The Commentariat -- August 8
We are now in our fourth day with no comments facility, and I have moved past anger to despair. Poor, pitiful us. On a grander scale, speaking poor pitiful us ...
Paul Krugman: "... there is no reason to take Friday’s downgrade of America seriously. These are the last people whose judgment we should trust. And yet America does have big problems." ...
... John Cassidy of the New Yorker looks at both sides & disagrees with Krugman: "In focussing attention on the dysfunction in Washington and making the participants pay a price, S. & P. was performing a valuable public service." ...
... The Tea Party Bites the Hand that Feeds It. James Surowiecki of the New Yorker: "Once games of chicken become the accepted way to resolve budget issues, the U.S. economy will become a much riskier place." But the deficit deal "hurts business in more concrete ways." ...
... "Bleak Prospects." Krugman: "The economics team at Goldman Sachs, whom I’ve always found very good, now say ... 'We have lowered our growth forecast further and now expect real GDP to increase just 2%-2½% (annualized) through the end of 2012.'" ...
... ** Bill Saporito of Time: why Congress & S&P deserve each other: Congress gave S&P its power, refused to rein in S&P after its irresponsibility played a huge role in the 2008 financial collapse. The kicker, of course, is that the taxpayer pays for both S&P's & Congress's misdeeds: "... a jump of a single percentage point in the interest rate the federal government pays [which is likely because of the S&P downgrade] will more than wipe out the savings anticipated by the current debt deal."
... Charlotte Rampell of the New York Times: "If the economy falls back into recession, as many economists are now warning, the bloodletting could be a lot more painful than the last time around.... The economy is much weaker than it was at the outset of the last recession in December 2007, with most major measures of economic health — including jobs, incomes, output and industrial production — worse today than they were back then. And growth has been so weak that almost no ground has been recouped, even though a recovery technically started in June 2009."
CW: Why does Not-President Kerry have more guts that President Obama? Heather of Crooks & Liars has the transcript.
Worst Ever. Steve Benen on the Republicans' hostage-taking of the U.S.'s "full faith and credit": "If we stick to domestic politics since the Civil War, can any other major-party scandal match this? Nothing comes to mind."
John Cassidy: "A substantive jobs bill is what’s called for, and the White House should send one to Congress as soon as possible after it returns from the summer recess.... The real barrier to a meaningful jobs program is not the markets or the ratings agencies but the G.O.P. If the Republicans were to vote down a jobs bill, however, it would hurt not only the economy but also, potentially, their own prospects. Meanwhile, for a Democratic President, especially one who has disappointed many of his supporters, campaigning as someone who fought to create jobs, rather than as a copycat budget cutter, would seem a winning strategy."
** U.S. Companies to U.S.: "Buh-Bye." Don Lee of the Los Angeles Times: "Many major U.S. companies are making big plans to expand overseas even as some of them announce new layoffs at home, and there's a chilling reason why: They're beginning to give up on the American consumer as a source of future growth.... In effect, as many corporate executives look ahead, the United States has a diminishing place in their thinking.... That shifting focus is one reason new job growth here has slowed to a trickle in recent months.... Big multinational firms are adding droves of sales and marketing employees in countries such as China, India and Brazil — even as many cut back or hold the line on employment and other spending at home." CW: this helps explain why American banksters & other corporate leaders continue to ask for & get tax breaks that worsen the American economy & increase income disparity. They don't give a flying fuck about the health of the U.S. economy or the U.S. consumer because they have new opportunities elsewhere. Let's ask GE CEO Jeff Immelt, the head of Obama's so-called jobs council, what to do.
CW: I missed Karen Garcia's analysis of President Obama's weekly address, but it's still worth a read, not the least because of the remarks by Dennis Kucinich, whom Garcia quotes at length.
David Carr of the New York Times: "... a News Corporation [Murdoch, et al.] division has twice come under significant civil and criminal investigations in the United States, but neither inquiry went anywhere.... Both cases involve News America Marketing, an obscure but lucrative division of the News Corporation that is a big player in the business of retail marketing, including newspaper coupon inserts and in-store promotions. The company has come under scrutiny for a pattern of conduct that includes below-cost pricing, paying customers not to do business with competitors and accusations of computer hacking."
Junior. Sheryl Gay Stolberg of the New York Times on how Utah billionaire & philanthropist Jon Huntsman, Sr. gave his able son a political career.
Right Wing World *
Ryan Lizza of the New Yorker profiles Michele Bachmann: "Bachmann belongs to a generation of Christian conservatives whose views have been shaped by institutions, tracts, and leaders not commonly known to secular Americans, or even to most Christians. Her campaign is going to be a conversation about a set of beliefs more extreme than those of any American politician of her stature...." CW: It's a long article. Enjoy. Here's a fun bit about Bachmann's I.R.S. career:
Definition of Chutzpah. This president has destroyed the credit rating of the United States through his failed economic policies and his inability to control government spending by raising the debt ceiling. President Obama is destroying the foundations of the U.S. economy one beam at a time. -- Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) on S&P's lowering the U.S. credit rating. Bachmann refused to vote for any hike in the debt limit & said default would be no big deal. ...
... How to Get Good Press: Doh! Buy the Press. Maggie Haberman of Politico: New Hampshire radio host Jeff Chidester (or Chidestar) interviewed presidential contenders, including Michele Bachmann. You can bet it was a softball "interview" of Bachmann, since she was paying him as a consultant & shortly thereafter hired him as her New Hampshire campaign manager.
* Where every stupid thing you do is somebody else's fault & "ethics" is not in the dictionary.
Local News
Rob O'Dell of the (Tucson) Arizona Daily Star: " Banks that took bailout money were supposed to use part of the taxpayer-provided cash infusion to help customers avoid foreclosure, but instead, many of them are buying up struggling homeowners' tax debt. The tax liens earn banks up to 16 percent interest, and if homeowners don't repay their debt within three years the banks can foreclose on their homes. Since the bailout in 2008, major banks have bought nearly 6,000 tax liens in Pima County that total at least $15.8 million." There's a related item here. Thanks to Fred D. for the link. CW: if they're doing it Arizona, you can bet they're doing it in all 50 states.
News Ledes
Reuters: "Stock index futures tracked a sharp drop in global equity markets on Monday after rating agency Standard & Poor's cut the top-tier AAA credit rating of the United States, rattling already-jittery investors." ...
... New York Times Update: "Wall Street stocks plummeted on Monday as skittish investors, already concerned about the economy, struggled to work out the implications of an unprecedented downgrade of the United States government’s credit rating and sought safer places to put their money."
AP: "A besieged Syrian city came under fresh artillery fire early Monday as a deadly military assault left President Bashar Assad's regime increasingly isolated, with Arab nations forcefully joining the international chorus of condemnation for the first time. The renewed violence in the eastern city of Deir el-Zour comes a day after at least 42 people were killed there in an intensifying government crackdown on protesters." Here's Al Jazeera's liveblog.
New York Times: "Mark O. Hatfield, a liberal Republican who challenged his party’s positions on the Vietnam War and on a balanced-budget amendment to the Constitution during his 30 years as a Senator from Oregon, died on Sunday in Portland, Ore. He was 89." The Oregonian's obituary is here.
Share Article