Niall Ferguson's Newsweek cover story

I know, I know, this is so yesterday. For most bloggers, a big part of what they do is to strive to be one of the first to comment on any buzzing news story, doing so fast and furiously. God bless them. But given I don't blog professionally, I frequently don't have time to comment on-the-spot regarding developing Big Story A or B. Instead I usually read what others have written, then read the actual source item(s), jotting down my own thoughts on the subject and finally look to post something up here when I get the chance, usually during the weekend.

And here I am. I did read Ferguson's piece and needless to say, I've also read through the many criticisms (and trust me, there were many more than just Krugman's). I felt all of the criticisms were more than fair, but I'm a liberal and thus biased, right?

On to Ferguson's piece, "Why Obama Must Go." My comments:

He mentions the stock market is up 74% since Inauguration Day 2009. If this kind of market gain was achieved by a Republican president -- during a tumultuous time when we were in the throes of what looked like a global financial meltdown, we'd never hear the end of it. Republicans would be doing non-stop victory laps and Fox News would be reminding us of this impressive advance 24/7. I mean after all, if there's one thing in this country which reflects the free market system in all its unfettered glory it's the stock market, and a 70+% rise is not too shabby for a Kenyan socialist. Especially when you compare it against GW/Cheney's eight year stock market return of near minus 40% (1/31/01 - 1/31/09). But this shouldn't be too surprising since it's documented fact that the stock market fares much better under Democrat presidents than Republican.

Ferguson cites that the total number of private sector jobs is still below the January 2008 peak. Yes, as a baseline to judge Obama, Ferguson picks the month in the year before everything goes to hell. With this lame bit of chicanery, it's clear right from the get go that you're not going to get an objective, fair critique.

Ferguson cites economic growth estimates from Obama's 2010 budget, faulting him for falling short of these figures. This is one of many examples where Ferguson uses promises made by Obama in his early days as proof of abject failure a mere 2-3 years later. Give me a break. For one, every new president lays out fairly optimistic goals and targets for the future, more or less hopes and dreams to shoot for. In this case, Obama was naively guilty of assuming the GOP would play ball as the Dems did with Reagan to help him and the country get out of a recession. Obama belatedly learned that this demented version of the GOP was unwilling to compromise and more than willing to sacrifice the welfare of the nation to achieve partisan gains. Of course, no mention of that by the Harvard scholar.

Ferguson writes, "Under this president's policies, the debt is on course to approach 200 percent of GDP in 2037." Another case of taking a period of time within the worst possible worlds and stretching it out for decades to purposefully portray a near-hysterically horrible picture. Even if the math were technically true, how can anyone take this form of journalism seriously? Ferguson takes figures from the worst recession since the Great Depression, all during a time of fierce opposition and stonewalling from the GOP, and he simply extrapolates out for the next 25 years, assuming the last three years will continue to be the case for the next 2+ decades. Really? This is deemed plausible? This is what passes for Harvard-caliber scholarship?? It's just embarrassing.

Ferguson shows a chart of China's GDP expected to surpass that of the U.S. by 2017. This is proof positive Ferguson is intent on providing a disingenuous critique on Obama. I think I've seen this exact chart reproduced repeatedly over the GW/Cheney years and frankly what it reflects has less to do with anything any president can control or influence, whether it be GW or Obama. Instead it lays out the reality of putting a very mature economy with issues up against a fast-growing economy with 1 billion people and minimal regulations (allowing rampant pollution, labor abuses, etc.). It's an unfair comparison and is certainly not something you can hang on one president, but that doesn't stop Ferguson from using the chart to level a cheap shot, further undermining any hope of his views to be taken seriously.

He writes, "Polls consistently showed that only a minority of the public liked the ACA, and it was the main reason why Republicans regained control of the House in 2010." Is this true? What polls showed this? The ones I referenced in my post explaining how these polls were deceptive and misleading? And Ferguson knows for a fact that the ACA is why the GOP regained control of the House in 2010? As opposed to the well-known trend that after a new president is voted in, the opposing party does well come election time two years later?? We're talking Poly Sci 101.

Then of course comes his whopper when he writes, "the ACA will have a net cost of close to $1.2 trillion," with Ferguson not bothering to mention the CBO scores the ACA as lowering the deficit by over $100 billion in the next ten years. What Ferguson is doing here is text-book deception, parsing words and carefully excluding certain inconvenient truths to fit his narrative. And based on Ferguson's rebuttals to his many attacks, he knew what he was doing. Shame on Tina Brown.

"The fiscal train wreck has already initiated a process of steep cuts in the defense budget." Never mind that Defense Secretary Robert Gates had already recommended steep cuts to the military! But what does Republican Gates know, let's blame Obama.

I think this part of the piece is my favorite. Ferguson writes, "I know, like, and admire Paul Ryan.... He is one of only a handful of politicians in Washington who is truly sincere about addressing this country's fiscal crisis." Just priceless. Leave aside that Ryan is anything but a deficit hawk. But truly sincere? Does Niall still believe this after hearing Ryan's speech at the RNC convention, a speech that was universally panned for its record-breaking number of lies and gross distortions? We already knew Ryan was as willing as Romney to say anything to get elected, but was anyone prepared for Ryan's convention spectacle, an exercise of unabashed, shameless lying that may never be surpassed. It was breathtaking. And yet Ryan is Ferguson's idea of "truly sincere" -- still have faith in what Ferguson has to say about anything??

"Are You Better Off Than You Were Four Years Ago?"

I wonder when Reagan uttered this line if he knew it would be repeated from then on during nearly every presidential run. It's the type of line that works only if the answer is quite obvious, and in this case it's certainly not.

I find it incredible but do people really have to be reminded about how bad things were just a few years ago? I know the public has a notoriously short memory, but I for one clearly remember 2008 and it was bleeping scary! It's no exaggeration that it seemed like the end of the world, that this was it, the big one, that this country was finally going to be brought to its knees like no other time since the Great Depression. Many, and I mean many, were very scared that their bank would go under and FDIC insurance -- something no one ever cared about -- suddenly became a must-have that really meant something. The stock market plunged in 2008, but then plunged again in early 2009, a sort of elongated double-crash. People went from scared sh*tless to near freak out. It was an awful time, like no other I can recall in my 30+ years as an adult.

But here we are, a bit more than three years later, and it's like it never happened. If anything, that so many have forgotten what was a national nightmare, an almost complete meltdown of this great USA, that fact alone speaks volumes to what Obama has been able to achieve -- despite determined opposition from Republicans. Although yes, we still must resolve more than a few problems, the dire situation we were in was successfully averted and very much remedied by this current president. What we now take for granted is testament to a job well done.

So wake up people, we're all much better off now than we were four years ago. No question, it's not even close.

Thoughts

We know Romney likes to fire people, he said as much. With the Clint Eastwood debacle, given its magnitude as a screw-up, I was awaiting the imminent announcement of a firing from his campaign staff. Surely someone must pay the price for such a grievous miscalculation. Yet nothing, no firings. Now I know why: Mitt himself had a role in it.

Many are making a big deal about Romney's supposed clever line when he invoked Reagan at the convention by asking, "If you felt that excitement when you voted for Barack Obama, shouldn't you feel that way now that he's President Obama?" Look, like more than a few Obama supporters, I have some regrets when it comes to what Obama has achieved in his first term, namely that he didn't go far enough and progressive enough. He was too timid and too right-of-center. Granted, he faced constant stonewalling by intransigent Republicans who refused to compromise and support anything Obama proposed. But I feel he still could've fought harder and realized sooner that his wild notion of the GOP working with him was naive and foolish. BUT, in no way does that mean I'm going to vote for Romney/Ryan as the alternative! That choice is laughable.

Dana Milbank recently wrote about how many of the big-name speakers at the GOP convention hardly mentioned Romney's name in their speeches, with Milbank believing "the implied assumption is that he’s going to lose." In other words, many of these speakers were using the high-profile convention limelight to promote themselves for 2016. Nice. Milbank also stated, "Romney has a particular problem commanding loyalty" and I have felt this particular weakness is a massive one. In my opinion, if Romney were to win in November, he'd have the most corrupt administration since Harding. I say this not to aimlessly speculate or wish misfortune on a future president. Rather I believe Romney's inability to garner loyalty combined with his lack of conviction for just about anything, with his excessive "flexibility" to go with whatever suits his needs at the time, sets him up as a president to be taken advantage of and abused by opportunistic underlings. And I'm not talking high-level or overly sophisticated corruption, I'm talking sleazy, low-ball, petty stuff, very Spiro Agnew-like.

"Mitt Romney Would Pay 0.82 Percent in Taxes Under Paul Ryan's Plan." If you think things have become grossly unequal since 1980 (and of course they have), you ain't see nothing yet were Romney/Ryan to win. The disparity gap would explode.

Empty Suit Gives Empty Speech

Romney's speech tonight was policy-free and substance-free. All platitudes, attacks and misfires -- along with the outright lies we've come to expect from this man (although the number fell well short of Ryan's many fabricated whoppers).

His mouth moved, words were spoken, but nothing memorable was said. It certainly sounded important, but after a few seconds you realized it was nothing. Just lots of what America and Americans deserve.

Whatever he said quickly disappeared like vapor. Unlike Clint Eastwood's embarrassing performance, which will most assuredly be remembered. Yikes.

"New Era of Truth Telling"

Funniest line of the night, Chris Christie saying he welcomes a "new era of truth telling." Really? Doesn't he know that Romney has orchestrated one of the most blatantly dishonest presidential campaigns in history? One that has not just unabashedly distorted Obama's record and quotes, but on too many occasions Romney has simply said things that are completely untrue, uttering statements masquerading as fact. So to hear Christie make this claim is a complete joke.

But then it fit perfectly with the evening. You had Ann Romney spend time appealing to women, trying her hardest to come across as "regular folk" and make the case that men don't know nothing, that women do the hard work when it comes to raising a family. Fathers are seemingly just useless idiots, standing idly by while mothers do it all. Of course, it helps if you're a father who eventually makes that mother worth almost $300 million, but I digress.

And if I heard one more time how Mitt made her laugh I was going to puke. Enough, we get it, he's not a cipher, he's a warm-blooded human. By gosh, little did we know he's a crack-up. Gads.

Ann also had to tell us how great he was as governor of MA. But of course no mention of Romneycare, like it never happened. Never stops being weird.

You even had Christie make attempts at winning over the ladies, talking about how mom was "the enforcer" and drove the car, while dad was just a passenger. One thing is clear coming from this evening: men were slammed.

Christie talked about the need for compromise, how the Dems use fear to get what they want and he urged that we should work together to get things done -- all three items being things the GOP has been guilty of since Obama took office. Republicans refuse to compromise, they use fear-mongering to frighten their base and they do not work with Dems to get things done. It was as if these people were in some kind of Bizzarro universe, where up was down and black was white.

All in all, no surprises in the evening.

Try as they might, the Tea Party remains the GOP

Those behind the Tea Party movement -- namely big-name, right-wing figures like Dick Armey and the Koch brothers -- have always tried their best to distinguish Tea Partiers from your typical, everyday Republican. The goal was to fabricate the rise of an organic, grass-roots "revolution" led by people who were fed-up with the status quo and desired real change with regards to our growing deficit.

Of course, it didn't take long for us to learn it was all a scam, a faux movement heavily backed by Republican big wigs. Established Republicans simply tried to repackage a large portion of their party as something new and different, and yet in the end it was just the same old stuff: intolerance and ignorance fueled by anger and fear -- the bedrock of the modern-day GOP.

Chris Hayes said as much last Thursday on Lawrence O'Donnell's show:

What's also remarkable about the Todd Akin moment is something I think has been a theme throughout this campaign. There was this story that was written, I think partially by conservatives around the Tea Party, that the Party was not the party of evangelicals and social conservatives, it was the party of fiscal discipline, it was the party that was fed up about taxes and spending and deficits -- [but] it's always just been the same party! You can call it whatever you want, it's the same people who are writing the platform, it's the same activists and delegates who are going to be in Tampa this week.

Yes, it was a nice try to add a fresh wrinkle to what we understood to be a Republican, to manufacture outrage towards Obama concerning spending and deficits (never mind that GW/Cheney were responsible for the bulk of the deficits). But it's no surprise to realize that the ugliness and hypocrisy within the GOP could not be disguised for long. Eventually we'd all learn that this movement based on birther beliefs, Kenyan suspicions and misspelled protest signs would amount to nothing more than a well-financed attempt to massively deceive the voting public.

And the ultimate loser? The average citizen comprising the Tea Party, who were taken advantage of to advance the wants and desires of those who truly matter to the Republican Party: the top 1% earners in this country (actually the top 0.1%).

It's not the first time Republican voters have been used by their own party and it certainly won't be the last time. To the likes of Karl Rove and Mitt Romney, gullible stupidity is the gift that just keeps on giving.

More thoughts

Picking up on my comments in my prior post regarding Romney's 13.9% income tax tab in 2010, it's important to keep in mind that when many decry just how high tax rates are today (which is not true, but I digress), what percentage of the rich & wealthy actually pay anything close to the top tax bracket of 35%? In other words, after expensive, hired-gun CPAs take advantage of the many deductions and loopholes, what is the effective tax rate for the typical wealthy person? Warren Buffett made his secretary famous by stating publicly that she paid an effective tax rate twice as high as the one applying to him. Republicans love to whine about how the top 1% pay such high income tax rates and yet I suspect the reality is the effective tax rate -- which is all that matters since "effective" equates to what is actually paid -- is far, far below anything close to 35%. Remember this the next time you hear that incessant whining.

As I cited yesterday, regarding Romney's VP selection, Bruce Bartlett recently said, "It simply makes no sense for Romney to put Ryan on the ticket if only because he doesn't attract a single new vote to Romney that he didn't already have." And yet as I've been saying, I wouldn't be so sure about that Bruce. It's my view that the Romney campaign is not stupid (naive, tone-deaf, prone to unwise moves, yes, but not outright dumb) and given that, I believe they have internal data and polling showing even at this stage in the campaign that Romney has not yet "locked up" the GOP base, i.e. the die-hards, ultra-partisans and Tea Party types. I don't believe Romney made this selection out of redundancy (inferring stupidity) but rather that he was forced to make this move tactically because he had to, that he had no other choice. To a lesser extent, McCain was forced to do the same thanks to the degree to which the core of his party had drifted to the extreme right. In effect, the GOP base ended up making McCain unelectable by dictating a choice like Palin and also by pressuring him to remain extreme in all views and not tacking to the center to attract more moderate swing voters. We're seeing it happen again with Romney choosing Ryan, only this time around Romney is having even more trouble than McCain in winning over and nailing down the party base voters. Net net, a huge advantage to Obama.

For the record, I am a Newsweek subscriber and yet I've always felt Niall Ferguson was a wormy, untrustworthy flim-flam artist, one who perfectly fit with his GOP and right-wing bias. With that it's gratifying to see him get just-desert criticism for the crap he tried to pull in the magazine's recent cover story (click here, here, here and here, for starters). It's predictable that the mag would look to even the score with this anti-Obama cover feature after Mike Tomasky's prior cover story labeling Romney a wimp. But c'mon, does anyone fact check anymore?

I had to laugh when I learned that Paul Ryan comes from wealthy parents and his family business (road paving) has been and is very much reliant on government $$$.

Informative summary article in Sunday's Boston Globe, an excerpt:

Obama derided Ryan’s proposal to transform Medicare into a voucher system that would pay seniors a fixed amount of money to buy medical insurance, which he said would cost them an additional $6,400 a year.

"That doesn’t strengthen Medicare. That undoes the very guarantee of Medicare,” the president said Saturday. “That’s the core of the plan written by Congressman Ryan and endorsed by Governor Romney. . . . Their plan is for you to pay more so they can give another tax cut to millionaires and billionaires.”

During his administration, Obama said, the only changes to Medicare benefits have been the addition of preventive services such as cancer screenings and wellness visits — “for free.”

The Medicare savings contained in his health care act, a total of $716 billion over a decade, will be carved from waste, fraud, and insurance-company subsidies, he said.

“Their plan would put Medicare on track to be ended as we know it,” Obama said. “It would be an entirely different plan, a plan in which you could not count on health care because it would have to be coming out of your pocket.”

Nuggets from last week's Lawrence O'Donnell show

"What you need to know about the Ryan plan is when you hear all these deficit numbers about how low it goes over time, they went to the Congressional Budget Office, the people who score this stuff, and they said assume our tax plan doesn't lose any revenue, assume our frankly insane level of cuts to long-term discretionary spending, they bring everything the government does that is not an entitlement program down to under 4% of GDP by 2050 -- it's just ridiculous...." -- Ezra Klein, 8/13/12

"My argument was essentially political, that it simply makes no sense for Romney to put Ryan on the ticket if only because he doesn't attract a single new vote to Romney that he didn't already have.... And he brings along a lot of baggage, the Ayn Rand stuff, the abolish Medicare stuff." -- Bruce Bartlett, 8/13/12

Robert Reich was on the show on Tuesday August 14th and I will paraphrase what he said. Commenting on Obamacare versus the Romney/Ryan plan with regards to Medicare, Reich pointed out both plans will slow the growth of Medicare costs by about $715 billion over the next 10 years, but they each get there in starkly different ways. Obama's ACA does it by cutting over-payments to providers (hospitals, drug companies, etc.) and thus holding down costs. In contrast, the Romney/Ryan plan shifts the burden onto seniors, giving them vouchers and allowing costs to rise. The vouchers do not increase at the pace of rising costs, so who will make up the difference? Presumably it will come out of the pockets of seniors.

"You've got to win this in your own right as the top of the ticket and this doesn't answer the questions about Mitt Romney. What is his budget? Where are his tax returns? There still is a giant question mark that hangs over all these questions.... You just cannot figure it out. That's just not good enough" -- Richard Wolffe, 8/15/12

"I strongly suspect there is a tax felony in his tax returns. He did not disclose, the one thing he didn't disclose with the return he did disclose was the document about reporting foreign accounts. He specifically withheld that. That is the area in which he is at this point, I think it's fair to not completely assume but very strongly suspect that he is susceptible to a Federal felony charge on not having reported his foreign accounts and then he sought and obtained an amnesty which these returns would show." -- Lawrence O'Donnell, 8/16/12

Lawrence has said such a felony, if indeed it exists and regardless of the eventual granted amnesty, would immediately force Romney to withdraw as the GOP candidate. Thus, it explains the adamant refusal to release the returns.

Meanwhile, it is curious why there's been no outrage over Romney paying just 13.9% in income taxes as disclosed in the only return he has released. Wouldn't we all want to pay that ridiculously low rate?

Romney names Rep. Paul Ryan as his VP

It's official: Romney clearly feels that even after all his pandering and flip-flopping in hopes of winning over his party's base, he needed to go one step further. Yes, the Republican base remains ever-elusive to him.

As with the often-repeated malarkey about Ryan being a "brave" politician offering up "courageous" ideas (all nonsense, of course), this VP selection will likewise be characterized by the media as daring and bold. Poppycock. On the contrary, it's a forced move and one of desperation, because as I've been saying it's quite obvious that the Romney campaign continues to see polling data indicating the extreme core of the GOP, i.e. the base, is not yet a sure-thing come November.

Folks, we're fast-approaching September and the fact that there remains a good chance many die-hard GOP voters may choose to stay home on Election Day rather than vote is a very bad sign for Romney. Again, as I've written, at this point Romney should have been tacking to the center to appeal to the more moderate swing voters and the general electorate, but that hasn't happened, not even close.

The Obama camp should've been all smiles upon hearing this news, realizing it for the sign of weakness that it is. Over the years, the stronger Republican presidential candidates always selected a Veep who was perfectly suited for the side-car, with no perceived possibility of upstaging the top dog and who were almost by definition second-fiddles for the role at that point in time.

We certainly didn't see that occur with McCain, choosing no-nothing yet bigger-than-life "Going Rogue" Palin, and we've now seen Romney do the same thing, selecting a person who will presumably define and takeover his campaign. But given how things have been going in Romney land (read: not good), there's a good possibility Romney advisers figured it was time to blow everything up and take a chance on starting anew, a reboot of sorts (yes, the Etch-A-Sketch metaphor). Scrap the idea of a safe, mild-mannered VP like Portman and instead go with a fresh "game changer" like Ryan.

Again I repeat, it will likely be lost on most of the media that this choice reflects poorly on Romney's current chances of winning, that instead of being correctly presented as a last-ditch effort to win over votes he should've already had locked up, it will be portrayed as gutsy call. Groan.

Oh well, who knows. Maybe with Ryan on the ticket, Romney et al calculated they could gain X number of additional GOP core voters and then with some sly voter suppression efforts initiated in PA, OH and FLA, heck they might be able to pull out a slim victory. And unfortunately, they may be right.

The Brown Bag

Romney not releasing his tax returns reminds me a bit of a guy holding a brown bag. He's conversing with you, but refuses to acknowledge or say anything about this brown bag he's holding at his side. The bag is fairly large and has some shiny grease stains. And every so often the bag appears to move on its own, as if something alive is trapped inside. Yet the guy holding the bag acts as if nothing is askew, and when asked "What's in the bag?" he looks puzzled and says "Bag, what bag?"

Democrats and the media should keep asking "what's in bag?" right up to November. "What are you hiding in there?"

Refusing to answer such a simple question comes off as being untrustworthy, aloof and even sleazy. It also can appear as if you feel entitled to not answer the question, that you're above it all. These are all key attributes when it comes to presidential material.

Ultimately, Americans want no-BS straight talk and Romney is the complete 180 opposite. We stand to face four years of this, evasive gobblygook & hood-winking, with Romney and his administration all treating us like we're idiots.

It reminds me of the Nixon era, the cynicism towards the public and the willingness to do anything to obtain and hold power. In fact, if memory serves, I believe Nixon was not very well-liked by many, and it appears the same holds true for Romney.

Yes, the more I think about it, the more I believe Nixon would be the closest parallel to a Romney presidency. OMG.

Arrogance and Apathy

Romney has been in campaign mode for many years now, so how is it possible for him to be blind-sided by expectations that he release several years of his tax returns? Why should it appear as if he was caught off guard and not ready with a clever retort, quickly putting it to rest?

I think it comes down to AAA, arrogance and assumed apathy. The former being Romney's sheer arrogance when it comes to most things in life. He's accustomed to not being told what to do or forced into doing that which he chooses not to go along with. In his mind, he's borderline-royalty so when it comes to running for president, he (and his team) apparently believed he could just take a pass when it came to releasing prior tax returns -- a norm applying only to lesser candidates (including his father).

It truly is astonishing that he, and even more so his advisers, felt he could skate through a presidential campaign refusing to release years of tax returns. The very fact he assumed this wouldn't be a problem speaks volumes about the extent to which he is utterly removed from everyday reality. Is this what we want in a president, a Walter Mitty-ish sense of clueless detachment? Yikes. He makes GW Sr. at the grocery scanner look like a hipster dude.

As for the assumed apathy, I also believe Romney coldly calculated that after the inevitable initial dust-up by the media, calls for releasing the tax returns would drop-off fairly rapidly. Reporters in the MSM would move on and the public would soon follow. Team Romney likely felt it would be a small bump on the road to the White House, thanks to the short attention span of the media and the unfortunate apathy assumed in most voters.

Insulting? Of course. Off base? Perhaps. But all too often, we do see the MSM gloss over important issues, looking to keep things light and "fair minded," and unfortunately the voting public obliges. Sadly, I can see where they cynically concluded this tax return thing would be a brief problem, there is basis for their conclusion. All the more reason the Dems should keep pressing this issue, to keep it on the front burner and side-step the urge of reporters and the public to simply move on.

On a related note, I would also add that when it comes to voter suppression, if it works in states like Florida and Pennsylvania, giving Romney the close win come November, what will be the blowback, if any? Will the voting public sternly demand recounts or better yet call for a referendum on voting laws in general?

Based on the aftermath of Gore/GW in 2000, I would submit that we're likely to see a few weeks of outrage, maybe even a few months, but eventually it will die down and life will go on -- with a Mr. President Romney in the White House. Again, sadly, Romney and the Republicans have made a calculated assessment that naked voter suppression, while on the surface unseemly, will in the end work and more importantly will not galvanize people into mass outrage. In other words, based on past precedent, they've arrived at a fairly logical and safe conclusion. In effect, we have only ourselves to blame.

George Santayana once said, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." I would say that those who do not react strongly enough to right wrongs when they occur are doomed to have such wrongs repeated on them, only worse the next time around.

"Wise" Men Getting Wiser

"I can see clearly now the rain is gone...."

Climate Skeptic, Koch-Funded Scientist Richard Muller Admits Global Warming Real & Humans The Cause

Dick Cheney: Picking Sarah Palin for VP Was ‘A Mistake’

Sandy Weill stages an epic conversion

Hmm, I sense a trend. Let's hope it continues.

In a much larger and more general sense, this conversion of right-wingers to more progressively-enlightened thinking has been an ongoing trend for some time now. For every Dennis Miller (once funny comedian who decided to cash in on wingnut ignorance, Bill O'Reilly style), there are many more David Brocks, John Coles, Bruce Bartletts, Arianna Huffingtons and David Frums, i.e. notable figures who realized the err of their beliefs and switched sides, right to left, or at least greatly moderated their once-strident conservative underpinnings.

For those of us who have long been on the right correct side of issues, it's been encouraging yet frustrating to see this trend unfold at such a sluggish pace. Hopefully we're now seeing the beginnings of an acceleration in this regard, likely expedited by the rightward drift of the GOP to an absurd extreme, forcing many die-hard believers to have a WTF moment and finally get a good whiff of smelling salts.

The coming Romney implosion, and the power of leverage in campaigns

Not long ago, Rachel Maddow had Harvey Weinstein on her show. Rachel asked him why wealthy Hollywood types were not giving more to Obama's campaign, as compared to the Koch brothers on the right. Weinstein stated he and others of his ilk didn't believe panic was warranted, that as long as Obama was ahead in the polls there was nothing to worry about. If Obama were to fall behind, Harvey said they would contribute more to his coffers. Simple as that.

At the time when I first heard this, it all sounded a bit too disturbingly cavalier and dangerous. However, I do get it. What Harvey was conveying was not just confidence in Obama, but more so confidence in the belief that Romney is a greatly flawed and inferior candidate. Weinstein said to Rachel, "you can spend all the money in the world, if you’ve got a bad product, it doesn’t matter.” And here we are weeks later and Romney is proving Harvey right as Mitt was incapable of successfully pulling off a simple overseas trip, instead making gaffe after gaffe and appearing to be in way over his head.

By no means is Harvey a naive man. I have a feeling he's on to something, that he knows and has known some things about Romney that up till now has escaped most of us. I'm sure Harvey is a quick-read when it comes to judging a person, being able to do so effectively based on how a person acts while knowing very little about the person. It's something he has needed to do in Hollywood for many years, to rapidly assess and evaluate actors. He knows "it" when he sees it or hears it, and when it comes to Romney he has seen and heard not much to fear. And again, I believe in the last few weeks we've started to see what Harvey was likely referring to when speaking with Rachel. The gradual and eventual Romney implosion has begun.

I would also like to expand on Harvey's comment about all the money in the world is not going to help when you have a "bad product." This is a key point when you consider that Romney will likely have a significant edge over Obama when it comes to campaign funds. Such a large edge would be of major concern if both candidates were of equal caliber but as Harvey states, Romney's faults are so numerous and gaping that it helps to level the playing field, and then some.

We can look at it as a hedge fund would use leverage. Just for illustrative purposes, let's suppose Romney has $2 billion to spend versus Obama's more meager $1 billion. When it comes to leverage, the advantage goes to Obama as he clearly has fewer faults to be exploited than does Romney (he can't cite his years as MA governor given Romneycare, can't cite his years at Bain given outsourcing and destroyed jobs, can't cite his time at Olympics given recent debacle in UK, he refuses to release many years of tax filings, he has repeatedly lied, he has flip-flopped on too many issues to count -- you get the point). So let's assume that Obama has three times (3x) the leverage over Romney when it comes to being able to effectively exploit more flaws, thereby landing more blows that actually have impact and deliver when it comes to changing voter opinions. When you do the math, Obama's $1 billion ends up doing damage equivalent to $3 billion thanks to Romney's flaws, ultimately surpassing Mitt's $2 billion figure.

I think that is what Harvey was driving at.... It's all about the leverage.

More tid-bits for your right-wing brother-in-law

This is another example of Romney feeling the urgent need to reach extremes in order to appease the far-right contingent of the GOP base, in this case the neocon segment. By continually courting the fringe at this point in the campaign is a prolonged act of desperation, one that is soaked with flop-sweat. He should already have the base locked-up and put to bed, more than confident in their intent to vote for him. However, his actions continue to hint otherwise and make one seriously question whether internal polling is flashing panic signals. I mean what he's doing and continues to do, pandering to the kooks, is party primary stuff. By now Romney should be looking to tack to the middle, given the general electorate is much more moderate than the core of the GOP. Needless to say, the longer his campaign remains in this base-seeking mode, the better it is for Obama.

"A survey of forty economists from across the ideological and partisan spectrum has concluded that on some of its most cherished issues, the Republican Party has simply taken leave of economic reality. For instance, economists Betsey Stevenson and Justin Wolfers noted that one of the results from the survey — run by the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business, which is hardly known for a left-wing slant — is an overwhelming agreement that the 2009 Recovery Act (i.e. the stimulus) brought down unemployment. But GOP leaders have spent years roundly denouncing the stimulus as a failure."

Rasmussen polls can't be trusted: "After the 2010 elections, the New York Times statistics wizard, Nate Silver, analyzed the polls produced by various polling organizations, including Rasmussen Reports, which is the house pollster for Fox News. Silver's analysis covered only polls taken during the final three weeks of the campaign and compared them to the actual election results....Silver analyzed 105 polls released by Rasmussen Reports and its subsidiary, Pulse Opinion Research, for Senate and gubernatorial races in numerous states across the country. The bottom line is that on average, Rasmussen's polls were off by 5.8% with a bias of 3.9% in favor of the Republican candidates."

"During the 1950s and ’60s, financial institutions were tightly regulated. Bankers did not make money by trading for their own account but instead earned fees for providing advice to their customers and serving as a go-between for companies raising capital. Their goal was to get to know their clients well, understand their problems, and act in their best interests—somewhat like family doctors. They were not compensated absurd amounts. Wall Street was viewed as a place not for high flyers but for sober, cautious people who were perhaps a little boring. Meanwhile, the economy boomed and we had very few financial crises."

Financial Scandal Scorecard.

Who's being duped?

National Review's Rich Lowry recently wrote that young Americans were being "duped" by Obama. What Lowry apparently doesn't understand is these "youthful idealists" of which he labels "saps, patsies and suckers" are actually anything but naive idiots. Quite the contrary.

The fact is most young folks today are smart enough to realize that Obama inherited a cluster-f*cked economy, namely the worst downturn since the Great Depression. Given the extent to which the situation was grave, with economic activity lacking a pulse, most intelligent voters appreciated that to fully recover from this mess in a mere three years was highly unlikely. After all, it took the New Deal and arguably WWII to successfully get the nation back on course over fifty years ago, and we have yet to see anything close to that degree of stimulus in relative terms. As it is, even after three bouts of quantitative easing (QE), you can still hear Bernanke strongly infer in his most recent comments that he and the Fed cannot do it alone, that help is needed in the form of additional fiscal stimulus. Yet such pleas for assistance are of course in vain.

To state that Obama is fully to blame for this continued economic malaise is simply disingenuous and frankly makes Lowry appear to be willfully duped by Republicans. Let's first remind him that this economy was inherited, with GW/Cheney overseeing eight years of reckless spending to the tune of about $2 trillion in unfunded wars and tax breaks for the top 1%. And it wasn't Obama who sat in the White House for years while the financial and housing sectors ballooned and popped, in large part due to inadequate regulation and oversight. But never mind all of that, past history, right? (Yet imagine what Lowry et al would say if things were reversed, if it was a Democrat as president during those eight years and a Republican running things since 2009 -- to this day, it would be 24/7 blame for the 2001-2008 years, make no mistake).

Then when Obama finally enters the scene in early 2009, eventually offering more than few proposals and solutions to help reverse our down-slide, who is there every time to obstruct and insure the economy remains woefully moribund? Yes, the Republicans, who are suddenly obsessed with the deficit and spending cuts. This is the party claiming to be about "Country First" and yet really is all about making sure a supposed Kenyan imposter is booted out of office after one term. When Reagan looked to address his recession, the Democrats at that time most often worked with him to get things done for the betterment of the country. We see nothing of the sort today from these Republicans, choosing instead to be craven, partisan hacks for their corporate and wealthy masters.

So again, these "young dupes" as Lowry calls them are well-aware of the reality of what has occurred -- or better yet, what hasn't occurred. Fortunately, most of them don't watch Fox News, with that channel possessing one of the most elderly audiences on TV (average viewer age is 65 years old), meaning young Americans are likely more fact-based and fabrication-free.

But while Lowry's on the subject of being duped, maybe he can comment on the long-standing puzzle regarding red-state voters and Republicans. You talk about individuals getting duped! It's a fact many if not most red states receive more money from the big-bad federal government than they contribute in tax dollars, i.e. they're "welfare queens" dependent on the federal government for needed funds. And yet voters in these states regularly vote for the political party that rails against federal assistance and welfare programs. Call it denial, call it ignorance (likely a mix of both), the odd truth remains that voters in red states too often side with representatives who are against those things that most benefit people in those states. It's flimflam at its best, using propaganda, lies and fear-mongering to convince people to vote against their own interests -- something I believe is best described as dupery.

But I'm sure Mr. Lowry would disagree. Only Obama possesses the skill and power to hypnotize an entire generation, fooling them into supporting him one more time. This kind of mass deception and manipulation has never and would never occur on the other side, it would be unheard of and frankly impossible to do.

Gads.

Some interesting tid-bits

Republicans still complain about tax rates being too high -- despite the fact the top tax rate has not been this low since the 1920s. In fact, in 2009, Americans on average paid the lowest tax rate in 30 years due "in part because of tax cuts President Obama sought to combat the Great Recession....The average tax rate paid by all households fell to 17.4 percent, down from 19.9 percent in 2007, according to the CBO. The 2009 rate was significantly lower than the previous low of 19.4 percent in 2003 and well below the 30-year average of 21 percent."

Still think the climate isn't changing, or it's cyclical, or it's just Mother Nature (whatever that means)? "[L]ook at the ratio of record high and low temperatures in the U.S. over the last 50 years. In the 1950s, we had about the same number of record high temperatures as record lows. That is, the probability of an extraordinarily cold January day was about as likely as an excessively hot July day. By the 2000s, however, we were twice as likely to see a record high in our weather reports as we were a record low. So far in 2012, that ratio is about 10 to one." How can this be a surprise when the fact remains we now have 35% more greenhouse gases in the atmosphere than a century ago?? The first six-months of this year were the hottest ever recorded, by a huge margin. Heck, it was so hot recently that the tarmac at Reagan National Airport in Washington, DC actually melted, trapping a plane.

And not that I endorse it, but the next time you hear a Republican say Obama is stifling oil production and drilling in this country, give them the following facts. U.S. oil production has increased from 5 million barrels per day in 2008 to 6.3 million barrels per day in 2012. Also, the number of oil rigs has more than quadrupled since 2009.

The Head Stooge

About the SCOTUS ACA ruling, I recently wrote:

The SCOTUS dissent wanted to strike down the entire ACA law, a very radical decision in light of past precedent. As it is three prominent legal conservatives (Silberman, Sutton and Fried) found nothing unconstitutional about the ACA. Going further, striking down the entire ACA law would've resulted in chaos in this country as many elements and components of the law are already fully functioning within our current health care system.

Roberts knew all of this and along with his concern for how the Court would appear on the heels of GW vs. Gore and Citizens United, I believe he stepped in and uncharacteristically became a liberal, countering the dissent.
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[I]t was encouraging to learn that Roberts will only go so far with the other right-wing Justices when it comes to radical rulings.

I was glad to read that Linda Greenhouse agreed:

I doubt there was a single reason for the chief justice’s evolution (I know, conservatives hate that word in the context of Supreme Court justices’ ideological trajectories), but let me suggest one: the breathtaking radicalism of the other four conservative justices. The opinion pointedly signed individually by Justices Kennedy, Thomas, Antonin Scalia and Samuel A. Alito Jr. would have invalidated the entire Affordable Care Act, finding no one part of it severable from the rest. This astonishing act of judicial activism has received insufficient attention, because it ultimately didn’t happen, but it surely got the chief justice’s attention as a warning that his ostensible allies were about to drive the Supreme Court over the cliff and into the abyss.

It's heartening to know that when push comes to shove, even right-winger Chief Justice Roberts will stop the madness, clunking the heads of the other four stooges and ultimately rule in favor of judicial sanity as opposed to ideological purity.

Deceptive Health Care Polls

We often hear it cited that polls show most Americans are against the health care reform bill (ACA). Rarely if ever do I see a poll actually showing this majority against, however I have seen polls (like the one below, click to enlarge) where the verdict is very tight.

Source: PollingReport.com

But take a closer look and you'll notice a bit of chicanery occurring with these polls. It's first asked whether one favors or opposes the ACA. In this case, as often is the case, it's a very close call, with 45% favoring and 44% opposing.

But the poll then specifies of those opposing, what percent feel the bill doesn't go far enough in reforming health care and what percent believe the bill goes too far. In this case, of those who answered the first part of this question with an "oppose" reply, 22% opposed the bill because it didn't go far enough, with 68% believing it goes too far.

In no way can people making up this 22% be included with those who oppose the bill overall because they feel it goes too far, and yet that's what repeatedly occurs with these types of polls. In effect, the more adamant and upset liberal individuals are included with the more conservative, right-wing respondents to comprise the overall "44% oppose" category.  And yet, as I just stated, these liberals are not at all in opposition of the bill for the same reason the right-wingers oppose it.

So let's do a little correcting to clear the air. If 22% of the 44% who oppose the bill actually believe it doesn't go far enough, then in reality those individuals are actually very much for health care reform in general. 22% of 44% = about 10%. If we add this 10% to the 45% who favor the health care reform bill, the poll would then look like the following:

                      55% FAVOR health care reform in general
                      34% OPPOSE health care reform in general

Wow, a whopping 21% gap, quite a difference.

Clearly most Americans either favor the ACA or wish that even more health care reforms were present in the bill -- a far cry from what the poll would have one believe at first glance.

More trickle-down nonsense

With regards to Romney's offshore tax shelter accounts, or for that matter offshore tax shelters for all wealthy individuals, how does "trickle down" economics then work? How can the benefits that are supposed to trickle down to the 99% be expected to occur if the capital is tied up in offshore accounts? How does all of this money sitting offshore, escaping taxation, stimulate economic growth in the U.S.?

It should be asked of Romney to explain how the wealthy create jobs via trickle down economics when trillions of dollars are tucked away offshore. Would love to hear his stammering, nonsensical dodge on this topic. Oh, and I'd remind him the tax rate on the top income bracket is at historic lows.

Source: BusinessInsider.com

Thoughts on the SCOTUS ACA ruling

Before it became too late to do so, I wanted to post some brief comments about the SCOTUS decision on the ACA. I wrote much of this down the day of the ruling, but realize by now many of these thoughts have been conveyed on other blogs. Oh well, so be it.

You knew Roberts' "penalty = tax" semantics would be a gift to the right-wingers, and it didn't take long for them to respond in kind.

However, it should be very easy for the Dems to knock down this attack (but then again, nothing ever seems easy for the Dems!). For one, they can turn around and say that if Obamacare increases taxes, then Romneycare did the same in MA. Secondly, when The Heritage Foundation and Republicans designed and supported this same health-care mandate from 1993 to 2009, they actually designed and supported a tax increase. Those two points alone are enough to completely negate this word-play issue.

But ThinkProgress also reminds that whereas the ACA penalty/tax amounts to near $700 per affected household, the payroll tax extension Republicans were against late last year would've amounted to a cost of $1500 on average, or more than twice the ACA penalty figure. As per usual, Republicans are hypocritical and inconsistent, in this case arguing against a tax that costs half as much as the tax increase they were for late last year. And mind you, the payroll tax affects many more people than the ACA penalty.

The SCOTUS dissent wanted to strike down the entire ACA law, a very radical decision in light of past precedent. As it is three prominent legal conservatives (Silberman, Sutton and Fried) found nothing unconstitutional about the ACA. Going further, striking down the entire ACA law would've resulted in chaos in this country as many elements and components of the law are already fully functioning within our current health care system.

Roberts knew all of this and along with his concern for how the Court would appear on the heels of GW vs. Gore and Citizens United, I believe he stepped in and uncharacteristically became a liberal, countering the dissent.

But more so, when reading the dissent, it does make clear just how radical and extreme the right-wing contingent of the Court is and can be. They have no problem with handing down rulings sans of any past precedent -- in so doing, behaving in the activist manner that conservatives have repeatedly accused of liberal Justices. In effect, the Scalia wing offer up opinions about how they wish for the country to go, as opposed to what the Constitution would dictate.

Get ready, for despite this save by Roberts, over the next 10+ years this Court is likely to reshape the country much more so than the gridlocked executive and legislative branches.

It may be true that Roberts purposefully threw the right-wing a bone by redefining the penalty as a tax, but the fact is by him doing so actually saved the ACA. Calling it a tax allowed for it to be constitutional as per the Court and thus upheld. In the end, Roberts' semantics saved the ACA from being struck down by Scalia et al. Also, it was encouraging to learn that Roberts will only go so far with the other right-wing Justices when it comes to radical rulings. A small victory, one not likely to be repeated anytime soon, but you take what you can get from this crew.

Regarding messaging, when polled, the ACA tends to lose because the GOP is very effective at demonizing words and phrases -- in this case, turning "Obamacare" into something perceived to be very bad. However, when individuals are polled on the actual details and policy of the ACA, people generally tend to love what they hear. The real message? Democrats are nowhere near as good as Republicans when it comes to conveying concise, effective word associations. For "Obamacare" to become more popular, this sad fact needs to change.

Three Items

Corporate profits are at an all-time high, wages are at an all-time low and employment continues to be less than stellar.

I say the problem is too much regulation and high taxes are adversely affecting confidence! (gads)

Chris Hayes' weekend gig is a revelation, coming out of nowhere to be the best political show on TV. It's not the usual back & forth prattle to fill up time between commercials, rather Hayes makes sure to keep the discourse elevated and interesting. Highly recommended.

Regarding Europe, billionaire hedge fund manager Ray Dalio recently wrote, "[T]alk of a fiscal union to resolve these problems has to be looked at in light of the question of whether it is in the interest of fiscally strong contributors to have a fiscal union with fiscally weak recipients in which the majority rules how the money is divided."

One can argue whether or not it's in the interest of the "fiscally strong contributors," but then one would also need to argue whether or not the system we have in place here in the U.S. is in the interest of those states that are fiscally stronger than weaker states.

The fact remains the monetary system in Europe has been deeply flawed since its inception. Sovereign states or nations all using a common currency and yet lacking a central body of authority just doesn't work. Over time, some countries will inevitably fare better than others and since the lagging countries no longer have their own currencies to devalue, boosting their competitive advantage, they suffer with no recourse. If a central body existed with adequate power and jurisdiction, it could step in and help those countries by shifting aid from the strong to the weak.

It's what we do in the U.S. We are a fiscal union sharing a common currency and yet we're comprised of 50 states. For every $1 in taxes California sends to Washington, it gets back just $0.78, meanwhile Mississippi receives over $2 for every $1 it pays in taxes. Is this fair to California? Perhaps not, but Mississippi does not have it's own currency to devalue in hopes of better competing with California. And for those states in need, we don't instead enforce harsh austerity measures at the federal level.

Given we are a union, meaning separate states but one country using one currency, how else does this arrangement work without resulting in the current ongoing situation across the Atlantic?

Great (But Not Good) Expectations

With the numerous and deep layoffs of 2008-2010, it's no wonder corporate profits have reached peak levels never seen before in history. And yet with profits at such extreme highs, why no hiring?

Two reasons come to mind, the first being the obvious one: no demand for goods/services. Real wages remain low and continue to trend lower. Unemployment continues to remain high. Government spending at the state and local level has been near nonexistent, with hundreds of thousands of layoffs as a result. The federal stimulus was woefully too small given the severity of the economic decline (worst since the Great Depression). Many continue to be saddled with too much debt. And the ever-expanding gap between rich and poor has never been wider. All of these things have contributed to keeping consumer demand in a perma-low state, with income repressed and future prospects uncertain.

Typically, to fill the void under such circumstances, government is expected to step-in and provide fiscal stimulus to help offset the lack of demand in the private sector -- and in this case, would be a bargain since interest rates are near zero (actually negative in real terms). But we have a Republican Party that chooses to put politics ahead of country in hopes of insuring conditions remain poor so that Obama is a one-termer.

A second reason why companies are not hiring is not often mentioned. It has to do with expectations. With profits soaring, earnings per share also dramatically increase, with most companies successfully surpassing Wall Street analysts expectations. As a result, the stock price more often than not rises.

However, herein lies the circle-jerk dance whereby company management must continue to exceed expectations -- expectations that continue to elevate with each earnings per share beat. When the next fiscal quarter comes around, if management fails at outperforming Wall Street estimates, the stock will get punished, more often than not severely.

With a continued lack of demand in the economy, translating into scarce demand for products/services, management is left with few alternatives to boost earnings. Although unfortunate, in an effort to cut costs the easy choice becomes employee layoffs, with another being accounting finesse or tricks. But with layoffs comes further income repression, meaning further demand repression -- rinse & repeat as the ugly cycle spirals its way lower.

Thus hiring people becomes an out-of-the-question proposition and it will remain so until demand returns -- assuming it ever does. And it's why, to paraphrase a famous quote, we all need to become Keynesians, sooner rather than later!

Reminder: Keynes was not for permanent government spending, not at all. Instead he advocated that government needed to spend during times like now, when the economy was in serious recession or depression, to provide a floor and provide the needed fuel to turn the economy around. In due course, the private sector feeds off this changing of the tide and a full-fledge recovery is in motion. When the economy is back on its feet and by all accounts heading in the right direction, it's at this time that you focus on debt reduction (as did Bill Clinton in the late '90s).

So please do not allow right-wingers to obfuscate matters with misinformed, alarmists cries about Keynesian = endless government spending. It's simply not true. In fact, over the last thirty years, what we've had are two presidents each presiding over enormous government spending during good economic times (Reagan & GW) and one president (as already mentioned, Clinton) who followed Keynes' advice and reduced the deficit when the time was right.

But of course, deficits only matter as a topic of serious concern when a Democrat resides in the White House.

Just The Facts, Please

The far right all too frequently bloviates as if what they're saying is true and based on facts, but all too frequently it's not the case.

Examples: they favor lower tax rates to boost the economy, and yet we have Clinton's eight years versus GW's eight years. Another is they endorse the Austrian school of economics over Keynesian when in a recession or depression, and yet we have the Great Depression versus the New Deal.

They often point to Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged as if it's non-fiction. Folks, it's a novel, and a poorly written one at that. It's not factual or based on real-life events.

Granted, I didn't offer a huge sample size above, but unfortunately when it comes to sheer numbers of events to support a given contention, history does not provide numerous recessions or depressions, for example (thankfully!). However, Clinton's eight years do in many ways effectively counter GW's eight years when it comes to tax rates, economic growth and creating jobs. The New Deal versus the Great Depression does in many ways highlight what works and what doesn't work when it comes to rejuvenating a left-for-dead economy (spending or fiscal stimulus works, austerity does not).

Sure, they try every so often to come up with what they believe to be a gotcha moment, where they think they finally have something that's based on fact. The latest being Reagan's recovery versus Obama, and Latvia as some kind of austerity success story. It didn't take long for both to be exposed as loaded examples at best.

Paul Krugman, Michael Tomasky and conservative David Frum, among others, have been explaining that the Reagan recession and recovery was quite different than Obama's much-worse predicament, and yet you'll hear the far right attempt to make the apples/apples comparison. Krugman's column on the subject is particularly illuminating, and his blog post offers a graphic that all but puts to rest any justification for equating the two periods.



As you can see, during Reagan's recession, total spending occurred at a 14% clip, or more than double that of Obama's relatively anemic 6% rate (yes, The Gipper was a big-time Keynesian!). And yet Obama inherited not a Fed-induced recession as did Reagan, but rather a consumer-driven depression with much worse structural difficulties to overcome -- a more severe level of unemployment being one of them. As these authors point out, Reagan at least had an opposing party willing to help and compromise for the good of the country. In contrast, Obama has had nothing of the sort as Republicans have firmly refused to give in on any meaningful measures to boost the economy. In addition, they've invoked the filibuster more than at any time in history, stone-walling most of what this administration would've liked to accomplish.

I would also add that another big difference of now versus then that is getting no mention is the gap between the rich and poor. In the early 1980s, the inequality gap was nowhere near as large as it is now which made for a much healthier, dynamic and resilient economy, one more readily able to bounce back from a downturn. Thirty years later, this gap has exploded into a massive chasm. As a result, more Americans have less in real dollars and therefore demand has remained stunted. Government spending typically serves as a temporary fix as it fills in for the lack of demand, helping to spur and lift the economy out of its doldrums. But as already mentioned, spending under Obama is less than half that which occurred under Reagan, despite the fact Reagan's recession was far less deep. So today (vs. early 1980s) you have a greater percentage of people with less inflation-adjusted money and you have less governmental economic aid in the form of real per capita spending. I won't even ask why we haven't felt the effects of trickle-down job creation from the super-wealthy, a group that is the richest to ever inhabit the planet.

As for Latvia, again it's already appearing to be a bit dubious as the poster child of what austerity can achieve during tough economic times. I will just say that Latvia is hardly representative of a G20-type economy, meaning one more akin to the U.S. Austerity has been ongoing in Ireland for years and we've yet to see it work its magic there, and mind you Ireland's economy is more of a relevant comparison to the U.S. than that of Latvia.

I actually applaud the right wingers in trying to come up with anything fact-based to support their beliefs. It will be refreshing to (finally) see some actual evidence that plausibly makes one nod and say, "You know what, they might actually have something here...." But I'm not holding my breath.

Romney Is Desperate, and the Electoral Map

We've observed Romney cozy up to the likes of Donald Trump, Ted Nugent and Dick Cheney -- quite the motley crew. While at first it may appear inexplicable as to why Romney would want to associate himself with such fringe characters, to put it politely, I think it simply means Romney continues to run desperate. It infers he is still trying to nail down far-right support in his own party, meaning he's still trying to secure the base! That's quite a bad sign for him if at this point in the campaign season he must still placate and sell what remains of his soul to insure that the 20% who supported Bush/Cheney to the bitter end, i.e. the wingnuts, will vote for him. If he can't lock-up the apoplectic Obama haters, what does it say about his chances to win over the swing voters?

On that note, although many polls have the November election too close to call, just take a look at what counts in this country, the electoral map. Thus far, the race is not nearly as close as such polls make it out to be, with Obama comfortably ahead of Romney when it comes to electoral votes. Obama has approximately 40 more votes than Romney, and Obama already has the amount need to win re-election. Granted, these are projections and anything can still happen between now and November, but the point is the media is, as always, trying to make the race appear very competitive (it's in their interest to do so), more so than is reality.

I would also point out that perhaps the best political handicapper out there, Nate Silver, has Obama's chances of winning at 63%, which stands in stark contrast to the toss-up polls we're used to seeing. And if the election were held today, Nate puts Obama's chances of winning at a whopping 77%, again further bringing into question today's polls.

But I reiterate, for Romney to have to curry favor with such extreme figures in his party to me speaks volumes. Obama has those who will definitely vote for him and those who definitely will not, with the remainder likely making their final decision depending on how the economy fares. It's not as if they feel the need to get to know him better as a person -- he's been president for four years. Either they already like him or not, and the rest comes down to the economy or some other hugely influential event yet to occur.

Yet Romney has a small number of people who really like him, with a greater majority lukewarm or just barely tilting his way, and then of course there are the many who very much dislike him. He may eventually get all of these fence-sitters to come around to his side, but the fact is it remains a question mark. Meanwhile Obama has many fewer wishy-washy folks to win over and many more who are certain to vote his way. Advantage Obama.

Romney, a modern-day Omega Theta Pi frat brother

I think it's pretty clear by now that Mitt Romney would've been a textbook-perfect brother of the Omega Theta Pi fraternity. What fraternity is that, you ask? In the movie Animal House, it's the frat house populated with well-to-do, pompous, vacuous a-holes, represented most famously by Neidermeyer. Recall Douglas Neidermeyer was your stereotypical ROTC/Patton-wannabe, a bit too gung-ho, a bit too straight-laced, a bit too into enforcing what he deemed normal. All in all, your classic jerk and bully.

Compare this profile to what we've come to learn about Romney, in particular the recent revelation about his bullying of a gay classmate. During high school, several friends held down the victim as Romney proceeded to use scissors to cut clumps of hair from the presumed gay boy's head.

Romney's defense? "I participated in a lot of hijinks and pranks during high school," he said while chuckling. The described act of bullying is disturbing enough, but to hear 40+ years later Romney attempt to excuse it away as "hijinks" while laughing no less is even more inexcusable and disgusting. As long as he's not the victim, then it's no big deal. As long as it wasn't one of his sons that were held down and had hair removed with scissors, then it's OK, no big deal. And it's as if for him to show empathy or compassion is to show weakness, and he just can't have that happen. What would the Republican base think?

How this incident, along with the Seamus incident, do not qualify as occurrences that demand at least some serious consideration when it comes to judging Romney as a person and as a candidate is something I don't understand. If you had a long-time friend and learned that he had committed such a heinous act many years ago, are you telling me it wouldn't impact how you looked at him, how you viewed him as a person going forward? I have to think it would. It's just ugly and in my experience this kind of telling behavior does not completely vanish with maturity. Someone capable of doing such a thing then most likely retains some of those unfeeling, hateful qualities today.

Is this a major campaign item? No. But it should be something voters contemplate when deciding what personality traits and characteristics are important in the POTUS.

If Anything, We Should Be Getting Much More In Debt

Felix Salmon writes:

Just look at the amount of money which is flowing straight to corporations’ bottom lines, and not being put to good, productive work. Corporate profits now account for significantly more than 10% of GDP: that’s never happened before.



To spell this out: high corporate profits and low levels of job growth are two sides of the same coin. If things were working properly right now, companies would take their excess revenues and use them to hire more people. Instead, they’re basically just letting those excess revenues sit on their balance sheets as cash because they’re scared to invest in themselves. It’s frankly pathetic.

Felix continues on to mention something I asked a few months ago:

The solution to this problem is nothing complex — the arbitrage is sitting there in the first chart, plain for all to see. The government can borrow at 1.45%: it should do so, in vast quantities, and invest that money back into the economy itself. Take a few hundred billion dollars and use it to fix our broken infrastructure, to re-hire all those laid-off teachers and firefighters, to provide some kind of safety net for the millions of Americans who have been out of work for more than a year. Even if the real long-term return on any stimulus package was zero, the nominal long-term return would be well over 1.45%, making the investment worthwhile.

As I've written here before, we may very well look back upon this period as a time of tremendous lost opportunity. With interest rates at historic low levels, and the economy likewise at historically depressed levels, what the government should be doing (and should have been doing) is borrowing hundreds of billions of dollars at a real interest rate of less than zero to spend on long-delayed infrastructure projects, hiring workers and generally getting the economy back on its feet. Yes, classic Keynesian economics. But the crucial difference in this case is that we have an economy that truly needs such stimulus and we're fortunate to have such incredibly low rates to fund such desperately needed stimulus. It's a complete no-brainer and yet because of continued partisan intransigence, the nation suffers.

Republicans want the economy to remain in the toilet. They've always wanted this. They have nothing else to run on, so they must continue to insure that the economy does not recover. It's their only shot at ousting Obama. "Country First" -- right....

Krugman on Christie

I love this guy, he doesn’t pull punches, he's always fact-based, he won the Nobel prize – and he’s gutsy: here he goes after the NJ governor and Krugman is a professor in NJ (Princeton).

Items

Time's Joe Klein recently wrote:

I've been thinking about this since seeing HBO's excellent rendition of the 2008-campaign book Game Change. Late in that campaign, John McCain began to open up on Obama. "Who is the real Barack Obama?" he asked, pointedly, at rallies, and the audience responses to that question--"a terrorist," "hooligan," "socialist," "Arab"--and the raw fury of the crowds scared the hell out of him. Finally, McCain told an extremist, "[Obama] is a decent person and a person that you do not have to be scared of as President." It was a fine moment, on film as in life.

Classic Joe Klein. He applauds as if special those who are just doing the right thing. Gads. Similar to the person who returns the lost wallet -- yes, a good deed, but one we hope is the norm and not to be treated as atypically good. I think in part it speaks to Klein's many years within "the beltway," to the point where when observing a politician acting in a non-self-serving manner, doing something that should be regarded as everyday sensible and proper, he instead lauds hefty praise upon that figure. Quite telling, and sad.

I know it's many days old, but if you missed it please check out Rachel Maddow's classic "Romney Lies All The Time" video segment. It's Maddow doing what she does best.

It kept reminding me of the scene in the movie Chinatown when Jack Nicholson kept slapping Faye Dunaway in the face, trying to get her to tell the truth. But Dunaway's character was so deeply damaged she couldn't do it, instead muttering one lie after another, incapable of telling the truth mainly because her entire life had been based on lies. It was part of her DNA to deceive and misinform, it was tragically all she knew.

Romney is very similar, lies coming to him like tears to Rep. Boehner. They just flow from his mouth, effortlessly, almost subconsciously. Imagine what that will mean if he lands in the White House. To me it has four years of scandal written all over it, the sheer volume of deceit and corruption likely well surpassing that of Warren Harding. Romney seems to have no convictions and will say to anyone what it is they want to hear. He is willing to lie, incessantly, not caring a wit that his prior conflicting statements have been recorded/documented. In the end, it has to mean one thing: he believes American citizens are utterly and completely stupid. Wonderful quality to have in a president.

Speaking of Romney and the White House, can someone explain to me (apart from rigged elections or SCOTUS making it happen) how this guy can become president if 1) most Americans dislike him, 2) he fares very poorly with the increasingly-important Latino voters, and 3) he's a huge turnoff to those earning less than $100K per year, i.e. most Americans?? Formidable hurdles to overcome, and I could've kept going beyond just three.

I must say that what surprises me is not that the SCOTUS might very well decide against the ACA, but rather that I continue to read of political writers, bloggers, etc. who were shocked, shocked I tell you, to admit that this indeed may happen. Huh? How can anyone be shocked?

Color me overly cynical, but rather I consider myself to not be naive and frankly I'm simply going with past precedent in this regard (something this SCOTUS doesn't do enough). You have Bush vs. Gore and Citizens United, to name two biggie cases. But then there's the Clarence Thomas disclosure form fiasco, the Scalia hunting outings with Cheney, Alito blurting out "not true" -- what more does it take to realize that this Court is less about the actual law and more about ideology? And the ACA was going to be different this time around? Why? Because they're due to be fair and honor prior rulings? We'll see, could still happen, but please, spare us the head-scratching, befuddled reactions.

The Fading Of Keith

I can't say I was shocked to learn that Current sacked Keith Olbermann. Judging from earlier accounts, the relationship has been stormy to say the least, with Keith showing up for work on a non-regular basis, reportedly displeased with his situation at the relatively new gig. At this point, I for one have no idea who's to blame. Is Keith really the difficult prima donna he's being made out to be, or is he just a demanding professional that desires top quality in his work and from everyone involved to that end? Beats me, it may be a combination of both but we're very likely to learn more when the lawsuit unfolds.

It's really a shame. Keith Olbermann continues to fade. I've been watching Keith since his MSNBC stint and while he continued to be his inimitable self on Current, to me his show gradually became non-essential viewing. I would continue to tune in to hear what Keith had to say about the issues of the day, but it did seem as if he was increasingly mailing it in, offering up obligatory outrage when expected, but even that became a rare occasion.

In his defense, the Current show did not have an appealing look. It did appear low-budget and almost grainy to the eye, as if filmed using old cameras and poor lighting. All you had to do was flip over to MSNBC to see the contrast. That said it's very difficult to attract an audience when viewers must strain and wince to literally watch the program. Score one for Keith: Current apparently didn't invest enough in the production values of the show.

However, as I mentioned, Keith himself seemed to exude less energy over the last few months, perhaps realizing the inevitable was near. But I have to assume he had full say over who would be regular contributors on his show and apart from Matt Taibi, most were quite frankly boring and offered very little when it came to eye-opening insights or provocative commentary. Snore.

My favorite Countdown contributor from the MSNBC days was Jonathan Alter as he always provided very honest and rigorous commentary, saying what he thought in a very intelligent manner, not overly worrying about offending someone. That's not to say he was ever offensive, but rather he would not pull punches and justifiably pointed out wrongs and hypocrisy. He was refreshing and always made me tune in to see if he might be on the show.

With Current, the contributors became very young, and with that oddly enough more conventional in their commentary, voicing primarily dignified pap that while liberal was exceedingly sanitized. In that respect, score one for Current as Keith allowed the content of his show to slip, significantly.

Will Keith put a halt to this long, drawn-out fade and show up elsewhere, reinvigorated and better than ever? Who knows. It does seem evident that he is quite the volatile personality who ultimately may only succeed doing things 100% his way, on his own terms. To me that hints at a fee-based podcast of sorts, or something like Glenn Beck TV (oh, the irony).

Or maybe that's it, we never hear from Keith again, except for the occasional op-ed or book release. Lord knows he's made many millions in his career, allowing for early retirement.

But then who foresaw the Current gig post-MSNBC? He can surprise. In the meantime, the right-wing will have a field day with the Al Gore vs. Keith Olbermann pending lawsuit and back/forth war of words. It doesn't take much to get the knuckle-draggers worked up in a frothy lather....

The Romney/Seamus Incident: Just Ordinary?

I wrote last Sunday that the Romney/Seamus incident mattered. Three days later, Kevin Drum wrote on his blog:

Give me a break. I would guess that nearly every family that's ever taken a long road trip has tried to stick to a schedule and keep stops to a minimum. Was Romney a little stricter than average? Maybe. Does this offer a glimpse of Romney's "rigidity"? Please. The Seamus story came from Tagg Romney, and he doesn't suggest that any of the Romney kids felt especially downtrodden during the ride. Romney was just an ordinary guy trying to cram a 12-hour trip into a single day and he didn't want it to turn into a 14-hour trip. Shapiro had it right when he said this story has "no larger presidential significance." He should have stopped right there.

Initially I couldn't tell if Drum was being sarcastic, and frankly I remain befuddled.

Kevin has been my favorite blogger for many years, offering lucid posts with an obvious liberal slant but without going overboard. However, I've always felt that from time to time, he tends to poo-poo topics getting heavy airplay on the left as if to take some higher ground and rise above what he portrays as pointless gnashing-of-teeth chatter. He likes to come off as a "keeping it real" progressive, agreeing with most of the larger and more cerebral lefty positions of the day, but making sure to smack down what in his mind are excessively idealistic dust-ups that any right-minded (or left-minded?) person would do or believe.

In this case, if I'm not mistaken, Kevin's advising we back off the Romney dog incident, that it's been blown way out of proportion. I mean c'mon, any person would've done what Romney did, with a family and all, trying to make good time on a long drive.

Really? Any 38-year old father would've put the beloved family dog in a box, strap it to the car rooftop where it would withstand 60+ mph wind for 12 hours, and when the dog shits and it runs down the car window, said father pulls the car over at a gas station, quickly hoses the dog off, puts dog back in box, and speeds off, hoping to make back those lost precious minutes, pronto.

Oh yeah, that's normal, "ordinary" behavior. Did we ever find out if Romney hosed down his car to rid his window of the dog shit streaks? Or would that have taken too much time, possibly stretching a 12-hour trip into 14??

I standby my blog post that this incident does matter and says at least a few things about Romney (nothing good, obviously). I encourage everyone to Google away, read up about the awful episode, then draw your own conclusions. I know I didn't embellish anything, and Romney himself admits to it all (another political gaffe?).

It's troubling to hear those who implore that what he did with Seamus was no big deal, and that nothing meaningful can be gleaned about our potential next President. (What if it were cats instead of a dog, Kevin? Make a difference?). And mind you, I still come across people who have never heard of this incident and after hearing a quick summary are disturbed by it. It has impact. Also, a disclosure: I'm not a raving, I-wanted-Michael-Vick-executed pet lover.

But then again, as I said I may have completely misread Kevin's post. It happens. He may have laced the entry with wink-wink stuff and I'm too dense to notice. Let's hope anyway.

Catch-up Thoughts

I agree with Kevin Drum about the Greg Smith op-ed. It's hard to believe Goldman Sachs ever had a soul to lose, much less lost it in the last 10 years or so. But then again, Smith is likely a by-product of this gradual descent into cultural depravity. When he started at GS, he was young and quickly adapted over time to what is now the modern-day version of the "Vampire Squid." It went from bad to worse in that time and that's what Smith noticed: relative degradation, not absolute. It's like crying foul that Caligula became more profane in his later years.

Paul Krugman's "What Greece Means" is a lesson for the Tea Party (to the extent it still exists). Austerity doesn't work, better to grow out of the deficit via Keynesian stimulus, esp. with interest rates at record lows. Roads, bridges, infrastructure are in desperate need of repair and it's not something that can continuously be put off into the future. And at some point, people are going to die from this lack of up-keep. I've read that the cost of such projects doubles every five years, so why not invest in making upgrades now, when real interest rates are actually negative! Business schools teach that one should take on debt when the rate of return on the project surpasses the interest on the debt. Here we have real interest rates at below zero and the rate of return to be gained on these projects is absolutely greater than zero -- if not for anything else than for the cost savings alone (as I said, costs double every five years). It's a no-brainer, but unfortunately too many citizens on the right have been brainwashed, and of course Republicans do not want to do anything that is sensible and could actually help this country, believing it simply helps the Kenyan.

Bill Maher had Alexandra Pelosi show both of her brief films, the first showing Mississippi in all it's wonderful glory, and the other film showing what appeared to be welfare abuse occurring in NYC. Pelosi tries to make the point that these two films are opposite sides of a coin, one angering the right, the other pissing off the left.

I don't agree. The film showing welfare recipients abusing the system in NYC is something that is wrong and could be fixed. It's repairable. Also, despite what the right believes, welfare abuse -- like voter fraud -- is nowhere near as big a problem as their propaganda makes it out to be. All too often, they take some isolated examples of fraud and suggest (citing no facts) that this relatively small problem is wrecking the country.

However, the film on Mississippi shows a much larger problem, one that is indeed wrecking this country. It shows citizens who are ignorant, possessing beliefs based on prejudice and hate as opposed to anything rooted in fact or knowledge. It also shows people who are hypocrites. One guy hates big government but is on food stamps, when told of this dichotomy he quickly says he feels he "deserves" the food stamps, i.e. the free hand-out, the welfare. Much of what is shown in the video is seemingly irreparable and is destroying this country. Do these people have any clue that for every $1 in taxes paid, Mississippians receive $2 back from the government? Hedge funds would love that 100% return on investment. They are completely ignorant to their welfare-queen ways and if you watch the video I think you'll agree: there's not much hope in changing these people. They believe what they believe, they is what they is, period.

Randi Rhodes aired another example of why Fox News is clown central. She has footage of Fox defending GW Bush when gasoline prices were rising, with the clamoring talking heads saying back-off, ease up, it's not his fault, the President can't be blamed, he has little control or influence over the price at the pump -- AND what citizens should be doing is conserving energy. It's incredible. Then cut to present day, with gas prices rising and Obama in office. Suddenly Fox personalities believe it's all the President's fault, Obama is to blame. Outrageous, but not shocking. Fox viewers are once again taken for complete fools.

Maybe vanity will finally make global warming deniers believe....

The Seamus Incident Matters

Yes, what Romney did to his dog Seamus is a valid campaign topic. For one, Mitt was 37 years old at the time, hardly a youthful indiscretion. Second, imagine what Republicans would've done during the 2008 race if Obama did the same. But more so, it's says much about Mitt the cyborg person, his lack of empathy, his inability to make a seemingly heartfelt decision as opposed to one that was expedient and coldly fit his needs.

It's exactly this kind of anecdotal evidence that makes one wonder how a person will react or decide in the future. It's quite scary when you really think about it, and frankly I think even GW or dare I say Cheney (!!) would've elected to transport the dog by more humane means.