Round-up of verdicts on the US elections by the New Deal 2.0 team, assembled by Lynn Parramore, Editor of New Deal 2.0 and Media Fellow at the Roosevelt Institute
In the wake of a Democratic loss not seen in the House since 1938, upended Senate seats, and Republican gubernatorial wins, Roosevelt Institute Fellows weigh in. Was the vote a referendum on Democrats? What will it mean moving forward?
“The American people are voting against the political system. They are given the choice between the marketed vision of false hope and the vision of everyman financed by those who are attempting to take away vital services. Anger at the financial bailouts is understandable and a vote to cut off government from using our future tax burden to fortify the powerful is also quite sensible. The problem is that in the era of money politics, no coalition from either party can make good on the mirage of their marketed vision.
That both Alan Grayson and Russ Feingold were defeated after being ardent critics of the bailouts and the industry friendly financial regulatory reform is a clear warning that the money system can defeat the politician who represents the people’s interest against powerful vested interests.
All of this points to the fundamental need for reform of government incentives in order to restore the power of votes relative to the power of money. And to the fact that reform is the precursor to limiting the domination of our state by concentrated money interests, both corporate and by wealthy individuals. The rules of our society should not be bought and sold.”
-Robert Johnson, Roosevelt Institute Senior Fellow and Director of the Project on Global Finance; Executive Director of the Institute for New Economic Thinking
“High unemployment and a housing market that’s right out of Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea would wreck any regime’s reelection prospects. This was no communication failure: The administration had nothing to offer ordinary people. Facing a wave of secret money, you can’t win elections by just saving banks.”
– Tom Ferguson, Roosevelt Institute Senior Fellow; Professor of Political Science at the University of Massachusetts, Boston
“In my view, President Obama had one key mission: to prove the value of government. He and his defenders argue that he has achieved much. In particular, they cite health care reform, financial re-regulation, the Recovery Act of 2009, and some even claim he has a workable strategy in Afghanistan. All these were agenda items that needed addressing. Obama has been able to convince too few Americans that any of them were adequately addressed. In fact, they were not, and he never seemed to come to terms with that central fact. To the contrary, he seemed to bury his head in the sand. His claim was that we got so much done but no one really knew about it. This was not bad public relations. It was not failure of government. It was inadequate policy and the failure to own up to it. Obama said a few times he got seventy percent of his agenda done. He got something done, sure, but in no case did it solve the pressing problems they were addressing. This is a man who willfully has averted his eyes from reality, I fear, and the public knew it. And the stunning electoral losses — made a little more tolerable by the constant lowering of expectations — don’t look like they will shake him up. Equanimity is his constant goal, even in the face of such adversity.”
-Jeff Madrick, Roosevelt Institute Senior Fellow and author of The Case for Big Government
“There was no mandate for the repeal of health care in this election, with Democrats who voted against the bill and for the bill equally joined in defeat, but that won’t stop Republicans for claiming one. The Republicans will do all they can to terminate the biggest expansion of the social compact in decades, understanding that if health care reform is implemented, it will prove to Americans that government can actually work for them.”
– Richard Kirsch, Roosevelt Institute Senior Fellow and formerly National Campaign Manager of Health Care for America Now
“Barack Obama did not do what it took to pull the economy out of the doldrums. This is true for the fiscal stimulus, which was too small, too preoccupied with returning to a surplus as fast as possible, and contained too much lag. His banking bailout policies continued the Bush/Paulson approach and effectively reinforced the notion of government as an instrument of predatory capitalism, rather than an entity mobilizing resources for a broader public purpose. Obama didn’t give us ‘change we could believe in.’ He instead used trillions of dollars in financial guarantees to sustain Wall Street (much more money than was spent on the stimulus) and consequently presided over one of the most regressive wealth transfers in American history. At a time when most Americans were experiencing stagnant or absolute declines in total wages, and Wall Street Robber Barons paid themselves even higher bonuses than before, the President was totally insensitive. He appeared to take pains to put down or ignore the aspirations of every single part of his base. And he wonders why there was an ‘enthusiasm gap.’”
– Marshall Auerback, Roosevelt Institute Senior Fellow
“The most striking thing about the post-election landscape is the utter route of centrists Democrats. In the aftermath, as Chris Bowers notes, the Progressive Caucus is larger than the Blue Dog and the New Dems combined. Analysts will continue to go through the numbers, but right now there’s nothing to suggest that ‘liberal overreach’ or a lack of centrist views was a factor. The truth is much worse: the ugly process of appeasing and buying off centrist Democrats on financial reform and health care turned what should have been landmark generational reform into a bitter, ugly view of corporate power and sleazy influence over our political system, the Senate and the political party that is supposed to defend the interests of working people.”
– Mike Konczal, Roosevelt Institute Fellow
“Americans want bold ideas and a clear vision, not back-room deals and bank-centric policies. Until Democrats can offer these to voters, they will not succeed. For the next two years, those who would stand in the way of investing in jobs, schools, roads, bridges, and rebuilding the middle class will present even more obstacles to a prosperous future. But progressives are energized and see that the time for backing down and letting billionaires run the country is over. The fight for the future of ordinary Americans is on. Get the gloves off.”
– Lynn Parramore, Editor of New Deal 2.0 and Media Fellow at the Roosevelt Institute
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Like these guys said.
“…progressives are energized and see that the time for backing down and letting billionaires run the country is over.”
I don’t know how “energized” I am, but assuming that I were — what would I do with that, in a political sense? Say the Dems are the nominal party of the left. (They really aren’t. There really isn’t one in the US, and hasn’t been one since about 1972 or so.) Even if you leave aside how utterly bought off they are, the Dems have shown that they’ve learned absolutely nothing over the last 30 years. It’s simply foolish to invest any time in them at all.
I don’t believe that the political structures set up in the Constitution (and let’s be honest, they were never that great to begin with) can any longer cope with the problems of a 300 million resident continental empire.
If the Progressives want to win the country they should appeal to principles of basic honesty. Americans are not bothered by wealth inequality IF they believe the system is fair. Well, it isn’t. If one has sufficient capital and and a sufficient lack of scruple or an enormous ego one can become a banker and essentially counterfeit in the government’s money supply. Where is the Progressive outrage over that? Huh?
The Republicans, for all their talk of virtue and principle, are hypocrites when it comes to banking. So why haven’t the Progressives attacked that Achilles Heel? Because they have no problem with stealing by banking as long as they get their cut of the loot via taxes?
American would be content with a sufficient safety net and genuine capitalism. But how would Progressives ever know that? What are their guiding principles? Theft by taxation
to counter theft by banking? Americans HATE theft by any means. They see how the government steals from them but theft via the banking cartel is MUCH MORE subtle. Educate them after you educate yourselves.
Attack the hypocrisy of the Republicans and you can win, Progressives. You have a lack of vision other than a belief in socialism that most Americans would rather not depend on.
Most Americans – and certainly bankers! – do depend on socialism whether they recognize it or not.
Please define “genuine capitalism”. Since most Americans are not born into a trust fund lifestyle, most do not have capital. But they do have ambition, creativity, and sense of fair, honest free-enterprise.
The corrosive effects of money in politics will be tremendously neutralized as soon as we stop voting for whoever the TV commercials tell us to.
Typically the prize goes to the biggest whore, because the biggest whore gets the most advertising.
Sorry. Mis-post.
Please define “genuine capitalism”. Pixy Dust
We almost have it in the US. What is lacking is a genuine free market in private money creation. Common stock is an ideal form of private money. Corporations would almost certainly have to issue it to buy assets AND labor IF they did not have access to the government backed counterfeiting cartel, the fractional reserve bankers. As a result, almost all Americans would own the corporations and it could truly be said that what was good for the corporations would be good for America.
… most do not have capital. But they do have ambition, creativity, and sense of fair, honest free-enterprise. Pixy Dust
That is the greatest capital there is since it comes from God.
Picking two things off the top of my head that most people use and are affected by, cotton and sugar, prove we don’t have a free market. I’m sure if you put 5 seconds worth of thought into it, you’d come up with…oh, thousands of other examples.
Prove we don’t have a free market in cotton and sugar? I don’t think any of the agricultural markets are free.
Cotton is heavily subsidized, and sugar has tight import quotas. I didn’t look for an original source, but here are some secondaries:
article in the Washington Post claiming cotton farmers get about $3 billion per year from Uncle Sam:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/08/AR2010030805359.html
article from the WSJ showing Americans were paying almost 2x as much for sugar as everyone else back in March, because of quotas:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704416904575121923474628444.html
Picking two things off the top of my head that most people use and are affected by, cotton and sugar, prove we don’t have a free market. john
Agreed. I would say it began with government privileges for bankers.
Do you think it’s out hatred of Castro that has led to 40+ year embargo of Cuba? It can’t be our fear of Communism (our top trading partner and holder of trillions of US FED Bucks, Red China)that’s for sure.
I think it’s US Sugar protecting “their” market.
Free markets my a$$.
There was an article in Vanity Fair 3-4 year ago on how powerful the sugar lobby is, and how much support it gets as a result.
Yes, and God is, after all, the reflection of man’s (and woman’s) full potential, in a good way.
We had private money creation in the 1800’s. Constant boom/bust depression cycles. That’s what the Federal Reserve was supposed to help put and end to. Also it was supposed to work for full employment. Guess it failed on all accounts.
We need a common currency that serves honest, contractual, utilitarian function that benefits everyone. Not much profit for the money makers, but lots of free-enterprise, productivity, and genuine prosperity.
We had private money creation in the 1800’s. Constant boom/bust depression cycles. Pixy Dust
Those private currencies were based on fractional reserves which accounts for the boom-bust cycles. And very importantly, those private currencies were accepted for taxes which was essentially a government subsidization of their value. A sovereign government should NEVER accept anything other than its own money for taxes and fees. And that government money should be pure fiat (paper or electronic bits) in order to avoid privileging any PRIVATE money class for such as gold or silver.
That’s what the Federal Reserve was supposed to help put and end to. Also it was supposed to work for full employment. Guess it failed on all accounts. Pixy Dust
Yep, time for something radically new.
We need a common currency that serves honest, contractual, utilitarian function that benefits everyone. Not much profit for the money makers, but lots of free-enterprise, productivity, and genuine prosperity. Pixy Dust
I don’t think that is possible with a single money supply. Let the free market types have the free market, good and hard. No more fascism under the good name of “free markets”. Here’s how to do it; separate government and private money supplies:
1) Government money need not and should not be backed by anything other than its taxing authority otherwise the government would be favoring a private money or private money form such as precious metals over other private money forms such as common stock. Furthermore, government money should only be legal tender for government debts (taxes and fees), not private ones.
2) Private monies should only be good for private debts not government ones.
Government is force and the private sector is voluntary cooperation. It is morally impossible for them to share a single money supply be it fiat, gold or whatever.
Okay, so I’m almost finished with this 24 oz Fat Tire and I’ve finally decided to address something. I really don’t care about fractional reserve banking, because I looked it up on wikipedia and realized that there IS a reason for it being implemented.
The only people I really here bitching about fractional reserve banking are Austrian nutters. Please, go away.
Doh! I clicked the reply button and realized ‘hear’ is spelled wrong, and that ‘read’ was probably a better choice. Can’t a working man get an edit button?
Where can I find a 24 oz. Fat Tire?
The only people I really here bitching about fractional reserve banking are Austrian nutters. Please, go away. chris
Actually, I just got back from mises.org where I am trying to educate the gold-buggers.
I like Fat Tire myself.
Nah, I won’t quit till we have genuine capitalism or the FR bankers kill me.
And BTW, “fractional reserves” is a misnomer. It is actually “new debt for new temporary money with no real possibility of repayment in aggregate”.
Free markets don’t exist. All markets are regulated. The question is how well or how badly they function within these regulations.
Americans – you must renounce ALL ideologies, including market fundamentalism! It has served only to put blinkers on you and to allow demagogues to win over a largely infantile electorate.
I watch with horror as your country descends into chaos.
Free markets don’t exist. All markets are regulated. The question is how well or how badly they function within these regulations. Robert Dudek
Agreed. But the problem with our society and yours too (since FRL is pervasive) is we attempt to regulate an inherently dishonest money and banking system. It can’t be done for long as we learn over and over again except we never seem to learn.
Let me ask: What is so hard to understand about “Thou shall not steal” even if by fractional reserve lending?
“If I were reincarnated I would wish to be returned to earth as KILLER VIRUS to lower human population levels.”Prince Phillip/Duke of Edinburgh
End of fractional reserve banking means a categorical elimination of the global middle class and a generalized culling of the world population, with an emphasis on the particular problematic (useless feeders).
“Officials did not say where the buses would go.
President Rene Preval warned residents to leave camps in a Thursday radio address, but acknowledged, “The government doesn’t have enough places to move everyone.””
Haiti/November 2010
(what life looks like without domestic governance, infrastructure as belied by a rhetorical whimsy termed ‘UN humanitarian relief effort/governance’: aka-life after the demise of fractional reserve banking)
“both Alan Grayson and Russ Feingold were defeated after being ardent critics of the bailouts”
Yes indeed. For all the Tea Party rage at corruption, they apparently missed Alan Grayson’s continual grillings of the Federal Reserve when trying to find out who received billions of dollars in guaranteed loans. Otherwise they would have re-elected this patriotic representative by a wide margin.
As for the future of the Progressive Democratic Party? Consider the herd culled. Now onward and upward for a long hard fight to take back OUR country too.
Long ago the Greek philosopher Heraclitus argued that justice emerges from the strife of opposites, and Hegel, in modern philosophy, preached a doctrine of growth through struggle. It is both historically and biologically true that there can be no birth and growth without birth and growing pains. Whenever there is the emergence of the new we confront the recalcitrance of the old. So the tensions which we witness in the world today are indicative of the fact that a new world order is being born and an old order is passing away.
[….]
Evil may so shape events that Caesar will occupy a palace and Christ a cross, but one day that same Christ will rise up and split history into A.D. and B.C., so that even the life of Caesar must be dated by His name. There is something in this universe that justifies Carlyle in saying, “No lie can live forever.” There is something in this universe which justifies William Cullen Bryant in saying, “Truth crushed to earth will rise again.” There is something in this universe that justifies James Russell Lowell in saying:
Truth forever on the scaffold
Wrong forever on the throne
Yet that scaffold sways the future
And behind the dim unknown stands God
Within the shadows keeping watch above his own.
–Martin Luther King, Jr., “Facing the Challenge of a New Age,” address before the First Annual Institute on Non-Violence and Social Change, December, 1956
“Obama is a corporate whore and a war criminal” – Henk Dickson, Drunk near the Roosevelt Insitute
Much better than all that reformist drivel!
I laughed out loud after reading this comment. Thanks, I need more of that. It’s so depressing…
Hrm…reformism. Yes, it does seem corporatists have almost finished off FDR’s “reforms”. Leftist anarchists and mutualists are saying these was a bone thrown to the masses to prevent the elites from being ousted. I’m kind of inclined to believe that.
I heartily concur. Emphasis on the ‘sleazy’.
Also agree that although this appears to be a GOP ‘victory’, it’s likely to prove Pyrrhic.
The progressives would be smart to adopt Fabian tactics for the next two years.
Agree. Give them enough rope…
Time to walk the walk and not just talk the talk.
“Show me the money!”
“When peaceful reform is impossible, violent revolution is inevitable”. Something for the plutocrats to think about.
John F. Kennedy
Good quote!
Well, I’m at the point where I now think the American public is too stupid to live. Putting the Republicans back in power will only make things worse.
The Repubs aren’t interested in bi-partisanship and never were. They won’t do a thing about foreclosures, bankruptcies, unemployment, and too big to fail. But they will continue to sell us out to the highest bidder and steal what’s left.
“…violent revolution is inevitable”…gee, I hope you’re right.
[T]raditionalists in a number of societies have often pointed in glee to this passivity, choosing to call it “apathy” and citing it as a justification for maintaining things as they are.
This apparent absence of popular vigor is traceable, however, not to apathy but to the very raw materials of history—-that complex of rules, manners, power relationships, and memories that collectively comprise what is called culture. “The masses” do not rebel in instinctive response to hard times and exploitation because they have been culturally organized by their societies not to rebel. They have, instead, been instructed in deference.
[….]
Nothing illustrates the general truth of this phenomenon more than the most recent exception to it, namely the conduct of the student radicals of the 1960s. While the students themselves clearly felt they could substantively affect “inherited patterns of power and privilege,” the prevailing judgment of the 1970s, shared by both the radicals and their conservative critics, is that the students were naïve to have had such sweeping hopes. Today, political life in America has once more returned to normal levels of resignation.
[….]
Democratic movements are initiated by people who had individually managed to attain a high level of personal political self-respect. [What Martin Luther King called a “sense of somebodiness.”] They are not resigned: they are not intimidated. To put it another way, they are not culturally organized to conform to established hierarchical forms. Their sense of autonomy permits them to dare to try to change things by seeking to influence others.
[….]
I call it “the movement culture.” Once attained, it opens up new vistas of social possibility, vistas that are less clouded by inherited assumptions. I suggest that all significant mass democratic movements in human history have generated this autonomous capacity. Indeed, had they not done so, one cannot visualize how they could have developed into significant mass democratic movements.
–Lawrence Goodwyn, The Populist Movement
If I could recommend only one book as a field guide, it would be this one.
(It’s The Populist Moment, though.)
Repubs have a vested interest in making sure that the economy does not improve and the working class continues to suffer. After two more years of watching the top 1% prosper while everyone else struggles more may be willing to vote republicans back in since democrats don’t seem to provide any relief. That’s their playbook. It worked on Tuesday and stands a good chance of working in 2012. God help us all.
Obama, to me, is just a front of the house sales man. His only concern is achieving his sales targets, a job with out ethos…his hand shake bonus counts on it.
Skippy…QEII is just liqueuring up the potential buyers…how many will wake the next morn…only to be covered in their own filth and used accoutrements of last nights debauchery. I can only hope that as they peek out the bedroom window through the haze…they see their own house next door. Forced to move by their actions proximity…the normalness they project during daylight hours…inability to reconcile the cheep lust once experienced…their neighbours glancing gaze…hay honey…kids…I’m home….
“As a result, almost all Americans would own the corporations and it could truly be said that what was good for the corporations would be good for America.”
Americans can own their own corporations now. It has nothing to do with government-back private money fabricators skimming off wealth from wealth generators. Corporations are a creation of government-backed contractual law. Government is us.
And the mantra that what is good for GM (corporations) is good for America is an intentional misquote. The real quote by Charles Wilson, is “What is good for the country is good for General Motors.” I heard him explain this. But the misquote has certainly worked well for Madison Avenue and Wall Street. Generations of Americans, believing that corporations can decide what is in our own personal best interests.
Not.
I hope we shall crush in its birth the aritocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country.
–Thomas Jefferson, 1816
Great quote! We need to tell the bankers, who lend money they only pretend to have, to shove off.
“I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies . . . If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around [the banks] . . . will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered . . . The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs.” — Thomas Jefferson — The Debate Over The Recharter Of The Bank Bill, (1809)
Americans can own their own corporations now Pixy Dust
No, I don’t think you understand. Without the government backed banking cartel, corporations would be forced to issue stock to purchase assets and labor. They would be forced to share wealth rather than just loot it via loans from the counterfeiting cartel.
I gave up and from this election cycle onward I will vote for the Green Party candidates where possible until the Democrats reclaim territory to their left. The Green Party nearly cost the Democrats the US Senate seat in Colorado.
I switched to Green a few months ago, and voted likewise across the board this week.
I have no regrets.
The question is, will the Dem leadership get the message that their core is slowly deserting them? Will they remedy the situation?
My fear is they will not.
Not only that, they will fight us tooth and nail.
2012 will end up being a replay of 2000, and rather than Greens helping President Bush to power, it’ll be Emperor DeMint. This is the ultimate nightmare scenario, and I fear the Dems & Obama are too stupid to see this. They have the power to keep this from happening, but I just don’t see it.
You fundamentally misjudge the political system of the United States. No one can win national office without significant amounts of money. Except for the very, very wealthy, that must come from corporate America. Therefore, the Democratic Party, if it has any hope of playing on the national stage, must take positions that are in the best interest of corporate America. The America of our childhood is gone forever. And there is absolutely nothing the “middle class” can do about it. The fight is over, the mega-rich won. Adapt.
Jon-
I beg to differ. I understand our political system quite well.
I am of the opinion that the beginning of the end of Obama was not when he took the public option off the table, or even the nomination of the “dynamic duo” (Summers & Geithner). The end of Obama began when he opted out of public campaign financing:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=91684426
So yes, I understand the corporate issues with the Dem leadership, which is why they no longer represent me, and no longer deserve my unwavering support.
As for not being able to do anything about it, I believe Yves had a post about protest not too long ago that addresses this:
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2010/10/protest-works-just-look-at-the-proof.html
I’ll let the post speak for itself.
Wrong, troll. Or I should say, right analysis, totally wrong conclusion.
Since reform is impossible within the existing system, freedom-seeking people with human dignity must seek a new path outside it.
And we sure won’t listen to terminal slaves like you.
NOTHING has been accomplished until it is paid for.
No one in power is trustworthy anymore and no liberal democrat side or conservative republican side gets my support. Read the big idea people on both sides and you find even them denigrating and name calling their opposition and these are supposedly “high intellectuals”. They are nothing but bullies who know how to write better than most.
Each succeeding administration just spends more and lies more. Can you even follow all the arguments now for why 1) a 13.7 trillion dollar debt doesn’t matter? 2) that there is no limit to how much debt the fed can buy from the treasury? What a nice arrangement.
Good luck America, the smart money has bet you are going down the tubes. And if you look at all the money leaving the US going to buy emerging markets… well, it is happening.
The Cynic
“A sovereign government should NEVER accept anything other than its own money for taxes and fees.”
Make that “a sovereign government, by, for and of it’s naturally born and legitimately nationalized citizens”.
Then you and I, F. Beard have an agreement!
And all interest on credit issued shall be spent into the states, by the federal government. So the interest is in existence and functioning for the benefit of the states as the states so choose.
And all interest on credit issued shall be spent into the states, by the federal government. So the interest is in existence and functioning for the benefit of the states as the states so choose. Pixy Dust
I firmly believe that a sovereign government should never borrow money. I also believe that the government should never lend money either since that could easily lead to cronyism. How would you prevent that abuse?
One thing you can be certain of is that whoever “they” run in the 2012 Presidential elections will be bought, groomed and paid for. Who’s “they”? I wish I knew, but “they” have captured both parties and that’s a pretty good trick.
Alas, all these folks are far too optimistic.
We are sliding out of a badly managed rigidity trap and into an epic period of creative destruction. The only folks who appear to have the stomach for siezing the opportunities in this environment are the most fascistic elements of the oligarchy and the tea party movement. We have absolutely no leadership capable of dealing with this situation, and Obama, for one, appears ready to welcome our teahadist overlords.
Thank you, Yves, for great post-mortem snapshots of “a Democratic loss not seen in the House since 1938”. Wow, and well-deserved. And if not for the Tea Party, they might have lost the Senate too.
Marshall Auerback impales Obama:
“His banking bailout policies continued the Bush/Paulson approach and effectively reinforced the notion of government as an instrument of predatory capitalism…”
“Obama didn’t give us ‘change we could believe in.’ He instead used trillions of dollars in financial guarantees to sustain Wall Street … and consequently presided over one of the most regressive wealth transfers in American history.”
“He appeared to take pains to put down or ignore the aspirations of every single part of his base. And he wonders why there was an ‘enthusiasm gap.’”
Marshall is right to put the “gap” in quotes as
understatement. Apart from apathy, quite likely no small number of voters — “effing retards”, “whiners”, and “drug users” — went out of their way to punish the relentless in-your-face betrayals.
I think most of us just sat out and said F ’em. I know I did.
Doug Terpsta:
I think you are right that many people sat this one out, thinking that would “show” the Dems.
But it didn’t, and never has. They always, always tack to the right when they lose. They NEVER conclude they weren’t liberal enough.
I, for one am not terribly surprised or depressed by the results. Every time the economy is poor, midterms have historically thrown a shoe at the party in power. This is the worst economy ever. I am also not sorry to see the Blue Dogs go. They were the worst idea EVER to come out of Rahm Emanuel, and that’s saying something. I also want to see the GOP antics, which I think aren’t going to play nearly as well as they think they are….this isn’t 1994, nobody’s feeling rich in the middle class, and the patience for investigations and bullshit in DC is very, very thin right now. I’m betting the GOP will pull out all the stops and get their asses handed to them in 2012, because they will (as usual) overreach, nominate Palin or some other idiot, and people will NOT vote for them.
We live in a kleptocracy, not a functioning republican democracy. The results of the election were irrelevant. We had a partial replacement of one group of corporatists by another group of corporatists. As Marshall Auerback notes under Bush/Obama we had a massive transfer of wealth from the rest of the country to the rich. This was just the latest and largest of such transfers going back 30 years and under both parties. Now with Republicans in control of the House, we will see a push to keep the Bush tax cuts for the rich, and a likely “cave” on these by the Democrats.
What I thought was interesting is that in the Roosevelt Institute comments there was only one passing reference to jobs and one to housing. Voters were pissed and/or disgusted, and tens of millions stayed home. Yes, they were angry about the bailouts but if there were jobs and a fix for the housing market, they would have been a lot less so. Of course, in a kleptocracy jobs and housing are rube issues and not to be treated as of any importance, and they weren’t.
With this in mind, we need to understand that Obama and the Democrats did not fail to enact their agenda. What they did was their agenda. Despite all the kabuki partisan warfare, it is the same agenda as that of the Republicans.
There’s lots to like here. I think this is my favorite line:
President Obama had one key mission: to prove the value of government.
Silly me, I would’ve thought the key mission was to do the right things. And proof of the value of government would then be a derivative consequence of that.
This is why I can never be a professional pundit. I can never get that the only point of doing anything is to send an effective message, not to actually do the thing you claimed you’d do, and let your action be its own message, with “the message” then supplementing that.
But then I’m also not hawking a book called The Case for Big Government.
Indeed several of these seem to be talking their books, literally or otherwise. I like the racket hack who’s desperate to keep peddling his lies about the health racket bailout.
But Massachusetts, ground zero for Obamaromneycare, just passed a ballot question (by a large margin) demanding Single Payer.
This proves that those who have already been through this homicidal boondoggle are rejecting it. That would be the same boondoggle just passed at the federal level.
It already proves the Obama hacks to be liars about the following: that Romneycare works, that it will be the basis for “improvement” going forward (Krugman’s preferred specific lie), and that the people want “the public option” to be added to the existing corporate “insurance” system.
No – those who have already experienced this system in its full criminal ferocity want one thing only – Single Payer.
The depth of irony of something called “New Deal 2.0” lamenting buying and selling of rules is epic! FDR’s programs a. centralized power in DC and b. created nameless, facelss bureacracies subject to regulatory capture. Power brokers only have to focus their engergies and attention on one place and one small group of people, thanks to the progressive movement and Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
You want reform? Repeal the 17th amendment and rediscover the 10th. Power vested in the sovereigns of the several States a) diffuses the power of the elites 2)substantially reduces regulatory capture. Those “old white men” from 1787 were a lot smarter than these 20th-21st schmucks.
“F. Beard says:
November 4, 2010 at 11:10 pm
Americans can own their own corporations now Pixy Dust
No, I don’t think you understand.”
Yes, thank you for clarifying. In my haste to read and respond, I didn’t take the time absorb all you were saying.
It is an idea worth exploring.
“Jeff65 says:
November 4, 2010 at 7:46 pm
I gave up and from this election cycle onward I will vote for the Green Party candidates where possible until the Democrats reclaim territory to their left. The Green Party nearly cost the Democrats the US Senate seat in Colorado.”
Jeff, you can be a member of both parties and influence the Democratic party to move back to the great, vast middle which is now called left, only because we have moved so far to the radical right.
Thanks to FDR’s smarts, tenacity and success, the great, vast middle created the prosperity – by its’ creativity, labor, and production – that was shared with them. Or as the privatization racketeers call “the redistribution of wealth”. It was our wealth creation that was shared with us. Non of this trickle-down nonsense. Now it is demonized as “socialism”. These people want nothing more then to return to a feudal society after leaching our public and private wealth, and destroying our ability to be fairly compensated in order to take care of ourselves, loved ones, and communities. Debt-peonage is all they offer.
Please continue to promote green party causes and candidates. Please become a democratic citizen and join the D party to try to influence it. Don’t fall for the false choice of “us or them”. The R party is a lost cause offering nothing for the vast majority of decent, honest Americans. Please don’t get discouraged and expect others to change the system and clean house before you’ll join the party. We can support and promote more that one agenda and one party. This is how productive consensus building occurs – the democratic process.
The Democratic party’s herd has been somewhat culled. Now is the time to influence the direction of the Democratic Party. The republic party of plutocracy, plantation privilege and entitlement has nothing left to offer the the vast majority of our citizens. It will only continue to trick the more gullible into legalizing more theft of what publicly belongs to us.
Sorry for the long-winded mom lecture. You matter so please don’t accept a sense of self-defeat and resignation. I’ve been a part of the turning point in the ’60s when, as a young adult, I had nothing to loose in fighting the MIC’s “ownership” of my brothers and husband through the draft. And fight I did. I had nothing to loss by fighting to help alleviate the poverty and suffrage of the southern blacks and whites. And fight I will continue to do for the sake of my adult son and (hopefully) future grand sons and grand daughters, and the society they inherit. I don’t care what names I am called. As much as I resent the gullible, misguided tea-baggers, they actually believe this is what they are fighting for too.
F. Beard says:
November 4, 2010 at 9:03 pm
And all interest on credit issued shall be spent into the states, by the federal government. So the interest is in existence and functioning for the benefit of the states as the states so choose. Pixy Dust
I firmly believe that a sovereign government should never borrow money..How would you prevent that abuse?
Our sovereign government, like a private individual, should be free to lend (with transparency) as long as the debtor is credible and with collateral. Our government (us) already lends through issuing treasury notes. We must provide loans to promote public and private wealth generation. But the lop-sided accrual of capital and tax avoidance that now exists must be abolished and should never again be allowed to cause such deceitful destruction.
Sorry for so many replies, bloggers. I’m playing catch-up.
Oops, I missed your main point F. Beard.
Agree somewhat. Federal government borrowing should be allowed if citizens are the lenders. Income taxation should be abolished. Only capital accrual should be taxed. Those that gain vast wealth from our society and legal system must be expected to contribute back to us for the opportunity we’ve provided to them. No more corporate free-loaders.
No more corporate free loaders? No more noncorporate free loaders? And no more anti-corporate freeloaders?
The Cynic
Federal government borrowing should be allowed if citizens are the lenders. Pixy Dust
Why should government ever borrow what it can create debt and interest free? This is a biggie, Pixy, and how we ended up enslaved via the National Debt to the usury cartel.
I suggest Stephen Zartlenga’s “The Lost Science of Money” to get you straight on that point. Yea, its expensive, $81, but maybe you can get it used for less. As a libertarian, I disagree with his solutions but his diagnosis is very good, imo.
Pixy, You’ve proven my point nicely. We can agree to disagree. Have a nice weekend.
Somehow this was tagged the wrong post, sorry about that.
AverageAmerican says:
November 5, 2010 at 2:58 pm
Do you have anything constructive and productive to offer? Or is snarky cynicism your lazy brain way of dealing with our problems? Because after all, thinking, and risking by debate, is such hard work…
F. Beard says:
Why should government ever borrow what it can create debt and interest free?
Because anyone with a printing press or computer spreadsheet application can create what we now laughingly call money. When citizens invest in treasury notes they are investing in their country’s citizens’ future wealth production. They are providing the seed money that the federal government must be a good steward of. But being cynical and disengaged in the process of representative self-governance will, of course, lead right back to where we are now. But that is a separate issue…
RTR says:
November 5, 2010 at 10:59 am
“FDR’s programs a. centralized power in DC and b. created nameless, facelss bureacracies subject to regulatory capture.”
Power has always been centralized in our nation’s capital. That’s the point of having a meeting and deliberating place. It is lack of citizen participation and voter apathy that created regulatory capture. Don’t get your knickers in a twist just because someone with lots more money and tenacity than you got involved and made the system work for them. The numbers are on your side if you’d stay informed and stop treating elections like personality contests with payouts if our candidate wins. Besides, bureaucrats are publicly accountable. CEOs with their publicly funded bonuses are not.
You are sadly misinformed about FDR. FDR’s New Deal created some of the greatest wealth – both private and public – the world has ever experienced, through public investment. WW2 would not have been won without it. And it is still generating wealth – both private and public. Do you honestly believe a private corporation or person can create the investment and infrastructure that took place in the ’30s and ’40s, which functioned in the self-interest of so many? The government is not a business or corporation. Its’ purpose is not to generate profit. Its’ purpose is explicit in the preamble to our Constitution which the uninformed believe to be a “socialist manifesto”.
When citizens invest in treasury notes they are investing in their country’s citizens’ future wealth production. Pixy Dust
Nope, they are enslaving future, perhaps unborn taxpayers. Your problem, Pixy, is that you believe in government, which is to say force, when at best it is only a necessary evil. Can you not see that many Americans see that as a form of idolatry? If you want to set up some social welfare experiment, by all means go for it but by VOLUNTARY means.
Pixy, Progressivism is dead; it committed suicide via its lack of principle. If you care for people as opposed to some Utopian vision then yes, let’s have all the socialism needed but let’s not pretend it is a good thing.
F. Beard says:
November 5, 2010 at 2:54 pm
Sorry to monopolize this blog, but there is one more point of yours I’d like to respond to.
You said “Why should government ever borrow what it can create debt and interest free? This is a biggie, Pixy, and how we ended up enslaved via the National Debt to the usury cartel.”
Because our federal government can abolish the Federal Reserve Act. It can issue it’s own currency, and may well need to at some point to keep our country functioning, productive and united in spite of Tea Party promoters. Lapsing into dissolution while our publicly owned and shared wealth is confiscated and privatized, like the former Soviet Union’s experience, is not an option for most of us.
Interest in and of itself is not a problem when the money to pay the interest is in existence. Credit is not the same as debt.
(I am a leftist-libertarian for what it’s worth.)
Sorry to monopolize this blog, but there is one more point of yours I’d like to respond to. Pixy
A meritorious monopoly, imo :)
Interest in and of itself is not a problem when the money to pay the interest is in existence. Pixy
True, but usury based monies are obsolete, imo, and have been since 1602 when the first common stock company was formed, The Dutch East Indies Company.
Credit is not the same as debt. Pixy
My definition is that credit is new temporary money exchanged for a promise to repay that money.
(I am a leftist-libertarian for what it’s worth.) Pixy
If we can agree that abortions over 40 days from conception should be outlawed then I probably have no problem with the rest of your agenda including drug legalization for adults, gay marriage, etc.
F. Beard says:
November 5, 2010 at 3:46 pm
“Your problem, Pixy, is that you believe in government, which is to say force, when at best it is only a necessary evil.”
Well where to even start with that?!
Of course I believe in government. It is only as evil as we allow it to be. Do you believe in chaos and anarchy? Do you promote a return to dark age feudalism? Or a Somalian or Haitian existence? Why are you so willing to throw in the towel and give up what belongs to you just because it doesn’t always work out the way you want it to? Go ahead and quit. If you are feeling victimized by government then call your representatives up and give them an earful. They are a lot more accountable and influential than private corporate CEOs. And yes, money does talk. I’ve contributed $5 a number of times to candidates of my choice. Sometimes I win, sometimes I lose, but I’ll be damned if I give and play victim. I don’t want to debate how academic theory of money will save the day. I work with academics. They are just as diverse in opinion and prone to self-reinforcing theory as the next author. This is old ground. Our founding fathers laid the frame work. It’s our job to take it back through our representatives in that big bad evil government (us).
Pixy dear,
Despite our differences, I believe you have a good heart and we have a common enemy, the hypocritical fascists. Believe me, that is their weak point, their hypocrisy, just as hypocrisy was the Achilles Heel of the Commies.
I once was true believer in the Right UNTIL I figured out fractional reserve banking then the scales fell from my eyes. OK, so now even the average Tea Party member is against the Fed but now the evil bankers are going to try to shackle us with some form of government backed or enforced gold standard.
But my point is this, if you want to win, expose the hypocrisy of the Right. The rank and file will be truly repelled when they realize they are being used. Pound on the fact that the bankers are government backed thieves and you can’t lose, imo.
It will be harder to fight off a gold standard since that is widely seen as a panacea though it is just another tool of the bankers. However, the gold-bugs are vulnerable too since basically they believe in a primitive money form.
F. Beard says:
November 5, 2010 at 4:10 pm
“My definition is that credit is new temporary money exchanged for a promise to repay that money.”
I kind of agree. Credit is temporary money, yes. Tax-payer provided (investment).
The promise to repay is not necessarily in money, but in innovation, creativity and productivity. The wealth gained, both public and private can be returned to the tax-payers through taxation. Money must circulate to promote wealth and prosperity. It serves a utilitarian function in society. Money serves no purpose when stashed and hoarded, except for those with insatiable need for power and political control. Money is an instrument that must be used to grow wealth generation in our society.
The promise to repay is not necessarily in money, but in innovation, creativity and productivity. Pixy
Government should limit its spending to what is properly the domain of government such as roads, bridges, ports, defense (not offense) etc., so as to avoid distorting the economy. However, direct transfer payments to the poor, unemployed, sick, old, etc. would be OK since that is just the cost of being a decent society.
The wealth gained, both public and private can be returned to the tax-payers through taxation. Money must circulate to promote wealth and prosperity. It serves a utilitarian function in society. Money serves no purpose when stashed and hoarded, except for those with insatiable need for power and political control. Money is an instrument that must be used to grow wealth generation in our society.
oops! Strike last paragraph; that is yours.
F. Beard says:
November 5, 2010 at 4:10 pm
“If we can agree that abortions over 40 days from conception should be outlawed then I probably have no problem with the rest of your agenda including drug legalization for adults, gay marriage, etc.”
As a libertarian I am shocked that you promote invasive government control in the most personal aspects of a person’s private life. I would never agree to such a thing. As a libertarian, I respect the right of women and their doctors to determine what is in their best interest. I have no right to meddle in their private affairs, regardless of my moral beliefs.
Oops. Forgot to say that this is irrelevant to our discussion regarding money.
Forgot to say that this is irrelevant to our discussion regarding money. Pixy
It is not irrelevant to politics though. Some people cannot and will never be able to countenance murder of children. Before 40 days, the fetus has no brainwaves and thus can feel no pain. A compromise here would really cost nothing in the way of inconvenience to women and could swing a big chunk of the Christian vote. I won’t ever vote for another Republican but I can’t in good conscience vote for a Democrat either till they get reasonable about abortion.
Christians should not even be involved in politics – your savior told you not to concern yourself in worldly things.
I just love it when non-Christians try to inform Christians how to be Christians. LOL!
Actually we are commanded to be in the world but not of it.
You best not try to shutout Christian libertarians or you may end up attending compulsory Church services in some neo-feudal estate of the Koch brothers.
Furthermore, it is Christian libertarians who can precisely point out the hypocrisy of the Christian Right where it exists.
F. Beard sweetie,
November 5, 2010 at 4:37 pm
What you do and don’t believe about the goodness of my heart is irrelevant. You don’t know me, nor do I feel the need for your condescending, patronizing approval, sonny boy.
Yes, we have a common enemy, the hypocritical fascists. (True believers, whether right or left ends of the political spectrum, are always the most dangerous in any governance because they “believe”. They reject well reasoned discourse. Always have been, always will be.)
“If you want to win, expose the hypocrisy of the Right.”
Honey, I’ve been carrying that torch for three decades. The rank and file don’t want to hear it. They still believe in Santa Claus government and don’t want their parade to get rained on. But by all means please carry that torch too. I hope you can stick with it for as long as I have.
A gold standard currency is still the same silly private control of our economy through hoarding as is the money hoarding going on right now by banksters and global corp CEOs. The 1800’s is littered with “gold is real money” nonsense. There is no shortage of money. It’s just tucked away ready to be trickled down for political reward. And yes, the gold-bugs are vulnerable. And just as gullible to “bling-bling is money” bubbles too.
“Government should limit its spending to what is properly the domain of government such as roads, bridges, ports, defense (not offense) etc., so as to avoid distorting the economy.”
How generous of you to decide what government’s function should be. Silly me. I was under the impression that it was the electorate’s decision to decide what our government should do with our money.
Unfortunately our electorate is too busy at the moment cutting off its’ nose to spite its’ face, then screaming that the opposition is responsible for stealing their nose.
Silly me. I was under the impression that it was the electorate’s decision to decide what our government should do with our money. Pixy
Most of agree on what are inescapable government functions such as roads, the police, defense, the courts etc., but if you want to broaden that too much then watch out for when you end up in the minority. We should agree to disagree as much as possible.
Unfortunately our electorate is too busy at the moment cutting off its’ nose to spite its’ face, then screaming that the opposition is responsible for stealing their nose. Pixy
Well, that has to be the partial fault of folks like yourself who can’t reach common ground with them. I’m trying to show you where it might lie.
I confess this is the first I’d heard Alan Grayson was defeated… truly depressing. He was probably the best and most informed congressperson on the topics that concern this site.
Cindy Elmwood says:
November 5, 2010 at 6:22 pm
Yes, very disappointing. Guess he touch a Fed Res raw nerve. But I have a feeling he’s out of sight, but not gone. Too important to kick to the curb.
F. Beard says:
November 5, 2010 at 5:10 pm
“Christian libertarians who can precisely point out the hypocrisy of the Christian Right where it exists.”
I think there is reference to pointing to a speck in the other’s eye when there is a log in yours.
Religious or non-religeous belief is personal and should not be used as a political tool. I thought you were anti-fascist.
Religious or non-religeous belief is personal and should not be used as a political tool. I thought you were anti-fascist. Pixy
When I see so-called Christians distorting the Bible, I’ll call them on it. For instance, some apparently wish to end socialism for the poor before ending it for the rich. You think I should just let that pass?
“When I see so-called Christians distorting the Bible, I’ll call them on it.”
Well good luck with that. I suspect they’ll call you on it too. It’s been used and misused politically since the beginning of Christianity’s inception.
Well good luck with that. I suspect they’ll call you on it too. Pixy
I keep a pretty low profile but in any case I deal in ideas not personalities. If the ideas are rejected because of my personal flaws then too bad, I’ll have done my duty anyway.