervous seniors started wondering how to pay for rent and food. Businesses that depend on government purchases would slash payrolls and cancel investments.
Furthermore, markets might well panic, especially if interest payments are missed. And the consequences of undermining faith in U.S. debt might be especially severe because that debt plays a crucial role in many financial transactions.
So hitting the debt ceiling would be a very bad thing. Unfortunately, it may be unavoidable.
Why? Because this is a hostage situation. If the president and his allies operate on the principle that failure to raise the debt ceiling is an unthinkable outcome, to be avoided at all cost, then they have ceded all power to those willing to bring that outcome about. In effect, they will have ripped up the Constitution and given control over America’s government to a party that only controls one house of Congress, but claims to be willing to bring down the economy unless it gets what it wants.
Now, there are good reasons to believe that the G.O.P. isn’t nearly as willing to burn the house down as it claims. Business interests have made it clear that they’re horrified at the prospect of hitting the debt ceiling. Even the virulently anti-Obama U.S. Chamber of Commerce has urged Congress to raise the ceiling “as expeditiously as possible.” And a confrontation over spending would only highlight the fact that Republicans won big last year largely by promising to protect Medicare, then promptly voted to dismantle the program.
But the president can’t call the extortionists’ bluff unless he’s willing to confront them, and accept the associated risks.
According to Harry Reid, the Senate majority leader, Mr. Obama has told Democrats not to draw any “line in the sand” in debt negotiations. Well, count me among those who find this strategy completely baffling. At some point — and sooner rather than later — the president has to draw a line. Otherwise, he might as well move out of the White House, and hand the keys over to the Tea Party.
2/ A challenging question - is there a direct link between your choice of religion and your income? David Leonhardt, the financial columnist from the Times, seems to think there could be......an absolutely fascinating study that will probably not surprise you but will definitely make you think about the implications which are.....the less you earn, the more likely you are to not have a degree, and you probably belong to one of the Fundamentalist churches.....
Don't yell at me - we report, you decide......
TOP DOWN
Is Your Religion Your Financial Destiny?
By DAVID LEONHARDT
Published: May 11, 2011
The economic differences among the country’s various religions are strikingly large, much larger than the differences among states and even larger than those among racial groups.
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The most affluent of the major religions — including secularism — is Reform Judaism. Sixty-seven percent of Reform Jewish households made more than $75,000 a year at the time the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life collected the data, compared with only 31 percent of the population as a whole. Hindus were second, at 65 percent, and Conservative Jews were third, at 57 percent.
On the other end are Pentecostals, Jehovah’s Witnesses and Baptists. In each case, 20 percent or fewer of followers made at least $75,000. Remarkably, the share of Baptist households making $40,000 or less is roughly the same as the share of Reform Jews making $100,000 or more. Overall, Protestants, who together are the country’s largest religious group, are poorer than average and poorer than Catholics. That stands in contrast to the long history, made famous by Max Weber, of Protestant nations generally being richer than Catholic nations.
Many factors are behind the discrepancies among religions, but one stands out. The relationship between education and income is so strong that you can almost draw a line through the points on this graph. Social science rarely produces results this clean.
What about the modest outliers — like Unitarians, Buddhists and Orthodox Christians, all of whom are less affluent than they are educated (and are below the imaginary line)? One possible explanation is that some religions are more likely to produce, or to attract, people who voluntarily choose lower-paying jobs, like teaching.
Another potential explanation is discrimination. Scott Keeter of Pew notes that researchers have used more sophisticated versions of this sort of analysis to look for patterns of marketplace discrimination. And a few of the religions that make less than their education would suggest have largely nonwhite followings, including Buddhism and Hinduism. Pew also created a category of traditionally black Protestant congregations, and it was somewhat poorer than could be explained by education levels. These patterns don’t prove discrimination, but they raise questions.
Some of the income differences probably stem from culture. Some faiths place great importance on formal education. But the differences are also self-reinforcing. People who make more money can send their children to better schools, exacerbating the many advantages they have over poorer children. Round and round, the cycle goes. It won’t solve itself.
3/ Fascinating top 10 list of the Religious Right's hit parade......
Religious Right groups and their allies in the Tea Party claim to respect American values, but much would change if they had their way.
May 15, 2011 |
An America rebuilt along Religious Right lines would be a very different place. And to get there, the theocrats among us first have to tear down some features of American life – some of which are longstanding. Here are ten things about the United States that drive Religious Right groups crazy:
4/ And speaking of driving the Religious Right totally crazy, here is Lady Gaga with "Poker Face".....3 minutes of calculated, professional, sexy and outrageous video.....
5/ Wow - this was an interesting challenge.
Bill O'Reilly invited Jon Stewart on his show to debate the invitation by President Obama to have Common, a black poet, read some of his verse in the White House. Of course the Fox outrage machine went into high gear, and last week Stewart called Fox on this, hence the invitation to debate.
So here is the duo duelling.....great TV.....two 4 minute segments.....
6/ For all of you economy wonks.....an interesting and intelligent discussion, with real life examples, of why a spending cap will not work.....
The Silliness of Spending Caps
By James Kwak
One of the new old ideas floating around Washington these days is an aggregate spending cap for the federal government. For example, both the House Republicans’ budget and one of those “moderate bipartisan” Senate proposals calls for limiting total government spending at around 21 percent of GDP. This is silly for at least two reasons.
First, and less controversially, the number of dollars that flow from the federal government to entities that are not the federal government is not an economically significant number*. The most obvious example of this is tax expenditures: subsidies that are implemented through the tax code, usually as deductions or credits. For example, let’s say the government wants to promote renewable energy. It can increase taxes and write checks to companies that produce solar panels; or it can keep taxes the same and enact tax breaks for companies that produce solar panels. Same difference — except that the former “counts” as government spending and the latter doesn’t. So a spending cap simply motivates Congress to spend money through tax credits rather than by writing checks, which is bad for all sorts of reasons. (It is harder to target, it reduces the tax base, etc.).
There are plenty of other ways to game the system, too. The federal government could impose unfunded mandates on the states — and then provide federal tax credits that make it easier for states to raise money. Think this is unlikely? This is what we have already with the federal tax deduction for state and local taxes and the federal tax exemption for state and local government bonds.
7/ A very funny Onion News segment about people trapped in a WalMart by a gunman who swear they're not actually in WalMart.....2 minutes.....
8/ Great article from the UK Observer newspaper on how the Koch brothers are under attack by Robert Greenwald.....they of course are annoyed by the Greenwald fly buzzing around their head.....
Koch Brothers Under Attack by Robert Greenwald
By Paul Harris, The Observer UK
16 May 11
Robert Greenwald is taking the fight to billionaires David and Charles Koch, who fund much of the US's rightwing politics
ven for the Lincoln Center it was an unusual show, and an unscheduled one. Several hundred protesters turned up outside the arts complex on Manhattan's Upper West Side last week for the guerrilla screening of a short film. From a hotel on the other side of the street, a video was projected on to the center's walls. The unwitting stars of the films were David and Charles Koch, the reclusive rightwing billionaire brothers whose secretive empire and network of influence and funding is emerging as a liberal rallying cause in America.As bemused theatregoers watched the boisterous crowd, the videos depicted facts and figure showing Koch support for Tea Party groups, global warming sceptics and thinktanks seeking to strip away regulations on the environment, cut social security and oppose healthcare reform. On the David H. Koch Theatre in the complex - renamed when one of the brothers donated $100 million (£62 millioin) in 2008 - activists climbed a ladder to post a giant sticker above the sign bearing Koch's name. "I am the Tea Party's wallet," it read. When the police vans finally arrived, the activists had gone.
9/ Remember last weeks Republican presidential candidate debate on Fox? here's a much more entertaining one from SNL.....with Tina Fey back again as La Palin......6 minutes....
10/ For our more thoughtful readers, a cautionary tale about the Government prosecuting Thomas Drake for being "an enemy of the state", whereas we should be thanking him for exposing government fraud and waste......how the Obama administration isn't any different than the Bushies in many ways....
The article is written by Jane Mayer, a serious journalist who wrote the story on the Koch Brothers last August....some good stuff in these magazines....
On June 13th, a fifty-four-year-old former government employee named Thomas Drake is scheduled to appear in a courtroom in Baltimore, where he will face some of the gravest charges that can be brought against an American citizen. A former senior executive at the National Security Agency, the government’s electronic-espionage service, he is accused, in essence, of being an enemy of the state. According to a ten-count indictment delivered against him in April, 2010, Drake violated the Espionage Act—the 1917 statute that was used to convict Aldrich Ames, the C.I.A. officer who, in the eighties and nineties, sold U.S. intelligence to the K.G.B., enabling the Kremlin to assassinate informants. In 2007, the indictment says, Drake willfully retained top-secret defense documents that he had sworn an oath to protect, sneaking them out of the intelligence agency’s headquarters, at Fort Meade, Maryland, and taking them home, for the purpose of “unauthorized disclosure.” The aim of this scheme, the indictment says, was to leak government secrets to an unnamed newspaper reporter, who is identifiable as Siobhan Gorman, of the Baltimore Sun. Gorman wrote a prize-winning series of articles for the Sun about financial waste, bureaucratic dysfunction, and dubious legal practices in N.S.A. counterterrorism programs. Drake is also charged with obstructing justice and lying to federal law-enforcement agents. If he is convicted on all counts, he could receive a prison term of thirty-five years.
Read more http://www.newyorker.com/
Todays video - Oops......not a good landing......
Todays old guy joke
Older Men Are Nicer
An old guy was in Costco the other day, pushing his shopping cart around, when he collided with a young guy also pushing a cart.
An old guy was in Costco the other day, pushing his shopping cart around, when he collided with a young guy also pushing a cart.
He said to the young guy, "Sorry about that. I'm looking for my wife and I guess I wasn't paying attention to where I was going."
The young guy says, "That's OK. It's just a coincidence. I'm looking for my wife, too. I can't find her and I'm getting a little desperate.
The old guy said, "Well, maybe we can help each other. What does your wife look like?"
The young guy says, "Well, she is 24 years old, tall, with long blond hair, green eyes, long legs, big boobs and she's wearing tight white shorts, a halter top and no bra.
What does your wife look like?"
The old guy said, "Doesn't matter. Let's look for yours."
Most old men are helpful like that.
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