Everything is the fault of the Democratic Party. EVERYTHING. Hell, I’m surprised the Republican Party doesn’t hold a big fundraiser selling bumperstickers that read:

“Judas was a Democrat”

It’s really too bad that public hangings have been outlawed in this Country, because were they still legal I know exactly where I would place a portable gallows and whose necks would be first in line to test the strength of the noose.

Alan, March 14 at 8:12 pm
(Unregistered commenter)

“Time to move back to the ideals that formed this country.”
~~~

Safe to say we all define those ideals in different ways. I don’t know what you mean. Are you talking about the good old days when their was a chicken in every pot? Or the good old, old days when there were no chickens stewing, ‘cause there were no pots. Just a teeny tiny percentage of very wealthy, very red, Robber Barons who had all the pots and all the chickens. You remember ... the good old, old days just before the Great Depression. What was so “Great” about that depression anyway?

Maybe that’s the real problem. Maybe we all want a repeat of those “Great” days! Oh duh ... are we already there?

Maybe we need to take a break and figure out what the ideals that formed this country were! Was it really about a nation of people hungry to be free? Or was it more about a nation of hungry people, ready to follow the leader to make it possible to eat? Or was it after all, as simple as we learned in Grade School. No taxes without representation! Well we didn’t remember that lesson very well, did we. Taxes I can live with, (I like having roads and bridges and a standing military) it’s the phony, red, self important, lying, self serving, blow-hard dogs and hogs, who pretend to represent me that need to go!

Hi-lights one reality. Underneath that yellow streak lies a body dead to feeling. Maybe that’s why the word “freeze” holds such appeal to them.

If someones smarter than a pack of wild dogs, knows how to organize a feeding frenzy, has almost as little respect for that pack as they do themselves, and thinks staying just one jump ahead of their bite makes them the leader, then the time is always right for that someone to babble for votes. Red repubs and blue dogs. Only the blue dogs are actually red hogs, which is why they run so hard. If caught in the rain they risk having their true identity exposed. They know that pack of wild dogs will turn on them. Everybody loves roast pig!

So when it comes right down to it, it’s never about a good person wanting to serve their neighbors. At least not when blue dogs are actually red hogs, and “Christian me too-ers” are actually repubs. It’s always about feeding the pack and giving them something to attack, so the pack wont come after them.

They call it politics.

And all across this great land we hear politicians, mostly red, calling for a hastening to the return of “American ideals,” a call to “move back to the values that formed this country.” Would that be like war, discourse, what’s in it for me? Or grab the money and run?

And that no tax without representation thing ... I’d like to bundle that into a club and beat “red” over the head with it! But then, that would make me as worthless as they are, wouldn’t it ... so I wont do that.

Big B, March 13 at 9:10 pm

“only through the decisive action of the people”
~~~

Oh, you mean like type until our fingers hurt? 

Paracelsus:
‘Republican opposition to the stimulus bill is a side show as even the stimulus is too trivial to consider. The mega money creation is going toward derivatives, which compose a massive black hole. ...

The Republicans need something to do, but it is hard to take them seriously.  The bailouts and stimuli thus far seem to be about moving debt from one slot to another.  It is doubtful whether this will create the kind of confidence desired, that is, consumers way out on a limb maxing out their plastic and bidding real estate and stock up into the stratosphere.

The IWW, not ITW, had as its slogan, “Building a new society in the shell of the old.”  The fact that a shell was to be preserved suggests that total destruction was not contemplated.  This seems to be what contemporary radical leftists mostly propose, too.  In any case they have very little power to do more than build whatever on the margins.  As for the banks and capitalism in general, while I appreciate Marx’s apprecation of the revolutionary characteristics of liberal capitalism expressed so poetically in the Communist Manifesto, I have not noticed that the banks have destroyed the social order much just yet.  In fact, with all their running off the rails, crashing and burning, they haven’t even brought down real estate prices much in my neighborhood.

For an article about Chinese currency manipulation, click on http://www.epi.org/publications/entry/pm116

Republican opposition to the stimulus bill is a side show as even the stimulus is too trivial to consider. The mega money creation is going toward derivatives, which compose a massive black hole. ITW, said something very astute about the radical left advocating destroying the old social structure in order to create a new one. I would only modify it by saying that it is the banking establishment that has destroyed the economy and social structure.

The housing crash was inevitable because speculative bubbles always burst.  The sooner they burst the less damage they do.  The dollar will also fall because the trade imbalance (balance of payments, to be more precise) is so large.

Bankers like a strong dollar because it holds down inflation and protects their interest-bearing assets, but it hurts workers who lose their manufacturing jobs.  I side with the workers.

Real interest rates (net of likely inflation) on U.S. treasuries is very low.  During trouble, everybody runs to U.S. treasuries.  Nobody knows how much debt the U.S. can successfully take on, but as a percentage of GDP, debt was much higher during World War II then it is today.

Yes, but China has told the U.S. not to let the dollar fall, or they will “diversify” their holdings.  That is probably not an idle threat.  Last year Bernanke took a similar threat seriously enough to raise the Fed rate, which brought on the housing crash and all that followed it.

The truth will out!  Finally the Grand Orgy Party has shown their true face and made themselves the laughing stock of the capitol.
They have become the Party of NO! There is nothing that they want except the power of control and they will stop at nothing to get it. This includes making sure that President Obama’s policies fail, even though they are the same policies that the GOP used under the shrub’s administration. And who gets screwed in the process, WE THE PEOPLE!
The Repug’s do not care one whit about the country as long they can again control the purse strings, so that their masters, the corporatocracy, can enrich themselves on the backs of the working class poor and
the poor that they have created by taking the best jobs overseas.
It is high time that the GOP is unseated from their throne and given the heave-ho. We the electorate, need to show them the door, yet their are still people, working class people who believe that the GOP
is going to change the world for the better. But the true base of the GOP, the Far Right Wing Nut Fundamentalist Christians, have little if any power now. But still believe that the GOP will deliver on their promises to make America into a ‘Christian’ nation. Someone please explain to these people that this never was and never will be an exclusively ‘Christian’ nation.  Some of the signers of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution were
Deists, Jews, and atheists.
No one religion, no one denomination, held sway over the Continental Congress or the Constitutional Congress.
We are a diverse nation! We are a multicultural nation, which by its very nature cannot be a ‘christian’ nation. Give it up people. No one believes that you will succeed.
The problem as I see it now, is this, we have an extremely obstructionist group of men and women, who
when given the chance proclaim their hope that President Obama’s policies will fail and that they will be the ones to pick up the pieces when everything goes to hell in a hand basket. To that end
they do everything that they can to push their agenda
of failure and defeat. This includes stopping the legislative process in the Senate by filibustering any bill that comes close to solving the problems of the economy and unemployment.
The GOP, should pay the price by being shoved out the
door and losing their positions of power in our government. Should this not happen, we the people, are the ones who will be raped and pillaged by the system.  No other outcome will suffice other than to take the reins of power away from the hands of those in government and giving the power to the people.

Good—the dollar needs to fall !!!  The high dollar is killing US manufacturing and jobs.  It has to fall eventually anyway.  And China substituting internal demand would be a good thing.

The US has been increasing the money supply in a monetarist effort to stimulate the economy.  It isn’t working.  Inflation is not a problem.  There is a lot of slack in the economy.  There has to be fiscal stimulus as Keynes pointed out long ago: Otherwise you are “pushing on a string.”  The government has no problem borrowing money even at interest rates that are just about nil—world’s safest investment.  Never been a default.  Obama will shortly be back for more stimulus.

All the export-oriented economies have problems these days.  But the Chinese have explicitly stated that they are not going to countenance a weak dollar.  Of course they have been doing so already, so what this seems to mean is that their patience is running out.  The Chinese, Japanese and other Asian countries have rather authoritarian social and political orders which may enable them to make a shift to some other kind of economy which is not so export-oriented even though the shift may seriously inconvenience their citizens.  In short, I don’t think anyone better count on China to bail out the U.S. more than they have done already.  In which case the strewing of money, which many people seem to anticipate with glee, is going to be pretty limited.  Times will be hard.  This isn’t because the Republicans are mean.  It’s because the American ruling class, Republicans and Democrats, have devastated America’s wealth and reputation, and now someone has to pay the price.

China (Japan as well) doesn’t buy US bonds to help the US.  China buys US bonds to keep exports flowing to the US—and kill US exports and manufacturing.  China has already been whacked by the US recession.  Layoffs and domestic unrest are rising there.

Retirees will get their cost of living adjustments.  Strange, though, to hear Obama trying to reassure foreign investors at the same time he is hinting at defaulting on US bonds held by the Social Security trust fund.  He calls it “reform.”

If and when the economy does get well, the way to fight inflation is to increase taxes and reduce deficits.  But the Republicans, as always, will fight tax increases on the rich.  Instead of using countercyclial economics, Republicans advocate policies that exacerbate the swings in the business cycle.

“The government can print and strew around two trillion dollars, but that won’t repair the economy, it will just cause the price of everything to go up to account for the additional money supply.”
P. T.:
‘Not spending what is required will cause a worse economic wreck.  We learned that lesson eight decades ago.  And inflation is not the problem now; the opposite is what is to be feared now.  Hence Obama will be back for more stimulus money.’

The problem is that the money needed to offset the money (credit) which has disappeared has to be real money now, that is, it has to stand for goods, services, labor, not vaporous real estate and stock “values”.  But nobody in the U.S. has this money, because the U.S. has been running on fumes for many years.  The only place Mr. O can get his money is China.  But a week ago, the number one big cheese in China issued a distinct warning to the U.S. leadership to the effect that China was thinking of “diversifying its portfolio”.  This is probably IMF-style talk; grand largesse and money-printing are not going to be tolerated by the U.S.‘s creditors.  This is going to severely limit what the U.S. government can do.  The well is just about dry.

In a situation like this, the best thing to do would be to assess the situation as rationally and soberly as possible.  What do we really have?  Can we put it to work?  Can we stop wasting our money on imperial war and failed businesses?  But going by what I read and hear, this is the last thing anyone’s going to do.

Like it says in the good book, “And this too shall pass.”  The economy will recover in time, but with a vengeance as they say.  In less than two years, with all the money being spread around, inflation will become the demon of the day, but it will be unlike anything the USA has seen before!  Fasten your seat belts its gonna be a bumpy ride.  I have pity for those on fixed incomes——they’re toast!

“The government can print and strew around two trillion dollars, but that won’t repair the economy, it will just cause the price of everything to go up to account for the additional money supply.”

Not spending what is required will cause a worse economic wreck.  We learned that lesson eight decades ago.  And inflation is not the problem now; the opposite is what is to be feared now.  Hence Obama will be back for more stimulus money.

It’s scary that the GOP is now using the same tactic and adhering to the same dogma that extreme radicals, including the Weather Underground employed in the late 60’s and early 70’s.  “Let’s make the society crash so WE can take power and rebuild it “

That’s now EXACTLY the House GOP strategy since they are in SUCH a deep minority—Pelosi has about 50 votes more than Gingrich had in 1995 when he took over.  And in the Senate, the 2 intelligent Senators from Maine and one of the 2 intelligent Senators from Pennsylvania are the ONLY sane GOP Senators left—notice they have accrued IMMENSE influence and power brokerage. I’ve never quite figured out why Arlen Spector is a Republican—he’s SO much closer to the Blue Dog Dems.  Of course, Snow and Collins are from a state that won’t elect Democrats, but will elect Senators and Governors that enact and vote like Democrats!

Meanwhile, the rest of the GOP is scrabbling to try and find a voice and a base that’s now stuck on ... Rash Gasbag!  Even Newt the Nitwit has figured out that ...duh, Rush is bad for the party—but let’s pay teenage girls not to get pregnant.  Hey! Child molester! That’s called teenage prostitution—and carries the same penalty as rape!

Even the smart, realistic GOP governors like Conan and Crist are keeping their heads down. They said their piece, then Bobby Jindal and what’s-iz-name in S.Carolina said nope, they’d rather their citizens suffer poverty and unemployment than take stim $$$$.  Wonder how THAT will play next election cycle!  (probably will go well in SC—the most red-neck state on earth—nothing’s changed much from the day SC led the South in secession in 1861—and they STILL elect segregationists)

Doing Nothing is exactly what caused this econoic meltdown!!!!
Job Creation or maintenece- Do Nothing
Market Regulations and oversight- Do Nothing
Reliance on foreign Oil- Do Nothing
The Repugs have not only been the laziest group of slackers this country has ever seen, They have been the most destructive through their refusal to attend to their Duties as Public Servants. They are Unfit to Lead because they have committed Dereliction of Duty for 30 yrs.
Protect & Defend US against Foreign & Domestic Enemies- Nope not only sleeping with the OPEC Oil Royals and China and they have made US endentured slaves to the Multinationals Corps.
Heres the Facts the only reason these Corps had the luxury of becoming multinationals is because the American Worker/consumer created them and made them profitable enough to open foreign factories.The Americna worker was th ebest paid in the World and inturn we made them the Wealthiest Corps and created and maintained a World Economy.The World doe not only expect US to consume, they rely on it.Corp sare so shortsighted and greedy they have not realized to undercut Americna Worker Pay & Bennies means their other markets will fail too.We are Global consumers and have provided Aid to others to help build their economies- thus producing more consumers for the multinationals.So go ahead pay US like shit, treat US like Third World workers and watch not only our economy’s inability to sustain these corps- but all others.There is only one logical reason Corps would wish such a thing- World Domination over humanity.Make every person desparate and reliant on them and you never have to fire a shot to conquer humanity- we become slaves, commodities, to be auctioned off on the global auction block to then be used and disgarded. This is a Crime Against Humanity. These Politicians and their Corp Overlords should be prosecuted for the Crimes they have committed- Blood of oil wars, destablization of the world economy and the Conspiracy that can not be denied. These have not been bad business decisions, they have been a Mission Statement.you are not paranoid if it has been proven others are out to get you- It’s a reality.It’s Insanity when you keep relying on those same SOB’s to change.

Boehner is ineffective government personified. His actions and statements have shown that he has ALL of the characteristics that you’ve identified – he is crazy, destructive, unethical, economically illiterate, and self-serving.

It’s probably going to take at least another year before they figure out whats wrong.

There will be some good days, but many more bad days, lots of posturing by the Republicans, and also Democrats milking it for all it’s worth.

But in the end, it will all amount to the same thing, our financial system is broken, beyond fixing.

Ironically those that caused it all still seem to be respected, and their opinions still seem to matter to the politicians who continue to respect them. 

When that changes you will know that we are near the beginning of the end, but that is still a long way off.

While we liberals sit and bitch about repugs being obstructionists and praying for a depression we must not forget that Pelosi, Reed, and co. did the exact same thing after the 2006 elections. They sat by and watched as W and the repugs steered this ship into the goddamn iceberg, hoping beyond hope that it would bring an economic downturn that would be the final nail in the 2008 repug casket. It worked too well. Things became so bad a black man got elected, and a dimmo majority rose from the ashes of a shattered W presidency.

But make no mistake, the dimmos share responsibility for the coming tribulation due to their contrived complacency of the last three years, and their equally repugnant selling out of the american people to the same big business interests that bought and sold the GOP decades ago.

Yessiree kiddies, as Frank Zappa once said in song describing how politians felt about the public interest, “You ain’t even number two!”

Reed, Pelosi, Beohner, or McConnell, take your pick. They are all heads on the same mythical beast. while that may sound cynical, it should serve as a reminder that we are on our own. And only through the decisive action of the people will this ship turn. But we are, after all, americans. and that means not a world war, or Pearl harbor, a Vietnam, or a 911, will cause us to change. Perhaps when we are all sitting in the darkest corner of our forclosed homes eating cold beans from a can, and polishing a shotgun by candlelite, will we rise up and demand change.

But until then…

sasas sd asdasd asdad dasd

P. T.:
‘Getting an approximation of the size the stimulus needs to be is not that hard.  Using Congressional Budget Office projections, the drop in demand is likely to be about $2 trillion.  So that’s what is needed in stimulus.  A lot more is needed than what Obama has asked for so far.’

In a sense what you say is correct, but it omits a very important fact, which is that much of that demand was based on debt, and much of it on delusion and deception, not on the exchange of real goods and services.  The government can print and strew around two trillion dollars, but that won’t repair the economy, it will just cause the price of everything to go up to account for the additional money supply.  In any case, China has just warned the United States not to do this.  That last time the dragon huffed, Bernanke got scared and raised interest rates, and the bottom fell out of the housing market, beginning the overt phase of our considerable economic troubles.  Now they are huffing again.  There are limits to what Obama can do in the money borrowing and printing realms.

What the U.S. leadership and people need to do is assess their condition and situation realistically.  It is time to withdraw from empire and world domination and take care of business at home.  But as anyone who has had a hangover knows, sobriety does not come easily.

Sick of this bullshit:

“...Americans can at least be thankful that the nation’s fate has not been consigned to the frozen minds on the other side of the aisle.”

NO.  They all report to the same interests.  Your false dichotomy rings just that, false.

Obama, as I predicted, stands to be a much more dangerous and destructive president than even Bush Jr:

THE OBAMA DECEPTION

Government is incapable of responding to the needs of it’s people.  It is incapable of responding to rapid change and therefore problems remain unsolved and over time grow larger until we face collapse.  Since government cannot repair trailing problems, it certainly cannot lead in problem solving. 

Today, decentralization is the key to change.  Each of us individually must live a changed life.  Each of us must choose wisely because mistakes in a rapidly changing culture are unforgiving.  Government inaction will heap hardships upon us and we must bear them in a climate of reality. We will feel the brunt of personal responsibility by default as government continues to fail us.  Washington has become increasingly irrelevant and only we can save ourselves. 

People have only now begun to make minor decisions regarding personal sustainability. As the downward economic pressures becomes increasingly intolerable
only then will the truly hard decisions be made.  This is the cauldron of change and it is rapidly approaching.  The quality of our people will be tested and we will either destroy ourselves or emerge in a better world.  Which choice will you make, that is the issue.

Getting an approximation of the size the stimulus needs to be is not that hard.  Using Congressional Budget Office projections, the drop in demand is likely to be about $2 trillion.  So that’s what is needed in stimulus.  A lot more is needed than what Obama has asked for so far.

things were so effed up that all the Dimocraps had to do to gain the power of the majority was NOT be Repukicans. It seems that the Repugs now have the idea that all they have to do is blame the Dimocraps for what lies ahead (depression?), and they can then gain the power of the majority by NOT being Dimocraps.

One would think that there would be a weeding out process such that no outright idiots would be elected to Congress, but evidently there is a loophole in the selection of our representatives such that more idiots get in than are rejected.

I think it’s time for a clean sweep in the primaries where ALL of the bastards are REPLACED with someone unrelated——BOTH parties, so that NO Congressman or Senator is allowed to remain in his legislative body. Yes, it will take 4 years to clean out the Senate, but it will be WORTH it.

Don’t ask me what to do about idiotic VOTERS. There is no solution I can think of which doesn’t involve murder.

Unfortunately, most of the Blue Dog Dems jumping on the “fiscal discipline” bandwagon are more concerned with opinion polls than doing the right thing.

The concept of belt tightening appeals to the general public who are having to do that themselves, but the general public are not economists. They are however, voters.

The whole thing stinks of “politics before policy”.

This is just a song and dance routine designed to convince people that there is a difference between the left and right, there is not they have both been bought and paid for by the same interests.

This “Bleeding Heart Liberal” (me) believes the Government (local and State included) is bloated and inefficient. We should NOT replace retiring workers until it starts to hurt and THEN wait another 18 months before we start to replace these workers. These tenured workers are the ones who make the most and do the least anyway and probably wouldn’t be missed much. Fast track any new hires who show initiative and sideline the apathetic and lazy. Tenure in Government is unacceptable !!!!

So, what are we now going to say to this forming coalition of Blue Dog Dems that are going to go after “deficit reduction” and “fiscal responsibility” being led by (among others) Evan Bayh?

Boehner and McConnell are leaders of the frozen-headed Republic Party obstructionists. But it appears they may well have new Blue Dog enablers, since they are using exactly the same code words for their stimulus obstruction.

When reporting on this exact rising internal (to the donkey party, that is) threat last night, Rachel Maddow asked a very on-point question: Where were the principled Democrats like Bayh and his forming BD coalition when Bush Co. were raping financial oversight and converting a budget surplus into a trillion $ deficit exactly?

And they want to go after “fiscal responsibility” and “deficit reduction” NOW???

Belt tightening is a very good goal, and needed, but it stimulates NOTHING. We have already voted the Republic Party to actual powerlessness in defense of our country—so what do we do now about the rising obstructionist threat posed by these ConservaDems?

Ideas? Anyone?