Hullabaloo

Thursday, September 29, 2011

 
Financial institutions: anachronistic parasites
by David Atkins

It's easy for those who obsess over daily news cycles to lose perspective about our place in history. As much as we believe that the economic institutions and modes of governance we've established are the result of centuries of fine tuning, the reality is that our modern world is a very new creation. Modern democracy is only a couple of centuries old, and only very recently has it been applied to all citizens in most democracies worldwide. The modern social welfare state is only about 60-70 years old. The industrialized world only abandoned the gold standard a mere 40 years ago. The rise and fall of communism as a serious challenge to capitalism only occurred in the last century, and the battle was only truly decided 20 years ago. Humanity is still very much in its infancy stages, experiencing rapid growth and evolution not only in terms of technological advancement, but the advancement of social and economic systems as well.

So inasmuch as the modern world takes massive private banks and credit card companies for granted as part of the established order of things, the reality is that these are new phenomena. Lenders and lending institutions have been around for millennia, of course, but most societies throughout history have held tight controls, either through religious or secular lawmaking, on usury. Moreover, governments and societies have seen fit to control the predations of financial institutions by simply seizing assets, or declaring jubilees. The inordinate power of lending institutions over governments and consumers that we are seeing today is a very recent phenomenon in span of human civilization. It is not the norm, it is not necessary, and it is hard to imagine that it will continue for long as humanity gropes its way forward in search of a better future.

It's important to remind ourselves of this fact when we see stories like this:

Starting Saturday, big banks must comply with a new regulation that caps the fees they can charge merchants for processing debit card purchases. But some consumers are already seeing the impact of the change, in the form of higher fees charged on their checking accounts, as banks seek to recoup lost revenue.

Bank of America is the latest bank to say it will begin charging a monthly fee for checking accounts that use debit cards. Starting early next year, the bank will charge $5 a month, in any month that the customer uses a debit card to make a purchase. (If customers have a debit card, but don’t use it, they won’t incur the fee.) The fee won’t apply to A.T.M. transactions, and it won’t be charged to customers with certain premium accounts, a bank spokeswoman, Betty Riess, said. “The economics of offering a debit card have changed with recent regulations,” she said.

Bank of America joins banks including SunTrust and Regions in charging the fees. Other institutions, like Wells Fargo and Chase, are testing them, too. And over all, bank fees have crept up to record levels, a recent survey found.

The added fees have come even though the limit on the merchant fees wasn’t as low as banks initially had feared. (The Federal Reserve originally considered a cap of 12 cents, or half of what it finally set.)

While consumers are seeing the impact of the change in their bank accounts, any potential savings benefit at stores is likely to be muted. “I don’t expect there to be any visible effects at the cash register,” said Aaron McPherson, practice director for payments at IDC Financial Insights. When similar caps were put in place in Australia, he said, merchants there didn’t pass along savings, so it’s unlikely that will happen here either.

That’s because, retail groups say, stores aren’t going to benefit as much as they had originally hoped under the new cap, and some merchants may actually pay higher fees.

Essentially, what happened here is that banks have been gouging retailers big and small for the convenience of allowing a customer to use a debit card. They and the credit card companies have also been gouging retailers for allowing them to use credit cards, too, for no good reason. But that's another story.

The Federal Reserve, in a long overdue move, told the banks that they were couldn't gouge retailers so much anymore. So now the banks are going to charge consumers for using their own debit cards. Meanwhile, the retailers are predictably not passing along the savings from fees to consumers--first, because the notion that retailers ever really pass on savings to consumers is something of a joke, and second because the fees themselves really didn't come very much, especially on the sorts of small transactions for which the debit card swipe would be most useful.

Now let's be clear about what this means. When you put money in a bank, it's your money. The bank uses that money to lend out to others, and make more money itself off interest. The bank hands you a little card that allows you to pull out your own money. The bank isn't lending you the money; it's simply allowing you to use the money in your account. The card simply facilitates the process, and costs the bank nothing. No need to use a bank's ATM or visit a teller to pull out cash. The cost to the bank in using this system is minimal. The bank makes its money off debit card users in the form of overdraft charges and other fees. Charging a fee for using the bank's debit card to access your own money is an amazing insult--especially when considering how many banks offer "free" checking accounts on condition that consumers--you guessed it--use their debit cards at least once a month.

When you go to your local coffee shop and use a debit or credit card, the retailer is getting gouged by the bank/credit card company for allowing you to use that card. And if the consumer carries interest on the credit card or happen to overdraft on the debit card, the bank/credit card company gouges the consumer for using the card as well. And now the banks are tripling the gouge: in order to "make up" the lost revenue on fees that have actually increased for the most useful small debit transactions, they are gouging consumers for even daring to use a debit card.

Does the world need to perpetuate this system? No, it does not. Mobile payment systems are increasingly taking hold in the marketplace, allowing for customers and retailers to carry their own tabs with the retailer directly, essentially bypassing the lending institution and their debit/credit cards. Starbucks already has an app to do just that, which has the banks and the credit card companies running scared, and for good reason.

And, of course, the debit card situation is merely analogous to the parasitic behavior the lending institutions have been perpetuating on governments around the world for decades.

There will come a day when these institutions are brought to heel. Credit is important to keeping the engine of the world economy humming, but not at the cost the lending institutions are demanding. As I've said before:

the economy is like a engine. Demand fuels it. A strong middle class is the best way to ensure that the fuel level stays high. Credit via lending is a lubricant, sort of like motor oil. In exchange for providing that lubricant, financiers are allowed to skim off the top and make out like bandits even in times of relative equality. Lately, however, the financiers have been playing radical games to suck economy-killing amounts out of the tank, while the economy sputters to a stop due to lack of demand. In this situation, it would seem that government would be best suited to shunt the vampire financiers off to the side, provide a fuel injection of demand and oil up the engine itself on behalf of the people. The only problem is that the vampire financiers have too tight a control on government policy through corruption, and aren't about to be pushed aside. It really isn't much more complicated than that.

But pushed aside they must be, and pushed aside they will be, one way or another. If it not allowed to happen peacefully under the rubric of political and legal reform, the revolution will take a decidedly more unseemly turn. Humanity has always found a way to remove tyrannies that limit its potential one way or another.

The financial sector currently represents the greatest threat to human happiness and freedom. Corralling the financial sector, bypassing it when possible and shrinking it down to manageable size are simply the next logical steps in the evolution of human society.


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thereisnospoon 9/29/2011 02:46:00 PM |

 
Something's happening here

by digby


I wonder if the white shirts are going to spray these guys in the face with pepper spray?

photo by Dan Nguyen @ New York City

Evidently 500 of these guys showed up to protest on Wall Street today earlier this week. They've been getting screwed on their pensions for years and these mergers are killing them.

This is the first sign of a real middle class revolt.

By the way, a vast number of airline pilots are veterans.

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digby 9/29/2011 01:21:00 PM |

 
Gotta hit the greedy geezers

by digby


Don't you love it when rabid right wing partisans who pretend to be bipartisan attack Democrats for partisanship? I know I do.

Alan Simpson, co-chairman of the White House fiscal commission, isn’t a fan of President Barack Obama’s deficit-reduction plan or his new feisty tone.

The decision to shield Social Security from changes “is an abrogation of leadership, a vacancy of leadership,” Simpson told POLITICO Wednesday.

The harsh appraisal is notable even from the outspoken Simpson, a former Republican senator from Wyoming whom Obama tapped last year to lead his bipartisan fiscal commission. Simpson is often blunt, but he has generally avoided direct criticism of the president, even when Obama declined to embrace the commission report and waited months to push a comprehensive plan.

Simpson said he is “saddened” and “tired of watching” the president talk up bipartisanship in public while bashing Republicans at private fundraisers. And by treading lightly on entitlements, Obama’s proposal fails to live up to the principle of shared sacrifice, he said.

Right. The "greedy geezers" need to stop sucking on the national teat. Which translates into the destruction of social security and the fulfillment of his goal, although Simpson won't admit it.

After all, if he really gave a damn about the deficit, he would have spent a little bit more energy working on his own party and its presidents:

But then, why should he when he has the Politico doing his work for him:

Simpson and his Democratic co-chair, Erskine Bowles, recommended raising the Social Security retirement age to 68 by 2050, along with other changes, to shore up the system that is projected to go broke by 2037.

I'm guessing everyone reading this blog knows that is total bullshit: the SS system is projected to have a slight shortfall in 2037. It's certainly not going broke.

And hey, if Simpson has his way, they can kill off a whole lot of baby boomers by destroying Medicare before that happens, so I doubt there will even be a shortfall at all.


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digby 9/29/2011 11:30:00 AM |

 
Even jerks have a right to free speech

by digby

NEW ORLEANS -- There are several political signs attracting all kinds of attention in one Uptown neighborhood.

On Wednesday, crowds gathered at the corner of Calhoun and Coralie streets, looking at several signs depicting President Barack Obama as either a dunce, a puppet or a crying baby in a diaper.

"It disrespects the nation -- and President Barack Obama represents our nation," said Skip Alexander, as he looked at one of the signs. "He represents everybody, not some people."

Dozens of protesters came by the house in the 1500 block of Calhoun throughout the day, demanding the sign come down.

"He wouldn't do that to [President] Bush, I'm sure. It's just insulting. It's insulting," said C.C. Campbell-Rock. "He's going to have to take them down."

"This is nothing put pure racism," said Raymond Rock. "This is a disgrace."

The home is owned by Timothy Reily, who declined to be interviewed about the signs. Former Mayor Ray Nagin showed up at the house and went inside to speak with Reily. He emerged later and would not comment on what they discussed.

Some neighbors tell Eyewitness News that Reily has been putting the signs up for months. Some of the protesters learned about the signs through a local radio station on Wednesday morning.

"He can put up a sign if he wants to. It doesn't bother me," said Harold Gagnet, a neighbor.

"I think it's fine. It's on his property," said Katherine deMontluzin. "He can say whatever he wants."

The signs have created such a firestorm of controversy, though, that police came to the scene-- called in by City Council Member Susan Guidry. She represents the district where the home is located. Guidry said she was concerned about public safety and was trying to figure out if the sign was even legal. She also said she spoke to Reily, but didn't get far.

Of course it's legal. It's explicitly political and that's the most protected speech of all. The idea that any elected official would try to stop him is disturbing.

I don't care for his message, obviously, and the guy is clearly a jerk. But this sort of political illustration is about as traditional All American as it gets:

That's Thomas Nast in 1861, skewering Lincoln.

Here's another one depicting Andrew Jackson hanging John Quincy Adams:

*Obviously, I cannot speak authoritatively as to whether this man's signs are racist, but I honestly don't see it in that poster or the other ones shown at the link. Hugely insulting yes, but it doesn't seem to me that he's used explicitly racist imagery, or anything that wasn't used liberally against many other politicians over the years. Of course, I could be wrong about that.

Update: Apparently I am wrong about that. I'm told that this is a "synthesis of anti-semitism and racism." It's such a mishmash of rightwing shibboleths that I guess I just didn't see the various strands. Soros, of course, is a widely derided figure on the right as both a "jewish money man" and a Nazi. And I guess that Obama being seen as his puppet is an incompetent puppet plays into longstanding racist tropes as well.

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digby 9/29/2011 10:15:00 AM |

 
Bill O'Reilly shows off the GOP's Achilles Heel
by David Atkins ("thereisnospoon")

Close watchers of the news cycle may recall Bill O'Reilly's recent threat to quit his TV show should the fantastical event occur that his tax rate reach 50%. Well, Mr. O'Reilly made the mistake of going on Jon Stewart yesterday. Stewart predictably went after O'Reilly; but it was O'Reilly's response that should make some news. Here's the segment:

Part 1:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Exclusive - Bill O'Reilly Extended Interview Pt. 1
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog The Daily Show on Facebook

Part 2:

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

What's noteworthy about this interview is that O'Reilly didn't and couldn't stick to his guns on the claim that doing his show would no longer be worth it. O'Reilly admitted that he had been...exaggerating, to put it kindly.

Even more remarkably, when mocked by Stewart for his selfishness, the Loofah man didn't even attempt to defend the principle of "low taxes on job creators" in principle. He knew he couldn't do it with a straight face.

Instead, he said something amazing: that he would in fact by willing to pay 50% in taxes if government would stop "wasting" his money, and proceeded to raise the issue of the Solyndra non-story, as well as the $16 muffin myth. If I know Jon Stewart, he'll use Monday's show to rip O'Reilly apart for perpetuating a story that is known to be a fraud--and even if true, would represent an insignificant amount of money in the federal budget.

But O'Reilly's excuses are almost beside the point. The newsworthy item from the interview is that the Fox News host not only backtracked from his previous statement, but did not even attempt to defend his position from an ideological basis. He knows that the "job creators shouldn't pay significant taxes" meme is garbage, and couldn't stick to it in a mano a mano quasi-debate with Stewart. Instead he agreed in principle with the idea of paying a 50% tax rate, so long as the government could prove it wasn't wasting his money.

Now, when it comes to government waste and taxes, this is where a progressive naturally shifts to a discussion of billions, if not trillions, wasted on Halliburton and Wall St.. Which is, to be fair, exactly where Jon Stewart went and an important conversation to have. But the discussion of which Party wastes money and which does not isn't so fascinating here.

What is fascinating is that when push comes to shove, conservatives cannot defend their ideological ground with a straight face when forced to have a real conversation, rather than wage talking point battles before a pseudo-objective media. This is their Achilles' Heel. When cornered, they either look terrible and lose the debate, or are forced to admit that their ideological stance is garbage, leaning back on the "waste in government" canard.

But that itself is an admission of defeat. At that point, to paraphrase the old joke, we already know what kind of man O'Reilly is and we know he knows what the right thing to do is. Now we're just haggling over the price.


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thereisnospoon 9/29/2011 07:30:00 AM |

Wednesday, September 28, 2011

 
A taste of the good stuff

by digby

Atrios takes a little trip down memory lane to remind us just how nuts the beltway press can be when the the right wing gives them a tasty scandal morsel to suck on --- no matter how dishonest, no matter how irrelevant it is.

So, following up on David's post below, it's a good idea to keep an eye on the Village media's reaction to this Solyndra pseudo-scandal. It isn't on the level of the Whitewater circus of course and it's nothing compared to Monica Madness, but when you read articles like this one, you know they've had a taste of the good stuff and they're hoping for more:

The Energy Department on Wednesday approved two loan guarantees worth more than $1 billion for solar energy projects in Nevada and Arizona, two days before the expiration date of a program that has become a rallying cry for Republican critics of the Obama administration’s green energy program.

Energy Secretary Steven Chu said the department has completed a $737 million loan guarantee to Tonopah Solar Energy for a 110 megawatt solar tower on federal land near Tonopah, Nev., and a $337 million guarantee for Mesquite Solar 1 to develop a 150 megawatt solar plant near Phoenix.

The article doesn't indicate that there's anything wrong with either of the companies or that there's any reason why they shouldn't be approved for the loan guarantees. Neither does it spell out that the Solyndra pseudo-scandal is utter crap ginned up by Republicans for partisan gain.

Instead, they just invoke Cokie's Law, implying that because it's "out there" it's news, regardless of whether there's any truth in it.

Some things never change.


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digby 9/28/2011 03:59:00 PM |

 
Solyndra in a teapot
by David Atkins ("thereisnospoon")

David Roberts at Grist has a great overview today of the Solyndra nontroversy, based partly on recent polling and focus groups. The upshot? Support for solar energy remains strong even among conservatives, and the non-scandal "scandal" is basically confined to the Fox News nuts:

I just received an interesting memo from a couple of polling firms that have done recent surveys to test the impact of the Solyndra faux-scandal -- a statewide survey in Ohio and some focus groups in California. The work was done by Public Opinion Strategies (a well-known Republican firm) and Fairbank, Maslin, Maullin, Metz & Associates (a well-known Democratic firm).

The top-line result: Knowledge of the faux-scandal is mostly confined to news junkies, and public support for clean energy broadly, and solar power specifically, remains deep and strong.

In other words, Republicans have not yet succeeded in Climategate-ing Solyndra. Not that they've stopped trying!

Some interesting tidbits from the memo:

People who had heard a "great deal" about Solyndra were "overwhelmingly conservative, male and older." Hm, that's the same demographic that watches Fox News and listens to talk radio! Surely a coincidence.

David then quotes the memo demonstrating that even Republican male swing voters have a highly positive view of solar energy and its future. Worth a read. In sum:

The conservative argument, which tries to use Solyndra to tarnish the whole idea of public investments in clean energy, is failing. Ohio voters were presented with two arguments: One cast Solyndra as emblematic of clean energy investment and the other cast it as an anomaly that shouldn't dim enthusiasm for such investments. They favored the latter 62 to 31 percent.

Opposition to clean energy investment is confined almost entirely to Tea Party voters. Republican women and non-TPers fall more in line with the rest of the public -- they support continued investment by 63 percent, whereas Tea Partiers do by only 36 percent.

Insofar as Solyndra poses a problem for future public investments, it has little to do with clean energy or solar power specifically and everything to do with general skepticism toward public investment.

Just as with LGBT rights, the battle over alternative energy is one our side is winning--far too slowly, of course, but we're winning nonetheless.

It's the economic argument that we're gradually losing, largely because no one who is taken seriously by the press and the big money establishment is making it. In this case, the Republicans are waging a war on alternative energy funding by way of a war on the value of government investment. And while the latter seems to be taking a hit yet again, the former is coming out unscathed despite the all-out assault of the conservative Wurlitzer.

That's good news for solar energy and the environment, and I suppose we should celebrate our victories where we can get them.


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thereisnospoon 9/28/2011 03:00:00 PM |

 
The Ryan Express Rolls On

by digby

So Paul Ryan is going to reintroduce some of his most toxic plans to destroy whatever is currently working in the health care system and replace it with vouchers and tax credits. (If he succeeds, look for them to be called "tax expenditures" in about 20 years with centrists and conservatives both clamoring to "reform" the system by cutting them.)It's the usual nonsense, insisting that people should "shop around" for the cheapest coverage in order to lower costs. And for all of you who haven't had the fun and privilege of doing that already, he wants to end employer coverage too. Feel the magic.

Dave Weigel reported that Ryan has an unusual interpretation of recent events --- apparently he believes his plan is working for them. Weigel writes:

Hm. This isn't how I remember NY-26. Jane Corwin, the Republican candidate, was very clear: She supported the Ryan plan, and blind opposition to the plan was the same as rooting for Medicare to collapse. "It's not like you're given a certain of money to go out and you have to shop around," she told me at the time. "The plans are defined. And how much gets paid is based on your wealth and your wellness, so if you're sick or you're lower income you receive more than someone who's wealthy." The non-"courageous" thing, maybe, was attacking Democrat Kathy Hochul for Medicare cuts, when the Ryan budget also assumes the cuts. I don't think that's what Ryan is talking about.

But once we learned that lesson and started to get our message out… well, a funny thing happened: People listened. They learned that our plan did not affect those in or near retirement; that it guaranteed coverage options like the ones members of Congress enjoy; and that choice and competition would drive costs down and quality up. They also learned more about the Democrats’ plans for Medicare, and they didn’t like what they heard.

And the scare tactics stopped working.

Look at what just happened earlier this month in the recent special elections next door in Nevada and out in New York. The Democrats threw every scare tactic they could think of at the Republican candidates running in two special elections for vacant House seats. But the attacks failed to connect with voters hungry for solutions. The Republican candidates prevailed.

Is that what happened? In Nevada, sure. Democrat Kate Marshall tried to make Republican Mark Amodei suffer for the Ryan plan ... in New York, Republican Bob Turner didn't actually support the Ryan plan. Turner's backers accused Democrats of lying about the candidate because, hey, even theyadmitted that Medicare would be changed somehow. The Ryan plan was neutralized as an issue. This isn't great evidence for Ryan's point that starting to privatize Medicare will no longer hurt Republicans.

Democrats certainly don't agree with Ryan. According to Greg Sargent, in spite of the President's foolish unforced error in mentioning Medicare cuts in his jobs speech, they are going after Ryan hard:

The DCCC is going out in the districts of 50 House Republicans with a press release designed to get local media to pressure them to say whether they will — again — support Ryan’s controversial health care vision.

“Ryan acknowledged his new plan doubles down on his earlier controversial budget proposal to end Medicare that Bucshon supported,” reads the release going out in GOP Rep. Larry Buschon’s district. “Will Representative Bucshon go along again, with Ryan’s latest radical scheme to end employer health care at the expense of the middle class? ”

Sargent writes:

Dems are now hoping that Ryan has given them fresh ammo to remind voters just how serious Republicans are about fundamentally transforming the health care system — and profoundly altering aspects of it that remain very popular — in the months and years ahead.

From the defensiveness of the NRCC response to Sargent's report, they haven't exactly signed on to Ryan's double down:

“The only healthcare plan Americans are familiar with is President Obama’s massive government healthcare takeover that is destroying jobs and forcing middle-class families to pay thousands more in premiums when they can afford it the least. ObamaCare’s disastrous effect on America’s weak economy will continue to haunt Democrats at the ballot box in 2012.”

It doesn't sound to me as if they are entirely confident that proposing that everyone, including those currently covered by their employers and Medicare, should be thrown into the private insurance market to find the cheapest coverage they can is a big winner. But hey, live by the law of the jungle, die by the law of the jungle.



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digby 9/28/2011 02:00:00 PM |

 
Snippy Tuck

by digby


The Daily Caller must insist that all of its employees channel Tucker Carlson's puerile snottiness or lose their jobs. Even when they are are caught outright botching a story so badly that they look like total blithering idiots, here's the response of the "Executive Editor":

"The EPA is well-known for expanding its reach, especially regarding greenhouse gas emissions. What's 'comically wrong' is the idea that half of Washington won't admit it. The EPA's own court filing speaks volumes," Martosko said in an email.

"What's more likely: that the Obama administration's EPA wants to limit its own power, or that it's interested in dramatically increasing its reach and budget? Anyone who has spent more than a few months in Washington knows the answer," he added. "The suggestion that the EPA — this EPA in particular — is going to court to limit its own growth is the funniest thing I've seen since Nancy Grace's nipple-slip."

The truth is that it is (it's a legal case, click the link to read the explanation), the Daily Caller has been shown to be pathetic fools --- and Tucker Carlson and his minions, like the petulant children they are, refuse to admit they were wrong.

Recall this sad little episode back in the day when Carlson would pollute the airwaves on a regular basis. That anecdote was almost certainly a total lie from beginning to end.



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digby 9/28/2011 12:30:00 PM |

 
Rigid Politics

by digby

Somebody's dishing (sort of) about David Plouffe:

Often considered a cold, calm cyborgian number-cruncher who reflects his cold, calm cyborgian boss, Plouffe, 44, is in fact deeply passionate man, enamored with the success of the 2008 campaign that cast Obama as a transformational candidate who would change Washington from above. It was an insurgent strategy that bested Hillary Clinton, but it has failed Obama as an incumbent. While Plouffe appears to be pushing Obama toward a more partisan approach, doubts linger over whether he has sufficiently gotten over the last election to win the next one.

Yes, this is a rather snide Washington Post profile, but I have to say that observation about the 2008 campaign really rings true. I have written here many times about the continuing insistence on the campaign as a governing model, despite the fact that it is almost completely irrelevant --- and vastly overrated to begin with. After all, the Party was almost evenly divided in the primaries (but they were all Democrats who came together because they were more or less on the same side) and his opposition in the general was a doddering old man and a lunatic. Plus the country was in the ditch, Republicans had something like a 23% approval rating and virtually everyone hated the outgoing GOP president. I know the campaign was inspirational to a lot of people but it wasn't exactly the apotheosis of political strategy. Nonetheless, they all seem to have believed their own hype and governed from that experience.

And is wasn't just Plouffe. The President still refers to running the campaign as if it is a meaningful comparison to actually being president. He does say in the Suskind book that he learned from the campaign that you have to make people switch gears when things aren't working, which I find somewhat ironic, since it apparently has taken Plouffe nearly three years to do so.

Plouffe’s defenders inside the White House argue that until recently he calculated that aggression against Republicans would hurt the economy and the president’s political standing with independents. Fighting might make liberal groups feel good, White House officials said privately, but it isn’t reasonable.And Barack Obama is a reasonable man.

There is also a less-sanctioned sense within the White House that Plouffe’s above-the-fray path was safe for the naturally cautious president. The problem, according to people in and close to the administration, was the lack of a strong voice to counter Plouffe, who had absorbed many of the roles formerly played by Obama’s hands-on-everything manager, Rahm Emanuel.

But now, the famously panic-proof strategist appears to have answered the appeals of his party and finally set the president on a more partisan — and unPlouffian — course.

Some might call it rigid and stubborn, but YMMV.

Plouffe’s defenders in the White House argue that he has been moving this way all along and that the pursuit of compromises has removed the paralyzing threat of default and put the president on firmer ground: Yes, the public’s discontent with Washington wounded the president, but it hurt Congress more. And now, Republicans will have to compromise on Democratic terms, as happened in this week’s avoidance of a government shutdown. Republicans, the thinking goes, will help the president to help themselves.

“Plouffe sees the whole game,” said Stephanie Cutter, Plouffe’s deputy, who is leaving the White House to work on the 2012 campaign. “Not just the individual plays.”

To the wider Democratic universe, this strategy constituted a year of magical thinking.

Indeed. If failing to push for policies that could have made the economy better and convince the people that he's on their side for the first three years of an monumental economic crisis is part of their long term strategy then I suppose it's a big success. The more obvious explanation is that the control freak Plouffe was so convinced of his brilliance in executing the "no drama Obama" presidential campaign that he failed to switch gears --- and his boss, being of similar temperament, didn't see that this 2009 "plan" going into the White House wasn't working.

I have always thought they all assumed that the economic crisis was no biggie and that the best strategy was for the president was to keep his head down and pursue his plan for a transpartisan Grand Bargain, settling our difference for all time and ushering in a new era of good feeling and comity. (Just like they did during the campaign ....) Voila: Morning In America Part II.

And in a different country, at a different time, under different circumstances that might even have worked. Here in America, right now, it was indeed magical thinking, which I would guess is the last thing anyone would ever think the no-drama team would ever indulge in. I'm afraid they were blinded by premature hagiography.

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digby 9/28/2011 11:45:00 AM |

 
Playing hard to get

by digby

This is how a constituency that has clout gets the job done:

JP Morgan honcho Jamie Dimon, once a “fat cat” ally of President Obama, seems to have strayed to Republican contender Mitt Romney.

Dimon, a lifelong Democrat who was rumored to be on Obama’s short list for treasury secretary before he settled on Tim Geithner, met privately with Romney on Tuesday morning before a fund-raiser at Brasserie 8¹/2 hosted by Highbridge Capital, a JPMorgan-owned hedge fund.

Dimon, who was spotted “in a discreet one-on-one” discussion with Romney, cannot publicly endorse a candidate because he sits on the board of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. But he donated to Democratic candidates in 2008 and privately supported Obama.

While Dimon’s spokesperson declined to comment, a JP Morgan insider tells us that Dimon has not attended an Obama fund-raiser and has not made any contributions to his campaign during this election cycle. And Dimon has met privately with many of the Republican presidential candidates.

Political insiders are buzzing that a defection would signal further Wall Street hostility toward Obama, who famously called them “fat cat” bankers in 2009. Dimon responded, “I don’t think the president of the United States should paint everyone with the same brush.”

One insider said, “There is not a person on Wall Street, with the exception of the genetic Democrats, who would get anywhere near supporting Obama. The hostility to the administration is huge. Dimon will continue to look bipartisan, then work behind the scenes to get a Republican elected.”

I'm sure that's true. But these fat cats have so much money they can buy candidates of both parties and make them all dance to their tune.

There's a lot of speculation about why the administration and the congress have been easy on Wall Street, from psychological reasons to ideological sympathy. But the easiest and most likely explanation is that it's just about the money. Politicians want it and Wall Street's got it. This is how they do their mating dance.


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digby 9/28/2011 09:30:00 AM |

 
Faith-based policy and American exceptionalism
by David Atkins ("thereisnospoon")

As the Republican presidential candidates fall all over themselves to outdo the other in pushing reckless anti-government, anti-tax ideology, there is one progressive response that I've always been particularly fond of but is far too seldom used: the fact that never in the history of the modern nation state has an economy successfully operated along the lines the Tea Party envisions for America. Bill Clinton of all people made this point just recently in a meeting with bloggers:

You know, there’s not a single solitary example on the planet, not one, of a country that is succesful because the economy has triumphed over the government and choked it off and driven the tax rates to zero, driven the regulations to nonexistent and abolished all government programs, except for defense, so people in my income group never have to pay a nickel to see a cow jump over the moon. There is no example of a succesful country that looks like that.

This is one of the reasons that conservatives are so desperate to hold onto the notion of American exceptionalism: liberals have a wide of range of models from Japan to Scandinavia to prove the efficacy of various progressive solutions to America's problems. No country is perfect, of course, and solutions that work elsewhere may not work here. But as a general rule, progressives have effective examples worldwide to prove the value of our approach, whether it be in medicine, criminal justice, labor or otherwise.

Conservative approaches by contrast are a failure wherever and whenever they are tried. Theocracy inevitably leads to tyranny and despotism, whether it be the Christian theocracies of the Middle Ages or the modern theocracies of the Islamic world. Weapons-happy libertarianism ultimately ends in the sort of anarchic despotism we see in Somalia. Conservative approaches to finance, taxation and regulation lead inevitably to economic collapse, as seen in the history of basically every single country that ever even temporarily earned the "tiger" moniker from Austrian economists seeking to validate their theories.

So it's crucial for conservatives to insist that America never learn from anyone else's positive example, and that every problem in America be seen as sui generis. Faith-based policy making can only exist in an informational vacuum where real-world examples are never considered.

Progressives often lament that the conservative rhetorical construct is nearly impossible to demolish. But that's actually not true. Republican rhetoric, built as it is on a foundation of lies, is incredibly rickety when challenged in the right places. Destroy one pillar, and much of the rest of it comes tumbling down. But doing so would require taking on some taboo subjects that have been so vigorously protected by the conservative establishment as to have become sacred cows.

American exceptionalism is one of those sacred cows. It is what allows faith-based policy to exist. The notion, accepted by so much of the Democratic establishment, that we cannot even rhetorically challenge the idea that love of America means never looking abroad for ways we can improve, has to go by the wayside if we want to have a chance of taking this country back.

Of course, doing that won't happen overnight. But an easy way to lead into the argument would be to provide the negative counterexample: maybe we're not yet in a position where independent voters will pay attention to examples of solutions from around the world. But they should at least be open to the argument that Republican policies have never worked here or elsewhere, not least because it's true.


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thereisnospoon 9/28/2011 07:30:00 AM |

Tuesday, September 27, 2011

 
Protest pics

by digby

Photojournalist Alan Chin of BagNews Notes is documenting the Wall Street protests.

A young woman fields phone calls in the “media cluster” of laptops constantly live-streaming video, Twitter, Facebook, and other feeds.

Click over to see more, and read Chin's commentary which is also interesting.

Many pundits have thus noted that the lack of greater protest is an interesting, if not surprising, aspect of our current moment. They would be well served by visiting the encampment in Lower Manhattan. The park is kept spotlessly clean, the disparate demonstrators field skeptical inquiries from hecklers and passerby with humor and patience, and their low numbers are steadily supplemented by people that join them for an hour or two at a time.

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digby 9/27/2011 06:00:00 PM |

 

Fear of their lowest common denominator

by digby

President Obama took an unusual public stand against the behavior of Republican rank and file this week-end when he condemned their behavior at the debates:

“Some of you here may be folks who actually used to be Republicans but are puzzled by what’s happened to that party, are puzzled by what’s happening to that party. I mean, has anybody been watching the debates lately? You’ve got a governor whose state is on fire denying climate change,” he said, to applause. “It’s true. You’ve got audiences cheering at the prospect of somebody dying because they don’t have health care and booing a service member in Iraq because they’re gay.” “That’s not reflective of who we are,” he added. “This is a choice about the fundamental direction of our country. 2008 was an important direction. 2012 is a more important election.”

I think it's perfectly fair to condemn these people who do this --- and those who fail to speak up against these attitudes. It's a fundamental clash of values and it's worth fighting about.

In 2008, John McCain (to his rare credit in that race) took people to task when they behaved like cretins. And both Huntsman and Johnson did that with respect to the booing of the soldier, as did Santorum belatedly. But neither of the frontrunners or Ron Paul or Tea Party favorite Michelle Bachman have spoken out.

I suppose that's par for the course on the issue of letting the uninsured die and executions of the innocent.We have seen evidence of this attitude over and over and over again. I'm honestly not sure why anyone is surprised after seeing things like this:

These aren't exactly compassionate people. (Even the kids. And certainly not their most powerful voices.)

But booing soldiers, gay or not, is slaying one of their sacred cows in a way that exposes the hollowness of their own rhetoric about what defines conservatism. These are people after all, who claimed that you couldn't criticize an Army general in public, even when he was playing a blatantly partisan role. (Indeed, some people were making the argument this past week that Democrats criticizing Bush as Commander in Chief was equivalent to booing an active duty soldier in Iraq....)

It's a free country and people can boo whomever they want without legal sanction. But these people have made a fetish of support for the military to point where one cannot even make mild jokes about it, much less criticize it on anything substantive. But they have shown what really matters to them with this one. And it isn't the troops.


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digby 9/27/2011 04:30:00 PM |

 
Healthcare Solutions
by David Atkins ("thereisnospoon")

Health insurance companies are sticking it to Americans more than ever:

The cost of health insurance for many Americans this year climbed more sharply than in previous years, outstripping any growth in workers’ wages and adding more uncertainty about the pace of rising medical costs.

A new study by the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonprofit research group that tracks employer-sponsored health insurance on a yearly basis, shows that the average annual premium for family coverage through an employer reached $15,073 in 2011, an increase of 9 percent over the previous year.

“The open question is whether that’s a one-time spike or the start of a period of higher increases,” said Drew Altman, the chief executive of the Kaiser foundation.

The steep increase in rates is particularly unwelcome at a time when the economy is still sputtering and unemployment continues to hover at about 9 percent. Many businesses cite the high cost of coverage as a factor in their decision not to hire, and health insurance has become increasingly unaffordable for more Americans. Over all, the cost of family coverage has about doubled since 2001, when premiums averaged $7,061, compared with a 34 percent gain in wages over the same period.

Any policy analyst with half a brain knows that some form of single-payer or modified single-payer system is the only solution for this mess. Now isn't the time to rehash old battles over the public option and the ACA debate. More could certainly have been done to create a better outcome from the grand healthcare fight.

But ultimately, the corruption in Washington, particularly in the Senate, is such that no coherent answer to this mess is likely to come at a federal level, nor would it have been possible for President Obama to finagle a single-payer system out of this Congress.

And while much of what the ACA does is dramatically helpful to a vast number of people, especially those between 18-26 (many more of whom now have health insurance) and those previously denied coverage due to pre-existing conditions (many of whom are being helped in other ways by the Administration as well), the political picture is muddled at best:

How much the new federal health care law pushed by President Obama is affecting insurance rates remains a point of debate, with some analysts suggesting that insurers have raised prices in anticipation of new rules that would, in 2012, require them to justify any increase of more than 10 percent.

In addition to increases caused by insurers getting ahead of potential costs, some of the law’s provisions that are already in effect -- like coverage for adult children up to 26 years of age and prevention services like mammogram screening -- have contributed to higher expenses for some employers.

No doubt there's a little of both: insurance companies are using the ACA as an excuse for more profiteering at the expense of sick and injured Americans. But it also stands to reason that as the burden of cost shifts more to employers, employers are pushing back. Beyond the greedy megacorps, there are a lot of struggling small and medium-sized businesses out there for whom the ACA does legitimately cause a significant burden. In this complex political morass, Democrats won't get a lot of public relations traction for a law that is mildly beneficial for certain slices of the country, and that bends the cost curve in some places while allowing excuses for cost increases in others.

Ultimately, providing healthcare should neither be on the backs of employers nor at the mercy of greedy insurance companies. Good access to quality healthcare (including preventive care) is a basic human right. That should be the Democratic message. Period.

And since Washington looks like it won't be providing answers any time soon, the answers are going to have to come at the state level. In that context, state and local races are vastly important, but are often overlooked as everyone concentrates their time and attention on the giant disco ball that is federal politics.

Affordable access to healthcare remains a crisis in this country, and it's one that only your state senators and assemblymembers are going to be able to solve. At this point, the often overlooked battle for statehouses and governorships is on a par with federal politics when it comes to solving the nation's problems.


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thereisnospoon 9/27/2011 02:54:00 PM |

 
"Conceived in rape" forced pregnancy tour

by digby

So Mississippi is going to have one of those "blatocysts are people too" initiatives on the ballot, which would outlaw not only all abortions but certain forms of birth control and will likely lead to negligent homicide charges against women who miscarry for reasons the state thinks could have been prevented. It's been tried in Colorado twice and failed, but Mississippi is a different kettle of fish.

It's all horrific, but this latest tack by the anti-abortion forces (used in Mississippi and elsewhere) is truly reprehensible. From Robin Marty:

Personhood amendments are constitutional amendments that declare that human life begins at conception, no matter what the circumstances. This human life — no matter what stage of development, including a zygote — has constitutional rights. Terminating the development of a fertilized human egg is akin to murder under personhood amendments. Generally, under personhood amendments, the circumstances of the pregnant women are irrelevant because the fertilized egg has a constitutional right to life.

Under personhood amendments, a woman will not be able to terminate a pregnancy caused by rape.

Proposed personhood amendments failed in Colorado two times. Mississippi will be voting on its own personhood amendment this year. In an effort to promote its cause, Personhood Mississippi has started a "Conceived in Rape" tour featuring Rebecca Kiessling, who says she was conceived by rape and was slated for abortion. Kiessling states on her website,

Have you ever considered how really insulting it is to say to someone, "I think your mother should have been able to abort you."? It's like saying, "If I had my way, you'd be dead right now." And that is the reality with which I live every time someone says they are pro-choice or pro-life "except in cases of rape" because I absolutely would have been aborted if it had been legal in Michigan when I was an unborn child, and I can tell you that it hurts. But I know that most people don't put a face to this issue — for them abortion is just a concept — with a quick cliche, they sweep it under the rug and forget about it. I do hope that, as a child conceived in rape, I can help to put a face, a voice, and a story to this issue.

In reply, some have said to me, "So does that mean you're pro-rape?" Though ludicrous, I'll address it because I understand that they aren't thinking things through. There is a huge moral difference because I did exist, and my life would have been ended because I would have been killed by a brutal abortion. You can only be killed and your life can only be devalued once you exist. Being thankful that my life was protected in no way makes me pro-rape.

Hookay.

Evidently, this person can't conceive of how awful it is for some people to have to bear their rapists offspring, reminded every day of their pregnancy (and perhaps their whole lives) of the violent event. Or how about giving birth to your own sister? No biggie? Apparently, being insulted at the mere prospect that one might not have come to exist in this world is worse than rape victims being violated and traumatized by rape and forced childbirth. Interesting priorities there.

According to these people fetuses are the only things in this world that deserve protection. Once you're born you're on their own.


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digby 9/27/2011 02:00:00 PM |

 
The radicalism of Edmund Burke?

by digby

I admit that I haven't read him for many a moon (but should have done) and so have likely absorbed much of my interpretation of his philosophy from the evocations of him by conservatives I do read. Imagine my surprise to read this piece by Corey Robin which makes the case that contrary to popular myth, the modern conservative movement didn't become radical and betray Burke's true philosophy. According to him, it was always radical.

I won't excerpt any of it here. Just read the piece, if you're interested. But from my point of view, it rings very true, mostly because it captures the essence of what I think of as visceral envy on the right --- a belief that the other side is just living more fully in the moment, with more commitment and joie de vivre. Indeed, I have long made the case that all these conservative middle aged baby boomers of the Tea Party are just finally having their "woodstock" --- which you'll recall, they literally proclaimed about dozens of their early rallies.The radicals have all the fun.

There's much more substance to it, of course which Robin's piece goes into. (There is a fair smattering of fear, for instance, that the Jacobins had nothing to lose so they would do anything, something that Burke believed was a huge strength.) In any case, it's a fascinating piece that's worth thinking about as we watch these right wingers fulfill the radical dreams(?) of Edmund Burke.


Update: Everyone's saying that Robin's new book on this very subject, The Reactionary Mind is awesome.
digby 9/27/2011 01:00:00 PM |

 
Wall Street Hippies

by digby

Keith Olbermann had a good segment last night on the police brutality at Occupy Wall Street.

And guess what, it isn't just the dirty hippies:

On Monday, the Air Line Pilots Association, which represents United pilots, sued the company in federal court, alleging that "revised operating procedures" in relation to the merger are "inadequate to maintain the levels of safety" United passengers expect. The union is asking to postpone the airline's implementation of its latest phase of postmerger training.

United said the suit is an attempt by the pilots union to tilt current negotiations for a new contract toward the aviators' interest, according to internal correspondence between the company and the union. It said the complaint "is entirely without merit."

The suit "is a shameful effort to influence negotiations for a joint collective bargaining agreement, under a false guise of safety," the company said. Pilots from United and Continental, which both are represented by separate branches of the ALPA, are scheduled Tuesday to protest what they see as the slow pace of labor negotiations. Safety concerns aren't expected to be voiced in that venue. The pilots are planning a rally outside the New York Stock Exchange to send a message that some of the merger synergies investors want to see won't be realized until the carriers' work forces are combined.

I wonder if the police will pepper spray these guys?

Update: This is worth watching too:

h/t to AJC and SM
digby 9/27/2011 11:00:00 AM |

 
Small but significant

by digby

Hey guess what? The Democrats won one. Yes, you read that right. Here's dday:

In the end, the war was called off on a technicality. As explained in the live thread yesterday, the fact that FEMA had enough funds to make it to the end of the fiscal year – which is Friday – eliminated the need for an emergency funding request.

FEMA would still need money, but that could be handled in Fiscal Year 2012. With additional FY2011 emergency funding no longer necessary, both sides could take something off the table from the continuing resolution – the $1 billion appropriated to replenish FEMA accounts in 2011, and the offset of Advanced Vehicle Technology Manufacturing and Department of Energy loan guarantees.

But make no mistake – this was a victory for Democrats. They preserved a key principle: no disaster relief gets offset. When a hurricane destroys someone’s house, Congress doesn’t have to kneecap someone else’s budget.

It seems like a small victory, but it really isn't. As dday explains, it proves that the one thing the Democrats are going to hold the line on is institutional norms.If the GOP had its way with this one, there would be no deals that couldn't be broken. (Perhaps the filibuster abuse has finally awakened them.)

It proved something else too: the GOP leadership can whip when it wants to.


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digby 9/27/2011 09:45:00 AM |

 
Everybody Wants to Rule the World
by David Atkins ("thereisnospoon")

Via Crooks and Liars, it's nice to see a Wall St. hack admit what anyone paying attention already knows: the banks run the show all around the world, and your average stock trader has all the conscience of Jeffrey Dahmer when it comes to economic affairs. Witness Mr. Alessio Rastani, ladies and gentlemen:

Stock market trader Alessio Rastani commented on the current economic crisis to the BBC on Monday, saying, "Governments don't rule the world" but rather Goldman Sachs does and he "dreams of another recession."

"This is not a time right now for wishful thinking that governments are going to sort things out," Rastani told the BBC. "The governments don't rule the world, Goldman Sachs rules the world."

In a candid interview about the Eurozone rescue plan, Rastani said the market is ruled by fear and cannot be saved by the rescue plan.

"They know the stock market is toast," he said. "They know the stock market is finished."

Rastani said most investors are moving their money to places it would be more safe, like U.S. treasuries and the dollar, as they simply do not care about the state of the economy but rather about their own pockets...

"For most traders...we don't really care that much about how they're going to fix the economy, how they're going to fix the whole situation," Rastani said. "Our job is to make money from it."

Finding optimism in a grim situation, Rastani said he's been "dreaming" of this moment for years.

"I go to bed every night, I dream of another recession," he said.

Mr. Rastani appears to be a guy trying to make a name for himself, so I'd take his predictions with a grain of salt.

Still, what most people who watch Mr. Rastani wax eloquent about his love of recessions will think of is the man's sociopathic insouciance about the suffering of millions. We humans are an emotional and intuitive lot, and we can sense an enemy bent on our destruction for his own personal gain. It makes us react out of a sense of self preservation.

But it's important to move past that and see Mr. Rastani for what he is: an honest man. People who go into the business of buying and selling stock have only one interest in mind: making money at the expense of other people. A stock broker or bond trader creates not one iota of real value to a company; she doesn't craft a single product with her hands nor yield a single creative insight with her mind. He doesn't help tailor a single product to a consumer's needs, save a single life, feed a hungry diner or teach a single child. A financial trader does one thing and one thing only: buy pieces of paper cheap off one sucker, and try to sell it dear to another sucker. It's a zero sum game: wherever there's a winner in the financial markets, there's an equal loser sitting on the other side of the trade. And no product or service of value created in the transaction beyond interest on an investment.

Asking for a display of conscience from people in this business is a waste of time. That's not to say that a great many of them don't have consciences. They do, of course. But the industry itself by definition lacks a conscience, and it attracts those of sociopathic disposition. It takes a certain kind of person to celebrate taking advantage of suckers willing to buy dear and sell cheap every single day without thinking about what will happen to their children and their families. Mr. Rastani is simply an honest reflection of his industry.

But of course, the greatest honesty in his rant is not about his love of profit from economic calamity, but rather his frank admission that the financial industry owns the world's governments lock, stock and barrel. Some would call that arrogance. I would call it a frank assessment of reality. Senator Durbin has already admitted as much for the American government; the only surprise is in hearing such candor from one of the Wall St. players on the inside.

So here's to Mr. Rastani. The last honest man on Wall St. Thanks for the insight: you've been helpful.

Now it's up to the American people to decide whether they're going to take it lying down, or if they're going to do something about it. I hear there's a little protest going on as we speak...

Update: And no, despite the rumors, this is not a hoax. This guy really meant what he said.


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thereisnospoon 9/27/2011 07:30:00 AM |