nancylebov | Outliving the US: the comments

Outliving the US: the comments

The other day, I asked whether people expected to outlive the US, and got some very interesting replies.

The most noticeable similarity was that no one expected anything good to come of an end to the US, which probably supports the idea that the US is very stable.

tahkhleet posted a substantial core dump about politics and the state of the culture. I'm feeling rather swamped. This is unfair. Overloading people is *my* job.

Still, I'm going to pick out some bits. However, I recommend reading the whole thing.

Is Obama genuinely that awful? I'm disappointed that he isn't prosecuting those responsible for torture (and NPR did a bit about how he used the word torture before he was elected, but has dropped it since then). Is he letting *everything* important slide?

I'd have thought he's at least smart enough to take a lesson from what Katrina did to Bush's reputation.

Two "do my homework" questions:

Are his foreign policy advisors really all hawks?

How did he handle things when he was a community organizer? Did he get useful work done?
Slightly different angle about the financial elite: One of my friends believes that credentialism is part of the problem. The most likely way to get one of those very well-paid jobs is to be totally focused on the exhausting work of getting the right degrees. Aside from

tahkhleet's point that only someone who's got bad values will be willing to do the work, getting the credentials means being totally focused on incentives rather than paying attention to the larger system.

Back to my pov: Having a system which makes room for competence is a very subtle problem. If people are totally shielded from consequences, whoever is good at social climbing will get the rewards, and the quality of work goes to hell. If there is too much effort to make sure the right thing is done, people game the measurement system, and the work goes to heck.

Genocide: I've been wondering for a while whether I'll see a nation commit auto-genocide (over 75% of population killed). It just seems as though people go nuts that way occasionally, and people are much more dependent on infrastructure than they used to be. Still, I don't know that the elites are dreaming of wiping a lot of the rest of us out, though worries about overpopulation can be read that way.

For purposes of this discussion, it isn't necessary that the elites would actually benefit from genocide, just whether enough of them strongly believe they would.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I completely agree.

I saw

tahkhleet's criticisms of Obama and wasn't remotely impressed. What I see is yet another person expecting the US to miraculously transform within days of Shrub leaving office. It takes times to repair 8 years of that sort of damage. Obama isn't shaping up to be the wondrous far-left reformer that many of us would like to see, but he's not just far better than Shrub, he's also clearly better than Bill Clinton, both in terms of being more effective (I actually expect him to manage to get his healthcare reforms through) and in terms of being less cowardly in the fact of Republican opposition. That said, he's a US president, and so we shouldn't expect better of him than we have of most of the better presidents of the 20th century. In any case, because he isn't a wondrous far-left reformer who can instantly transform the US, there is no shortage of people who think he's Shrub II, which I thing is exceptionally foolish.

Indeed, I will go further. Obama never protrayed himself as a far left reformer. For those who can remember back to 2007 & early 2008, there was considerable debate among hardcore politically active progressives about whether to back Obama. Most, in fact, backed Edwards, whom they regarded as having much more anti-corporate policies (Krugman, for example, wrote several columns arguing that Obama would prove unable or unwilling to capitalize on populist sentiment by proposing a genuinely radical economic agenda).

Once Edwards dropped out, progressives faced the question of whether to embrace Clinton or Obama. the majority of progressives went for Obama, given the antipathy of the progressive wing of the party for Clinton.

Indeed. I definitely supported Edwards until he dropped out. I suspect that the overwhelming support for Obama rests on 2 facts - his is clearly the best orator the US has had in national politics for at least the last 20 years, and while open racism is no longer acceptable in public discourse, open misogyny definitely still is still perfectly acceptable.

I largely found Clinton and Obama to be indistinguishable - both were vastly better than any imaginable Republican candidate and neither was nearly as sufficiently progressive as I'd want.

I saw one large double drawback to Clinton: she was wrong about Iraq, and she didn't say she was wrong, she said she was lied to. I prefer having a president who doesn't use gullibility as an excuse.

Edited 2009-04-28 21:34 (UTC)

I don't care about his ideology. I care about him promising to _help the people in distress_ by the rapacious crimes of the elites. That would not necessarily require overthrowing the established order. Just merely housing, clothing and feeding them (about 10 million of them, say it takes $10,000 a head, that's $100 billion. zomg. How impossible that he could find the money for that.) He could let everyone else do everything EXACTLY as they were. We're in a crisis. He said he cared. His inaction is inexcusable.

OK, I started a lengthy response to this, and decided not to waste my time.

Nancy, I'm sorry. This is your page and your friends and I'm trying to be polite. But the level of ignorance and arrogance need to produce a comment as utterly dumb-ass as the one above is making my frickin' brain hurt. Good God! Is Obama a king, that he will trot on down to the Treasury and have them print up some of them twenties so he and his designated agents can hand them out on street corners like bloody reality show hosts?

God knows I can respect folks like

fatlefty, who actually understand this shit who want to see Obama run out on a rail for embracing the Chicago School and the Goldman Sachs gang. I may disagree, but at least that's something feasible and in Obama's control. The idea that Obama doesn't really care because he doesn't fly over the country in his Santa sleigh bringing jobs and Happy Meals to all the poor little children -- it just leaves me speechless.

If the basis for concern about the Obama Administration is

takhleet, then you can safely treat her as an outlier.

First, it wouldn't be inflation. You notice below that I said inflation is dumb. In Canada, we do exactly what I'm describing. We judge that it is UNACCEPTABLE for innocent people to live in absolute destitution for reasons beyond their control. That's how WE coped with the Depression. You didn't, because Hoover was a hidebound conservative and Roosevelt was a faux populist.

Second, Obama can't just "order this" by fiat. But he IS the architect of the budget he _can_ propose legislation...and if he couldn't sell this to the country when you have several million people who are homeless or fast heading for that situation, he is a total amateur. To crush the phobia of "socialism" he could just define the program as automatically ending when the employment rate is above a certain percentage by a certain metric. If he were still having problems just trot out all the Bible verses about caring for the poor. I mean crap, do you people TRULY still _believe_ that poverty in a _depression_ is the fault of the "lazy poor"?

Third,to just out and out insult me _after_ putting words into my mouth is EXTREMELY rude.

...like FDR did with the CWA program?

http://bradhicks.livejournal.com/422902.html

It is at the very least a PLAUSIBLE possibility. Not some fantasy like you accuse me of.

Health care: follow Timothy Noah at Slate. He's clearly got no enthusiasm in his rhetoric for real health care reform. He's still tip toeing around the private ensurers promise him the gov't won't be a competitive threat. Hello. The whole point of a gov't medical program is to provide essential service cheaper than the private sector. It's worked in every other industrial country and REFUSING to do it in the USA because of _lobbying_ is _corrupt_.

I didn't say anything about miraculous transformation. I would have expected he would not make the financial crisis worse. But clearly, he HAS. He has ok'd a plan from Geithner that has been systematically discredited. (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeffrey-sachs/the-geithner-summers-plan_b_183499.html not some random blogger this is a professor of economics from Columbia University). Do you understand how critical this issue is? Billions of dollars that destitute people in tent cities desperately need...for their present needs, for the developmental welfare of their +children+ are going UNSPENT. Because the banks are bleating about needing the money. Even though when they GET their money, they do NOT increase their lending...which was the JUSTIFICATION for giving out that money in the first place! http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/Banks-say-theyre-lending-theyre/story.aspx?guid={4280B32E-53CB-49A7-8DC8-D0E95F855358} Now, the article says the banks SHOULDN'T lend. Fair enough. but that doesn't explain why since this is demonstrated there isn't a whisper about changing a policy that CANNOT accomplish its goals.

This is not an abstract issue. The economy is about the human suffering or not of now millions of people. And Obama is facilitating the bankers looting the public treasury. The money we loan to the bankers cannot go to other causes. Note how no one is buying American TBonds in bulk except the Fed, which is a branch of the gov't! This means the gov't has reached its international credit limit. The only way to get more money is by inflation. Which will wipe out the savings left over from the stock market crash. He took the last gasp in the gas tank and SQUANDERED it on a fool's errand. Now...was he stupid, or corrupt? Given that the only people he's listened to on economic policy have been the bankers involved in the fiasco, rather than say, economists or social scientists or bankers from _successful_ banks...I'm inclined to think he's a crook like Blago. It is at the very least a _strong hypothesis_.

On military affairs: he's on auto pilot. People trumpet "oh, he's pulling the troops out". He has no choice. Even BUSH would have had no choice. The Iraqis have served notice that the troops cannot stay. And where is he sending the troops? Afghanistan. Into a re-enactment of Vietnam because we dare not consistently pursue the Taliban into Pakistan. The fact there have been strikes there are pushing Pakistan to the brink of civil war. He's nothing special for foreign policy compared to Bush. He talks big about we're all friends now and everyone's so happy to see him. But he's not DOING anything basically different. Plus, bet you when the Iraqi civil war flares up again, he'll find a pretext to put the American troops BACK in Iraq.

Remember : He's already said he's in favor of a war on Iran "to protect Israel". Israel's existence is already threatened by Iran's massive biological warfare program. There is no qualitatively new threat in their nuclear program. So this is another fool's errand. An Israeli attack on Iran will SPIKE world oil prices at least $150.00 a barrel, perhaps more if Iranian vandalism of the shipping lines in the gulf succeed even somewhat as well as they claim. We'll forget the political fallout: this consequence alone should have him saying "I'm revoking the blank check Bush wrote for your policy". So how is he an improvement here?

Cowardly in the face of Republican opposition: you mean the way he hemmed and hawed about the budget begging the Republicans to play nice and then finally he gave up and just bribed a few of them, costing billions in pork? Oh and remember what Brad Hicks noted: if you say "this bill must pass" that's code for "send me your bribe price now". He's either a noob or he doesn't care about being efficient with the government's resources. He's so "bold" about Republican opposition he refuses to prosectue WAR CRIMES. He's so "brave" in standing up to their financial lobby that the most he could make himself do was repeal Bush' tax cuts. Yah, quite a deal we have here a real wonderpup.

I'm curious what you have to say to my rebuttals. I'm more than curious why you're accusing me of having "expected miracles of him". I didn't mention that at all. I didn't imply that. In fact, I had a deep sinking feeling when he and McCain won the nominations. "Oh great, whatever happens, one of those illegitimate offspring of unclean canines has to win the election now." However, I figured at worst he'd be a Ulysses Grant, a worthless patronage dispenser and genially corrupt. He has far exceeded my expectations. I'm calling him on how he keeps saying he's changing the paradigm, he's fixing the country, and he's making it worse.

I've read reports by a fair number of people (including a few progressive economists) that if the initial bailout hadn't been done, the US economy would likely have literally collapsed. The current economic plan isn't perfect, but it's keeping that from happening, and I'm seeing a number of important bills (such as one making labor unions far easier to form) working their way through congress, and Obama has said he will vote for most of these. In any case, I do not understand economics sufficiently well to comment on the current measures beyond a clear awareness that much of the media hype about "the government giving money to wallstreet fatcats who will use it to buy yachts" is utter nonsense.

The point of the various measures is to both keep money flowing in the US economy and to make various business investments look appealing to the people in a position to make them, because if these investments don't look appealing, then they won't be made, and the US economy stands no chance of recovery.

As for Iran, unlike most recent presidents, Obama is actually talking with Iran. Not only don't I expect war, I expect lots of tough talk to appease the many right-wing morons that infest the US, combined with actual efforts at diplomacy, which seems to be what we're seeing. Obama is clearly very cautious, which is annoying, but on many things I'm not prepared to say he's wrong.

...You're looking at it wrong.

He did NOTHING fundamentally different from Bush. He shilled for the bail out while Bush was in office. The bail out bill that included provisions like "nothing that happens through this bill can ever be the basis of criminal charges". And then Geithner acted pretty much like Paulson. Part of why I'm castigating Obama is he sold himself as the candidate of CHANGE! and that's the best he could do?

While the pitchforks, tar and feather crowd are idiots, the level of criminal behaviour going on right now is STAGGERING. I'm not saying "oh they're rich, they're vile, let's lynch them for being successful while we're not". I'm saying they're criminals who have to be prosecuted and Obama is playing King Log while it happens.

You didn't seem to read what I said though. "Money flowing" is the cycle of credit. If the bailout bill didn't or shouldn't promote that then _what was the point of spending the money_? You say it was important to prevent banks going under. But we went way way beyond the point of keeping various banks from going insolvent. Like, here's the problem.

We have banks A, B and C. they've lost 50 cents of every dollar their depositors have, this means they can't make the withdrawal requirements for operations. By law, they should be shut down. Now, we say "no no, very important to keep them open. So we'll lend them 30 cents on the dollar to get them back into being able to stay open. And they'll keep lending, and eventually they'll earn back the money they lost and they can pay us back".

Except the banks aren't showing any signs of making the money back. So in the end, the banks will lose 50 cents on the dollar, plus however much more money they lose _after_ they burn the 30 cents on the dollar the gov't "loaned" them...and after whatever point the gov't finally throws up its hands and says "ok, you're not competent to manage your depositor's money".

Maybe you're thinking "but the dominoes effect of derivatives or the stock market impacts will hurt people too much". This isn't going bankrupt by a few cents on the dollar. This is not some technical accounting rule causing undue stress. This is catastrophic malfeasance. All the money the banks have is retained profits (almost nothing) and the depositor's funds. When a bank buys a worthless investment with a depositor's money, it has essentially allowed the seller of that investment to rob the bank's own depositors. Often, (for example, with AIG as they close up operations) there are obviously kickbacks involved as the bank and the asset seller split the profits. They push the depositor's money out of the bank and replace it with a worthless or radically overvalued asset.

This isn't some weird financial mistake. It was ROBBERY. The banks all sold these wortheless/overvalued investments to each other through subsidiaries. It was understood "I'll buy your worthless paper if you'll buy mine and we'll both take the profits home one way or the other". Between that and kickbacks, it was a giant vacuum cleaner connected to the depositor's accounts. Now the system is too low to function and they get the govt to let them continue as normal. The top 8 banks who got $160 billion for their banks REFUSED to describe how they had changed operations in response to receiving gov't money!

Btw, these wonderful, hard working bankers? These competent financial wizards we believe have so much talent that their current troubles are just "misfortune that we need to intervene to protect them from?" They are so irresponsible they lobbied for the repeal of the Glass-Seagal (sp?) act. This was the act passed after the Depression which said a bank may not hold its operating reserves in stock. That is critical A bank has to have money on hand to pay depositors who want some of their money back. The banks said "well, money sitting around doesn't earn us anything. We'll buy blue chip stocks, and we can earn a little bit from capital gains and dividends!" The problem with this is that if the stock market suddenly crashes, those stocks become illiquid. You can't sell them. But people are MORE likely to want their money. And when the law requires a bank that doesn't honor a depositor's demand for their own money, that bank must close. The Act was a very reasonable realization that no matter how painful it was for a banker to have idle money around, there had to be a fair bit of it on hand, because emergencies and crises aren't scheduled on the banker's calenders.

It was a total NO BRAINER and they lobbied successfully to repeal this act. and yes, the same thing that happened in the Depression happened again because of it.

Are you aware the President Bush made a commitment to Israel that if they go to war with Iran, the USA is AUTOMATICALLY at war with Iran? Are you aware that Obama has UPHELD this commitment. He may have put in his little fig leaf "if Israel's survival is threatened"...but tell me, since he's said he agrees Iran shouldn't have nukes, if Israel says "we see them getting to close to nukes, we have to do something" what IS he going to do? He might surprise me...but he left the door open to follow Bush' policy and all his rhetoric leads me to believe he will go to war. He chose a hawk cabinet for that reason.

It doesn't matter if Obama is talking with Iran. They have made it clear they want nukes, no matter what. Israel has made clear they will attack Iran, no matter what, if Iran gets nukes. Israel just elected a kingmaker party in its Knesset which is a bunch of RACISTS who say that all Muslims need to be expelled from the entirety of Israel. Israel is steadily marching toward war.

And I'll get into "doing the homework" on the cabinet but oh, the other commenter is SO wrong on that score.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Outliving the US: the comments

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

I didn't say that either.

Re: I didn't say that either.

Wow. That's an offensive statement.

....fly over the country in his Santa Sleigh...

(looks wry (part 1))

(looks wry (part 2))

(looks wry (part 3))

Re: (looks wry (part 3))

Even if everything you say is true...

Footnote

Iran