The Commentariat -- Dec. 31, 2012
Cliff Notes
Jonathan Weisman of the New York Times @ 2:06 pm ET: "Republicans responded to the president’s statement angrily, accusing him of 'moving the goal posts' just when a deal was in reach."
President Obama spoke about the fiscal cliff at about 1:35 pm ET today, saying an agreement was "within sight," but "not done":
Lori Montgomery & Paul Kane of the Washington Post: "Vice President Biden and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell were close to a deal Monday to cancel historic tax hikes for most Americans. But they were still hung up on spending, with Democrats resisting a Republican proposal to delay automatic spending cuts for just three months."
John Bresnahan, et al., of Politico: "Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Vice President Joe Biden engaged in furious overnight negotiations to avert the fiscal cliff and made major progress toward a year-end tax deal, giving sudden hope to high-stakes talks that had been on the brink of collapse, according to sources familiar with the discussion." ...
... New York Times story, by Jonathan Weisman, here.
Lori Montgomery & Paul Kane of the Washington Post: "Vice President Biden and Sen. Mitch McConnell were locked in urgent talks late Sunday over the 'fiscal cliff' after Democrats offered several significant concessions on taxes, including a proposal to raise rates only on earnings over $450,000 a year.... Democrats abandoned their earlier demand to raise tax rates on household income over $250,000 a year...." ...
... Jonathan Chait of New York: "The erosion [of Obama's 'bright line' on tax cuts] signals not only a major substantive problem in its own right, but it also raises disturbing questions about Obama's ability to handle his entire second term agenda.... Obama may think his conciliatory approach has helped avoid economic chaos. Instead, he is courting it." CW: I thought Biden was the negotiator. Whose bright idea was it to concede for no good reason?
Jonathan Weisman & John Broder of the New York Times: "Negotiations over a last-ditch agreement to head off large tax increases and sweeping spending cuts in the new year appeared to resume on Sunday afternoon after Republican senators withdrew a demand that any deal must include a new way of calculating inflation that would lower payments to beneficiary programs like Social Security and slow their growth." CW: that is some good news. ...
... Update. New lede: "Senate leaders on Sunday failed to produce a fiscal deal with just hours to go before large tax increases and spending cuts were to begin taking effect on New Year's Day, despite a round of volatile negotiations over the weekend and an attempt by Vice President Joseph R. Biden to intervene.
Lori Montgomery, et al., of the Washington Post: "Still no deal. There were signs of renewed effort in the talks to resolve the 'fiscal cliff' crisis late Sunday afternoon. For one thing, direct talks had begun between Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Vice President Biden. Republicans exiting a mid-afternoon caucus meeting said that McConnell had excused himself to take a call from the vice president."
The Post is liveblogging negotiation "news."
Zachary Goldfarb & Rosalind Helderman of the Washington Post: "For all the posturing of the last few weeks, both sides see a measure of political upside in going over the 'fiscal cliff' -- or, at the least, an advantage in waiting until the last minute, since they want to avoid drawing the ire of their most loyal supporters by appearing to cave too quickly.... Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) on Sunday reiterated a view she has pressed repeatedly with her Democratic colleagues: Going over the cliff is better than agreeing to a bad bargain."
Dion Nissenbaum & Damian Paletta of the Wall Street Journal report that "The Pentagon is preparing to notify its entire civilian workforce to prepare for furloughs if Congress and President Barack Obama are unable to reach a deal before Jan. 2 to avert automatic spending cuts. A senior defense official said Sunday that the Pentagon would notify 800,000 civilian workers to brace for furloughs in the new year, meaning the workers would be ordered to take mandatory leave without pay for a certain period." CW: The story is subscriber-firewalled, so I can't link it for you, but if you Google "pentagon rolling layoffs" & click on the Journal story, you can read it. (This is a method that often -- tho not always -- works for stories trapped behind a paywall. I think Google will allow you to do this a limited number of times over some prescribed period, but I've never hit my limit.)
Nelson Schwartz of the New York Times writes a level-headed piece on the consequences of the tax-&-spending battle: For one thing, "In the event no compromise is found..., the Congressional Budget Office and many private economists warn that the sudden pullback in spending and the rise in taxes would push the economy into recession in the first half of the year.... The economy could shrink by 0.5 percent over all of 2013.... 'If we have a recession, it's unforgivable,' said Bernard Baumohl, chief global economist at the Economic Outlook Group. 'For the first time in modern history, we will have a self-inflicted recession in the U.S.'" ...
... The Times also has a helpful chart about what will happen if an agreement isn't reached. One feature of the sequestration that has received little attention: payments to Medicare providers will drop by 27 percent. CW: I think this could matter not just to doctors, but to the public, if many doctors decide not to take new Medicare patients.
Paul Krugman whacks Fix the Debt: "What's happening now is that all the [Pete] Peterson-funded groups are trying to exploit the fiscal cliff to push a benefit-cutting agenda that has nothing to do with the current crisis, using artfully deceptive language ... letter -- to hide the bait and switch. [Starbucks CEO Howard] Schultz apparently fell for the con. But the rest of us shouldn't."
Alex Seitz-Wald of Salon: "In clearest sign yet that President Obama has abandoned hope of averting the so-called fiscal cliff in the next 48 hours, he used a rare-Sunday show appearance to come out swinging at Republicans, something he's so far avoided doing so as to not poison relations with his negotiating partners." CW: see yesterday's Commentariat for the full interview.
Tim Noah of The New Republic: "As usual, the party that's having a hard time grasping how much power it holds is the Democrats, specifically the White House. President Obama previously (and stupidly) suggested he might be willing to go up to a $400,000 threshold for higher tax rates. So if a deal is struck before midnight, it may well include that higher threshold."
** Rick Ungar of Forbes on"Why Congress Cannot Operate without the Bribing Power of Earmarks." Thanks to reader Madeleine B. for the link.
Donovan Slack of Politico: "Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack ... said that unless Congress can pass a farm bill, the agricultural sector of the economy will be devastated, and that will have ripple effects felt by almost every American. 'Consumers, when they go in the grocery store, are going to be a bit shocked when instead of seeing $3.60 a gallon for milk, they see $7 a gallon for milk,' he said during an interview broadcast Sunday on CNN's 'State of the Union.'"
Sen. Lugubrious Graham (R-S.C.) plans to default on the national debt (link fixed)-- a debt incurred by the Congress of which he happens to be a member -- if elderly Americans don't give up enough benefits to suit him. Ian Millhiser of Think Progress has the story.
Pocket Change for the Little People. Jessica Silver-Greenberg of the New York Times: "Banking regulators are close to a $10 billion settlement with 14 banks that would end the government's efforts to hold lenders responsible for foreclosure abuses like faulty paperwork and excessive fees that may have led to evictions, according to people with knowledge of the discussions."
New York Times Editors: "Sexual assaults at the three military academies are at a record high, according to a December Defense Department report.... Meanwhile, an unpublished report by the Veterans Affairs Department shines a troubling light on the experience of veterans of Afghanistan and Iraq.... Advocates for military women say that as long as women are barred from official combat roles and underrepresented in the academies, the imbalance helps a toxic culture of disrespect -- and criminality -- flourish."
David Barboza of the New York Times: "Relatives of a top Chinese regulator profited enormously from the purchase of shares in a once-struggling insurance company that is now one of China's biggest financial powerhouses, according to interviews and a review of regulatory filings. The regulator, Dai Xianglong, was the head of China's central bank and also had oversight of the insurance industry in 2002, when a company his relatives helped control bought a big stake in Ping An Insurance that years later came to be worth billions of dollars."
CW: Eliot Spitzer thinks the Justice Department will get off the dime in 2013 & start prosecuting Wall Street's bad actors. I wish:
Dave Barry's Year in Review 2012. "It was a cruel, cruel year -- a year that kept raising our hopes, only to squash them flatter than a dead possum on the interstate."
"The Reports of My Death Are Greatly Exaggerated." AP: "Germany's respected news weekly Der Spiegel mistakenly published an obituary Sunday for former U.S. President George H.W. Bush, hours after a family spokesman said the 88-year-old was recovering from illness."
NEW. Katie Glueck of Politico: "Twitter erupted after Hillary Clinton was hospitalized Sunday night because of a blood clot, as users blasted those who had earlier claimed that the secretary of state was faking illness." ...
... Andrew Kaczynski of BuzzFeed has a rundown of prominent conspiracy theorists who asserted that Hillary Clinton was faking her illness. I'm sure they've all sent her flowers, apologies & get-well wishes by now.
News Ledes
New York Times: "Carl Woese, a biophysicist and evolutionary microbiologist whose discovery 35 years ago of a 'third domain' of life in the vast realm of micro-organisms altered scientific understanding of evolution, died on Sunday at his home in Urbana, Ill. He was 84."
New York Times: "Dr. Rita Levi-Montalcini, a Nobel Prize-winning neurologist who discovered critical chemical tools that the body uses to direct cell growth and build nerve networks, opening the way for the study of how those processes can go wrong in diseases like dementia and cancer, died on Sunday at her home in Rome. She was 103."
NBC News: "The body of the gunman who killed 26 people at Sandy Hook Elementary School in one of the nation's deadliest mass shootings was claimed last week by his father for burial, according to a family spokesman."
Washington Post: "The blood clot that Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton suffered is inside her skull but did not result in a stroke or neurological damage, her spokesman said late Monday. The clot was discovered during a routine MRI on Sunday as Clinton was recuperating from a fall and concussion...."
New York Times: "Seven [National Football League] coaches and five general managers were fired by lunchtime in a day unequaled for its turmoil in recent memory."
Reuters: "The U.S. Senate on Sunday approved prominent antitrust attorney William Baer to head the Justice Department's Antitrust Division 10 months after he was tapped by President Barack Obama. The Senate voted 64-26 to approve Baer's nomination, which ran into problems with some Republicans because of secret information in an FBI background report." CW: it's ridiculous to require Senate approval for appointees at the undersecretary level.
New York Times: "President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela is facing 'new complications' arising from a respiratory infection following cancer surgery in Cuba, Vice President Nicolás Maduro said in a televised statement on Sunday night."
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Reader Comments (17)
Hillary Clinton was admitted to New York-Presbyterian Hospital with a blood clot.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/30/hillary-clinton-blood-clot-hospital_n_2385951.html
Just saw (10:40 Pm PST) in WAPO the Dems have backed off from tax increases on earnings over $250,000 and proposed a new base of 450,000 and given in on their estate tax demands as well. Tho' there is no final deal, their resurgence of spinelessness will not aid my sleep. It did wake me up enough, though, to fire this off to Krugman, pointlessly I suspect, because he already knows what's going on.
"Instead of all the false equivalency, why not just call the daily sturm und drang about fiscal cliffs and debt ceiling debates exactly what it is: class warfare being waged by those who have against those who don't.
Whether we're talking about income tax rates which have been made more regressive in the last forty years or the estate tax which the Right likes to call a death tax but which in fact is one of the few mechanisms we have to slow the increasing division of the very rich from the rest of us, or the low rates on capital gains which has had the same deleterious effect, it is all the same: a war against the middle and lower classes. Any examination of how much more concentrated the nation's wealth is now than it was was Reagan came into office will tell the same sad story. Those who used to pay far more for the privilege of living and amassing wealth in this great country now pay far less.
The Right likes to talk about structural problems, saying Social Security and Medicare are not sustainable. While both deserve attention, they are long term issues with some simple fixes ready to hand. Scrap the cap, anyone?
The far greater structural problem is the increasing concentration of wealth in a relatively few hands, the same hands that own the media and control much of the conversation. And that problem is not a dire projection. It is now, present and very real.
Organizations like Fix the Debt is what it looks like with its clothes on.
Naked, it's just greed."
Sometimes there is sweet justice although in this case it might be called bittersweet. I'm referring to those eight idiots that were so sure that Hillary was faking it so that she wouldn't have to testify. Not only were they dead wrong, but they revealed how puny their readings of people are. Hillary might run around the bush trying to make a deal with Morsi, but she sure as hell wouldn't be afraid to testify. I admit I get great pleasure in seeing people like Monica Crowley who I find utterly despicable with egg on their faces, not that it makes a wit of difference to them I suppose, but it should.
Ah, Ken, the increasing concentration of wealth in relatively few hands is exactly the problem and has been a growing problem for years. Remember that old song from the thirties––"In the morning, in the evening, ain't we got fun..." and the refrain of " the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, but ain't we got fun?" Nothing has really changed has it? And there's something fraying about this loss at this time in our lives, a nagging suspicion of unraveling weave that indeed naked reveals the greed.
Calyban,
Puh-lease....doncha know that clot, if there actually is one, was implanted by doctors on the payroll of the liberal conspiracy of the week? Commentary on Fox later in the day will "prove" it. Hillary is just fakin' it, as usual. Another lyin' librul.
And speaking of conspiracies, I'm thinking that there must be something else behind the Obama administration's continued efforts to shovel concessions to the Republicans over the Fiscal Mole Hill. All I ever read about is how the president is looking for ways to mollify the losers. The losers, of course, have given nothing. Oh, some might say, they've given in on taxes on the rich. Really? That's not giving in on anything since the whole NO TAXES thing was retarded right from the start.
I don't know...I'm going to have to agree with James Singer's reaction from the other day. Barack Obama is exactly the kind of guy I would love to have sitting across the table from me in a high stakes poker game. I always love knowing that a guy holding a full house will very likely fold when I'm holding nothing but a ten high.
Maybe it won't be as bad as all that, but even allowing Republicans to connect the Earned Rights of social security and medicare to this fake Fiscal Mole Hill is about as irresponsible as it gets. Did he just win an election or didn't he? Going hat in hand to the losers is fucking embarrassing. I was happy to hear him take it to these losers on Sunday, but I want to see him walk the walk.
And of course the MSM regurgitates anything Boehner and McConnell spit out as if it were truth incarnate. They even do it when it's completely nonsensical, when they claim positions on both sides of the issue. Earlier, when Obama, without comment, was waiting for them to state their case, Republicans said he was poisoning the "negotiations" by not talking. Now, after the president starts talking they claim he's poisoning the "negotiations" by commenting. Most MSM outlets allow both statements to stand without the slightest attempt at reconciliation or follow up questions for Republicans.
Fuck it. Deal me in. I'll beat both sides with a pair of jacks. And I won't even need to show them. Obama has his full house but he'll fold. The Republicans got nothing so they won't even be able to call.
Two additional thoughts about the psychology of what is going on with the debt issue.
Reading some of the Rightist comments in response to the Krugman piece, it struck me that many are sincere, if misled. Because of the hits the middle and lower classes have taken in their paychecks and retirement benefits over the last forty years, many of the 98% do feel poorer because they are, a feeling which when projected makes them believe the entire nation is suffering from the same malady, the natural reaction to which is belt-tightening, which in turn provides a fertile psychological field in which to plant the Fix the Debt meme. So the thinking, I would say feeling of many, goes: because my revenue is declining and my prospects diminishing, I now have to watch my expenditures, and so should everyone else. Austerity makes sense.
Aside from the vast difference which few understand between personal and national finances, another unstated false equivalence in much of the debt talk, this genuine feeling of declining prospects is another instance of how the Right manipulates feelings at the expense of thought.
Another instance is Romney's now infamous 47% remark, a variation on the Right's whine about all those freeloading folks who don't pay income tax at all. Of course, they don't; they don't have enough money. That's the arithmetic of it, but the feelings the Right successfully encourages and promotes about these people are negative: These are the "takers," the natural enemy of all the hard-working, responsible folk who we hope will vote for us. That we destroyed unions, lowered wages and eliminated benefits and took ever more of the nation's pie for ourselves had nothing to do with it. It's all the takers fault.
More like those who distributed smallpox-infested blankets to the Indians then blaming the Native Americans for getting sick and dying by the thousands, I would say.
And that's the image, the meme I'd suggest the Left adopt...because it's closer to the facts.
Re: Don't know much about theology; don't much about the French I took; but I do know that one and one is two and that's the sum thing that Congress can't do... (Sorry, Mr. Cooke).
I just got finished with most all the articles that Marie linked on the looming F'ing Cliff. (which is an odd description; as far as I can tell a cliff only looms if you are at the base of it. If you are at the top of a F'ing cliff you can see the yawning drop off, but not the looming free fall.). Nothing has changed; except the President still wrestles himself into another chokehold and demands the Republicans to ask for more before he passes out. This is odd to me.
I am beginning to believe that the crisis is theater. Quick! to the news truck, Biden and McConnell are locked into the "Cage of Debt" and only one can climb out alive; Graphs and pie charts are flying, this is a brawl, their corner camps are sponging them down between rounds. Oh, my God! Biden has bitten McConnell's ear off; no, no, check that, he's talking his ear off. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, we are seeing some real action today. Any word from the White House? Obama has himself in a full nelson? Keep us informed Chad, an informed citizenry is the key to a functioning democracy. What?; McConnell just body slammed Biden? Back to you, Leslie.
Then you understand Safari's last line from yesterday; "Oh, never mind." I think; just guessing here; god, my guesses get me into a lot a trouble...Safari is a good deal younger than most of the people visiting here and I inferred from his post that all the talk about god and budget is just a way to ignore "terminated by carbon" stamp being prepared for our planet by our own stupidity.
This was not an attack on the elderly but more of a gentle shaking of a distracted populace caught up in media magic shows.
Higher taxes; bigger cuts? Let's talk.
Take the bus? Not a chance.
And I Know I am speaking to the chorus here, this message is intended for simple enjoyment; no animals were harmed during the filming of the Biden/ McConnell smack fest.
Re: Damn straight I'll put words in your mouth. Safari wrote "...Forget about it" My misquote.
WaPo blogging the fiscal cliff getting closer and, you know, closer, makes me wonder why NORAD isn't tracking it.
Ken,
Excellent points.
I would add that the continuing calls (largely from the wingers) that Obama man up and treat the federal budget as if it were a household budget; you know, like Reagan—GIGANTIC DEFICITS--and Bush—DEPRESSION LEVEL DEFICITS—both did.
Oh wait, forget that. In fact, forget everything you’ve read or heard about budgets since the birth of the nation because, basically, with a few exceptions, we’ve been in debt since 1776. But more about that in a minute.
Federal budgets bear as much resemblance both in structure, power, and operational intricacies to household budgets as a paper airplane to a space shuttle launch. Although they both seem to be doing similar things, they have no connection as a species of activity, performance, or goals.
For one thing, the federal government is empowered by a constitution that allows it to print money, levy and collect taxes, and control interstate commerce. Given the fact that it’s a sovereign country, the United States can borrow additional monies even though it’s hundreds of billions of dollars in debt. That’s because of its solvency, because it IS a sovereign nation.
No household, not even Chez Romney can do any of that (although he probably thinks he can). Although it is just this solvency that the Republicans trifled with during the most recent debt ceiling scandal; another example of how cuckoo these people are and how paltry their understanding (or how cynical their position).
And here’s a little tidbit I picked up while doing some research on the federal debt down through history: there have been seven periods during which a significant portion of the debt was retired and we ran budget surpluses, the last being during the second Clinton administration. Uniformly, immediately after these periods, sometimes within two or three years, the country plunged into depression. Now I’m not an economist so I can’t detail the exact mechanisms that have caused economic downturns right on the heels of the kind of austerity programs and/or surpluses for which the right clamors incessantly (not, of course when they hold the levers of power; then, it’s full speed into the ravine), and ordinarily I might point out the distinct possibility of a Post Hoc fallacy (post hoc, ergo, propter hoc – after this, therefore, because of this; I wore a red tie two Tuesdays in a row. It rained both days. It must have been the tie) to anyone making a connection between surpluses and depressions, but the fact that without fail it has happened every single time (well the most recent one was not technically a “depression” but it sure as shit wasn’t a trip to Hawaii) should give one pause to consider the possibility.
During the most recent one, as soon as Bush hit the White House lawn, it was yippee-eye-oh-fucking-A…look at all the money we can give away. Oh, and now we can start a war and put it on the credit card! Hot damn! Oops but lots of other people have been feeling good. Money was flowing like water.
Until it didn’t. Until we were in the deep shit.
But plenty of people who should know better regularly trot out the Federal Budget/Household Budget meme. While researching this idea I came across a number of diatribes by one Dave Ramsey, fundie “economist” who makes this assertion regularly. Furthermore, he turns it into a religious/moral issue asserting that those who allow the government to spend more than it takes in are moral pygmies. This allows him to play the God card AND stick it to those whom he considers dangerous “tax and spend” liberals. Of course none of these complaints were made against Republicans when they were in power, but now that the Teabagger birdbrains have been allowed out of the coop, this silly meme has been exponentially reinforced, even though there is nothing there to reinforce.
All of which is to say that anyone spouting this inanity any further, needs to be hit over the head with several copies of the actual federal budget. Which brings us to a further point. Is the budget overblown and padded with pork? Most certainly. Do we need to be better about spending priorities (and I don’t mean Pentagon, Pentagon, Pentagon)? Sure. But none of this means that the federal budget is anything like my household budget. I mean, if I continued to run up debt year after year, for, say, 200 years, no one would be lining up to lend me money. But when the government wants to borrow money, lenders descend like locusts. Because, at least until the Republicans damage our credit rating further, lending to the US is like printing your own money.
But if it turns out that households ARE exactly like sovereign governments, as practically everyone on the right claims, I'm gonna get me a hundred billion dollar loan, run out and hire me an army, and start collecting taxes, y'all!
Fork it over, bitches!
Damn, I got my paper airplane/space shuttle analogy backwards. I hope my intent is clearer than my exposition.
Proofread, dummkopf!
Scene: A kitchen, somewhere in Real America.
Cast: Millie, Eddie Jim, Mama, and Uncle John B.
Scene 1
Lights up full
Mama: Eddie Jim, you've been buyin' guns 'n' ammo like a porcupine with a Discover card. Millie, why do we have all these bills with your name on 'em from some college?
Millie: 'Cuz I'm in college, Mama. I'm a junior at Ourstate State!
Mama: Land sakes, how are we ever going to pay these bills? It makes me sick to look at them!
Uncle John B. enters holding an Old-Fashioned glass. He is inebriated.
Uncle John B.: Donchu worry about those bills. You just refuse ta authorize payment.
Mama: How's that?
Uncle John B.: Well, even though Eddie Jim bought an arsenal and you 'n' Millie signed papers sayin' you'd pay for college, and you have a mortgage and fuel bills and electric bills, you still have to sit down as a family and vote on whether you're actually gonna pay them. It's like the government where I work. You can buy stuff, but then you can decide later not to pay for it.
Mama: That's wonderful! A family's like a government! Can I refill your glass, Uncle John B.?
Uncle John B. begins to weep.
Scene 2
Darkness
Uncle John B.: Mama, now you don't even have to look at those bills.
Milly: I'm havin' trouble studyin'.
A weapon fires.
Eddie Jim: Did I get it?
Before the old year, mired in its dotage, slips into the long night of recorded history, allow me to wish all of us the best over the next 365.25 days. May fortune smile on us all. On the other hand, should fortune collapse into fits of uncontrollable giggles in consideration of your next year, you're on your own.
Marie,
Thanks for keeping Realitychex going. You and all the regular commentators provide much food for thought and much needed context to not just the political landscape, but important cultural events also. I don't know how you manage.it all, but I'm very thankful for your untiring effort.
Happy New Year everyone! Let's hope it's a good one/
Marie: You're the bomb! First thing in the morning and last thing read at night. Haven't commented much, still depressed that Donna
Summer died. And my closest female friend, and my cat died.
Year 2013 has to be better. Thank you! Thank you!
And since my taxes will no doubt go up (poor and middle class),
I've cancelled that order for the Maserati, so if you need donations
to keep this site going, no broblemo.
Best wishes to all for a spectacularly satisfying 2013. I have been occupied with many in-house visiting family from afar and Ms Frida who gobbled up something perverse and sent her delicate bulldog constitution over the edge. The ER vet also ate perverse amounts of my bank account.
@Ken - I have been harping on getting rid of the cap of SS contributions or at least raising it a lot. I sent an email to Feinstein last year and got a non responsive answer back (par for the course) 7 months later. I searched for and have found very little written on either side of this issue. Perhaps I am missing something significant as it seems like an easy and pretty painless solution. The only argument that I see is the usual blah blah unfair! from the rich guys which in this instance is pretty weak. Before retiring, I got 3-4 pay periods with no SS contributions. It was unnecessary and would not have caused my family pain to continue the regular contributions and we're not "rich" by most any definition.
When I listened to the President this a.m. I thought his optimistic delivery was designed to stop an immediate dive in the stock market rather than a belief that a deal was imminent. It worked. Like most other things its style over substance. I thought it was clear there would be no deal. The market responds to emotions. I am liking the fact that Obama is finally making statements that place blame on Republicans who are responsible for the mess we are in - past and present. Call me cynical, but I also thought Obama would settle on a final upper tax rate of 400K rather than 250K all along. I think things are a long way from resolution and we are having a brief Holiday feel good respite. The appalling ignorance of the Republicans won't go away and Orange Man couldn't whip a cold egg white with frozen beaters let alone a vote. I suspect Pelosi will have to come to his rescue and whip enough Republican votes to push anything through the House of Idiots.
Thereafter, Luke Russert can placed in stocks on the public square, bare assed and wearing an especially fetching dunce cap. Delicious.
Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.
Ring out old shapes of foul disease,
Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;
Ring out the thousand wars of old,
Ring in the thousand years of peace.
So said Tennyson in 1832.
Here's to all you wonderful people; may we prosper and grow and get some GOOD and PLENTY along with those Tennysonian wishes––if not, then we'll all be like Jack's Uncle John B. and be snookered.
@PD Pepe
Tx for the Tennyson poem. A thing of beauty. It reflects the eternal wishes of human kind I think. I had never read it before. I'll keep it with mine.