Without a doubt, yesterday’s election was the most important one held in America at least since 2010, and possibly even 2008. Der Spiegel, the German magazine, argues that the election campaign is evidence that the United States is a nation in decline. Certainly the political system is having its problems, but Der Spiegel‘s prescription of going further into debt to build high-speed trains and other European follies is a dubious way to fix those problems.
The real decline is in the Republican Party, which couldn’t manage to capture the White House or the Senate despite high unemployment and other economic problems. Republicans began shooting themselves in their collective feet early in the last decade when they made immigration a big issue, thus earning the enmity of Latinos, the nation’s fastest-growing and second-most important ethnic group.
Unfortunately, our two-party system too often limits voters to a choice between a social & fiscal liberal vs. a social & fiscal conservative (or, worse, a social & fiscal liberal vs. a social conservative & fiscal liberal). A large percentage of potential voters don’t feel comfortable in either party, and the libertarian side of me thinks, or hopes, that many of those “independents” are socially liberal but fiscally conservative.
By focusing on fiscal issues, the tea parties seemed to provide an alternate route, one that set social issues (few of which are really decided at the federal level anyway) aside. But too many Republican candidates made social issues a major part of their campaigns, thus alienating both Democrats and independents. Romney didn’t help by offering an inconsistent message, as often criticizing the president for cutting budgets, such as medicare and defense, as for spending money.
So the next two years look to be the same as the last two: Democrats in the White House and controlling the Senate while Republicans hold the House. Does that mean more gridlock, with Republicans opposing any tax increases and Democrats opposing any budget cuts?
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In the face of a fiscal cliff–meaning automatic budget cuts and tax increases if Congress doesn’t find another resolution–Obama hopes for a Grand Bargain in which Republicans accept some modest tax increases in exchange for some modest budget cuts. However, I suspect Republicans are immediately going to regroup for 2014 and 2016, and won’t want to commit themselves to such a bargain. Moreover, most of the push against a Grand Bargain is coming from liberals, not conservatives. So I suspect we will be seeing two more years of gridlock.
Take transportation, which Congress has to deal with again in 2014, the year the 2012 transportation bill expires. What would a Grand Bargain look like for reauthorization? A five-cent increase in gas taxes in exchange for cuts in some of the worst examples of pork? I don’t see it; increased gas taxes would just feed the pork barrel, and any cuts in pork would probably be restored in annual appropriations. Fiscal conservatives have nothing to gain by supporting such a Grand Bargain.
Does that mean the U.S. is in decline, as Der Spiegel says? Not necessarily. Elections today are no more contentious than they were between 1876 and 1900, when several presidential elections were decided by less than a percent of the vote and at least two of the electoral college winners lost the popular vote. Politics then were dirtier, or at least as dirty, as any time in American history.
The real threat to the future of the country is not political polarization but the huge fiscal hole Congress has dug, which means the real question is whether our economy can recover enough to ever fill up that hole. The standard free-market answer is that the uncertainty created by Obama’s overregulation and inconsistent attitudes towards business will prevent such a recovery. We can only hope that this is wrong.
On a local note, it appears that anti-light-rail candidates–Ludlow and Smith–have won election to the Clackamas County Commission in Oregon, while anti-streetcar candidates Studebaker, Bowerman, and O’Neill have won positions as Lake Oswego’s mayor and on its city council. In Honolulu, however, anti-rail candidate Ben Cayetano appears to be losing.
First of all, I want to say, that before the usual village idiots come in here and start ranting about “racist teabaggers”, Obama won, propelled to that victory by white people, not minorities. Due to my exposure to Obamacare taxation, I’m not particularly happy he did win, but it has nothing to do with his skin color.
Randal:
unfunded “current” liabilities of Social Security and Medicare: $222 trillion dollars. The Great Default is statistically inevitable. There is no escaping it. Truth has lost to political lies, but accounting can’t be evaded. Someone will be screwed, and government will take a huge fist in the face, credibility wise, when they cut off granny and those baby boomers.
The spending won’t stop; they can’t cut 100 billion from the budget, much less a trillion. And even if they did, it would not address the unfunded liabilities I noted, which require 222 TRILLION invested today, in the markets, to provide enough money to fund social security and medicare, both government run ponzi schemes.
My guess is that Romney will be happy he didn’t win in a few years, when the current and immediate past occupant of the White House will be tarred and feathered, deservedly, or not.
The important thing to do is consolidate control at the local level. One day, Washington’s checks won’t buy anything, and it will be up to people at the local level to rework the system from the ground up.
A government with a printing press and a mint and the power to set interest rates by definition cannot default. It has certainly gone that way for 236 years now, and the founding fathers were well aware of all the relevant economic arguments and issues, being well versed in James Stueart’s political economics and Ben Franklin’s case for mortgage backed paper currency.
The real theat of default is in our own mental capacity to deal with the issues in front of us, evidenced by pretended concern for imaginary non-issues like the national debt.
It doesn’t work that way. Certainly not when we want foreign creditors to continue buying our debt. If we try to inflate our way out of these debts, our creditors will simply demand more to compensate for the devalued currency. We can “set” interest rates anywhere we like, but we can’t force anyone to buy debt at those rates. Markets always have a corrective action for these types of situations.
Our founding fathers understood this, which is why they didn’t run up large debts and put themselves in such peril.
You have it entirely backwards. Foreigners don’t finance our debt. Rather, we supply foreigners highly desirable dollars in exchange for trade goods. Foreigners have no source of dollars except from us, and they must accept dollars if they want to sell into the US market, since we do not trade in Euro’s, Yen, Pounds, Remimbi, or various foreign style dollars as legal tender.
If they want to keep the dollars, they typically park them in Treasuries to earn a risk free return. Otherwise, they typically use them for their own foreign exchange, especially in oil and other highly desired international goods.
Treasury auctions are a carefully staged charade between the Treasury, Fed, and NYC Banks. There is never a possibility of the bonds not being sold that are being offered, because the deficit is really just an accounting identity, being the net of private savings and foreign trade. If foriegners and the private sector did not want more bonds (interest bearing dollar denominated savings), they would necessarily engage in enough other economic activity to eliminate the deficit via higher tax payments. Its impossible for it to work otherwise since all cash flows must balance out to zero. For example, say the entire rest of the world stopped wanting dollars and bonds. This would mean the balance of trade would need to go to zero – relatively more exports and less imports. A reduction in net imports would mean either Americans were making more things for sale abroad (meaning they are wealthier), or they were buying less foreign goods (trade austerity). If domestic buyers also did not want bonds, this would mean that the private sector did not want to save money and instead either wanted to pay down its debts or to use savings for consumption. If both things happen at once with no change in net private consumption, the deficit necessarily disappears.
The Founding Fathers, of course, ran up enormous debts. That was the primary motivating factor in forming the US Constitution – to take on and monetize these debts in order to create a sovereign currency supply, which was the basis of much of Stueart’s (and Hamilton’s) thinking. Their other motivation was to create a currency via free minting, where any person with precious metal could have it turned into US legal tender currency at the nearest US Mint. Today we would call that running the printing press.
More encouraging news on the local (Portland) front. Clark County, WA, voters soundly defeated raising the sales tax to pay for operating an extension of Portland’s MAX light rail into Vancouver, WA. It’s hard to see where else they’ll get the money, but no doubt they’ll try to find something. More bad news for light-rail proponents: David Madore was elected the county commission (and will also serve on the transit agency board). Madore’s outright hostility to light rail (and bridge tolls) was the cornerstone of his campaign. Tom Mielke, a light-rail skeptic, was also reelected to the commission, leaving only one light rail proponent on the 3-person board. And further, our US representative, Jaime Herrera Beutler, has vowed to oppose any funding scheme for light rail that hasn’t been approved by the voters.
The reality is that a majority of Americans are socialists and want a European-style socialist democracy. And they are getting it. As Greece shows, the long-term trend for a socialist democracy is economic decline. The ancient Greek philosophers taught that all forms of government are unstable and eventually morph into something else. The next stage for a socialist democracy is some sort of tyranny, hopefully not totalitarian: Franco not Stalin.
The Republican party is dead. It reached its peak with George W. Bush and has been in decline ever since. If it is to survive as a viable alternative, it will have to become a socialist party itself, like the Christian Democrat parties of Europe.
I suspect most Americans are socially liberal but that a majority are not fiscally liberal (“socialists”), though it may be a small majority. However, when confronted with fiscally and socially conservative candidates, many voters let their social beliefs prevail over their fiscal ones.
Unfortunately, Romney was neither socially nor fiscally conservative, but he allowed himself to be tarred with the socially conservative brush to gain the support of the Republican’s right wing while he never (despite making Ryan his VP) was consistently fiscally conservative enough to make that the major campaign issue.
Obama didn’t win; Republicans lost.
Randall:
There are LOTS of fiscal conservative/social liberals, especially up north. They are what used to be called Eisenhower/Rockefeller/Establishment Republicans. Most suburbanites up north fit this mold.
You are truly deluding yourself if you think Obama didn’t win. The community organizer from Chicago out-organized a major corporate CEO and a successful Senator and son of a US Admiral and won the biggest percentages of the vote twice in a row since 1988, and is the only Democrat aside from Carter to win majorities of the vote since FDR. OFA is a truly magnificent organization in terms of what it accomplished politically. Whatever your thoughts about Obama, his political operation is a sight to behold.
Republicans have much to learn, adopt, and ponder before they will catch up. They shouldn’t delude themselves with their gerrymandered majority in the House.
OFA is a truly magnificent organization in terms of what it accomplished politically. Whatever your thoughts about Obama, his political operation is a sight to behold.
You guys are a hoot. Apparently now “organization” is a euphemism for spending enormous amounts of money raised from wealthy donors and corporations. I wonder how the base feels about that (or if they even know)?
Obama didn’t win; Republicans lost.
Yes and no.
Repubs had an opportunity to win, which they lost by having no one to run against the POTUS, then fielding a third-rate campaign staff to prop up a third-rate candidate.
But BHO had them on their back foot several times and took advantage of the dozens of mistakes the campaign made (not to mention the troglodytes Akin, Mourdock et al that poisoned the national message). Surely if BHO had shown up at the first debate it would have been over weeks earlier, but you still have to play until the last out, and he did.
DS
Dan:
This campaign was over a long time ago. Many people were able to predict the precise outcome months in advance. I certainly told what was coming to my diehard Tea Party in-laws at Memorial Day, and that was after they didn’t listen to me over the holidays in 2011.
The national margins and states won were realtively easy once you realized what the Republican campaign really boiled down to right from the beginning – voting out the black guy. All you needed to know was what parts of the country make up the Racist Republic of Lower Wingnutistan – the interior south, mountain west, Arizona, Appalachia, Indiana (home of the KKK!) where any generic Republican who happened to win the primaries could count on getting 70-90% of the white vote as a protest against the black man in the White House, and that Obama had lead consistently by 2-3 points in the polls (in an election he is won by around 2.5%) no matter who the opponent was. At that margin, it was clear the generic Republican would lose maringal lean Republican states like Forida, Virginia, Ohio, and Colorado, and thus the election, and would fail to carry Pennsylvania, Iowa, Wisconsin, Oregon, and Minnesota, where enough white voters are appalled by outright racist appeals for votes and thus would split the white vote versus the white unity in the south and mountain west.
Then once the Republicans went full hog demonizing the Hispanics along with the black President, they were guaranteed to lose. If Romney had won Bush’s or even McCain’s margins with Hispanics, he and Ann would be measuring oval office drapes today.
Don’t overly complicate the whole story. Its a simple story of fearful whites who are a slight minority in the country.
Andrew:
I fully agree that the third-rate candidate should not have won. He got closer than he should have (therefore wasting more billionaire’s money by that grifter Rove) and the American public endured more ad buys because of the first debate (and the remaining people who identify with the party got a much larger disappointment because the Noise Machine kept lying to them).
My only concern was the vast disenfranchisement of non-whites in PA, FL and esp OH, where it was closer than it should have been thanks to the Repubs.
DS
Dan:
There was no disenfranchisement, although it certainly was attempted. Total myth. Philadelphia, for example, still turned out huge margins of black voters in the inner city wards that put Obama over the top state wide – even though there was the usual relatively low 60% registered voter turnout in thecity. Ohio had more black voters than in the last election. The whole subject of urban blacks voting is just an excuse constantly brought up by the Republican Party to mask its overall weakness (multiple voting fraud, wah! – as if people really have time to stand for hours in multiple lines to vote).
The election looks to be ending up around D+3 in the popular vote once they finish counting California and Washington. Florida is an R+2 state, Ohio an R+1 state, and Pennsylvania a D+2 state in partisan lean. “Shockingly” Obama is winning Florida by 1, Ohio by 2, and Pennsylvania by 5, just like the math of the partisan lean would predict. It was always a base election with a very opinion hardened electorate and stable polling. Also, Obama had an electoral college advantage in that he would have won even while losing nationwide by 1.5% – the tipping point state in the electoral college was Colorado, which he won by 4.7%. Credit this to demonizing Hispanics in Nevada, Colorado, and New Mexico – all states that the spanish speaking Jorge Bush carried. The Hispanic (really Mexican) demonization directly cost Republicans about 2% of the vote. Pretty much as dumb as legitimate God’s will rape comments.
Once again, my Republican party ably lived up to its moniker as “the stupid party”.
The United States does appear to be in decline since congress will not do anything serious about the deficit, and the necessary compromise to run a country effectively is now being punished, especially by the right. Signing a pledge not to raise taxes is irresponsible. Politicians should be signing pledges to balance the budget. Realistically a balanced budget in the next eight years is going to require probably a dollar increase in taxes for every four dollars in spending reductions. I left the republican party when they were so irresponsible in 2001 to throw out the contact with America and not pass a balanced budget amendment after they were given a balanced budget in 2000. Republicans then comfortably went on to re-nominate then re-elect Vice president Cheney who was saying that “deficits didn’t matter” when he could easily have been forced to retire with the excuse he had heart problems.
As for “socialist” Europe, it depends on the country. Rather than concentrating on Greece, look at Germany. Right now German’s economical model seems excellent having maintained their industrial base, kept the training and skill level of their workforce high, and having health care and pensions for all. We should look to a model such as that, but without wasting money on some of the rail projects they have. However, they have also built an excellent freeway system. Certainly politically the US is starting to resemble Greece more than Germany, and that should be the worry.
As for “socialist†Europe, it depends on the country.
It sure does.
Rather than concentrating on Greece, look at Germany. Right now German’s economical model seems excellent having maintained their industrial base, kept the training and skill level of their workforce high, and having health care and pensions for all.
I modestly suggest considering Denmark, Finland and Sweden – and the former Soviet Russian colony of Estonia. All of these (relatively) small nations have emphasized economic freedom and development.
We should look to a model such as that, but without wasting money on some of the rail projects they have. However, they have also built an excellent freeway system. Certainly politically the US is starting to resemble Greece more than Germany, and that should be the worry.
I disagree regarding Greece. The U.S. is a much more diverse and powerful nation than Greece ever will be.
The Antiplanner wrote:
The real decline is in the Republican Party, which couldn’t manage to capture the White House or the Senate despite high unemployment and other economic problems. Republicans began shooting themselves in their collective feet early in the last decade when they made immigration a big issue, thus earning the enmity of Latinos, the nation’s fastest-growing and second-most important ethnic group.
The GOP position on abortion and family planning (and this was especially evident in Virginia, Indiana and Missouri, where supposed GOP shoo-ins George Felix Allen, Richard Mourdock and Todd Akin all went down to defeat in Senate elections).
I voted for President Obama’s re-election, but not because of his administration’s frequently clueless positions on land use and transportation. But cluelessness is not limited to the president. Consider that Virginia’s George Felix Allen, when he was in the U.S. Senate and during his term as Virginia governor in the 1990’s, supported the Dulles Rail project.
The Republican Party did itself no favors by playing the game of racial and ethnic identity politics (including Romney’s call for “self-deportation” of [illegal] immigrants) which helped lead to victories by Obama in Florida and Virginia (states that were once considered reliably Republican at the presidential level). Like it or not talk about “self-deportation” does not play well with U.S. citizens who happen to be of Hispanic descent.
I really hope that many who believe in economic freedoms would consider rejecting the Republican Party’s pandering to racism and religious fundamentalist ideology (that would run the First Amendment through a shredding machine, were they able to get away with it).
Unfortunately, our two-party system too often limits voters to a choice between a social & fiscal liberal vs. a social & fiscal conservative (or, worse, a social & fiscal liberal vs. a social conservative & fiscal liberal). A large percentage of potential voters don’t feel comfortable in either party, and the libertarian side of me thinks, or hopes, that many of those “independents†are socially liberal but fiscally conservative.
Consider that Mrs. Margaret Hilda Thatcher led her Conservative Party to several election victories in the United Kingdom emphasizing economic freedom and privatizing government “businesses,” but stayed far away from divisive issues like abortion, efforts to limit family planning and racial identity politics. Her party’s position on those issues would qualify her as a liberal in the United States, yet she is widely admired by persons that want economic freedom.
Unknown to most U.S. citizens, the Socialist Party in Sweden (that’s right, Sweden) took the lead in the 1990’s in implementing economic reforms that Milton Friedman would be proud of, and those reforms continue to this day under a center-right coalition government.
All great points. The problem for the republicans that, above all else, want to expand economic freedoms is that they have to win a primary. The GOP primary process is one where the candidates have to pander to racism and religious fundamentalist ideology.
This is exactly what we saw with Gov. Romney. He had to tip-toe around and give the American Taliban what it wanted (despite the fact that his previous record and stances were moderate and rejected far right religious and racist ideologies) to get the GOP nomination. Then he had to figure out how to walk all of the back to win the general election. It’s too much to ask of one candidate.
Um, Governor Romney is a bishop in a far right racist religous cult, the Mormons, which still teaches Noah’s curse of Cannan style black inferiority and only allowed blacks to become ministers in 1978.
Post election articles about the Governor’s positions note that it was his decision, for example, to take up a far right stance on immigration, not his advisors. They counseled him against these stances, but he took them up in the primary AND defended them during the general election. Articles are also available telling about how Romney in the past while seeking power in Massachusetts consulted with the brethren in Salt Lake City concerning the acceptability of dissembling on social issues. He received their blessing to lie for the sake of power, and misrepresent himself as a liberal Republican.
Governor Romney had a clear opportunity to lead from the front on a charged racial issue in this election – he could have forcibly condemned Republican attempts to reinstitute the poll tax in the form of voter ID laws. After all, it was northern moderate Republicans like his supposed public persona who fought to secure the right of blacks to vote All I heard was crickets. The Governor’s campaign even had Dixie played in Colorado at a campaign rally. He voluntarily cut commercials supporting Richard “rape is God’s will” Mourdock.
I think the positions Governor Romney took represent who he really is and what he really believes. The simplest explanation of human behavior is that a man acts as he thinks.
Much of the right wing, including Governor Romney, believes in apocalyptic pseudo-religious nonsense like the White Horse Prophecy and the Vision of George Washington. I think Governor Romney fit right in with these people once they really got to know him, and it was precisely these messianic self-delusions of being America’s savior that prevented him from running a competent campaign focused on the issues America actually cared about – unemployment, high prices, and health care.
Instead, he lived in his little bubble world of self-fulfilling prophecies and polling illusions, and took the rest of the party in with him.
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-250_162-57547239/adviser-romney-shellshocked-by-loss/?tag=categoryDoorLead;catDoorHero
Andrew wrote:
Um, Governor Romney is a bishop in a far right racist religous cult, the Mormons, which still teaches Noah’s curse of Cannan style black inferiority and only allowed blacks to become ministers in 1978.
As I understand it, the Mormon Church has no ministers (since all of its preachers and bishops and the like are laypeople). Mormon teaching prior to 1978 was that people of color could join the church, but men of color could not hold its Aaronic and Melchizedek Priesthoods, of great importance to all Mormons.
I did not agree with the stance that the Church took against people of color, and I do not agree with its way of treating women as second class citizens (barred from holding those Priesthoods).
But you seem to be singling the Mormon Church out for special scorn, and while I do not agree with many of its teachings, I do believe that the Church has a right to exist and operate under the First Amendment, and for that reason, I have major problems with your words above. If you want to talk about cults, then I suggest that the late Rev. Sun Myung Moon’s Unification Church is a good place to start.
Post election articles about the Governor’s positions note that it was his decision, for example, to take up a far right stance on immigration, not his advisors. They counseled him against these stances, but he took them up in the primary AND defended them during the general election. Articles are also available telling about how Romney in the past while seeking power in Massachusetts consulted with the brethren in Salt Lake City concerning the acceptability of dissembling on social issues. He received their blessing to lie for the sake of power, and misrepresent himself as a liberal Republican.
He was in part forced to take up those positions thanks to his Republic Party 2012 primary season challengers such as Trump, Gingrich and Perry.
I agree that Romney’s unwillingness to endorse comprehensive immigration reform helped to sink his bid to be President.
Regarding Romney’s dealings with his church, I don’t know anything about that, and given that the First Amendment applies to everyone in the United States (including Republic Party nominees for the office of President, I don’t see it as a major concern).
Governor Romney had a clear opportunity to lead from the front on a charged racial issue in this election – he could have forcibly condemned Republican attempts to reinstitute the poll tax in the form of voter ID laws. After all, it was northern moderate Republicans like his supposed public persona who fought to secure the right of blacks to vote All I heard was crickets. The Governor’s campaign even had Dixie played in Colorado at a campaign rally. He voluntarily cut commercials supporting Richard “rape is God’s will†Mourdock.
The above is correct. But pandering to the politics of racial identity are nothing new in the Republic Party. I don’t excuse Romney for failing to cut-off the racists in his own party (President Johnson effectively did that in 1964 when he signed the Civil Rights Act), but this has been going on since Dick Nixon was re-elected to the White House in 1972 in large part thanks to his [racist] Southern Strategy.
I think the positions Governor Romney took represent who he really is and what he really believes. The simplest explanation of human behavior is that a man acts as he thinks.
I am not willing to call Romney a racist just because he belongs to the LDS Church. I should mention that the LDS sends missionaries to parts of the District of Columbia and Baltimore City that are close to 100% African-American.
The LDS Church has also been a major promoter of rail transit boondoggles in its “home” city of Salt Lake City, Utah, and I understand it has also been supportive of land use schemes that might be called Smart Growth for many years.
Much of the right wing, including Governor Romney, believes in apocalyptic pseudo-religious nonsense like the White Horse Prophecy and the Vision of George Washington. I think Governor Romney fit right in with these people once they really got to know him, and it was precisely these messianic self-delusions of being America’s savior that prevented him from running a competent campaign focused on the issues America actually cared about – unemployment, high prices, and health care.
I agree with you that Romney did a poor job of communicating his vision for the United States, in spite of having spent billions of dollars on mostly negative television campaign ads.
Instead, he lived in his little bubble world of self-fulfilling prophecies and polling illusions, and took the rest of the party in with him.
I think that’s a problem with his party. Too many of its supporters live in a world where the only network news is FoX, the only newspapers to be believed are the late Rev. Moon’s Washington Times and the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal, and racist gasbags like Glenn Beck (a former DJ on WPGC Radio in Prince George’s County, Maryland with essentially no postsecondary education) are the only source of commentary (never mind that FoX effectively fired Beck).
Well, the re-election of President Obama may staunch the decline. And Jim and Steve now have a better chance of getting hitched. And firing up a joint at the wedding reception. I’m good with that.
Still, I’m not inclined to move back to the US. My Swiss social benefits, public transport options and low taxes are just too appealing. European “socialism” yields a pretty good lifestyle. The US, OTOH, increasingly feels like a 3rd world country to me these days.
A question for those predicting impending doom and gloom because of the US debt: if it’s such an urgent problem, why are yields on US T bonds at historic lows? Institutional investors don’t seem overly concerned.
gecko55 wrote:
A question for those predicting impending doom and gloom because of the US debt: if it’s such an urgent problem, why are yields on US T bonds at historic lows? Institutional investors don’t seem overly concerned.
That is an excellent observation.
In general I agree that markets are more efficient and more equitable allocators of scarce resources than politics. But I don’t think markets are perfect, and in particular I don’t think financial markets always accurately value bonds and other assets. If they did, there would never be any bubbles, but obviously there have been many bubbles.
My opinion that is that the bubble economy during the Bush (44) years is that it was based on two things:
(1) Excessive government regulation in areas of planning and land use (especially Smart Growth and related schemes – consider especially Paul Krugman’s superb 2005 op-ed article where he coined the phrases “zoned zone” and “flatland”); and
(2) Not enough government regulation in the area of housing finance (zero-down payments and no verification of employment and income).
Is that contradictory? Yes!
Sorry, meant Bush (43) years.
I believe the yields are low because the fed loans money to banks at 0% and the banks then buy the feds bonds at 3%. The banks don’t lend money to the private sector because they have a locked in 3% spread that is 100% insured. The fed of course is merely printing the money it loans to the banks. If the economy ever does take off, and the private sector actually tries to borrow money that the government needs to finance the deficit, rates will skyrocket.
If the economy ever does take off, and the private sector actually tries to borrow money that the government needs to finance the deficit, rates will skyrocket.
This is a matter of economic identity. The pirvate sector will only want to borrow money when it is paying enough taxes for the government to not need to borrow so much money.
Note when the huge debt bubble went on steroids – when we balanced the budget in the mid-1990’s, meaning the private sector was paying more to FedGov than it was getting back.
To make up for the consumption it wanted to maintain in the face of high tax payments, the private sector borrowed money and looked for get rich quick bubble schemes like tech stocks and house flipping.
Google “sectoral balance”
“…the tea parties seemed to provide an alternate route, one that set social issues aside…”
Not from where I’m standing. Down here the Tea Party is all about “values.” I wish the Tea Party had more libertarian tendencies, but make no mistake, the Tea Party I see in my district wants to limit the personal liberty of certain select groups.
I also think the statement “Obama didn’t win; Republicans lost,” is probably the most accurate account of what happened last night. As the baby boomers fade into the sunset it looks like the republican party is right there with them. Republicans lost because they have completely alienated all of the emergent voting groups in America.
This aint your grandpa’s country anymore.
If the Tea Party would get rid of the identity politics (including hatred of President Obama) and stick to economic deregulation, I would have a lot more respect for it.
But many, many of the so-called Tea Party activists are old White People who want to keep those government transfer payments (Social Security) coming and secure their own lifetime federal health insurance (Medicare) while denying it to others.
So the next two years look to be the same as the last two: Democrats in the White House and controlling the Senate while Republicans hold the House. Does that mean more gridlock, with Republicans opposing any tax increases and Democrats opposing any budget cuts?
Well, I think Rove has been exposed as a cheap grifter and the teapurty has been chastened, so that is fewer complications for Boehner. Whether that translates into action is anyone’s guess as DC isn’t like out here. I think BHO failed to make the Rs pay a political price for their intransigence and damage to the country, so if I had to wager, I’d say some stuff will get done at the margins, but no real progress.
And I do think we are in decline, but it is not irreversible. We have resources, and vast oceans on two sides. We have grown content and fat and lazy. Something has to change.
DS
One positive outcome of this election is that old fashioned garden-variety racism–and misogyny–was a key factor in the Repugs losing the presidency and control of the Senate.
This is a long overdue result, and hopefully is a trend. Contrary to the resident troll’s denial of reality, there are very good reasons why black people voted 97% for Obama, as if in a Soviet mock election (the only margins like that I’ve seen in my 35+ years as a voter were in the 1970’s in most Northern California counties in opposition to the Peripheral Canal boondoggle).
So, contrary to the resident troll (BTW, Metrosucky, STFU in advance), racism had its role in this election, but thankfully lost big. I’m also glad to see that at least some of the smarter conservatives at least gets this point:
If Republicans want to win the presidency ever again, they’ve got a long road ahead—but they need to start by making non-white friends fast. Michael Medved reports. From http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/11/07/three-lessons-the-gop-should-take-away-from-last-night-s-defeat.html.
I agree with Medved in this article. But I seriously doubt the hard right will allow the intelligent conservatives to rebuild their movement. This would be unfortunate, since many conservatives who aren’t hard right religious, social or anti-urban political warriors have a number of useful ideas.
By this I mean the kind of conservatives who run these websites, among a few others: http://www.frontporchrepublic.com/ and http://www.strongtowns.org/journal/.
And of course, Paul Weyrich’s one sensible legacy in favor of quality public transit that lives on at http://www.theamericanconservative.com/cpt/. In particular, if only for the entertainment (as well as educational) value, I hope the anti-rail peanut gallery here finds Bill Lind’s latest article quite frustrating: http://www.theamericanconservative.com/cpt/2012/10/25/pigs-fly/. [Randal, sorry for the troll, but they deserve it].
Hey look, the village idiot did step in to scream about racism. Remind me again what racism has to do with transit? Why is he a specialist in both? Did he get a degree in racism studies, light rail shilling, and a PHD in assholetude at CSU?
Oh that note, since Mikey loves trains so much, especially light rail, I guess we should call him a racist. Light rail always reduces bus service, which poor minorities tend to use, and redistributes the money to favored areas of the city frequented by well to do liberals.
Now in what world is that not racist? I wonder…
Metrosucky, why are you so obsessed by race?
I make simple factual statements about race and you take the bait. If you were a fish, you’d be caught every time.
Dipshit. Projecting all your characteristics onto others. Again. As Bugs Bunny would say, “what a maroon!”
Certainly the political system is having its problems, but Der Spiegel‘s prescription of going further into debt to build high-speed trains and other European follies is a dubious way to fix those problems.
What an utterly predictable prescription. With its domestic market already built out, German manufacturers like Siemens continue to search the globe for suckers to buy their expensive and useless technology. With China’s growth starting to slow down they are getting nervous and are looking for another mark to take its place.
“their expensive and useless technology.” Agreed! Riding Siemens’ modern, clean trains is so much my 2nd option. The bike is certainly cheaper and more pleasant.
With its domestic market already built out, German manufacturers like Siemens continue to search the globe for suckers to buy their expensive and useless technology.
I am not especially enthused about Siemens passenger rail vehicles (which are sometimes touted on the all-news radio station that serves Washington, D.C. featuring the rail system that Siemens apparently sold to Charlotte, N.C., probably in the hope that Members of Congress will listen to them and provide more federal tax dollars to urban street railways and light rail systems and rolling stock built by them).
But Siemens does build other things that I think are useful in the U.S. market (including high-voltage power transmission systems).
And there are other German companies that build transportation equipment that you might have a higher opinion of, including Daimler AG; Bayerische Motoren Werke AG; and Volkswagen Group.
CP, I wouldn’t say Siemens is evil or anything like that (not implying you did) for building and promoting the light rail vehicles. They saw government had a lust for it, and they spotted an opportunity for immense profits. Basically, they’re just doing what comes naturally. It’s government that is to blame for these boondoggles. Every contractor in the world would dig ditches, and then fill them back up, if government or anyone else paid for it.
metrosucks wrote:
CP, I wouldn’t say Siemens is evil or anything like that (not implying you did) for building and promoting the light rail vehicles.
O.K. As an aside, I believe Siemens built the original light rail vehicles used on the one decently good light rail line built in the United States since 1970, that being the line between downtown San Diego, Calif. and San Ysidro.
They saw government had a lust for it, and they spotted an opportunity for immense profits.
Though at least there are different firms that build light rail vehicles, so hopefully there is some competition among them, though I do recall that one of them (I don’t think it was Siemens – I think it was AnsaldoBreda S.p.A.) offered to build a plant in Los Angeles County, Calif. if they could somehow be assured that rail transit properties in California would sole-source purchase vehicles built at that factory (I don’t think the Federal Transit Administration’s rules would allow such arrangements).
Basically, they’re just doing what comes naturally. It’s government that is to blame for these boondoggles. Every contractor in the world would dig ditches, and then fill them back up, if government or anyone else paid for it.
Well, any major highway construction project is likely to involve some digging of ditches and then filling them back up again!
I don’t understand the rationale that the nation is in decline because we had a close election. The two presidential candidates were not very different on all the major issues, and the public endorsed those positions with a very close to even vote.
Both candidates had pretty much the same foreign policy after Obama adopted all the Bush policies in office. Both candidates would have huge debt and just a small difference in their deficit. Obama wanted to reduce the deficit by just 10% with higher taxes on the rich, but that isn’t much of a difference.
Both candidates would have had to deal with implementing all the costs and headaches of Obamacare as it comes online in the next few years. Neither party can undo Obamacare as the Congress is divided.
Just about all Presidential second terms are less successful than the first term, and usually some scandals arise that make them disastrous. If nothing else, the partisans spend the second term pushing a more extreme agenda as lame ducks.