1.) Of all the debates we could be going through at this point, this is the dumbest possible. The last two employment reports have been terrible prints, consumer spending is slowing and manufacturing is also showing weakness. All that leaves is government spending to help the economy along. And now we're going to slow that down, too.
2.) Obama is actually leading. This has been a pleasant surprise. For the last two weeks, he's been using the bully pulpit pretty effectively. Of course, it would have been nice if he'd been doing this for the rest of his presidency ....
3.) The current state of the Republican party shows the long-term effects of living in a hermetically sealed world of right wing radio and Fox news: you become dumber than a post. After these yahoos get their decreased spending, they're going to wonder why GDP prints negative for at least one quarter and probably more.
4.) The level of disappointment and shame I feel regarding the incredibly sorry state of affairs in Washington is incredibly high. All of these people are pathetic.
Paul Krugman: Japan the Model
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4 comments:
"4.) The level of disappointment and shame I feel regarding the incredibly sorry state of affairs in Washington is incredibly high. All of these people are pathetic."
It certainly isn't as bad as mine, whose native country (Belgium) hasn't had a government in what looks like years and isn't even fighting for its survival... And the whole European bailout thingy isn't much better.
In re: "The level of disappointment and shame I feel regarding the incredibly sorry state of affairs in Washington is incredibly high."
Channeling "South Park", I say: Don't blame Canada anymore... blame Bonddad!
Complete agree with the shame on our govt. And it wasn't always this way. I am a former Congressional staff member who was there from the late 1980s-mid 1990s. There is always a lot of public posturing in politics but in private leaders in both parties got that you had to pass a budget and deal with the debt ceiling. Everyone gave a little, compromised was achieved and the govt moved forward. That's how it is supposed to work.
I have never seen anything like the modern Republican party. Even a crazyman like Newt Gingrich would have lept at the deal Obama offered them. However for this group nothing is enough.
I predict they will not pass a debt ceiling extension, Obama will invoke the 14th Amendment and this will end up in the courts.
This whole debate speaks so badly on our political process.
To put it another way, holding your own nation's economy hostage just to score political points is as low as a political party can go and still be legitimate. It's the worst thing a representative government can do short of stop being a representative government (they barely qualify because they're acting on behalf of a minority of a minority).
The only way you can find worse politicians is in genuinely dysfunctional/broken states. And there's no secret why they're dysfunctional/broken.
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